"The ICT Thread - The Championship Years"

[TheScarf]

Some 2nd hand info from the fans forum last night;

• Polworth will have to take a pay cut to stay on next season.
• Mulraney's contract from the old board was mental, apparently if we didn't get rid of him, he had a clause in his contract where his wages would double.
• Contract's handed out by the previous board had some mental clauses in them in general.
• The 'Bank of Dingwall' gave us 100k for Draper.
• We were in for strikers who are currently playing in the Championship, wages agreed but agents scuppered the deals wanting their 10%.
• We offered one particular player £600 a week but was told United 'offered double'.
• Extremely hard to attract established players, we had to approach young, single players with no central belt ties.  Hence Rooney, Walsh, Chalmers.
• We are 6/10 in terms of first team budget.  Those with a bigger one are United, County, Partick, Falkirk and Dunfermline.
• We can never get the Highland Football Academy as County block book it whether they use it or not.
• Robbo is against using Hearts youth players on loan as they probably won't be better than we have and if we did use them, it would piss off the signed players.  Plus is is extremely excited about Danny McKay and Roddy MacGregor.

Not an awful lot we probably couldn't tell or guess already.  Horrifying stories about contracts and clauses.

 

 

 

[Highland Capital]

1 hour ago, RiG said:

Rumours abound that Polworth has turned down the offer of a new deal and is "considering his options". I'm sure unlike Tansey, Meekings, Shinnie and all the others before him who have said this same thing he will definitely sign a new contract...

Apparently at the start of last season he was very frustrated not to get a move to the Premiership.  Hamilton and Motherwell were interested seemingly.

[RiG]

8 minutes ago, TheScarf said:

Some 2nd hand info from the fans forum last night;

• Polworth will have to take a pay cut to stay on next season.
• Mulraney's contract from the old board was mental, apparently if we didn't get rid of him, he had a clause in his contract where his wages would double.
• Contract's handed out by the previous board had some mental clauses in them in general.
• The 'Bank of Dingwall' gave us 100k for Draper.
• We were in for strikers who are currently playing in the Championship, wages agreed but agents scuppered the deals wanting their 10%.
• We offered one particular player £600 a week but was told United 'offered double'.
• Extremely hard to attract established players, we had to approach young, single players with no central belt ties.  Hence Rooney, Walsh, Chalmers.
• We are 6/10 in terms of first team budget.  Those with a bigger one are United, County, Partick, Falkirk and Dunfermline.
• We can never get the Highland Football Academy as County block book it whether they use it or not.
• Robbo is against using Hearts youth players on loan as they probably won't be better than we have and if we did use them, it would piss off the signed players.  Plus is is extremely excited about Danny McKay and Roddy MacGregor.

Not an awful lot we probably couldn't tell or guess already.  Horrifying stories about contracts and clauses.

Makes you wonder who was negotiating those contracts when we were in the top flight. Doubling Mulraneys wages?!  f**k off. For a guy who demanded he was subbed because he was too cold as well.

[TheScarf]

Fucking mental.

[Highland Capital]

The strange thing is though is prior to that point, the club ran an extremely tight ship.  Marley Watkins was on about £400 a week.  Gary Warren and Danny Williams were part time.  Graeme Shinnie left Aberdeen for £2k a week.

Yet after the cup win, we seemed to go mad.  The £2k we couldn't offer to Shinnie, was given to garbage like Boden.  Owain Fon Williams was (is?!) on £2k a week with a 2k appearance fee (!!!).  Madness.

[RiG]

6 minutes ago, Tarmo Kink said:

Did they shed any light on which shoe Calder used in the assault?

 

Calder lied to the club about how serious the incident was that he was involved in and had tried to downplay it. When the club learned of how serious it was from the news stories after his trial he was instantly canned (as we know).

[yoda]

12 minutes ago, Highland Capital said:

Yet after the cup win, we seemed to go mad.  The £2k we couldn't offer to Shinnie, was given to garbage like Boden.  Owain Fon Williams was (is?!) on £2k a week with a 2k appearance fee (!!!).  Madness.

At least County were pumping silly money out on someone we can look back on a laugh at ever signing in the first place, like David N'Gog. Not Owain Fon-Williams.

I suspect that the striker who ended up at United was Craig Curran. 

[TheScarf]

17 minutes ago, Tarmo Kink said:

 

Wouldn’t blame Polworth if he wanted to leave to a Premiership side. Easily good enough for a bottom six Premiership side, maybe higher. The treatment of him by some of our fans has been disgraceful. I suspect he’ll be off anyway if he has to take a paycut.

Mental about Mulraney that, absolutely useless play and glad he’s fucked off now. Not surprised about us being below those 5 sides in terms of budget. I think we’ve always been a bit of an unattractive first choice option but I suspect it’s even worse now that we’re a low-paying second-tier side. We seem to mainly sign players that have been ‘duds’ elsewhere.

Did they shed any light on which shoe Calder used in the assault?

 

Again, it was only a 2nd hand account from my brother who was there.  He didn't mention Calder.

16 minutes ago, Highland Capital said:

The strange thing is though is prior to that point, the club ran an extremely tight ship.  Marley Watkins was on about £400 a week.  Gary Warren and Danny Williams were part time.  Graeme Shinnie left Aberdeen for £2k a week.

Yet after the cup win, we seemed to go mad.  The £2k we couldn't offer to Shinnie, was given to garbage like Boden.  Owain Fon Williams was (is?!) on £2k a week with a 2k appearance fee (!!!).  Madness.

Fon Williams is our currently highest paid player and he's away in January so good news on that front.

2 minutes ago, yoda said:

At least County were pumping silly money out on someone we can look back on a laugh at ever signing in the first place, like David N'Gog. Not Owain Fon-Williams.

I suspect that the striker who ended up at United was Craig Curran. 

That's exactly who I was thinking it was

[RiG]

Unless the United mentioned refers to Ayr United because we did make an offer for Shankland which Ayr then bettered.

[Highland Capital]

Sounds like very few folk turned up at the ICT Together Forever Supporter's Trust the other night.  I suspect that's because it basically serves no purpose anymore.

[TheScarf]

Yep, people just want to see a winning team on the park.  Most aren't interested in supporters clubs or trusts.

Another point Robbo made last night was on the crowd against Edinburgh City.  He said he expected and understood it as any ICT fan under the age of 25, will only really know us as an SPL club.  And naturally as the team and club regress, they won't be happy and won't come along.  We've been spoiled up until now basically.

[RiG]

Imagine where we might be if Cameron has been ruthless and sacked Foran after the Accies debacle? I'm not saying we'd be winning the league but surely we wouldn't be in this mess...

[Highland Capital]

20 minutes ago, TheScarf said:

Yep, people just want to see a winning team on the park.  Most aren't interested in supporters clubs or trusts.

Another point Robbo made last night was on the crowd against Edinburgh City.  He said he expected and understood it as any ICT fan under the age of 25, will only really know us as an SPL club.  And naturally as the team and club regress, they won't be happy and won't come along.  We've been spoiled up until now basically.

It's not just younger fans.  The attitude after that cup win was awful.  Remaining in the Premiership was one thing but there seemed to be some who expected us to be top six and challenging for Europe and cups every year.  It was never going to be sustainable.  

[TheScarf]

We were the victims of our own success.  That team we had from 2012-2015 will probably never be bettered.  And Aberdeen were always going to come in for our players, and us not replace them with the same quality.

[Savage Henry]

3 hours ago, TheScarf said:

Some 2nd hand info from the fans forum last night;

• Polworth will have to take a pay cut to stay on next season.
• Mulraney's contract from the old board was mental, apparently if we didn't get rid of him, he had a clause in his contract where his wages would double.
• Contract's handed out by the previous board had some mental clauses in them in general.
• The 'Bank of Dingwall' gave us 100k for Draper.
• We were in for strikers who are currently playing in the Championship, wages agreed but agents scuppered the deals wanting their 10%.
• We offered one particular player £600 a week but was told United 'offered double'.
• Extremely hard to attract established players, we had to approach young, single players with no central belt ties.  Hence Rooney, Walsh, Chalmers.
• We are 6/10 in terms of first team budget.  Those with a bigger one are United, County, Partick, Falkirk and Dunfermline.
• We can never get the Highland Football Academy as County block book it whether they use it or not.
• Robbo is against using Hearts youth players on loan as they probably won't be better than we have and if we did use them, it would piss off the signed players.  Plus is is extremely excited about Danny McKay and Roddy MacGregor.

Not an awful lot we probably couldn't tell or guess already.  Horrifying stories about contracts and clauses.

 

 

 

If that's all true, there's some incompetence to the point of criminal negligence.  Some of it sounds like excuses, though.

Also, I'm not having that about the HFA.  It's quite possible for the general public to book it, so I'm not quite sure why Inverness can't book it in advance.

[Lochwood]

Hi guys, for those of youse able to travel tonight and want a refreshment

Hawkhill bowling club Hawkhill avenue open from 5-30 pm

50yards from the ground and  the car park can take a supporters bus no problem If there early enough

all the best

[TheScarf]

1 hour ago, Savage Henry said:

Also, I'm not having that about the HFA.  It's quite possible for the general public to book it, so I'm not quite sure why Inverness can't book it in advance.

On a Sunday afternoon, maybe.

[Highland Capital]

Liam Polworth might be heading over the bridge apparently.

[CaleyStan]

That would be so shit.

[UpInTheAyr]

If that United player was Shankland then I guess that's where your manager got that "some players at Ayr are on a grand a week" line. Although it'd still be very surprising if we're paying him anything like that, never mind £1200.