If you could change one event

[STFU]

If you could change one event in the clubs history what would it be?

It can be anything.  E.g. signing or selling/releasing a player, managerial appointment, chairman/director/ceo appointment, outcome of a match etc.

The only caveat is that everything after the event is not guaranteed to happen. E.g. if Butcher had stayed we wouldn't necessarily have won the Scottish Cup but we may also not have appointed Gardiner as ceo!

Would be interesting to see the reasoning for the change and how you think things would be different today.

[caley100]

I would have let Yogi go to Dee Utd, get decent compensation, that would afford a decent replacement instead of the big gamble with Richie F.

[The Mantis]

54 minutes ago, caley100 said:

I would have let Yogi go to Dee Utd, get decent compensation, that would afford a decent replacement instead of the big gamble with Richie F.

Beat me to it…

[Yngwie]

1 hour ago, caley100 said:

I would have let Yogi go to Dee Utd, get decent compensation, that would afford a decent replacement instead of the big gamble with Richie F.

I was going to say the appointment of Foran as manager, but you are right to go back a stage further. The relegation that followed under Foran well and truly set us on the slippery slope we’ve been hurtling down for years.

Having said that, maybe a different course of action then would only have delayed the inevitable? We punched above our weight for years, and relegation was simply bound to happen to a club our size.

 

 

 

[The Mantis]

2 hours ago, STFU said:

outcome of a match etc.

Two games that still rip my knitting nearly 20 years later.

2005-6. We are at home to Partick in round 4. We are in the Premier and they are two divisions below us. We have come from behind and lead 2-1. With eight minutes left, Liam Fox is put through on Kenny Arthur but blooters it straight at the keeper. In stoppage time Paul Ritchie wins Partick a penalty which they convert for 2-2. We dominate the replay but go out after one of the worst sets of penalties ever seen, I.e. before the one at Forthbank. Both the ugly sisters were already out and that was the year Hearts beat Gretna in the final.

Even worse: 2006-7 and we are at home to Celtic in the quarter-final. For most of the game we lead through a Bayne strike and Celtic rarely threaten. With three minutes to go we are taunting the disguised Tims in the north stand who are leaving early. Then from a corner, Pressley heads the equaliser and we are resigned to a trip to Parkheid for the replay. Then Kenny Miller hits the winner. With Rangers already out, the other semi-finalists are St Johnstone, Hibernian and Dunfermline.

Edited November 14, 2024 by The Mantis

[The Mantis]

5 minutes ago, Yngwie said:

Having said that, maybe a different course of action then would only have delayed the inevitable? We punched above our weight for years, and relegation was simply bound to happen to a club our size.

I’m not buying that at all, no sir .
We were an established premiership club at the time with the right personnel on and off the field and had finished in 7th place the previous year. We had as much right to be there as the likes of Motherwell, St Johnstone, Ross County, Dundee, Kilmarnock etc, although I accept that most of these clubs, but not all, have been relegated since, and Dundee Utd finished 12th.
The secret to staying up is stability which we pretty much had in spades during that period. The Yogi situation upset the whole balance in a precursor of the perfect storm we have witnessed recently.

 

in recent years. 

[caley100]

51 minutes ago, The Mantis said:

Beat me to it…

Oh...  The Kenny Cameron legacy, The start of the demise.

[+snorbens_caleyman]

2 hours ago, caley100 said:

I would have let Yogi go to Dee Utd, get decent compensation, that would afford a decent replacement instead of the big gamble with Richie F.

I might go back further, and say that if we hadn't won the Scottish Cup, nor finished 3rd in the league that season, then all the inflated money demands which followed wouldn't have happened.

We didn't know how to handle success.

[Charles Bannerman]

4 hours ago, STFU said:

If you could change one event in the clubs history what would it be?

It can be anything.  E.g. signing or selling/releasing a player, managerial appointment, chairman/director/ceo appointment, outcome of a match etc.

The only caveat is that everything after the event is not guaranteed to happen. E.g. if Butcher had stayed we wouldn't necessarily have won the Scottish Cup but we may also not have appointed Gardiner as ceo!

Would be interesting to see the reasoning for the change and how you think things would be different today.

The appointment of Scot Gardiner. It was from there that an already declining situation went totally belly-up.

However I fully agree with what STFU says about subsequent events being influenced by earlier ones.

But purely from an Inverness perspective, and with the benefit of hindsight, I could also argue that Ross County being elected to the SFL along with Caley Thistle in 1994 was an absolutely critical event because it’s turned out that the inner Moray Firth has proved unable to sustain two large clubs.

County fans would of course suggest differently….

[ICTPaisley]

We can’t be changing anything pre cup final as that is the pinnacle. It did start to go wrong straight after this though. Even going into the next games v Astra it already started to feel like we were missing a lot. 

It’s a tough question to answer but I think Yngwie is spot on when saying it would only delay the inevitable. It doesn’t matter where we tweek our history, we were always going to end up back down the leagues. I don’t think anyone ever thought it would be this fast though. 
 

Relegation from the Premier was always going to happen eventually, however being reckless with our finances in the Championship was very much avoidable and therefore unforgivable.

[Starscape]

I'd have brought in Malpas earlier to help Foran. Big change in fortune when we got someone with a bit of experience in.

Edited November 14, 2024 by Starscape

[Yngwie]

6 minutes ago, Starscape said:

I'd have brought in Malpas earlier to help Foran. Big change in fortune when we got someone with a bit of experience in.

True, and we were just one win from survival that season.

[Yngwie]

4 hours ago, STFU said:

outcome of a match

In pure financial terms, the biggest match in our history was the 2023 Scottish Cup Final (wow, it was as recent as last year?!)

If we had somehow defied the odds against Celtic one more time, we would not only have won the cup (again) but would have earned guaranteed group stage European football, which would have been amazing for the fans and would have earned us £5m which we could have used to strengthen the squad and quickly get back into the top flight.

[big cherly]

Not that there was much of a choice for the club in the matter, I was going to say the location of the stadium. But if pushed to a single event I would say the design of the north and south stands. (Again driven by league regulations, time and lack of funds). 
Not that I like to, however compare our stands with the Dingwall away end stand.

Edited November 15, 2024 by big cherly

[bdu98196]

Hamilton 3-0. Foran punted that day and we would have stayed up that season I'm pretty sure

[buckett]

Ross County's promotion to the SPL, which saw the fanbase divided and the beginning of a significant drop in attendance at The Dump.

[The Mantis]

On 11/14/2024 at 11:20 PM, ICTPaisley said:

doesn’t matter where we tweek our history, we were always going to end up back down the leagues. I don’t think anyone ever thought it would be this fast though. 

Depends what you mean. I don’t think we’ve ended up in the seaside leagues because we’re a diddy club. We’ve maybe become a diddy club by atrocious management and by being in Lge 1.

The Championship should be the absolute basement for ICT if the club was run by competent, ego-free individuals who recruited wisely. Most of the clubs I mentioned above have been relegated but bounced back just like we did in 2010. We’re certainly a bigger club than Airdrie, Queens Park and Morton, and possibly Livi and Ayr, who are all now a division above us. Admittedly the whole pyramid is riddled with clubs who have fallen from grace.

In a ‘sliding doors’ situation, if we had stayed up in 2017, with County going down in 2018, the balance of power would possibly have shifted, although our squad of 2015 badly needed a rebuild, and Yogi/Richie wouldn’t have been capable so we would have had to recruit somebody who was. 

As Charles says, the election of County alongside us in 1994 was probably unfortunate. I would have had Elgin in rather than County, and that’s without hindsight …

Edited November 16, 2024 by The Mantis

[Scotty]

14 hours ago, Charles Bannerman said:

The appointment of Scot Gardiner. It was from there that an already declining situation went totally belly-up.

That was the cherry on top. What over here would be called a "hold my beer" moment.  For me it was a little earlier and the appointment of Rae and Crook. Perhaps good intentions, but even if they could talk the talk, they could not walk the walk and started the process of decline and of not treating local companies correctly. We threw fiscal responsibility and community engagement right out the window right there and that is why we are where we are today. These figures running the club, and everyone who followed them until now will have their own place in ICT history and not in a good way. 

I disagree about the "Kenny Cameron Legacy" comment. He held his hands up to being too loyal to Richie, a personality trait we all wish the club had with Doran, Ridgers and others more recently, but he oversaw a period of incredible success for our club, and one where he also tried to juggle financial prudence with the demands of managers who wanted to open up the purse strings to challenge even further in their eyes. A delicate balancing act that I don't think anyone who followed him could even hope to emulate. We were one game away from Premiership survival which is a far cry from where we have found ourselves more recently. 

 

[CELTIC1CALEY3]

There is a lot in the last 5 years that we have yet to discover. However, without pinning blame lets start with the concerts. Anyone competent would have carried out a detailed risk analysis of the proposal and put in place sound arrangements if it was likely to have been a financial success like the Rod Stewart concert. With regard to Director loans, a competent person would point out risks involved both to the Club or Company but ensure the elasticity of such proposals did not stretch too far.  The reason why the car parking deal that collapsed is not known so was this negligence, a contract that was still open to due diligence or maybe given too much credence?  Recruiting Duncan Ferguson and Bolan was a disaster of monumental proportions.  I am convinced a motivator of players could have achieved far more last season and not squandered the Cup Final golden egg monies. It does seem odd that there was over ordering of fan kit given known annual sales figures.  With regard to the battery farm proposal. Competent people would have again carried out a detailed risk appraisal and spent some time with Council planning officials to satisfy themselves that the planning application had a high chance of success.  Wealthy Directors failed to show compassion and decency to significant players. That has to be the seen as quite appalling treatment of fellow decent human beings. Writing off an £80k payment from Carlisle when finances were stretched was foolish!!  Over 30 years there have been rocky spells and poor judgements but realistically it has been over the last 5 years (with COVID impacting thinking too on financial prudence) that the lack of competence has been seen. So to answer the question - only appoint competent professional people to run a company.  In effect those giving financial, company secretarial or legal advice. We do not appear to have done that, especially in the last 5 years.

[+Fraz]

It's an interesting question. 

The issue that we didn't let Hughes go to DU is one that that I can understand why people consider. However I think that if we did let him go and things still went pear shaped, people would be looking back and asking 'why did we not do more to keep him!'. In my view Hughes was the person who was in the wrong in that situation. 

Foran as manager was a mistake and KC has admitted as much. I said to him myself that I felt it was too soon for him and it would have been better to have him as assistant to a more experienced manager. 

As a club we've made poor decisions but usually balance them out by making good ones too. It seems that all we've done since signing Robertson as manager (not a bad decision but keeping him as DOF was) has been one bad decision after another taking an administration event to force change. 

To answer the question, in recent history I would say the decision to make Graeme Rae chairman. Without that we don't end up with clueless Yvonne Crook and then of course he brings in the man himself Scot Gardiner and the massive list of terrible decisions and unchecked consistent failure for over half a decade. 

[RiG]

I can see why folk point to Hughes and the United approach but I don't think that really affected us significantly although it did upset the applecart at the time.

For me, persisting with Foran as manager after we were cuffed 3 - 1 or 0 by Hamilton at the end of January 2017 was a massive moment. We were awful that evening and Foran threw the players under the bus in his interview afterwards. He was clearly out of his depth and becoming detached at the bottom of the league (IIRC) and yet we stuck with him and it ended in our relegation to the Championship which we've never recovered from.

[+old caley girl]

On 11/15/2024 at 9:19 AM, bdu98196 said:

Hamilton 3-0. Foran punted that day and we would have stayed up that season I'm pretty sure

This is my shout too. I truly believe if we'd fired him after that match we'd have stayed up? 

[ClickbaitProponent]

Easy! Gardiner being born!

[Drake]

I think we were destined to get relegated at some point. We could have got another manager instead of Foran but who’s to say we would have stayed up? Maybe we would have still got related 2, 3 years later. 
 

So for me, it’s the response to relegation. Robbo coming back as manager. We didn’t do that well under him on his return (missing out on promotion play offs in his first season). So maybe another manager would have got us promoted. However, it was Robbo that helped get Scot Gardner his job as CEO. Knock on effect there. Another manager might have got us back up to Prem by now and probably wouldn’t have brought SG to the club. 

[Charles Bannerman]

The fact that so many different “single” factors have been put forward by various people suggests to me that the decline of Caley Thistle has been a perfect storm of a number of adverse influences all operating in the same negative direction.

You then need to consider that top flight football in the remoteness of the Highlands is, especially with another nearby club benefiting from even more external funding than Caley Thistle has, an extremely fragile business, so you also then have a scenario that is very unstable indeed, making disaster that much easier to happen.