"The ICT Thread - The Championship Years"

[TheScarf]

Folk on CTO asking why we can't 'emulate what St Johnstone have done' in the next few years.

Well for a start, they have some money in the bank due to the foresight of the Brown family in building a stadium and conference centre that local companies fall over each other to use every day of the fucking week, and all that money goes to St Johnstone.  Hence why they rarely lose any players, they can just offer their top players better deals to stay with them.  That's where their consistency and success comes from.

Plus, they don't have a club 15 mins away with a multi-millionaire offering them silly money to come and play for him.

St Johnstone are an anomaly in Scottish football, and a good one at that.

[PB1994]

39 minutes ago, TheScarf said:

Folk on CTO asking why we can't 'emulate what St Johnstone have done' in the next few years.

Well for a start, they have some money in the bank due to the foresight of the Brown family in building a stadium and conference centre that local companies fall over each other to use every day of the fucking week, and all that money goes to St Johnstone.  Hence why they rarely lose any players, they can just offer their top players better deals to stay with them.  That's where their consistency and success comes from.

Plus, they don't have a club 15 mins away with a multi-millionaire offering them silly money to come and play for him.

St Johnstone are an anomaly in Scottish football, and a good one at that.

We had our chance in the year or two after winning the Scottish Cup and we blew it. I should add, I’m not saying we could have been doing what St Johnstone have as everything you say is correct, but we had the perfect opportunity to really establish ourselves as a well run bottom half/mid table side that would occasionally have a good few seasons of being in the top 6 and a decent cup run.

Instead we made a complete mess of our contracts in the summer of 2015 and then inexplicably gave the job to Foran in 2016. That was when we were an attractive job opportunity and we just completely disregarded any sort of application process.

The size of club we are we are probably at our right level just now but once you get into the Premiership, or were already there, it is easy enough to establish yourself as a solid team with the extra income that comes in through TV money, away ticket sales and sponsorship.

[TheScarf]

3 minutes ago, PB1994 said:

We had our chance in the year or two after winning the Scottish Cup and we blew it. I should add, I’m not saying we could have been doing what St Johnstone have as everything you say is correct, but we had the perfect opportunity to really establish ourselves as a well run bottom half/mid table side that would occasionally have a good few seasons of being in the top 6 and a decent cup run.

Instead we made a complete mess of our contracts in the summer of 2015 and then inexplicably gave the job to Foran in 2016. That was when we were an attractive job opportunity and we just completely disregarded any sort of application process.

The size of club we are we are probably at our right level just now but once you get into the Premiership, or were already there, it is easy enough to establish yourself as a solid team with the extra income that comes in through TV money, away ticket sales and sponsorship.

Yep, appointing the zero experience of Foran killed us.  I was at that fateful Scottish Cup game in at Parkhead in February 2017 when he went 4-4-2 against the unbeatable Celtic and they took 6 off us on live TV.  He should've been sacked on the bus on the way home for that.

There's lots of examples from 2015-2017 where we could've done things better, but comparing ourselves to St Johnstone, or Ross County for that matter, is daft, as they're infrastructure is completely different from ours, and always will be unless we can market TCS as a fantastic conference facility for the Inverness companies or if a fan or board member wins the Euromillions. To see the comparison from some respected posters on CTO is surprising. 

[PB1994]

1 hour ago, TheScarf said:

Yep, appointing the zero experience of Foran killed us.  I was at that fateful Scottish Cup game in at Parkhead in February 2017 when he went 4-4-2 against the unbeatable Celtic and they took 6 off us on live TV.  He should've been sacked on the bus on the way home for that.

There's lots of examples from 2015-2017 where we could've done things better, but comparing ourselves to St Johnstone, or Ross County for that matter, is daft, as they're infrastructure is completely different from ours, and always will be unless we can market TCS as a fantastic conference facility for the Inverness companies or if a fan or board member wins the Euromillions. To see the comparison from some respected posters on CTO is surprising. 

When I win the euromillions I shall turn the fields between Caley Park and Longman Roundabout into a crematorium so we can finally emulate the success of the Perth Saints.

[TheScarf]

1 minute ago, PB1994 said:

When I win the euromillions I shall turn the fields between Caley Park and Longman Roundabout into a crematorium so we can finally emulate the success of the Perth Saints.

Make SSE move their building a mile to the east too, then we'll be rolling in it.  They give STJ a 6 figure sum every year for the use of McDiarmid apparently.

[PB1994]

1 minute ago, TheScarf said:

Make SSE move their building a mile to the east too, then we'll be rolling in it.  They give STJ a 6 figure sum every year for the use of McDiarmid apparently.

The old Courier Building is available

[RiG]

On 22/05/2021 at 10:56, Ludo*1 said:

Probably since it's a good listen.

Cheers @Ludo*1 appreciate that

1 hour ago, TheScarf said:

Yep, appointing the zero experience of Foran killed us.  I was at that fateful Scottish Cup game in at Parkhead in February 2017 when he went 4-4-2 against the unbeatable Celtic and they took 6 off us on live TV.  He should've been sacked on the bus on the way home for that.

Going to sound like a broken record here but he should have been canned a few weeks before that after Hamilton cuffed us at NDP at the end of January. All ifs and buts now however it's hard not to look back and think could the decision to appoint / stick with Foran be something that haunts us for many, many years to come.

And it's sad because it will, for a lot of people, undo the good work he did as a player for us.

Edited May 24, 2021 by RiG

[Central Belt Caley]

4 (technically 3 since Mackay is away) of our players selected for Scotland under-21s. First we’ve had since Christie or Polworth I think? 

[RiG]

I think even though he's done all the promo shots MacKay's registration remains with us until some time in June so let's stick with saying we have 4 players called up

We'll be getting a Colt team into the Lowland League at this point...

[Ott]

2 hours ago, RiG said:

I think even though he's done all the promo shots MacKay's registration remains with us until some time in June so let's stick with saying we have 4 players called up

We'll be getting a Colt team into the Lowland League at this point...

BBC website still mentioned the number of rangers players and the Spanish guy rather than mention anything remarkable about a championship team having 4 in the squad... fecking useless 

[PB1994]

6 minutes ago, Ott said:

BBC website still mentioned the number of rangers players and the Spanish guy rather than mention anything remarkable about a championship team having 4 in the squad... fecking useless 

Good. Don’t want any more attention on our young players for bigger teams to come up and have a look at them.

[frankthetank22]

It sounds like Billy Dodds is getting the job with you guys. What's the general opinion with that?

He's been a no.2 often enough but never heard of him pushing for a managers role before, obviously living locally is a bonus.

[Highland Capital]

12 minutes ago, frankthetank22 said:

It sounds like Billy Dodds is getting the job with you guys. What's the general opinion with that?

He's been a no.2 often enough but never heard of him pushing for a managers role before, obviously living locally is a bonus.

Underwhelmed.  No-one knows how good a manager he is in his own right so it could go either way but it's the Scot Gardiner way to make the easiest, most unimaginative, cliquey appointment possible.

Edited May 25, 2021 by Highland Capital

[TheScarf]

Looks like we’ve got our own Jobs for the Boys problem forming.

[Highland Capital]

5 minutes ago, TheScarf said:

Looks like we’ve got our own Jobs for the Boys problem forming.

Caley Thistle have always been that way (aside from in the Butcher years), but even then we seemed capable to making decent managerial appointments (aside from the return of Brewster and the appointment of Foran).  This will be the cliquiest of cliquey appointments and the longer this CEO is in the job the less enthused about the club I become.

Edited May 25, 2021 by Highland Capital

[TheScarf]

1 minute ago, Highland Capital said:

Caley Thistle have always been that way (aside from in the Butcher years), but even we seemed capable to making decent managerial appointments.  This will be the cliquiest of cliquey appointments and the longer this CEO is in the job the less enthused about the club I become.

Yeah, I mean he’s a good vechicle to troll Dundee fans, but he’s clearly a moron.

[Highland Capital]

1 minute ago, TheScarf said:

Yeah, I mean he’s a good vechicle to troll Dundee fans, but he’s clearly a moron.

I can exactly see why Hearts and Dundee fans can't stand him.  He might sound intelligent but there's absolutely no substance.  I'll be glad when he's gone.

[yoda]

Is Robertson not, essentially, still heavily involved in his new role? Or is the Sporting Director thing genuinely a step back from what happens on the pitch?

Regardless, ICT always seem to get lucky with appointments and players who look dreadful elsewhere (although I think Dodds was thought of highly at County). 

[sophia]

25 minutes ago, TheScarf said:

Yeah, I mean he’s a good vechicle to troll Dundee fans, but he’s clearly a moron.

He's clearly not as you describe.

Nobody that holds down such a job as he has can reasonably be described as such.

That the club has emerged from the huge financial hole it was in and were piloted through the pandemic as it has been surely deserves some credit does it not?

I've heard enough of Billy Dodds to be able to imagine him as a successful head coach. To forcefully suggest otherwise risks the ignominy of various posters on this board with a negative and all too common take on James McPake.

[RiG]

The Sun (yes I know) seem to be linking us with a move for Don Cowie which seems completely out of left field.

Edited May 25, 2021 by RiG