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

[ICTChris]

1 hour ago, virginton said:

But unless you inherently trust some other consortium to take over immediately, the crucial step that has to be in place is a supporters' organisation that has the credibility to make decisions, hold the club to account and get buy-in from the majority of the fanbase. If the Supporters' Trust or other body has been discredited by association with the current regime then it won't end well. 

I don’t think the Supporters Trust is particularly associated with the current board.  The issue has been that the Supporters Trust was kind of moribund, there didn’t seem much interest in it and membership wasn’t widespread.  In fact, Scott Gardiner said in the past that he didn’t bother to engage with the supporters trust because he didn’t see it as representative, although he has never really engaged with any fans and when he has he hasn’t taken anything on board.

In the last year or so the Trust has significantly grown through. The general descent of the club has increased their membership and made them a lot more relevant. I’m fairly sure that by the start of the new season the Trust will have more members than the club will sell season tickets.

The Trust also controls around 10% of the voting shares of the club. When Caledonian and Inverness Thistle voted to merge they were members clubs. The members clubs were also merged and given I think 60,000 shares in the new club, albeit a with a reduced voting category. These shares were passed to the Supporters Trust around ten years ago I think.

One issue about takeovers and administration is that the club isn’t owned by a single person or group. There are, I think, six or seven parties who own or control 10% or more of the shares, as well as thousands of individual shareholders. Quite a few of the major shareholders haven’t been able to work together in the past and are now getting pretty old and might not want to be as involved.

 

[SandyCromarty]

So the whole move is in the hands of Fife Council and as we know Councils are notoriously slow in approving projects, given that the FC have made it known that the pitch and car park are for community use I hopefully want FC to refuse ICT access.

However all Councils are financially strapped so they may approve but with restricted access.

 

Edited May 30 by SandyCromarty

[DonnieMurdo]

12 minutes ago, SandyCromarty said:

So the whole move is in the hands of Fife Council and as we know Councils are notoriously slow in approving projects, given that the FC have made it known that the pitch and car park are for community use I hopefully want FC to refuse ICT access.

However all Councils are financially strapped so they may approve but with restricted access.

 

Like you say hopefully all this Kelty nonsense gets blocked by Fife council and we can get back focused on training locally.

Speaking of which, having just driven past the IRA, they have broken ground and look like they are starting to set up site for the new training facility there.

Does anyone know much about it, would it be suitable for first team training or is it being built solely for the women's team and youth academy?

 

Plus who is funding this project???

[PB1994]

47 minutes ago, DonnieMurdo said:

Like you say hopefully all this Kelty nonsense gets blocked by Fife council and we can get back focused on training locally.

Speaking of which, having just driven past the IRA, they have broken ground and look like they are starting to set up site for the new training facility there.

Does anyone know much about it, would it be suitable for first team training or is it being built solely for the women's team and youth academy?

 

Plus who is funding this project???

It is supposed to be for the youth and woman’s teams but they won’t be using it during the day through the week so if the facilities were good no reason the first team couldn’t use it.

Pretty sure it’s mostly funded by grants.

[1320Lichtie]

Started listening to the latest Wyness Shuffle with the chairman and nearly finding myself screaming into a pillow so I’ve no idea how you lads are coping.
 

He’s havering absolute pish. It’s genuinely impressive. He’s like Dick Campbell on steroids. 

[RiG]

As mentioned above there is another pod out which includes an interview with the Chairman Ross Morrison. The guys weren't able to speak to Ross for long but you can still listen to what they were able to ask him if you click on the links in the Tweet below:

 

[welshbairn]

He was going to a board meeting straight after. Don't know when the podcast was recorded but could be club statement soon.

[bdu98196]

1 hour ago, DonnieMurdo said:

 

Speaking of which, having just driven past the IRA, they have broken ground and look like they are starting to set up site for the new training facility there.

Does anyone know much about it, would it be suitable for first team training

maybe Scot doesnt like this idea due to his affiliations

[PB1994]

1 minute ago, welshbairn said:

He was going to a board meeting straight after. Don't know when the podcast was recorded but could be club statement soon.

It was recorded on Wednesday so I would expect something to be released soon.

[ICTChris]

Just now, welshbairn said:

He was going to a board meeting straight after. Don't know when the podcast was recorded but could be club statement soon.

Podcast was recorded yesterday I think.  They were discussing the Supporters Trust meeting as happening "last night" and that was on Tuesday night.

I've just listened to most of it and he sounds like he's floundering a bit.  He doesn't really respond to some of the questions and criticisms.

One thing I do think that he (kind of) says is that if people really do have investment ready to go but want Morrison or Scott Gardiner removed, they need to come up with it now and say - "this is what we have, this is what we can do".  All the smoke and mirrors between these factions needs to stop.

[ICTChris]

3 minutes ago, bdu98196 said:

maybe Scot doesnt like this idea due to his affiliations

As a former member of the IRA I resent these remarks.  The IRA is a fine institution and I'm proud to be an old boy (of the brigade as I believe the song goes).

[cal234ey]

Fair play to the podcast guys who I think have been very measured with their questions (only part way through). I've just reached the point where Morrison says that Ferguson isn't being paid by a director. Hiring him was a bad enough decision, albeit with some redemption that money wasn't coming directly out of the club to pay him but apparently that is now not the case? Fucking hell.

[RiG]

The podcast was recorded yesterday evening

[welshbairn]

Thought it was quite funny Morrison seemingly blaming the Courier for putting the Kelty deal in jeopardy by asking Fife Council if they knew anything about Kelty hiring their facilities out to an Inverness team.

[DonnieMurdo]

Two of my biggest takeaways from the podcast are  that (a) Ferguson is definitely staying on next season, and (b) He's  away down  to Liverpool with the begging bowl to Everton's new investors?

Fair play to Morrison for going on the shuffle and speaking to the boys. He does sound exasperated with it all though.

[Oats]

Just now, DonnieMurdo said:

Two of my biggest takeaways from the podcast are  that (a) Ferguson is definitely staying on next season, and (b) He's  away down  to Liverpool with the begging bowl to Everton's new investors?

Fair play to Morrison for going on the shuffle and speaking to the boys. He does sound exasperated with it all though.

Everton havent got new investors 

the 777 deal will fall on its arse tomorrow , Everton are in a worse state than ICT with over £500 million owed to various parties 

[Spyro]

57 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

He was going to a board meeting straight after. Don't know when the podcast was recorded but could be club statement soon.

A local newspaper doing actual journalism! No wonder he's raging, he probably assumes they should be glad of any scraps he give them and to get in their box... 

Fair play to the guy (Will Clark?) for putting his neck on the line and actually doing more investigating and due diligence than the entire ICT board combined

[DonnieMurdo]

5 minutes ago, Oats said:

Everton havent got new investors 

the 777 deal will fall on its arse tomorrow , Everton are in a worse state than ICT with over £500 million owed to various parties 

They must have staged a lot of concerts to owe that much money..

[ICTChris]

The Everton FC model of financial stability

[Arjy]

Very good podcast from the guys once again. Very much appreciated them turning up the heat on Morrison towards the end and is what is needed for some form of accountability from the club.

 

The main thing for me is Morrison bleating about all these costs and saving money. While I agree it must be incredibly tough to make these decisions and money must be saved,  why will making these cuts matter when these morons will end up spaffing it away on the likes of 

 

1 - Offering a 2 year deal to Billy Dodds  and having to pay him off after 6 games, especially when most people could see he was on the downturn

2 - Offering John Robertson to be DoF (or whatever his role actually was) just to then stick him on gardening leave up until this summer

3 - Launching a concert company to bring in acts that have dwindling relevance and fanbases just for it to fold at the cost of local businesses that could be potential investors/sponsors/partners in the future

4 - Scot Gardiner's wage

5 - A high value, long-term contract to a manager that had nothing short of a horrendous record at their previous club and not having the foresight to include a relegation release clause - I don't care if he's taken a reduction, he'll still be on a pretty penny to play turgid football

6 - Investing in our own gym just to leave it to gather dust

7 - Scot Gardiner's wage

 

There's plenty other issues that I can't remember right now but ultimately there is no point in making these cost cutting measures when the board and Scot have the decision making capabilities of a tribe of chimps . Get them all to f**k.