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Whats the solution? What are you going to do?


caleytillidie

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Oh dear looks like I have another stalker! I never said Tokely and Duncan were local (more local than the likes of Gnapka and others mind!), but they were mainstays who the fans felt made the team as recognisable on a weekly basis, season after season - it was almost like you knew them (along with Munro and others who have departed over the last few years). That was also the reason given by a few on here as to reasons they've heard about why some have renewed season tickets.

In modern football it's unusual to have players for long periods of time. The night Tokely was confirmed as leaving I posted something on Twitter about it and an East Fife fan replied, saying that they have had two players in their entire history, over 100 years, who played for the club as long as he did for us. If people aren't renewing their season tickets because of that then they must be rather naive about how football is.

The problem with releasing these players is that they haven't been properly replaced. When we let Grant Munro go, I thought Butcher had earned the right to make that decision. It was his responsibility to replace him with someone better and he didn't do it. That's the problem - if Grant had been replaced by a player of equal or improved standing then there would be no issue.

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Oh dear looks like I have another stalker! I never said Tokely and Duncan were local (more local than the likes of Gnapka and others mind!), but they were mainstays who the fans felt made the team as recognisable on a weekly basis, season after season - it was almost like you knew them (along with Munro and others who have departed over the last few years). That was also the reason given by a few on here as to reasons they've heard about why some have renewed season tickets.

In modern football it's unusual to have players for long periods of time. The night Tokely was confirmed as leaving I posted something on Twitter about it and an East Fife fan replied, saying that they have had two players in their entire history, over 100 years, who played for the club as long as he did for us. If people aren't renewing their season tickets because of that then they must be rather naive about how football is.

The problem with releasing these players is that they haven't been properly replaced. When we let Grant Munro go, I thought Butcher had earned the right to make that decision. It was his responsibility to replace him with someone better and he didn't do it. That's the problem - if Grant had been replaced by a player of equal or improved standing then there would be no issue.

Yeah I agree with that and how things have gone in the game.

On the Munro things as well, remember who replaced him - Aldred. And we all know what happened there (Golobart and Williams came later and Golobart was a man I liked). Of the new group the one I think that does show the attitude and mentality of the ICT of old is Gary Warren. I like the look of this bloke. Perhaps because he hasn't played predominantly as a full time professional, his attitude and style might be a little different, but I think he could be one of the few that maybe the fans could relate to a little more.

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Someone said some local rangers fans who usually give us support have boycotted us. Sod them, we don't need them.

Also some of the 'neautrals' are now going to see 'that lot' over the bridge. Sod them and their half hearted loyalty. We don't need these groups and need to forget about them.

Our focus and priorities should be the community and youth of Inverness! We should be making sure that the youngsters of inverness are growing up supporting ICT and not the OF or 'that lot'. The club and. CJT need too work very closely on this! £16 for a concession is shocking! It was £3 for me when I was a kid only 10 years ago.

I also remember when I was younger my PS used to give out 3 free tickets per year for each home game. This allowed kids who normally wouldn't go to games come more often. The club did under 12 free ST not so long ago, why not now?

Lastly, I'm a part time youth worker in hilton and of the 40-50 kids who come to indoor footy on a friday night only 5 go to ICT games. FIVE!!! That's shocking, we are failing the youth of inverness and we need to encourage them along!

It might mean losing money for a while giving out free tickets or charging £3 for kids BUT it will repay in the FUTURE when they keep coming back and bring THEIR kids!

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Forza, the kids that you regularly see in the "west stand" bit get en bloc complimentaries to be there, it's a school per game, but nothing on saturday because the terms no started yet. We need more of them though.

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Someone said some local rangers fans who usually give us support have boycotted us. Sod them, we don't need them.

Also some of the 'neautrals' are now going to see 'that lot' over the bridge. Sod them and their half hearted loyalty. We don't need these groups and need to forget about them.

Our focus and priorities should be the community and youth of Inverness! We should be making sure that the youngsters of inverness are growing up supporting ICT and not the OF or 'that lot'. The club and. CJT need too work very closely on this! £16 for a concession is shocking! It was £3 for me when I was a kid only 10 years ago.

I also remember when I was younger my PS used to give out 3 free tickets per year for each home game. This allowed kids who normally wouldn't go to games come more often. The club did under 12 free ST not so long ago, why not now?

Lastly, I'm a part time youth worker in hilton and of the 40-50 kids who come to indoor footy on a friday night only 5 go to ICT games. FIVE!!! That's shocking, we are failing the youth of inverness and we need to encourage them along!

It might mean losing money for a while giving out free tickets or charging £3 for kids BUT it will repay in the FUTURE when they keep coming back and bring THEIR kids!

Well said!!

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Renegade - great posts and spot on.

£350 for a season ticket represented very poor value last season due to Butcher's tactics. The loss of players who you would see in the Town and who you felt you knew personaly builds a rapport between fans and club. I would pass just about all of yesterday's team in the street and wouldn't recognise them and that has happened every season since we started our now annual 'let's start again' clear out.

As for following the club to away games an average £100 for two people is a massive sum of money.

Our average attendance will end up at about 3500.

However as usual I still woke up yesterday with a 'great it's match day' feel and will do again in a fortnight's time.

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So there's 15ish PS in inverness. 19 home games a season. That means most kids are only going to get 1 game a season? Also let's put them in the unroofed west stand in the pishin rain in november? C'mon folks we and the club can do better than that!

The same 10 or so kids when I was in school were garunteed a ticket for nearly every home game, that's why they kept coming back, they were going regularly!

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Someone said some local rangers fans who usually give us support have boycotted us. Sod them, we don't need them.

Also some of the 'neautrals' are now going to see 'that lot' over the bridge. Sod them and their half hearted loyalty. We don't need these groups and need to forget about them.

Our focus and priorities should be the community and youth of Inverness! We should be making sure that the youngsters of inverness are growing up supporting ICT and not the OF or 'that lot'. The club and. CJT need too work very closely on this! £16 for a concession is shocking! It was £3 for me when I was a kid only 10 years ago.

I also remember when I was younger my PS used to give out 3 free tickets per year for each home game. This allowed kids who normally wouldn't go to games come more often. The club did under 12 free ST not so long ago, why not now?

Lastly, I'm a part time youth worker in hilton and of the 40-50 kids who come to indoor footy on a friday night only 5 go to ICT games. FIVE!!! That's shocking, we are failing the youth of inverness and we need to encourage them along!

It might mean losing money for a while giving out free tickets or charging £3 for kids BUT it will repay in the FUTURE when they keep coming back and bring THEIR kids!

Funnily I was thinking about this yesterday as I also do youth work in Hilton, Merkinch and Kirkhill. I often have young people asking why I support ICT as they are 'rubbish'. Out of the young people that have an interest in footie I'd guess that around 80% support the old firm, 10% or so ICT and the rest being a mix of the Dons, Jambos etc. Throw some Clachers into the mix for the Merkinch youth club, which to be fair is their local club and some actually play for them. To say nothing for the number of EPL shirts I see too.

Some of the young people have come from or have parents that have come from other places so it's not surprising if for example their dad came from Glasgow that they would support one of the OF. However many are Inverness born and bred but you would probably find that their parents, older uncles, brothers etc will support the OF and that will be passed down unless something is done to divert away from that. That's where we have to intervene getting young people down to the stadium for a game, tour meet a couple of players etc. It's never going to be easy as it's ultimately cool to support a team that wins most of the time, is on tv, in the papers and no young person wants to be slagged of due to their team getting beat much of the time. No easy solutions sadly but you have to keep plugging away!

I say this from some personal experience as I supported Rangers in my younger years (as my Grandad supported them and Clach, dad had no interest in footie) and pre 94 Caley were my wee team (as my uncle Ben was a big Caley man who took me to Telford St sometimes, now a refusnik!). When I got older 17ish I basically fell out of love with football altogether and it wasn't till I was in my early twenties that I started taking notice of the ICT results and went to some away games as I was living in Glasgow. When I moved back to Inverness I bought a ST and have done so since.

Anyhoo I will continue to try and spread the good word of ICT in whatever capacity I'm working! :ictscarf:

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So there's 15ish PS in inverness. 19 home games a season. That means most kids are only going to get 1 game a season? Also let's put them in the unroofed west stand in the pishin rain in november? C'mon folks we and the club can do better than that!

Just had a thought. If the club is only able to offer school children 1 game a season, let's make it more a big deal! Put them in the main stand behind the dugout, near terry and the players. Let them go to hospitality at half time get a free mars and coke or something. They could come a couple of hours before KO and meet the players, get some freebies have a tour sort of thing.

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Lastly, I'm a part time youth worker in hilton and of the 40-50 kids who come to indoor footy on a friday night only 5 go to ICT games. FIVE!!! That's shocking, we are failing the youth of inverness and we need to encourage them along!

10% isn't actually a bad uptake...it's above national average.

However, if you want to take them to games then all you need to do is ask.....drop me a PM or an e.mail to admin@ictst.co.uk and we'll see about organising ticket for you to take the kids along to a game (or two, or three).

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I think there are a number or reasons the crowd was so grim on Saturday that have already been mentioned on here.

Like it or not some people will have been greatly turned off by the way that some players have left the club in the past two seasons. This combined with a shocking turnover of players in recent times.

The football on offer at home has not been great recently.

Football is expensive and we are in a recession.

I think that some of the ideas that have been mentioned in this thread are great, particularly offering more free tickets to youth clubs and schools. The club could try hard to make these kids feel like they are being treated like VIPs when they come to the ground.

Just a thought but if there is any spare room in the stadium could it be used as some sort of youth club/space for kids one night a week. I'm sure that the SPL had an initiative where people could use space in stadiums for things like band practices.

I know many continental clubs and smaller clubs in Scotland really try and push the social side of the team. The more someone is around the club the more they will care about it.

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Maybe some people decide not to go to games because they read certain posts about doom and gloom, poor entertainment and are reading comments that slag off those who actually try and get bums on seats??

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Some fair points there, and there's no question it was a woeful (and quite embarrassing) attendance. However if you are going to have a go at others (groups or individuals) for not being pro-active enough and doing more to bolster support you really should be presenting ideas yourself no? Why not join CJT (only a quid for life) or contact the club and tell them what they should be doing better.

Where is the benefit in me joining it? I would quite happily contact the people involved and tell them what they should be doing better. Do you really think they doing everything they can?

Are you really that good ? Do you actually know what they should be doing better. My, my perhaps you should join the management team, why have we missed out on you for so long. :ponder:

We haven't lost a game this season, is that so bad?

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Lastly, I'm a part time youth worker in hilton and of the 40-50 kids who come to indoor footy on a friday night only 5 go to ICT games. FIVE!!! That's shocking, we are failing the youth of inverness and we need to encourage them along!

10% isn't actually a bad uptake...it's above national average.

However, if you want to take them to games then all you need to do is ask.....drop me a PM or an e.mail to admin@ictst.co.uk and we'll see about organising ticket for you to take the kids along to a game (or two, or three).

Thank you for the offer CaleyD. I'll pass this on to my superior and who will certainly be interested in this!

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I am one of the season ticket holders who hasn't renewed. We were very kindly given complimentary tickets for Saturday's game and attended. Unfortunately the fare on offer did not prompt us to change our mind and renew. Our main reason for not renewing is simple, as stated the poor quality of the games. Last year it was a dire season and on several occasions it was not an oh great it's matchday - it was oh no it's matchday. That doesn't make for a great journey to a home game which consists of over 100 miles round trip, and too often the highlight of the day was listening to Jim Traynor on the way home.

We have our own opinions as to why the games were so poor, several of which have previously been aired, like the fear of losing rather than the reward of winning. The lack of ability and obvious tactical ineptitude shown throughout the season(long high balls to a diminutive striker). General poor quality throughout the premier league. The ludicrous top six/bottom six split. The list goes on and on but the main and most compelling reason was the lack of fight (not OTJ style), passion, commitment shown by the team at home last season. We feel that the turnover of players, who have never been replaced by better players, has taken the heart, the passion and the team spirit from the Club and resulted in poor lacklustre performances. Gone were the games where the team competed against the Old Firm, games against Aberdeen were played to virtually full houses and were good games. No last year was full of dismal days and nauseous nights and on the evidence of Saturday the forthcoming season shows no signs of improvement.

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Support the team despite the quality on display, otherwise you will just be a glory hunter. What the feck is wrong with everybody. I'm getting a little tired of all this crap.

Edited by tm4tj
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CallieAnne,

I respect your opinion but have to disagree with some of the points that you make. I really didn't see any long ball game on saturday, or any great lack of ability. There was no lack of spirit either, so all in all I reckon that's an improvement on last year and is precisely what the fans were asking for. there was a willingness to go after both games this season, and Nick Ross would have won this game if not for an incredible save from Bell. The only real dampner was OTJ losing the heid, but I'm not going to cast stones on that one. What I can't understand is despite all that, despite your complimentary tickets, despite the free hospitality and despite more attempts at involving the fans (have a look on you tube) it's still not good enough. Not everything will be right yet but people are working damned hard to make it so rather than dismissing the club after one home game. Please tell us what will make ICT good enough - seriously.

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Maybe this could be amended for ICT ...... its a TFC song sung to the tune of "Sloop John(do) B" with the most crucial line bolded !

Forever we love you so (Clap Clap)

Through all of the highs and lows

This is our crest and this, this is our home

We want you to knowwwwwww

We want you to knowww_ooooo_ooooo

Forever we love you

We love you T-O....

LINK: youtube.com/watch?v=cpVsbx3x8Mc

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Support the team despite the quality on display, otherwise you will just be a glory hunter. What the feck is wrong with everybody. I'm getting a little tired of all this crap.

And many of us do - I am certainly Caley till I die - and I would follow if we were in the Third Division. But what most people are missing is that it cannot be "blind devotion" - this is a football club not a sect and we have Butcher at the helm and not feckin Manson. You cannot escape criticism in any form of life but I do agree that it has to have a rationale behind it - as CallieAnne and ma good self always provide.

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