The Long Man

I think with a bit of time and coaching Bell will come good in the scoring stakes. It is still early days for a new team, but improving all the time.

Encouraging stuff. It's always easy to say 'sign a striker', but every team in the country is trying exactly the same thing. And if we did unearth a gem, they would be after him too. Give the lad Bell a chance to show what he can do. Billy McKay took a while before he was suddenly scoring every week. As long as we can keep improving the goals will come - I hope.

too much pessimism. We are a completely different team now, and you have to accept that. So we are starting all over again. We have defensive problems, but Robbo, as he said in the interview, is well aware of that. However, there is some promise in other areas of the pitch. We will improve, but I don't think it is unrealistic to consider us a mid table side at the moment, with the possibility that we can build on that and move up over time. This is the beginning of a new project, our previous success is now history. But there is no reason that it won't be an exciting ride once again, given a bit of time. Look at the St Mirren comments, they are far more positive than our own doom mongers!

Exactly. People ought to realise that we are starting from scratch, building a new team. If we hold our own, stay mid table, then we can progress from there, whether that is in the second half of the season, or next season. We are playing settled teams with good players who have been together for some time. I didn't think we'd get much from today, but we were level pegging until the last quarter, so not too bad and something to build on.

Great result, just what we needed to kickstart our season. That will do the players the world of good. Looks like the Queens, Mirren and Dunf might be the teams to challenge this season, though no doubt lots of twists and turns to come. That's what will make it, hopefully, an exciting league, with not a lot between most of the teams.

Early clearance from Ridgers ends up in the famous Brechin hedge...new ball required.

New ball needed again as Elsdon fires one in the hedge

Now you don't get this at the Bernabeu. Lower league football has a charm all of its own.

I understand he was due severance, but it is a matter of months not years, so the worry over this can be put behind us. Anyway, whatever he gets is dwarfed by the £1m he cost us in relegation  Time to move on. 

Unbelievably harsh and negative, DD. Do you really think they are not signed up to the new Chairman's approach? Easy to pick holes and cast aspersions when there is, in your own words, no evidence for them.

On a more positive note, did anyone ask about fan representation on the board? would seem like a good idea to me, and is a feature of many smaller, more progressive clubs.

I hope someone who was there could give the rest of us a summary of what happened. Thankyou.

Yes. We keep hearing on here about various factions and who is at loggerheads with who, etc. I don't know the history of who got the hump with who over what, and I could care less about it, but surely Mr Rae's first job, if there is substance to it, is to knock all this pettifogging on the head and get everybody to pull together.

2 hours ago, Charles Bannerman said:

What's the source of this figure of £228,000? I'm not querying it, I would just like to know where it originates from.

Someone on this thread asserted we paid £19k a month for the stands. Another person multiplied it by 12. 

Evidence? None, that I know of.

It wasn't the 'old boy regime' who stood firm against hooking Foran, it was one person, who eventually fell on his sword.

' crisis and risk management ",  'understanding of system failures and loss control events in terms of identifying what went wrong and sometimes why it's still going wrong, leading to fit for purpose corrective actions and improvement opportunities to prevent recurrence'

Sounds about right for his new job.

I think it is a pretty fair statement. Reading between the lines, it is obvious they realise the mistakes and lack of communication has cost them a lot of trust and goodwill. It is easy to be cynical, as some will be, but as a statement of intent it is a big improvement on the past, and I think you have to give them a chance to follow it up and deliver what they say. 

I also have to say, I have no idea where this money is coming from, but surely a very welcome development at a time when we really need it. If it is put to good use, then happy to give them credit for getting that in.

As for the questions, hopefully people will be able to ask that at the promised Q & A session.

Graham Rae is a former Inverness Royal Academy pupil, an invernessian who was in the oil business, and is now retired, I believe, so will have the time to devote to the club. Good luck to him.

Yes. He was asked about taking players on loan, and said he wouldn't, especially from the big two and Hearts. The reason being that if they play, as Charles says, we pay them £350 a week. If they don't play we have to pay them £850. For high-handed arrogance that takes some beating. If we take a player on loan, in order to benefit the player and his parent club, we are fined, or blackmailed by £500 if he doesn't play, even if he turns out to be a dud. What a farce, and a ridiculous attempt to force small clubs to play their players or be charged. I wouldn't mind an incentive to play their players, but that should be the other way round - e.g. the parent club contributes towards their development, but we don't suffer if the player is injured or not a useful addition.

Well done, Robbo, for saying so.

And given the amount of players the big two hoard and whose development is stunted because of their confinement to the reserves, then it is also deleterious to the Scottish game.

I'm surprised that nobody has raised the comments from Robbo about the ridiculous demands of the top clubs about loanees. That was quite astonishing, and good for Robbo to call it out.

. 

The pessimism is premature, and unnecessary. We narrowly lost a game to the favourites, thanks to a hotly disputed penalty. We showed some good football, DU inevitably sitting back. The next three games will be a far better indicator of where we are, and our new look side will improve.

Storm. Teacup. Once it was a public matter, they had to issue something like that. It's really not worth getting so excited about, or using it as a stick to beat them with. If they hadn't, and it was all over social media, you would have been gurning about them saying nothing, and how embarrassing that was. It will be forgotten by next week.

I would wait and see. Robbo seems much more pro-active, and may get more out of players by finding their best positions and playing to their strengths - qualities sadly lacking for the last couple of years.

11 hours ago, old caley girl said:

The thoughts of Robbo 

Good grief. A manager who is articulate, shrewd, talks sense, is analytic and positive. Pass the smelling salts. I had forgotten what that's like.

It refers to Bridge and Castle and Butcher.

#pedant alert

Your signature is rather out of date 

7 hours ago, Yngwie said:

Foran. Doubt he ever saw him play though.

FFS, between Boden and Doumbaya, combined with the freezing out of Fisher until the end, Richie really screwed up. A couple of decisions which probably cost us staying up. Facepalm.

Was he a Hughes or a Foran signing?

Agreed. Neither of our last two managers had good contacts or knowledge of the lower divisions for finding new talent. Robbo, thanks to his passion for the game has extensive knowledge of the game from youth level upwards. So I am very hopeful that he can built a third generation ICT to rival the last two. No doubt there will be lots of ups and downs, and maybe more of the latter first, but now he's in we have to give him a bit of time and support to get it right. Sure, some people have reservations, but that would be the case whoever we brought in, and at least a decision has been made relatively quickly so he can get on with it, rather than an extended period of uncertainty which has happened previously.