"The ICT Thread - From the Premiership to the Seaside"

[TheScarf]

43 minutes ago, Grumpy Soo-sider said:

There's no need for that nonsense - get a grip mate!

 

27 minutes ago, A Diamond For Me said:

Agreed.  Uncalled for.

To be fair, ***s do hate The Caley, and he'll definitely be one, despite supporting Ayr United too.

[Mackie The Staggie]

Any truth in the rumours that the Caley plan has turned around at Ballinluig services and are now heading back up north?

[Thereisalight..]

2 hours ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

I looked up the battery farm issue last night. Until then I genuinely thought it was chickens they'd  be farming.

I thought it was a bit of a strange diversification. Maybe they'll try that next.

Same I thought how cruel in this day and age! At least it's actual batteries and not cruelty. There's enough of that going on up there at the moment as it is 

[welshbairn]

12 minutes ago, Mackie The Staggie said:

Any truth in the rumours that the Caley plan has turned around at Ballinluig services and are now heading back up north?

I've seen a post on another forum mentioning rumours going about, but nobody is saying where they are.

[Arachnophile]

3 hours ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

I looked up the battery farm issue last night. Until then I genuinely thought it was chickens they'd  be farming.

I thought it was a bit of a strange diversification. Maybe they'll try that next.

I believe it is headless chickens.

[TxRover]

2 hours ago, SandyCromarty said:

Nothing from the club so far, not even a small statement acknowledging fans discontent considering this is the biggest fans protest in the history of the club.

I see on the club website they are advertising the club shop opening hours this week, they must be expecting a rush on club merchandise purchasing???

Doubt if they'll see a penny in trade just now.

Par for the course in ignoring fans, their main financial contributors.

The lesson we learnt watching the Raith fiasco was pressure needs to be focused and evident, and the failure of the club to respond with even a murmur to the obvious discontent of their fanbase suggests they’ve decided it’s a small enough portion of the actual paid support that is annoyed, and they can ignore it. It bodes very poorly for ICT going forward, and the team was already facing a poor attendance and ST situation.

While this move makes some sense, in a financial manner, it’s very detrimental to the Club and fanbase…and I wonder what will happen if they decide they have to go hybrid or part-time? Running a hybrid/PT club that primarily exists hours from its “home” seems a dubious venture.

[eez-eh]

36 minutes ago, Mackie The Staggie said:

Any truth in the rumours that the Caley plan has turned around at Ballinluig services and are now heading back up north?

They’ve stopped at House of Bruar for a £15 sausage roll.

[Juanjo Nostalgia]

49 minutes ago, Arachnophile said:

I believe it is headless chickens.

Worse - there are foxes loose in the henhouse.

[Mackie The Staggie]

56 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

I've seen a post on another forum mentioning rumours going about, but nobody is saying where they are.

Maybe that's where the guy I was chatting with got it from too, he's usually being pretty sound though and does know some of the board pretty well.

34 minutes ago, eez-eh said:

They’ve stopped at House of Bruar for a £15 sausage roll.

Gardiners finically expertise in show again, shunning Harry Gow's for more expensive southern alternatives. (obviously, Dea's are better but are reserved for County)

[ICTChris]

Off topic but a few years ago we stopped at Bruar while driving up the A9, it was during a heatwave and it was roasting.  The main reason we went there was to get an ice cream.  We got our ice creams and sat in some shaded area outside and I noticed one guy, sitting in the direct sun, no shade, big red baldy bonce - he was eating a full roast dinner, with all the trimmings.  Gravy, yorkshires, parsnips, roast potatoes, the lot.  Amazing stuff.  I think about the guy from time to time, what a way to live your life.

[ICTChris]

First part of an interview with Ross Morrison on the COurier website.  Second part to come later, apparently.  Just the same old, to be honest.

 

Q: First, can I get your reaction to the strongly held feelings of many supporters who have been using strong words like betrayal about the decision to move the training ground?

A: The fact is that moving the training ground is for two reasons. First, that is financial, the club needed to cut its costs massively, we were running far too rich and we have been losing far too much money.

I can’t put in any more money, the other directors can’t put any more money in so we have had to cut out costs. If we had a bucket of money and we had a white knight who came along I would love to stay in Inverness and put players up wherever we could put players up – but we can’t.

So we have had to look at cutting our costs and one of our main costs is accommodation, which is running at £200,000 a year – we can’t afford to do it.

We have then looked at getting players up the road and we have had the experience in the last couple of years of speaking to players we have wanted to get and wanted to keep who have decided to go elsewhere.

Not because they did not want to come to us but because they just did not want to leave their families down south and leave basically on their own for several days a week because on a one or two year contract they weren’t prepared to move up permanently.

 

I can understand that and that was another reason but the decision means that we can have players who live in the central belt, come to their work at 10am and be back home to look after their kids at 3pm.

I can understand the fans feelings but all we are actually doing is shifting the training to a more efficient site.

 

Q: There have been calls for Scot Gardiner and even the board, including yourself to step down – is that something you are considering or is a possibility?

A: Listen, I can only speak for myself. Everybody is expendable for the sake of the football club. I am the chairman, if someone comes along to me and says I have got the best idea in a more successful way then I would be the first person to shake their hand and say ‘on you go, get in there, do it for the club’.

I would stand down tomorrow. I have been there for six years now. It has cost me way into seven figures but I have done it for the benefit of the club so I would step down if someone were to come up.

Nobody is expendable, the club is the most important thing and that is the reason we are doing this – because the club is the most important thing.

Q: And are you content with Scot Gardiner staying in position?

Scot has been very loyal to the football club, he is very knowledgeable in what he does and as I say no one is sacrosanct for the benefit of the football club but at the present moment we need all hands to the pumps.

We need to stay together to try and get over this because going to the First Division is horrendous for our finances, they were poor before but they have been cut to the bone on this one.

 

Q: Fundamentally there are two positions here. The club feels it financially needs the move but supporters feel the club is losing something truly unique - how do you bridge that gap?

If you have got to make a decision – and the number one priority is to keep the club going – then how do you do it? If we remain full time, we can’t do it in Inverness, I cannot see how we can do it.

There may be people out there who can see it but they need to come up but they haven’t come up and chapped on the door to tell us how we could do it.

The number one priority is, I think, to keep the club going. The number two priority is keeping us full-time so we have a chance of winning this league again. On bridging the gap with fans, well that is one of the reasons I am speaking with you.

I read all the stuff that people are making comment on that it is ‘ripping the heart out of the institution’. Okay, the first team won’t be there all the time but how many people actually go and watch the first team train out at Fort George?

Will there be players that come and do openings of this or that or visit hospitals? Yes, there will but they won’t be there all the time.

Take Arbroath, I spoke to the ex-chairman the other day. They don’t train in Arbroath. There are other teams that train in different places. The questions you go back to: do you want us to be out of Inverness for training? No I don’t. Do we have to be [out of Inverness] to be a better team to survive? Yes, I think we do, but that is only my opinion.

I think we would save certainly £300,000 to £400,000 but I don’t see how we would save that any other way. I stand ready to be corrected but nobody has done it.

I have got to take responsibility as the chairman. The idea came to me, and I thought we cannot move down there. Then I thought about it and it works. And getting players is as important as the money situation. Last season I think we could have kept David Wotherspoon if he didn’t have to come up the road.

So it is a double-edged sword: you save your money on accommodation and you have happier players. If we could have got 11 or 12 guys from the Highland League we would have them already because they are not there.

 

Edited May 28 by ICTChris

[CityDave94]

34 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

First part of an interview with Ross Morrison on the COurier website.  Second part to come later, apparently.  Just the same old, to be honest.

 

Q: First, can I get your reaction to the strongly held feelings of many supporters who have been using strong words like betrayal about the decision to move the training ground?

A: The fact is that moving the training ground is for two reasons. First, that is financial, the club needed to cut its costs massively, we were running far too rich and we have been losing far too much money.

I can’t put in any more money, the other directors can’t put any more money in so we have had to cut out costs. If we had a bucket of money and we had a white knight who came along I would love to stay in Inverness and put players up wherever we could put players up – but we can’t.

So we have had to look at cutting our costs and one of our main costs is accommodation, which is running at £200,000 a year – we can’t afford to do it.

We have then looked at getting players up the road and we have had the experience in the last couple of years of speaking to players we have wanted to get and wanted to keep who have decided to go elsewhere.

Not because they did not want to come to us but because they just did not want to leave their families down south and leave basically on their own for several days a week because on a one or two year contract they weren’t prepared to move up permanently.

 

I can understand that and that was another reason but the decision means that we can have players who live in the central belt, come to their work at 10am and be back home to look after their kids at 3pm.

I can understand the fans feelings but all we are actually doing is shifting the training to a more efficient site.

 

Q: There have been calls for Scot Gardiner and even the board, including yourself to step down – is that something you are considering or is a possibility?

A: Listen, I can only speak for myself. Everybody is expendable for the sake of the football club. I am the chairman, if someone comes along to me and says I have got the best idea in a more successful way then I would be the first person to shake their hand and say ‘on you go, get in there, do it for the club’.

I would stand down tomorrow. I have been there for six years now. It has cost me way into seven figures but I have done it for the benefit of the club so I would step down if someone were to come up.

Nobody is expendable, the club is the most important thing and that is the reason we are doing this – because the club is the most important thing.

Q: And are you content with Scot Gardiner staying in position?

Scot has been very loyal to the football club, he is very knowledgeable in what he does and as I say no one is sacrosanct for the benefit of the football club but at the present moment we need all hands to the pumps.

We need to stay together to try and get over this because going to the First Division is horrendous for our finances, they were poor before but they have been cut to the bone on this one.

 

Q: Fundamentally there are two positions here. The club feels it financially needs the move but supporters feel the club is losing something truly unique - how do you bridge that gap?

If you have got to make a decision – and the number one priority is to keep the club going – then how do you do it? If we remain full time, we can’t do it in Inverness, I cannot see how we can do it.

There may be people out there who can see it but they need to come up but they haven’t come up and chapped on the door to tell us how we could do it.

The number one priority is, I think, to keep the club going. The number two priority is keeping us full-time so we have a chance of winning this league again. On bridging the gap with fans, well that is one of the reasons I am speaking with you.

I read all the stuff that people are making comment on that it is ‘ripping the heart out of the institution’. Okay, the first team won’t be there all the time but how many people actually go and watch the first team train out at Fort George?

Will there be players that come and do openings of this or that or visit hospitals? Yes, there will but they won’t be there all the time.

Take Arbroath, I spoke to the ex-chairman the other day. They don’t train in Arbroath. There are other teams that train in different places. The questions you go back to: do you want us to be out of Inverness for training? No I don’t. Do we have to be [out of Inverness] to be a better team to survive? Yes, I think we do, but that is only my opinion.

I think we would save certainly £300,000 to £400,000 but I don’t see how we would save that any other way. I stand ready to be corrected but nobody has done it.

I have got to take responsibility as the chairman. The idea came to me, and I thought we cannot move down there. Then I thought about it and it works. And getting players is as important as the money situation. Last season I think we could have kept David Wotherspoon if he didn’t have to come up the road.

So it is a double-edged sword: you save your money on accommodation and you have happier players. If we could have got 11 or 12 guys from the Highland League we would have them already because they are not there.

 

Who needs supporters anyway?

[eez-eh]

1 hour ago, ICTChris said:

Off topic but a few years ago we stopped at Bruar while driving up the A9, it was during a heatwave and it was roasting.  The main reason we went there was to get an ice cream.  We got our ice creams and sat in some shaded area outside and I noticed one guy, sitting in the direct sun, no shade, big red baldy bonce - he was eating a full roast dinner, with all the trimmings.  Gravy, yorkshires, parsnips, roast potatoes, the lot.  Amazing stuff.  I think about the guy from time to time, what a way to live your life.

Think this is quite common with older folk. Baking hot day and they won’t think twice of having a stodgy roast dinner drowned in gravy. Makes me sick tbh.

[SandyCromarty]

In that interview he does not address the loss of financial support from the fans via the loss of ST sales and gate receipts which will happen and how the club would address/balance that against what he says are the financial advantages of the move.

That fan financial loss would surely reduce any savings from the move back to where we are now.

All those other clubs supporters who told us Gardiner would ruin the club were right, they were lucky they got rid of him when they did.

Sadly the club is finished.

[Stephen Malkmus]

https://www.change.org/p/keep-inverness-caledonian-thistle-in-inverness

[Savage Henry]

1 hour ago, ICTChris said:

Off topic but a few years ago we stopped at Bruar while driving up the A9, it was during a heatwave and it was roasting.  The main reason we went there was to get an ice cream.  We got our ice creams and sat in some shaded area outside and I noticed one guy, sitting in the direct sun, no shade, big red baldy bonce - he was eating a full roast dinner, with all the trimmings.  Gravy, yorkshires, parsnips, roast potatoes, the lot.  Amazing stuff.  I think about the guy from time to time, what a way to live your life.

I believe Charlie Adam does some punditry now and again.  So that’s how he lives his life these days. 

[TheScarf]

1 hour ago, ICTChris said:

First part of an interview with Ross Morrison on the COurier website.  Second part to come later, apparently.  Just the same old, to be honest.

 

Q: First, can I get your reaction to the strongly held feelings of many supporters who have been using strong words like betrayal about the decision to move the training ground?

A: The fact is that moving the training ground is for two reasons. First, that is financial, the club needed to cut its costs massively, we were running far too rich and we have been losing far too much money.

I can’t put in any more money, the other directors can’t put any more money in so we have had to cut out costs. If we had a bucket of money and we had a white knight who came along I would love to stay in Inverness and put players up wherever we could put players up – but we can’t.

So we have had to look at cutting our costs and one of our main costs is accommodation, which is running at £200,000 a year – we can’t afford to do it.

We have then looked at getting players up the road and we have had the experience in the last couple of years of speaking to players we have wanted to get and wanted to keep who have decided to go elsewhere.

Not because they did not want to come to us but because they just did not want to leave their families down south and leave basically on their own for several days a week because on a one or two year contract they weren’t prepared to move up permanently.

 

I can understand that and that was another reason but the decision means that we can have players who live in the central belt, come to their work at 10am and be back home to look after their kids at 3pm.

I can understand the fans feelings but all we are actually doing is shifting the training to a more efficient site.

 

Q: There have been calls for Scot Gardiner and even the board, including yourself to step down – is that something you are considering or is a possibility?

A: Listen, I can only speak for myself. Everybody is expendable for the sake of the football club. I am the chairman, if someone comes along to me and says I have got the best idea in a more successful way then I would be the first person to shake their hand and say ‘on you go, get in there, do it for the club’.

I would stand down tomorrow. I have been there for six years now. It has cost me way into seven figures but I have done it for the benefit of the club so I would step down if someone were to come up.

Nobody is expendable, the club is the most important thing and that is the reason we are doing this – because the club is the most important thing.

Q: And are you content with Scot Gardiner staying in position?

Scot has been very loyal to the football club, he is very knowledgeable in what he does and as I say no one is sacrosanct for the benefit of the football club but at the present moment we need all hands to the pumps.

We need to stay together to try and get over this because going to the First Division is horrendous for our finances, they were poor before but they have been cut to the bone on this one.

 

Q: Fundamentally there are two positions here. The club feels it financially needs the move but supporters feel the club is losing something truly unique - how do you bridge that gap?

If you have got to make a decision – and the number one priority is to keep the club going – then how do you do it? If we remain full time, we can’t do it in Inverness, I cannot see how we can do it.

There may be people out there who can see it but they need to come up but they haven’t come up and chapped on the door to tell us how we could do it.

The number one priority is, I think, to keep the club going. The number two priority is keeping us full-time so we have a chance of winning this league again. On bridging the gap with fans, well that is one of the reasons I am speaking with you.

I read all the stuff that people are making comment on that it is ‘ripping the heart out of the institution’. Okay, the first team won’t be there all the time but how many people actually go and watch the first team train out at Fort George?

Will there be players that come and do openings of this or that or visit hospitals? Yes, there will but they won’t be there all the time.

Take Arbroath, I spoke to the ex-chairman the other day. They don’t train in Arbroath. There are other teams that train in different places. The questions you go back to: do you want us to be out of Inverness for training? No I don’t. Do we have to be [out of Inverness] to be a better team to survive? Yes, I think we do, but that is only my opinion.

I think we would save certainly £300,000 to £400,000 but I don’t see how we would save that any other way. I stand ready to be corrected but nobody has done it.

I have got to take responsibility as the chairman. The idea came to me, and I thought we cannot move down there. Then I thought about it and it works. And getting players is as important as the money situation. Last season I think we could have kept David Wotherspoon if he didn’t have to come up the road.

So it is a double-edged sword: you save your money on accommodation and you have happier players. If we could have got 11 or 12 guys from the Highland League we would have them already because they are not there.

 

In the nicest possibly way, Ross, get yourself to absolute fuck and take that bald *** bastard with you.

[ICTChris]

Here's the second part of the interview

Q: Supporters are gathering for an emergency meeting to discuss a protest strategy – they want to reverse the club’s decision, is there any chance of that?

If someone comes up with an idea of how we can survive then yes – but unless a white knight comes along how we can turn it around. It makes financial sense and it makes football sense.

If the supporters do take action at what point does the decision to move training become almost terminal for the club, a point you could reach whereby the decision could work for the club but something about the club is lost?

Well, if the supporters don’t support the club then the club goes out of business. If we don’t get the season ticket money then we cannot pay the wages, if we cannot pay the wages then the club goes bust.

Q: That was my next question, what damage would a season ticket boycott do to the club? That is one possible tactics they are planning – you are saying the club would go bust?

I would say we are in a very tricky financial situation if the supporters trust were to recommend a season ticket holder boycott.

Q: If you could sit down, one to one, with every supporter what would be your message to them right now?

I would say, look at the bigger picture, look at the situation we are in, we need to rebuild, we have to do something – if we do nothing, if we are not proactive then we are finished.

I think we have got a real problem here, this was a good idea when we were in the Championship, it is vital that we do it now. We could not be full-time in Inverness and if we go part-time then who do we get? Because nobody is going to travel to do part-time football from the Central Belt or from a huge distance for Caley Thistle, and that is a real worry.

Could we survive in the first division? Maybe. What I am saying is that the decision has to be made at a reasonable speed to help us in the situation we are in for the coming season, the summer transfer window.

But again in the summer transfer window you get X-amount you are offering a player to stay in a house, you don’t have to move up to Inverness and be away from your family, then you have a happier player.

The other thing is that Kelty have very good quality 3G [a synthetic surface]. I think the majority of pitches in the first division are 3G and they have also got grass pitches – it is a better facility than we have at Fort George.

Q: The ICT Supporters’ Trust feels there is a risk that with the move the club will be “completely disconnected” from the local community?

It will just mean a longer journey. Our players are not on call five days a week, 12 hours a day to go and do stuff. They do things with the community trust, they drop in now and again to support the kids – that is not going to change, it is not going to stop completely. But it might have to be arranged rather than then coming in off the cuff occasionally.

It is like [people think] we are never going to be in Inverness again. That is not what is going to happen but this move I just desperately don’t want to happen but I think it is just going to have to happen because it makes sense.

I have spoken to people in football, I spoke to an ex-chairman this morning and he told me ‘what a brilliant idea, whose idea was that?’ And I told him: ‘unfortunately it wasn’t mine.’ But they could see exactly where we are coming from.

If you can get players up there in Kelty who are happy being there, players are like three hours a day for training and then they are happy because then they go home.

I get that people are p**sed off because they didn’t want this to happen and it looks bad but is it bad? Is it really that bad? Is it a complete disconnect with Inverness? I don’t think it is.

What is the distance that is acceptable? What if we had a fantastic site in Elgin? What about Aberdeen, you could use Cormack park, that is fantastic – would that be horrendous? Some of the things that people are saying on social media – there is an answer: give us half a million quid, if we could raise £500,000 which is enough to attract players up the road and we could house them but we don’t have it.

Q: What is the status of the academy and what is the pathway to the first team?

There is an absolute path into the first team from the academy. Scott Kellacher is right behind it. We are in negotiations with an Inverness-based business which said they would sponsor and look after the academy for us so it takes the burden off us.

The academy costs not far off £100,000 a year to keep the academy in its present form running and, like I say, we are in negotiations right now with an Inverness-based company. We are very hopeful, very hopeful.

So that is positive. One thing that I have to say is that when we announced that we couldn’t keep the academy going I thought people would be howling – but nobody did.

I think that is more important than the first team training down in Kelty, an absolute professional academy, in the Highlands that goes and plays professional academy teams down south – that is massively important.

I think to keep that going is extremely important for the club, the community and the boys that are in the academy now but nobody seemed to be bothered about that and to be honest I didn’t think that the training move would bother people so much.

Q: If the battery farm decision was overturned could you revisit the decision or would that just recreate the same problems?

If we didn’t have the decision overturned by the council then we wouldn’t be doing this [move to Kelty].

Q: ICT BATTERY STORAGE LIMITED – there seems to have been changes there lately, can you define what they are?

We have had to raise money so we have had to shift it out of the club – we have bought it for £250,000. So we have taken it under ownership and if we get the planning overturned then the club will just invoice us the profit. But we needed cash because we had no money.

Q: This was one of the mechanisms to raise money?

We had to raise money.

[1320Lichtie]

Listening to the Wyness Shuffle while I was doing some mundane work earlier on, don’t usually listen to other clubs podcasts but was interested to see what the thoughts of the fans were.

 

Was expecting to just find it an interesting listen but actually really found myself feeling sorry for the fans after it and being a bit emotionally invested in it. 
 

Really do feel for you guys, it’s going to be some shitshow to look on to from the outside. 

[SandyCromarty]

Where is the real financial gain? Kelty will charge for the use of their facility, not all players will come from the central belt so their accommodation will have to be paid for, Glasgow is 60 miles from Kelty so any players from there will want travel expenses on a daily basis