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

[Otis Blue]

1 hour ago, RedEd said:

Ahem, Ayrshire is outwith the Central Belt, albeit not too far away.

Aye, it depends on your definition of central belt, hence why I added Ayrshire in brackets.  I mean, Killie is only about 20 miles from Glasgow.

[MarkPockets]

The "fastest growing city in Europe" should be able to attract 15 men aged 18-30 for a couple years, whether with or without a family. It's hardly like Inverness is up in Wick

[Central Belt Caley]

Just tried to write a list of Scot Gardiners f**k ups, turns out there is a limit to the amount of characters you can have in a P&B post 

[Otis Blue]

1 hour ago, SandyCromarty said:

Inverness is a city with a pop of around 80,000, with a busy airport and thriving tourist industry.

OK, fine - I didn't check, but its fair to say that it falls within my categorisation of a town with more than 40,000 that lies outside the main population areas of the country ... yes?

[Central Belt Caley]

This is all the SNP’s fault, if only they dualled the A9 like they said they would lower league journeyman would be chapping at the bit to play for us 

[Skyline Drifter]

1 hour ago, LondonHMFC said:

Aren't Caley staying full time this year? So with this move it isn't just the players you have to think about, it's those who work behind the scenes who are not going to be needed. 

What people behind the scenes are going to be affected? Unless you mean the first team coaching staff and physio then the answer is almost certainly none.

I think people are reading far too much into this and misreading it as relocating the entire operation to the extent doors are locked at Caley Stadium 13 days a fortnight!

1 hour ago, Otis Blue said:

Queens have trained in the central belt for many years now.  We currently train at the Hamilton Palace sports grounds (ie not at Hamilton Accies).  I think as an example we have also trained at Broadwood previously.  I'd imagine the reason is entirely due to economics (and logistics) - ie it will be cheaper in travel costs to take the small number of southern players to train in the central belt that it would be to take the larger number of central belt placed players down to Dumfries.  Then there is also the hassle factor in such travel - having training based in the central belt means it is probably more attractive to central belt players in terms of the amount of time spent travelling to training.  Possibly also helps us to entice better quality players (gasp, cough, chokes ...) to the club.

In an ideal world of course Queens would always train in and have their players based in Dumfries, but the harsh financial realities of operating FT football in the lower divisions just doesn't support this.  Clubs have to balance their books.

On the face of it I understand the frustrations of the Inverness fans (particularly when funding a rival in the process), but harsh reality also has to kick in here and I see many similarities between Inverness and Dumfries in this respect.

Also, County/Dingwall can't be used as a comparison - they can only run their model by being hugely externally funded by McGregor ... their time will come!

No, the reason was to widen the pool of available players we can try to sign. It WILL be cheaper but that's not why it was originally done. It was done, when we went full time, because we couldn't get enough decent full time players to come train in Dumfries 4 days a week to make the operation work at the wages we'll pay.

1 hour ago, craigkillie said:

Most of these towns are quite close to each other though. I would say the only full-time club who should find it difficult to have players train and live nearby would be your own one, Queen of the South. Every other full-time club is either in or near a city or in the central belt.

Inverness is technically a city of course now but Wiki (I know....) says its population is about 47,000 and the "wider area" has a population of 63,000. NHS Highland has one source that suggested over 80,000 though.

Dumfries has an equivalent population of around 33,000 and a wider area population of over 40,000. Inverness has no other significant population centre within 2 hours though. Dumfries has Carlisle with a 100,000 population 30 miles or so away and it also within an hour or so of most of Ayrshire and Lanarkshire. It's not remotely difficult to make a case that the potential for Inverness to self sustain full time football locally is considerably more difficult than in Dumfries.

Inverness also have a situation where shinty provides a genuine alternative draw for local teamsports athletes (although I suppose we equally have a bigger draw to rugby than they would).

1 hour ago, SandyCromarty said:

Many posts from fans who have players training elsewhere, QOS for example, however the reason given is that this arrangement is more attractive to central belt players, all fine and well but how about the promising youngsters in their home towns, it's all very well to have development coaches say in Inverness but how do you bring attention and assessment for a young player when the manager, coaches and first team are training 140 miles away.

Well speaking for us, our Club Academy programme, u18's and Reserves still run out of Dumfries. The best few graduates from the 18's / reserves group each year are given contracts to train with the first team and expensed to travel to Hamilton for training. There's a pathway. That part's going to be harder for you though training 2.5 hours from the base rather than the hour or so we are.

[SandyCromarty]

3 minutes ago, Stephen Malkmus said:

This is the mentality of the lowlanders on our board who don't understand the Highland psyche. It's like Athletic Bilbao training in Madrid instead of the Basque Country. It's not a simple matter of distance.

With this debacle we are losing our unique Highland identity.

[PSJ.84]

2 hours ago, ExiledLichtie said:

Until recently, I believe we had a long term deal in Perth. 

Sorry, not adding much to the discussion here, but yeah - trained at Seven Acres on Newhouse Road in Letham. 

[Harry Kinnear]

I’ve only been to Inverness for football but I’ve been up early and went into the City for food and always thought it a lovely place with plenty to offer, no offence meant to Kelty as I live in the shithole that is Grangemouth but I know which one I’d prefer to go to for training.

[PSJ.84]

3 minutes ago, Central Belt Caley said:

Just tried to write a list of Scot Gardiners f**k ups, turns out there is a limit to the amount of characters you can have in a P&B post 

Seems to be trying pretty hard to outdo ordering the wrong seats. 

[Comrie]

23 minutes ago, Harry Kinnear said:

I’ve only been to Inverness for football but I’ve been up early and went into the City for food and always thought it a lovely place with plenty to offer, no offence meant to Kelty as I live in the shithole that is Grangemouth but I know which one I’d prefer to go to for training.

The only real arguments are:

- the length of time
- the A9 can be dodgy with bad weather

But it's not like the A9 which was an old single track b*****d  and the weather on it is nowhere near  as bad as it was even 30-40 years ago. You might get snow at Slochd and Drummochter and that's about it.

Edited May 24 by Comrie

[MarkPockets]

1 minute ago, Skyline Drifter said:

Inverness is technically a city of course now but Wiki (I know....) says its population is about 47,000 and the "wider area" has a population of 63,000. NHS Highland has one source that suggested over 80,000 though.

Inverness also have a situation where shinty provides a genuine alternative draw for local teamsports athletes (although I suppose we equally have a bigger draw to rugby than they would).

Inverness has grown significantly since that census and is much closer to 70-80k on its own. 

No one gets paid for playing shinty. Yes, plenty grown up playing both, but there is no potential Messi or Ronaldo that's turning down the opportunity at full time football to play shinty for their village (although they will still do it when possible)

[Otis Blue]

12 minutes ago, Stephen Malkmus said:

This is the mentality of the lowlanders on our board who don't understand the Highland psyche. It's like Athletic Bilbao training in Madrid instead of the Basque Country. It's not a simple matter of distance.

So, there is a large and significant desire in the Highlands for separation from the rest of Scotland?  Not quite sure its akin to comparing the Basques with the Castilians.  For me this is purely and simply about financial pragmatism - you want to retain FT football on significantly reduced incomes?  Then you need to find innovative ways to make it work financially.  Following the QOS and Arbroath (okay, they're maybe not FT) remote training models is a way of doing it - although, if it was my club I'd prefer not to line the coffers of a rival club in the same league such as Kelty in the process.

Edit - I see that @Skyline Drifter (who is involved with the club at Palmerston) has clarified that the original reason for moving training to the central belt was more to do with the ability to attract FT central belt based players to sign for the club rather than purely saving on the costs associated with training (which are also a factor).

Edited May 24 by Otis Blue

[SandyCromarty]

2 minutes ago, MarkPockets said:

Inverness has grown significantly since that census and is much closer to 70-80k on its own. 

No one gets paid for playing shinty. Yes, plenty grown up playing both, but there is no potential Messi or Ronaldo that's turning down the opportunity at full time football to play shinty for their village (although they will still do it when possible)

The multi millionaire Bob McIntyre loves his shinty with Oban Camanachd and Oban Celtic.

[MarkPockets]

Just now, SandyCromarty said:

The multi millionaire Bob McIntyre loves his shinty with Oban Camanachd and Oban Celtic.

He does. But its not where he makes his money. Nor has it stopped him persuing his professional career in another sport

[Skyline Drifter]

3 minutes ago, MarkPockets said:

Inverness has grown significantly since that census and is much closer to 70-80k on its own. 

No one gets paid for playing shinty. Yes, plenty grown up playing both, but there is no potential Messi or Ronaldo that's turning down the opportunity at full time football to play shinty for their village (although they will still do it when possible)

No one gets paid to play rugby in this locality either but there is never the less a thriving rugby club on our doorstep who have youth sections taking kids away from football to an extent. Is the same not also true of schoolkids choosing between shinty and football in the Highlands? For that matter we also have an ice hockey side going very well at the moment and with a thriving youth section too. Our current best local young talent, Lewis Gibson, son of Wullie, played ice hockey at a national level up to the age of about 14 also before chucking it to concentrate on football. He might have decided the other way just as easily.

Take the point about populations (Dumfries will have grown too but not at the same rate) but my general point stands. The wider easy travel distance of Dumfries population is bigger than that around Inverness I suspect.

[PB1994]

45 minutes ago, Matty-RCFC said:

What actually is the benefit of staying FT for IC&T? Raith, Falkirk, Livi, Dunfermline and other nearby (lol) clubs will be able to offer better money, and also play at a higher standard. Think this move would make (the tiniest bit) more sense if they were to move into a PT model and we’re able to offer the best part time wages in the country in a more central location, but staying FT probably hinders them now. 

It actually would have made complete sense if we went part time as I couldn’t have seen many players willing to either travel up the A9 twice a week for training and then again for games or relocating and having to find a new job for what could only be a year contract. 

I am not buying the geographical reasons for this at all though. If Ferguson is in charge I’d bet 90% of our signings will come from England and in that case if they are willing to come up to Scotland going a bit further north makes f**k all difference. Plus you have the airport which flies to plenty of places in England to make it easy enough to get back home.

[MarkPockets]

2 minutes ago, Skyline Drifter said:

No one gets paid to play rugby in this locality either but there is never the less a thriving rugby club on our doorstep who have youth sections taking kids away from football to an extent. Is the same not also true of schoolkids choosing between shinty and football in the Highlands? For that matter we also have an ice hockey side going very well at the moment and with a thriving youth section too. Our current best local young talent, Lewis Gibson, son of Wullie, played ice hockey at a national level up to the age of about 14 also before chucking it to concentrate on football. He might have decided the other way just as easily.

Take the point about populations (Dumfries will have grown too but not at the same rate) but my general point stands. The wider easy travel distance of Dumfries population is bigger than that around Inverness I suspect.

No. Plenty children will play both right up to U17/18s. Any player that gets offered the chance at a professional contract that I know of (a handful from my age group) or a chance at full time football goes for it. Players will go back to it after retirement, Michael Fraser being the obvious example, but as I said, you can't just make a career playing shinty as it is entirely amateur so those that can make it as footballers do. 

[SandyCromarty]

5 minutes ago, PB1994 said:

It actually would have made complete sense if we went part time as I couldn’t have seen many players willing to either travel up the A9 twice a week for training and then again for games or relocating and having to find a new job for what could only be a year contract. 

I am not buying the geographical reasons for this at all though. If Ferguson is in charge I’d bet 90% of our signings will come from England and in that case if they are willing to come up to Scotland going a bit further north makes f**k all difference. Plus you have the airport which flies to plenty of places in England to make it easy enough to get back home.

Wee Willie Sunak made it up here yesterday no problem just to have a cuddle wi Uncle Roy and get Dross to lick his arse again.

[Skyline Drifter]

5 minutes ago, MarkPockets said:

No. Plenty children will play both right up to U17/18s. Any player that gets offered the chance at a professional contract that I know of (a handful from my age group) or a chance at full time football goes for it. Players will go back to it after retirement, Michael Fraser being the obvious example, but as I said, you can't just make a career playing shinty as it is entirely amateur so those that can make it as footballers do. 

Fair enough I retract the point then. It was a side note anyway.