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"The ICT Thread - The Championship Years"


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On 15/09/2019 at 22:45, Highland Capital said:

The south stand (even if there's barely any of you) after some pansies in the Main Stand wet the bed over having Morton fans in it a few weeks ago.

I remember when we just had the main stand and during the match Airdrie fans started battering feck out of each other, it lightened up a dreary game on the park.

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Put up or shut up perhaps?

In any case, full time football is clearly unsustainable in Inverness and the best we can hope for is a return to pre merger times when players were well respected for holding down jobs such as labourers or working for the council, training a couple of nights a week, doing their best on Saturdays and bonding over a few pints afterwards.

Clubs and players should look and learn from shinty where hardy and local participants kindly get the afternoon off from their country estate or agricultural jobs to strive to do their best for the reward of district pride.

 

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13 hours ago, sophia said:

In any case, full time football is clearly unsustainable in Inverness

In the current format, yes. With the lack of footfall and inability of the club to attract new fans no matter how successful it is then the cloth has to be cut accordingly. However, it does not eliminate the questions that need asked as to why or what the various PR & communications employees at the club have ever brought to the role and why it seems to be incapable of having a decent social media presence when everyone understands that is the direction for marketing.

The continual process of signing senior or experienced players is not sustainable (even if introducing wage bill cuts) - while I like all fans are happy to watch guys like Storey, Keatings, Todorov etc - this summer my expectation was the youngsters would have filled the team (they are now all out at FW) - regardless of whether deemed ready or not. As a club our youth development is horrific with only players given a real chance already had the football family names and many others who could have done a job were dumped in favour or outside options.

It can only be assumed this season is a 'final throw of the dice' going for promotion as financially the future looks bleak and its hard to see how the current squad can be considered economically viable to keep together. No point begging for investors, reality is that the baseline is the business needs to be self sustainable with any investments seen as a bonus and spent accordingly rather than as an expectation.

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Not to drag over old coals here, but I'm starting to wonder in years to come if the decision (or non-decision) not to sack Foran after that Hamilton debacle could be the most defining moment in the club's history.

Edited by Highland Capital
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13 minutes ago, Highland Capital said:

Not to drag over old coals here, but I'm starting to wonder in years to come if the decision (or non-decision) not to sack Foran after that Hamilton debacle could be the most defining moment in the club's history.

It absolutely is.

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3 hours ago, Highland Capital said:

Not to drag over old coals here, but I'm starting to wonder in years to come if the decision (or non-decision) not to sack Foran after that Hamilton debacle could be the most defining moment in the club's history.

20/20 hindsight allow for a volte-face.

Yogi Hughes criticised the concept of Foran as a manager and I put that down to grapes so sour.

It appears that he was more focused on the truth of the matter, in this instance at least, than both board and fans.

I wouldn't be too harsh on Foran as who wouldn't take the opportunity?

I think we need to go further back than Hamilton and raise our gaze upwards

 

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A lot of comes down to the utter fraud of a human being that is Kenny Cameron. I heard some bad stuff about him and was critical of him back in the day when all of our happy clapper fans were hailing him as a hero. He tried to tell John Hughes that he couldn’t release a player, refused to increase his budget (which is up to him I guess), but then gave Foran “our biggest ever budget” and let him spunk it on dross like Doumbouya and Dean Ebbe, and gave out some ridiculous financially irresponsbile conracts to diddies like Fôn Williams and Mulraney. Lets not forget Foran was given a 3-year deal as well, with no previous coaching experience. Kenny Cameron killed our football club, and then cried down a microphone and resigned when we got relegated.

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5 hours ago, Snafu said:

Looks like we have to go up this season or else.

Shame if it does with Robbo building up a team on a restricted budget that can eventually bring us back where we belong in the top flight. Eventually is not soon enough now, the club is running out of time and it has to be this season. Worst case could be a complete clear out and having to look for a new manager next summer.

However I'm an optimist, we will go up this season. :)

In what way do you belong in the top flight?

Thank you. 

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I was always of the opinion that I didn't have a problem with Foran taking over...but not straight away.  Why we didn't just make him assistant and then groom him as the man to replace the man who replaced Hughes would surely have made more sense.  The club were still at a decent level at that time so surely would've had no shortage of applicants.  Even if Foran had left the club and managed a lower league or even a Highland League team would've at least given him some experience before taking over with us.

We were all desperate for him to succeed and I can *kind of* understand why they were willing to take a chance on him.  As mentioned, the club were in a decent state at the time, he had experienced coaches round him in Kellacher, Rice and Shearer and there wasn't really a huge overhaul of the team needed.  He did have some bad luck - Boden turned out to be garbage, King wasn't anywhere near as good as we were expecting and McNaughton got crocked early on, but that's not the reason we went down.  Tactically he was very naive, apparently his training was a debacle and most of his signings were rubbish (I don't think I've seen a player playing for us with less skill than Henri Anier).  The freezing out of Fisher was probably pitoval - he was our best striker by miles yet they fell out for some reason and Foran stopped playing him.  

Would we have stayed up had we bitten the bullet and sacked him after the Hamilton game?  Maybe not, but considering we went down by one point and that was without playing our best striker for big parts of the season, it seems likely we would've at least scraped by.  Perhaps had we stayed up, we'd have sorted things out and get back being competitive in the top flight the next season, but we'll never know.  That decision (or non-decision) not to sack him could set the club back for decades...and maybe forever.

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For me it goes back to the chairman refusing Yogi to speak to United. We’ve been seen as a soft touch in the past and this was his attempt to show a bit of strength, which in hindsight was a real howler. We wouldn’t have ended up with Foran if Yogi had gone right at the start of the carry on.

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At the time we were delighted that Yogi was staying but in hindsight we should've let him go.  Hughes was never going to replicate the season before so the only way really was downwards.  Our stock as a club was still high at the time and we'd have had no shortage of good applicants.  

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To be honest, even with Kenny Cameron being an absolute penis, it was right for Hughes to go at the time he did. The 2015/16 was a bit of a hangover of the cup win and we’d lost plenty of top players and replaced them with some shite. I think the 2016/17 season was destined to be a bit shit, whether Yogi, Foran or anyone else was in charge. I just wish we’d given Foran a coaching role instead of appointing him straight away.

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16 hours ago, sophia said:

20/20 hindsight allow for a volte-face.

I wouldn't be too harsh on Foran as who wouldn't take the opportunity?

 

You're right but obviously our downfall was the four year contract which gave Foran a mental cushion, in that financially he was in a safe place, a wiser board would have probably given him until January in a contract addendum though up front it would have have shown as a year contract.

Anyway correct me if I'm wrong here but maybe some of the fault lies with us as I recall it wan't until April/May that I started to hear loud protests at the stadium and then it was only at that last game that there was a pitch invasion and shouts of sack the board.

Anyway it's sour pish down the sewer and is what it is.

Edited by SandyCromarty
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