"The ICT Thread - The Championship Years"

[ATLIS]

32 minutes ago, SandyCromarty said:

As I've said on another thread Robertson should be given no more than three games to bring positive results, if not he should be fired, 4 out of a possible 18 points is a feckin joke from a full time team with only one win against a part time team who probably all train together twice a week if that.

Being full time is hardly anything to shout about in this league, more impactful would be saying you have one of the biggest budgets in the league but invested poorly?

One thing I don't get from teams coming down from the Premiership is that they always neglect to sign anyone from the Championship or below. It's always a group of foreign players who know nothing about what is Scotland's most competitive league.

We signed Mullin from Albion Rovers, Robinson from East Fife, Halkett from Rangers (), Lithgow and Cadden came from Airdrie along with Byrne coming from Dunfermline. There's a lot of talent that can be put into teams from Championship/League 1 but it's always overlooked and teams end up fighting a relegation battle.

We even signed, perhaps our best player the last few seasons, Pittman from the juniors and put him right into the first team

I just hope you guys find yourselves a Jack Ross, he did brilliant at St Mirren

Edited September 17, 2017 by ATLIS

[Silverton End]

1 hour ago, SandyCromarty said:

The Rock Dome??

I thought the stadium was called BOGHEAD?

Boghead is no more.

It's the Your Radio 103FM Stadium.

[RiG]

ICT fans on CTO clamouring for the return of John Hughes. Jesus wept.

[Highland Capital]

To be fair it's Wynthank and Caley boy.  The usual morons.

[RiG]

6 hours ago, Highland Capital said:

To be fair it's Wynthank and Caley boy.  The usual morons.

I don't think I've ever seen them posting anything apart from slagging off Foran and praising Hughes.

[SandyCromarty]

Talk of other managers coming in is a wee bit premature, like I say what we need right now is Robertson to halt the slide within three games, if not and the board don't act then it would be up to us to do something along the lines of boycotting games for instance, a bit harsh I know but none of us want a repeat of last season where we all stood by meekly and accepted the shite that was going on.

 

[ICTJohnboy]

12 hours ago, RiG said:

ICT fans on CTO clamouring for the return of John Hughes. Jesus wept.

I thought you were a mod on that site? Can't you just ban the c***s?

You can't exactly blame them all the same - it's not difficult to make a connection between Hughes's departure and the club's subsequent demise, and this demise hasn't even finished yet. 

And think about it, if Hughes did come back (unlikely) you wouldn't need to change that #hughesout tag  on your posts.   

[PRS]

If ICT were relegated at the end of this season, would they be financially able to stay a full time club?

 

[RiG]

2 hours ago, ICTJohnboy said:

I thought you were a mod on that site? Can't you just ban the c***s?

You can't exactly blame them all the same - it's not difficult to make a connection between Hughes's departure and the club's subsequent demise, and this demise hasn't even finished yet. 

And think about it, if Hughes did come back (unlikely) you wouldn't need to change that #hughesout tag  on your posts.   

Obviously we've been on a downward slope since Hughes left but I would say it started when he had to bring in his own players. He landed on his feet with us taking over a smashing side but once he had a rebuilding job on his hands he faltered badly (much like at Raith last season). He's a great coach but to be a great manager you also need to have some nous in the transfer market as well and Hughes simply doesn't. 

24 minutes ago, PRS said:

If ICT were relegated at the end of this season, would they be financially able to stay a full time club?

There are a few rumours going around that if the club doesn't win promotion to the Premiership by next season at the latest we are financially fucked.

[Dunning1874]

It says a lot about Robertson that Hughes would probably be an improvement. Clearly a terrible idea though.

John Hughes is a great option when you're looking for a manager to take over a good squad which has been getting good results and continue that, but a disastrous option when you need someone to grind out results with a shit squad then rebuild. It's incredible that anyone could look at his spell at Raith then think he'd be a good idea for ICT just now.

[RiG]

1 minute ago, Dunning1874 said:

It says a lot about Robertson that Hughes would probably be an improvement. Clearly a terrible idea though.

John Hughes is a great option when you're looking for a manager to take over a good squad which has been getting good results and continue that, but a disastrous option when you need someone to grind out results with a shit squad then rebuild. It's incredible that anyone could look at his spell at Raith then think he'd be a good idea for ICT just now.

Absolutely agree. His time at ICT will mostly be fondly remembered but I think a few fans forget just how turgid it got in his final season. He simply wasn't up to the task of replacing players like Mckay and Watkins. Dani Lopez and about 700 central midfielders were his main transfer dealings and all were rotten.

[ICTChris]

Robertson isn't going to be sacked, as RiG said, he's tight with the people who are probably going to be running the club.

I don't know if other fanbases are the same but our fans seem to constantly and continually look backwards and want people to be brought back - bring back Hughes, bring back Butcher.  What we need to do is work out a medium to long term strategy to build a team to challenge for promotion again.  We don't really have any sort of signing strategy and haven't since Butcher left.  Hughes had an excellent squad when he came in, and he was also able to introduce Ryan Christie into the team.  When the likes of Shinnie, Christie, Watkins etc left we signed dross to replace them (Dani Lopez, Ryan Williams, Nat Wedderburn, although he's turned into a good player for the Pars) and that continued under Foran.  We don't have an idea of the sort of player we want, we don't have a plan to identify good value players, we just flail about signing anyone who is available, which means you get ultra-raw 19 year olds or journeyman dross.  That's the sort of players we have now.

The other issue is that we aren't at all attractive for any player at the moment, we are so poorly organised and run that no-one with any other option is going to want to sign for us.  We  were turned down by several Highland League players in the summer for that reason.  Off the pitch it could be that what's happening now is going to put us in a better position for the future, with big costs being reduced and new investors and board members coming in, but we need to focus on the present as well.  Currently we probably have the worst team we've had in two decades, one of our worst teams ever and we are in real danger of relegation.

[Highland Capital]

5 hours ago, RiG said:

I don't think I've ever seen them posting anything apart from slagging off Foran and praising Hughes.

And now the old 'Latapy made a difference' garbage.  Latapy didn't use to turn up if it was raining!

[Bring Back Paddy Flannery]

The other issue is that we aren't at all attractive for any player at the moment, we are so poorly organised and run that no-one with any other option is going to want to sign for us.  We  were turned down by several Highland League players in the summer for that reason.  

That's absolutely astounding.

Who turned you down and how much are they earning in the Highland League? Is it a case of part-time Highland League football + a full time wage from a decent job is more than they would earn from yourselves? Or did they genuinely just not fancy it?

[Highland Capital]

1 hour ago, ICTChris said:

I don't know if other fanbases are the same but our fans seem to constantly and continually look backwards and want people to be brought back - bring back Hughes, bring back Butcher.

This is something that drives me nuts.  Prior to Robbo's appointment, we interviewed Maurice Malpas, Paul Sheerin as well as some rumours of Terry Butcher.  Why are we always looking backwards?  And who next?  Ross Tokely?  Steve Paterson?  Sergei Baltacha?!  Just because someone did a decent job the first time doesn't mean they'll replecate it again, as we saw in the not-so-glorious return of Craig Brewster.

We never seem to be able to get over things.  You're supposed to go forward in life and this pre-season was a great chance to bring someone new in with an entirely new approach and entirely new ideas.  I wasn't too keen on Danny Lennon, but I think I'd have taken him over the incumbent - I'd have also been keen on bringing in a foreign manager, with an entirely new approach and different background.  

[ICTChris]

3 minutes ago, Bring Back Paddy Flannery said:

That's absolutely astounding.

Who turned you down and how much are they earning in the Highland League? Is it a case of part-time Highland League football + a full time wage from a decent job is more than they would earn from yourselves? Or did they genuinely just not fancy it?
 

 

I'm maybe over-selling it a little bit when I say they turned us down.

We wanted Blair Yule to come on trial for us with a view to him signing but he turned us down to sign for Arbroath.  He said that he wanted to stay part-time because he has a job outside of football and didn't want to risk it to go on trial with us as we'd changed our manager etc.  If we'd had a settled situation I think he'd probably have signed for us.

We then took Kevin Fraser on trial from Buckie and wanted to sign him but couldn't agree a fee and ended up getting into a public argument with them over what we expected.  Fraser has since signed a new deal with Buckie.  An utter joke of a situation, handled extremely poorly by the club and manager.

[Highland Capital]

9 minutes ago, Bring Back Paddy Flannery said:

 

That's absolutely astounding.

Who turned you down and how much are they earning in the Highland League? Is it a case of part-time Highland League football + a full time wage from a decent job is more than they would earn from yourselves? Or did they genuinely just not fancy it?
 

 

Blair Yule from Cove Rangers was offered a deal but turned it down to stay at his out-of-football job and signed to play part-time with Arbroath.  We also had the Buckie Thistle captain and our former player Kevin Fraser on trial but the club weren't willing to pay a fee - despite him being contracted and one of the best players in the Highland League (and the club seemed genuinely surprised that Buckie wouldn't let him join for nowt).  We had the Fort William striker Scott Davidson on trial but he got injured against Forres and didn't look that good anyway - he's since joined Rothes.

Robbo seemed to allude to others as well and there were League 1 and 2 players who turned us down also (Brian Cameron from Elgin couldn't get the time off work to come in on trial apparently).  Sad!

Edit - I see ICTChris got in there first.  Oh well.

Edited September 18, 2017 by Highland Capital

[ICTJohnboy]

26 minutes ago, Highland Capital said:

This is something that drives me nuts.  Prior to Robbo's appointment, we interviewed Maurice Malpas, Paul Sheerin as well as some rumours of Terry Butcher.  Why are we always looking backwards?  And who next?  Ross Tokely?  Steve Paterson?  Sergei Baltacha?!  Just because someone did a decent job the first time doesn't mean they'll replecate it again, as we saw in the not-so-glorious return of Craig Brewster.

We never seem to be able to get over things.  You're supposed to go forward in life and this pre-season was a great chance to bring someone new in with an entirely new approach and entirely new ideas.  I wasn't too keen on Danny Lennon, but I think I'd have taken him over the incumbent - I'd have also been keen on bringing in a foreign manager, with an entirely new approach and different background.  

 

I agree with a lot of that.....BUT...

You could do worse than consider the Butcher effect.  That trio they had in there of Butcher himself, with Maplas and Marsella, complemented each other perfectly. Butcher was like a figurehead, Malpas did most of the coaching, and Marsella,  a GK coach who was also party to a fantastic scouting network which really brought in an incredible array of talent. Butcher and Marsella fed so much bullshit to so many of these signings like telling them they'd be on TV every other week, playing the likes of Rangers and Celtic - what better opportunity could you have of getting yourself in a shop window ?

If you think back to the days when Graeme Souness was appointed player/manager at Ibrox his first signing was TB. This was closely followed by almost half the England  squad which included Chris Woods, Gary Stevens, Trevor Francis, Ray Wilkins, Paul Gascoine and many more. The thinking amongst these guys was that if it was good enough for Butcher and Souness, it would be good enough for us. The fact that English clubs were barred from Europe at that time obviously helped a  lot .

A similar effect kicked in when Butcher took the reins at ICTFC, plus I have it on good authority that thanks to Butcher and Steve Marsella, a lot of the guys they signed thought that Inverness was in the heart of the central belt!

It's far from easy to see how anyone can come in now and attempt to turn this sorry mess around.

[SandyCromarty]

According to the BBC another board member has resigned, David Cameron posted his intention on the 7th of Sept, I think that's four board resignations now and three chairmen in as many months.

Just checked the club's official site and there's no mention of it.

Just what the feck is going on.

Edited September 18, 2017 by SandyCromarty
addition

[SandyCromarty]

12 minutes ago, ICTJohnboy said:

 

I agree with a lot of that.....BUT...

You could do worse than consider the Butcher effect.  That trio they had in there of Butcher himself, with Maplas and Marsella, complemented each other perfectly. Butcher was like a figurehead, Malpas did most of the coaching, and Marsella,  a GK coach who was also party to a fantastic scouting network which really brought in an incredible array of talent. Butcher and Marsella fed so much bullshit to so many of these signings like telling them they'd be on TV every other week, playing the likes of Rangers and Celtic - what better opportunity could you have of getting yourself in a shop window ?

If you think back to the days when Graeme Souness was appointed player/manager at Ibrox his first signing was TB. This was closely followed by almost half the England  squad which included Chris Woods, Gary Stevens, Trevor Francis, Ray Wilkins, Paul Gascoine and many more. The thinking amongst these guys was that if it was good enough for Butcher and Souness, it would be good enough for us. The fact that English clubs were barred from Europe at that time obviously helped a  lot .

A similar effect kicked in when Butcher took the reins at ICTFC, plus I have it on good authority that thanks to Butcher and Steve Marsella, a lot of the guys they signed thought that Inverness was in the heart of the central belt!

It's far from easy to see how anyone can come in now and attempt to turn this sorry mess around.

The Chuckle Brothers might be an option going forward. 

Could be that Savage has a connection with them also.

Edited September 18, 2017 by SandyCromarty
addition