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

[TheScarf]

Some of our fans on CTO seem genuinely shocked that Cammy Harper is leaving . It’s possibly the most obvious ‘he’s clearly away at the end of the season’ in the clubs history. Some of these people live in a different universe, honest to fuck.

[DonnieMurdo]

Last nights meeting was top story on radio scotland sport this morning.

The chair of the travel club ( Rosemary?) was on with Phil Goodlad. 

She spoke very well, and is boycotting the season ticket.

[SandyCromarty]

I think Morrison is more concerned with getting some of his money back than worrying over what he probably sees as "Background Noise" going on at the moment, so administration might suit him.

Ironic though when he described Gardiner as "Loyal".

It suggests that the words Staunch and Loyal are in every day use between them.

[SandyCromarty]

So now we are all in agreement of an ST ban which will mean administration as the fans now preferred outcome.

With that we will surely get rid of the Dross which has dragged the club down with concert and battery farm fiascos and make a fresh start with a new Board.

 

[SandyCromarty]

1 hour ago, Doc Holiday said:

To play devils advocate, do they not have a valid point in the fact there is a shortage of accomidation for rental ? where have current players been staying ? in hotels etc ?

Good point, accommodation costs were never mentioned previously but only came to the fore after the concert and battery farm failures.

[PB1994]

9 hours ago, BucksburnDandy said:

It's a shite situation for fans of Caley. Boycotting the club in this scenario is what I would personally do however I wonder if the trust can approach Savage and MacGillivray (spelling probably crap here, sorry) to come up with an overarching strategy to get rid of the current board.

The trust have already tried to get in touch with all major shareholders, don’t think they got much of a response but it was agreed last night they will be trying everything they can to get a face to face meeting organised with all in attendance.

[PB1994]

1 hour ago, Doc Holiday said:

To play devils advocate, do they not have a valid point in the fact there is a shortage of accomidation for rental ? where have current players been staying ? in hotels etc ?

We own some houses/flats and also have some rentals that the players use.

A good point that was made last night, that I had never thought of, is that we are still going to need to pay for players accommodation. We signed loads of players in January from England. We will need to be paying for somewhere for them to stay.

[welshbairn]

1 hour ago, Doc Holiday said:

To play devils advocate, do they not have a valid point in the fact there is a shortage of accomidation for rental ? where have current players been staying ? in hotels etc ?

AirBnb has taken a lot of rentals off the market, but for most of the year chalet parks are underbooked, I think Big Dunc was put up in one. A few miles outside Inverness and the prices start falling too. With the connection the Club has with building firms you would have thought they could have set aside a few new builds on a medium term basis. With Kelty an easy commute to Edinburgh I bet it's no cheaper down there.

Edited May 29 by welshbairn

[DA Baracus]

Administration isn't some easy process that allows you to easily wipe out debts then quickly move on. It could mean the end of your club.

It will also mean a hefty points deduction.

[RiG]

Yeah I think that some fans see admin as an easy fix to cure our problems but it would be a massive risk. Although the person that was speaking about last night seems clued up on financial matters so perhaps they are of the opinion it's inevitable so just get it over with rather than prolong the agony and uncertainty.

How this club went from being 3rd in the Premiership and Scottish Cup winners to this basket case in under 10 years I'll never understand.

[DonnieMurdo]

14 minutes ago, DA Baracus said:

Administration isn't some easy process that allows you to easily wipe out debts then quickly move on. It could mean the end of your club.

It will also mean a hefty points deduction.

This.

It would  seem like a case of cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Yes the current leadership group needs gone, but at what cost?  Not by willingly putting our club into administration.

 

Let's be careful what we wish for.

[SandyCromarty]

Club	Entered administration	Exited administration	League(s)	Deduction(s) and/or other sanctions
Queen's Park	10 January 2000[188]	3 April 2000[189]	Third Division	None
Greenock Morton	15 December 2000[190]	8 August 2001[191]	First Division	None
Clydebank	23 December 2000[192]	9 July 2002 Became Airdrie United[193]	Second Division	None
Airdrieonians		21 May 2002 Dissolved[194]	First Division	None
Motherwell	24 April 2002[195]	20 April 2004[196]	SPL	None
Dundee	25 November 2003[197]	6 August 2004[198]	SPL	None
Livingston	3 February 2004[199]	13 May 2005[200]	SPL	None
Gretna	10 March 2008[201]	8 August 2008 Dissolved[202]	SPL	−10 pts[2] Demoted to Third Division[203]
Livingston	24 July 2009[204]	13 August 2009[205]	First Division	Demoted to Third Division[206]
Dundee	14 October 2010[207]	12 May 2011[208]	First Division	−25 pts[209]
Rangers	14 February 2012[178]	14 June 2012[210] (old company in liquidation)[211]	SPL	−10 pts[212]  After the business and assets of Rangers were sold to a new company,[210] the SPL member clubs refused an application for the Rangers SPL membership share to also be transferred to the new Rangers company.[213] Rangers were instead accepted into the Third Division (fourth tier) for the 2012–13 season.[214]
Dunfermline Athletic	27 March 2013[215]	13 December 2013[216]	First Division	−15 pts[217]
Heart of Midlothian	19 June 2013[218]	11 June 2014[219]	SPL	−15 pts[21

[PB1994]

31 minutes ago, DA Baracus said:

Administration isn't some easy process that allows you to easily wipe out debts then quickly move on. It could mean the end of your club.

It will also mean a hefty points deduction.

Yeap. I couldn’t believe the majority of people seemed to be for it.

At the start of the meeting it was mentioned how much of a disgrace the concert fiasco was and how loads of local businesses were left out of pocket and by then end they all seemed to think we now need to do the same with the football club.

[HoBNob]

13 hours ago, Buzz Killington said:

"if players don't want to live in Inverness to play for ICT we don't want them to play for us" is met with a round of applause from the room.  

 

13 hours ago, Buzz Killington said:

 

"I'd rather the club play part time local lads than this" is met with applause 

 

Bit of devil's advocate, but this is birthday card/Facebook pish. If the went down the route of playing part time local lads who only want to play for Inverness the goodwill would last about 3 games into the new season after you've just been scudded by Kelty and Annan. 

From the outside, the team training away from the town isn't exactly outrageous, multiple other sides do it already with Queen of the South probably the most similar in that they're a bit out the way, on low crowds trying to sustain full time football. 

So what is it you want to achieve with the boycott? Is it for the team to train in Inverness, but then Gardiner and the chairman remains? Or full on regime change, however if a new board comes in and communicates that training at another location could save so many hundreds of thousands a year and have you back challenging for the Championship would that be acceptable? 

[Savage Henry]

I get the club hasn’t got the best of finances, but where has this talk of administration come from?  As far as I understand it, there is some hefty financial backing which at least alleviates some of the financial strains.  Duncan Ferguson isn’t even being paid by the club - a fact of which Gardiner seems strangely proud.

 

Anyway, we have our monthly works trip to the stadium on Friday and it hasn’t been cancelled yet.   In fairness to Gardiner, he usually attends and is very open about goings on.   

[staggy4life]

2 minutes ago, Savage Henry said:

Anyway, we have our monthly works trip to the stadium on Friday and it hasn’t been cancelled yet.   In fairness to Gardiner, he usually attends and is very open about goings on.   

The accounts are due out on Friday (after a 3 month delay) so that'll be fun.

[Savage Henry]

2 minutes ago, HoBNob said:

 

Bit of devil's advocate, but this is birthday card/Facebook pish. If the went down the route of playing part time local lads who only want to play for Inverness the goodwill would last about 3 games into the new season after you've just been scudded by Kelty and Annan. 

From the outside, the team training away from the town isn't exactly outrageous, multiple other sides do it already with Queen of the South probably the most similar in that they're a bit out the way, on low crowds trying to sustain full time football. 

So what is it you want to achieve with the boycott? Is it for the team to train in Inverness, but then Gardiner and the chairman remains? Or full on regime change, however if a new board comes in and communicates that training at another location could save so many hundreds of thousands a year and have you back challenging for the Championship would that be acceptable? 

It’s a false dichotomy, certainly.  There’s a hangover at County - and you’re seeing it with Cowie - whereby the “local” players get an easier time of things.  The call used to be “get the local lads on”, essentially because they care more, or that was the thinking I suppose.

 

At the same time, it seems self evident that a football club is part of the local community and having the players living and working on a daily basis in  that community is common sense.   ICT are, currently, as a club, absolutely terrible at community engagement, whereas the team across the Kessock bridge are somewhat better.   
 

A final point, being in the third division isn’t that bad.   It’s quite a laugh, and in some respects a lot more fun than VAR and the Daily Record and Thursday kick offs and the arse cheeks and all that comes with top flight football.

[welshbairn]

Hopefully Caley will get an invite to enter the Fife Cup.

[HoBNob]

5 minutes ago, Savage Henry said:

.   

 

A final point, being in the third division isn’t that bad.   It’s quite a laugh, and in some respects a lot more fun than VAR and the Daily Record and Thursday kick offs and the arse cheeks and all that comes with top flight football.

It really isn't. It's absolutely pish. 

[ICTChris]

1 minute ago, HoBNob said:

 

Bit of devil's advocate, but this is birthday card/Facebook pish. If the went down the route of playing part time local lads who only want to play for Inverness the goodwill would last about 3 games into the new season after you've just been scudded by Kelty and Annan. 

From the outside, the team training away from the town isn't exactly outrageous, multiple other sides do it already with Queen of the South probably the most similar in that they're a bit out the way, on low crowds trying to sustain full time football. 

So what is it you want to achieve with the boycott? Is it for the team to train in Inverness, but then Gardiner and the chairman remains? Or full on regime change, however if a new board comes in and communicates that training at another location could save so many hundreds of thousands a year and have you back challenging for the Championship would that be acceptable? 

They aren't talking about training in a better facility 50 miles away, they are moving the entire footballing operations of the club to Kelty, 135 miles away.  The club will effectively show up in Inverness twice a month for matches.  The justification is very wooly in that the board have said they'll save £200,000 or maybe £300,000 on accomodation but we'll also have to pay Kelty £100,000.  The idea that there's absolutely no alternative to doing this, absolutely nothing else is possible just isn't credible.

The other issue is that Ross Morrison and Scott Gardiner have failed repeatedly in every sense during their time at the club.  We make massive financial losses, we have just been relegated to the lowest level we've been at for 25 years.  They've put forward various schemes to improve things, all have failed - the battery farm, the concert company.  

I think when people say that they'd like young lads to play, what they mean isn't that we just make the youth team the first team.  The model of having some experienced players, like those we have under contract for next season, and adding in players from the academy seems more of a sustainable model than what we are doing.