STFU

6 hours ago, DoofersDad said:

A surprisingly large crowd for this game.  Brilliant vocal support from all the youngsters in section D too.  But where the f**k have you been all season?

Priced out of attending every other week and took advantage of the £5 ticket offer?

5 hours ago, DoofersDad said:

I think what we deserve is to stay in the Championship.  When big Dunc arrived at the club, we had played 6 games in the league and had only 1 point.  If the league table had started when he arrived, then we would have finished 5th.  Given the number of injuries we have had over the season, that's not too bad a record overall.  I've said before that Ferguson's style of play has often been a pretty hard watch, but if we can just find a bit of spark up front, then there is no reason why we can't be competitive and entertaining in the Championship next year.  If we do go down, then I think we have the potential to bounce straight back under Ferguson.   I do think we have enough to get through the play-offs though and hopefully we will do so with a good support at the home games.

It will be interesting to see how many Season Ticket holders will shell out for tickets for the play offs.

7 hours ago, Yngwie said:

The opposite is true. The best seasons in our history occurred when Muirfield Mills were active and putting money in, from 2012 to 2019. We’ve been declining ever since.

They bought £250k of shares in 2012 but were pretty much dormant until 2015 when they then started making moves to take control of the club once it was apparent that something special was afoot that season.

The remainder of their 'investments' came in the form of covering the substantial losses they oversaw between 2017 and 2019.

So I stand by my view that their appearance/involvement marked the beginning of our decline.

1 hour ago, buckett said:

Wasn't Airdrie that frcked us. We did a pretty good job of that ourselves over the season.

 

This!

1 hour ago, ICTPaisley said:

Where does everyone think it went wrong then? 

This season?  It went wrong when we started with Dodds in charge and never looked like improving much when we chose to chase the headlines with his 'big name' replacement.

Before that the clubs decline on and off the park seems to coincide with Muirfield Mills appearing on the scene.

Plans for a battery storage facility at Essich.  Blows a bit of a hole in the argument that Fairways was the only site available locally where they could get access to the grid.

2 minutes ago, The Mantis said:

Just watched this. Not sure why he thinks it’s out of our hands. I’ve been looking for highlights as I’d like to see some of those saves from Dabrowski again, but no joy. Can’t make the next two games so that’s the end of the season for me if we finish 8th, but easily one of the best performances of the season I’ve witnessed and certainly the best at home.

It was out of our hands at the time of the interview.  Results on the Saturday went in our favour putting it back in our hands again.

42 minutes ago, buckett said:

I agree with your vision and see Div 1 as a great opportunity to blood the youngsters and form a squad of mostly Highlanders, hopefully capable of promotion to the Championship and beyond.

Trouble is, for most of them, the Championship is just a level too high so Div 1 is a better opportunity for 1st team football.

There's something awfully false about following a team of Englishmen, foreigners and Central-belters, supposedly representing your town, when your own town/area can't produce a team capable of playing at that level. Just look at the cup-winning squad of 2015 - how many Invernessians were in that team? How many Scotsmen?

I'm not so sure it's just to do with having a squad full of local born players or not.  The guys from that cup winning squad were mostly committed to the club/area and many of the non indigenous players still live locally so there's an obvious affinity.  Two of them are at the club now.

Fans also felt far more connected as they had greater opportunity to meet and spend time with them.

Harper has a few offers for next season and none of them is from us.

I'd imagine Ridgers may have options also but he's at a different stage of his career and seems settled in the area.  Fingers crossed.

If we do go down I'd love to see us go the route of using our younger guys and giving them the opportunity to grow and develop as a squad.  Not all will make it and some will move on but it's our best chance at putting together the nucleus of a squad that might stay together for a few seasons.

The 'help the club continue in its current form' is the most worrying part of that letter.

31 minutes ago, Yngwie said:

The May 2023 results ought to be pretty good as they will include the benefit of reaching the cup final, as well as the profit we made from the concerts (renting the stadium out).

The year to May 2024, however, will presumably see us revert back to losing £0.5m - £1m.

Then why delay the release?

ICTFC employing an ex-chairman that was removed from his position by their supporters trust.  Top trolling.

2 hours ago, IBM said:

I have put this in here as it is linked.  Inverness Caley Thistle chairman says club is facing ‘significant pressure on our cash flow’

Inverness Caley Thistle chairman says club is facing ‘significant pressure on our cash flow’ (inverness-courier.co.uk)

Aside from cashflow they may want money in before the accounts are due at the end of next month, assuming they don't delay them again, and everyone gets a fuller picture of how bad a financial mess we're in.

4 minutes ago, Yngwie said:

You may well be right. Contract could still have a notice period though.

Totally agree.  Given his history there's not a chance Gardiner doesn't have a contract where he's rewarded for failure.

I thought Lawal look decent.  Did a fair bit of ball winning and was always looking to go forward.  The kind of if busy player you need to stop the opposition getting too much time on the ball and force them into making errors.

The only player that stood out for the wrong reasons was Carragher who had more than a few bomb scare moments.

Anderson didn't have a great game but there's nothing specific I can recall where you'd say he was awful.

If that was the kind of football on display every week then fans might be frustrated by results but they couldn't deny they were being entertained.

Finally, was Ferguson wearing his trousers at half mast in mourning for our season?

On another day we win that by 3 or 4.

Hard to take, but back to relying on scores elsewhere.

Don't need to look to the bench, we have players on the park to play a 442 or 532.

Mckay playing his natural position is there to pick up that one off the post.  Why are we playing him in midfield?

2 hours ago, CELTIC1CALEY3 said:

Looks like Big Dunc has had the desired effect in getting Arbroath fired up. Excellent psychology. Hope are lads are ready for the fight tonight.

Unless Arbroath decide to screw him/us over by laying down.  Not like they have anything to lose either way.

On 4/7/2024 at 11:31 AM, STFU said:

I'd hope the Supporters Trust have done the calculations and think it would be good to manage fan expectations by knowing what the target is.

E.g are we talking about £50,000, £500,000 or more?  If fans take up the suggestion above of signing their shares over to the Supporters Trust, is that as good as a cash contribution?

I also don't fully understand how an organisation that sits so high on the 'power chart' you lay out can't get board representation when you have people with zero, or almost zero, shareholding or voting right on there.  What are we missing?

I'm far from convinced this initiative will succeed in bringing about the change that's required and would have preferred to see it announced alongside calls for more direct action.

E.g. Fans to boycott spending with the club and attending matches until the CEO and Chairman were removed.  Encourage them to donate the money to a 'fighting fund' instead with a commitment to using said money to purchase shares when they were gone and a fans rep has been appointed to the board.

That kind of action I would fully support with a cash contribution because it has a chance of effecting change.

As is, this seems a bit of a toothless endeavour whereby fans are being asked to raise money to be given indirectly to the club or to pay for things, with no incentive for them to change how it operates.

4 minutes ago, IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER said:

When you are forced to shop at Poundland and the more promising loanees break down then you actually are left with the choice of the duffers on the sale shelves.

If you go shopping without appreciating what's already in the cupboard and support the concept of quantity over quality then maybe.

38 minutes ago, Tom_Weir said:

Poke at that narrative a bit and I'm not sure it stands up at all. Do you mean Carragher and Savage? That's really stretching the definition of duff. Or McAllister, who scored our last direct free kick goal, against Morton a few weeks ago, and if I remember right set up the other one in that game? I'm as happy as anyone to see Aaron Doran in again and Danny Devine at Hampden but I think the brief answer to your question is, no.

By 'duff signings' I mean no better than we had or not necessary as opposed to a direct reference to individual player quality.

Poorly worded on my part.

Greg Tansey

On 4/12/2024 at 11:34 AM, Satan said:

Perhaps the years of financial mismanagement could have been lessened or perhaps avoided completely with a stronger fan representation at board level, positively effecting decision and direction.

Sacking the board and CEO will only result in another 'appointed' set of folk who still answer only to themselves. 

I'm waiting for some juvenile call for fans boycott next...

We agree that the club is being financially mismanaged.  I also agree that fan representation and a voice in the room/on the board would be healthy but I don't think it's the magic pill some seem to believe it is.

There are very few options available to fans to hold the decision makers accountable and by few I mean one...direct action.

At present those decision makers have done nothing to show they can be trusted and the current plan is to give them more money and trust they'll do the right thing and be true to their word.  A promise they've not even publicised.

I can't be the only one who sees that as a plan born out naivety.

Results improving as duff signings are out injured and Ferguson is having to use players that were here already and not being utilised?

I also see from the P&J that the standard of pitches is now being used as an excuse for poor past performances.

Really not sure he should be getting the praise some are bestowing upon him for masterminding anything.  Save it for the players who are the ones working hard and literally putting their bodies on the line to save the season.

Raith will be a tougher match on Friday.  They'll have one eye on playoff preparations so I think we need to go at them and hope they're not interested in over exerting themselves or picking up bookings and injuries.

Any points keeps things in our own hands and stops QP from any chance of immediately leapfrogging us again on Saturday.

Everything crossed.