Jaggernaut

My son and I normally arrive at the home games about 2pm, and we usually guess what we think the attendance will be. To say that we got it massively wrong is an understatement.  I guessed at 1700 and he had 1500, we never would have believed that It would be so low. It's the lowest i can remember,  even some pre season friendlies generated more. It just shows that when the season tickets are not in use on cup match days, there aren't too many supporters willing to come along and buy a ticket. I fear that this is just the start of a trend, we sit in the main stand and every home game this season the crowd around us gets less and less.

I see on the ICT Facebook page that the club have apologised for not having the managers interview available due to a technical problem. I wonder if it contained comments that need to be vetted due to the incident? There was a camera up the the gantry over at the far side of the pitch, I wonder if they had caught the incident on video? We also saw Liam's father Ian, who was sitting behind the dugout, stand up when the incident started, but couldn't see or hear if he said anything. The club will obviously have to issue a statement, once they investigate the whole incident, as it was such a public outburst. 

Robertson said at the Open night that indiscipline would not be tolerated in his teams, whether it be the first team or the youths. So it will be interesting to see how he handles this situation,  as there is pictorial evidence,  and possibly video as well.

Polworth is a really talented footballer who, a few seasons ago, was a player I had tipped to be our next best thing. I think, as others have said, he is a confidence player, he is good when he is playing in a good team, when others are leading and pulling the team through, but now it's up to him to lead and fight and scrap for every ball, instead he let's his head go down and his body language is bad, this is what the fans don't like, they want to see players fighting to get the ball back not dwelling on how they lost it. The unfortunate incident in the dugout shows that he has aggression in him, so he needs to take it onto the pitch and impose himself on the games. 

13 minutes ago, IBM said:

If your employer asked you to stay on and pass on your experience for less than half the wages you are on now what would you say?  

If my contract was coming to an end and I didn't have any other options then yes I would. Over 30 years ago I had a good job paying very good money and the firm paid off most of the workers due to down turn in work, I took a job on a third of the wage I was on just to make ends meet. So if my employer asked me to stay on for half the wages I was on, and i wasn't on a footballers wage, I would do it. As I said, he may not want to and has other options, but what's the harm in asking, he knows the financial predicament the club is in.

He has been a great player for ICT over the years, and I agree that every player comes to a time when his career is coming to an end, but it would be beneficial for ICT to offer him a deal on the money that the new players are on. He could pass on his experience to the new squad and be there when called upon. It may not be what Raven wants, but it would be worthwhile to find out.

I just wish that Polworth showed the same passion and aggression on the pitch instead of when he goes into the dugout . It did look like it was Kellacher that it was aimed at. I said during the game that I wanted him to show more aggression, he has no oomph in him. If it takes whatever was said to him to get that reaction,  maybe they should have shouted it at him while he was on the pitch.

5 hours ago, snorbens_caleyman said:

Exactly.   "The Dump".

We might as well call it Pittodrie then, isn't that the translation of what Pittodrie means? The hill of manure ?

Wasn't there is guy that Rangers signed when Souness was manager, that turned out to be a fraud? He was never a player and his cv was just a fabrication and no one had actually seen him play before he signed. He was outed on an undercover tv programme. Maybe we have a ringer!

Obviously it will be whoever pays the most for the right to name it, but it's location at the Longman or the Firth could be used in the title.

For his time on the field, until he got injured against Elgin, I liked what I saw of Elbouzedi. He had pace, could take on a man and beat him and put a cross into the box. I don't know how long he will be out, but I think he is another with potential. 

2 minutes ago, DoofersDad said:

At least we had the consolation of comedy moment of the season when a QOS player managed to put a straight free kick, not just over the bar but over the South stand as well. 

My son also said that was the highlight of the game!

I have just seen the sats, no shots on target and one corner in 90 minutes of professional football is embarrassing. 

Definitely the worst ICT team I have seen. If this is the best squad that Robertson can muster, it doesn't say much for his talent spotting. I would say you could find a lot better players in the Highland league,  at least they may show more desire and play for the shirt. 

I have watched football in Inverness for 50 years, and I can say that was the worst game I have ever seen. You see more entertaining games down at the Bught, where the players are playing for the love of the game. This is the worst ICT ever. We have no plan A, never mind a plan B. I really don't know where we go from here. 

2 hours ago, ICTFC said:

Map below shows location of the new ticket & info windows, as well as where the raffle/programme sellers have been relocated to inside the stadium perimeter.  A printable version can be downloaded by clicking this link > 2017_stadium_map.pdf

It looks great. It's good to see that you will be selling the raffle tickets along with the programmes as we couldn't find any raffle tickets sellers at the last home game.

It looks good, and with plenty of stock, it should have been done years ago.

31 minutes ago, jagster said:

Jim McIntyre has been sacked by County 

With Houston and now McEntire gone, Robertson must be thinking his jacket is on a shuggely peg! 

Robertson knows that he needs to get a reaction from his players, whether this works or not depends on how they take it. You would hope that most would take it on board and try as a group to iron out the mistakes, but there could be a few that will take the huff. At the open night, Robbo said that a lot of the new signings had never played first team football before, so maybe a lot of them are just not first team players, and this is as good as they are going to get, and the reality of the situation is becoming very obvious to him now. I don't think he will walk, as it's his team, he signed most of the players, and his reputation will take a hit, but with the Houston sacking, he knows his jacket is on a suggely peg if the next few games don't go our way.

12 minutes ago, Eagle4Caley said:

Interesting to watch the highlights....as someone said they look better than it sounds like we actually played. I'm not really convinced that Warren dived, more like ran out puff and the second challenge was all too much and he fell over, did he even appeal for a penalty? (I don't think you should be booked if you're not appealling)

Positives for me seem to be Bell, who looks quite tricky and committed, Trafford is sounding half decent but may benefit from a period of fitness management, Polworth seems to have found his mojo again and OFW is back and sounds like he is at least better than Ridgers. Tremarco is back too, but I would guess having been out for a while it will take some time to get back to where he was last season early on. And we are scoring goals (unlike my other team who have scored none at all in their league) and have either been ahead in a game or have pulled the game back (like against St Mirren/Livingstone). Of the rest it seems Vigurs gives us something for a parts of games, but can't really be relied on to have an impact for 90mins or do the dirty work.

My impression of the defence is that apart from individual errors there is very poor organisation or ideas as to who is doing what. I put that down to the coaching, maybe Robbo needs a defensive coach.

Listening to peoples views on the defence, I find it somewhat bemusing how easily Meekings was let go, whether this was to do with percieved likeihood of return to fitness, cost of a new contract, an attitude problem...yes he may not be fully fit now, but he could be the difference later in the season...and we seem to be quite happy to wait for Zak Elbouzedi and Aaron Doran. And what has happened to Seedorf, he doesn't seem to have played since he got sent off? Meanwhile Oakley who seems to have been to better option to Baird early on, now seems devoid of ideas and energy, whilst Mulraney doesn't seem to want to play at all.

So I think we're all now resigned to the fact that getting back up is looking unlikely this season (was it ever?) ....so now it's all about doing enough to stay up, and I can't believe Falkirk are as bad as their league position suggests.

As far as I know,  Meekings was offered a new contract at the same time as Tansey and both turned them down,  and I think that Meekings has signed for Dundee since the end of the season. I also think that Seedorf has picked up an injury and is out for a couple of weeks. 

It was said by a lot of our players over the last couple of years, that the ICT dressing room was the best they had ever known, and you could see that in the way they would fight for each other, cover for each other and run that extra mile for each other in games. Now you see players squabbling on the pitch when things don't go well, and it comes across like they wouldn't sweat blood for each other. I know that there are a lot of new players, but every new player in the past always commented on the camaraderie in the dressing room and how they were welcomed into the fold. If this has gone, is it down to problems with the managers style, or are Foran's 'bad apples' still there, or is it just a case of a clash of personalities? They certainly don't come across as a 'team' and a lot of time look like a bunch of complete strangers. This is where a manager comes into his own, can he unite the players or has the dressing room been lost?

1 hour ago, jagster said:

That’s what happens when you’re a dad  Tell them this and that and thank goodness when they get older they know we’ve been talking  rubbish the entire time  

He's 37, so I guess he has sussed that most of the things I said haven't come true!

Apart from another terrible result, Dumbarton showed us something we can't do, come back and win after being a goal down. We weren't at the game today, but I said to my son, if we score early we will get the confidence and go on and win the game, how wrong could I be???

Maybe they should have got rid of Rice and Kellacher when Foran got the dunt and kept Duncan Shearer instead? He was a good number 2 to Patterson and seems to have had a good eye on youth players, did Christie, Ross and Polworth not come through his teams? I have never known a situation before where a club has had three different managers but keep the same coaches! Surely they must be accountable for the fitness and coaching the players to the standard that the club requires. 

20 minutes ago, Charles Bannerman said:

In the 1960s, and in common with many Dalneigh kids, I started out as a Caley supporter - one of those who "jooped in" over the gate at the Howden End and then collected the Mackintosh's empties for the 3d refunds at the club shop. Like IBM, I also drifted away during the 70s (drifted away, as opposed simply to being unable to remember that decade ) partly due to an "educational absence". Many will be aware that athletics is my number one sport, and it's also fair to say that match reporting for the BBC helped to bring me back to football.

I was never a totally partisan Caley fan and always also had a lot of regard for Clach and Thistle, which was probably a result of my commitment to Inverness as a whole. As a result, the merger, plus importantly leaving Clach to represent the town in the Highland League, was always a very favourable outcome for me.

I've always reckoned you can trace the historical roots of the formation of this club back to around 1987, so this means that, as a sports journalist, I have now for 30 years studied on an almost daily basis the rise (and latterly the fall) of ICTFC. This has very much included behind the scenes goings on but I have to say that, rather like Lord Palmerston and the Schleswig-Holstein Question and despite a number of privileged insights, I have still never been satisfied that I have understood it.

How come a relatively poorly supported and resourced club which has only ever had one major sugar daddy some years back, and that in response to a £2M+ debt, managed to win the Scottish Cup, play in Europe, reach the SPL and its criteria in a decade, finish 3rd in the table etc etc. And equally, how come, following an incredibly successful three years or so which culminated in winning that Scottish Cup, there has been such a frighteningly rapid fall from grace? Despite constant exposure to the underlying issues, I still feel that I really don't have a secure handle on this at all.

I too am glad that Inverness still has a presence in the Highland League, I always think that if they had been part of the merger the name would be too long, Inverness ClachnaCaley Thistle!