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Fort William 2021-22 Thread


Aqy

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The 9 players they have brought in from ICT are literally just kids that will all likely end up in the Highland League by next season or the year after anyway. Only one of them (Jack Brown) has made an appearance. It’s not as if they’ve brought in a load of proven players at a much higher level. They’ve brought in the core of a team that won the Scottish second-tier Under-18 league last season. ICT kept all the youth players that actually have a realistic chance of making it.

 

As for Clach, not surprised they’re bottom of the league. Nabbing some players on the cheap from Uni teams was never going to cut it.

 

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24 minutes ago, Tarmo Kink said:

The 9 players they have brought in from ICT are literally just kids that will all likely end up in the Highland League by next season or the year after anyway. Only one of them (Jack Brown) has made an appearance. It’s not as if they’ve brought in a load of proven players at a much higher level. They’ve brought in the core of a team that won the Scottish second-tier Under-18 league last season. ICT kept all the youth players that actually have a realistic chance of making it.

 

As for Clach, not surprised they’re bottom of the league. Nabbing some players on the cheap from Uni teams was never going to cut it.

 

That's exactly it.  The 'Fort 9' are highly unlikely to ever play for the ICT first team.  The 4 that played for us against Morton on Saturday are head and shoulders above the ones at Fort (from the 3 youth games I was at last season).  

Some folk on here seen to think they've taken our substitutes on loan.

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It doesn't matter if they never play for ICT, they were brought in because Fort clearly believe they are better than what they had before. If they can't manage a few wins against the strugglers at the bottom with this lot then the whole thing would be rather pointless. 

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It doesn't matter if they never play for ICT, they were brought in because Fort clearly believe they are better than what they had before. If they can't manage a few wins against the strugglers at the bottom with this lot then the whole thing would be rather pointless. 


They’ll obviously help Fort in terms of numbers but there’s nothing to suggest Fort should be having some sort of surge up the table like some seem to think should be happening. They haven’t done a Kelty/Brora and offered big wages to some SPFL players. A few wins against the strugglers, as you say, should be the aim, and they look to be fairly on course for that. They’ve got better fixtures over the next couple of months with Vale (of Leithen), Deveronvale, Turriff, Lossie and Huntly. The game against Wick at home was called off recently which may have been a chance for them.

The reason this all happened was because Fort had basically no players, and ICT wanted to give their youngsters first team experience as they have no reserve team.
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The biggest advantage these players offer Fort is that they’re fit and available. Doesn’t matter if they’re good or not. Fort went through north of 50 players last season. Boys showed up, played, disappeared, never seen again. Loads of players on single digit (sometimes solitary) appearance numbers. Just allowing Fort to be able to function as a club is probably worth a few points on its own.

 

Getting more games played in midweek should be their next aim.

 

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Certainly not expecting a surge up the table, but neither do I think anybody should be doing cartwheels because they beat Clach 1-0. Fort being shite for years doesn't mean they are above reasonable scrutiny! And from the point of view of the boys on loan they need to be winning games, the whole reason they have been sent there is sink or swim. 

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1 hour ago, Jimmy Shaker said:

I’ll cartwheel my ass all the way from Merkinch to Inverurie if Lossie beat Clach in Inverness ever again.

Last win - January 2005, and it’s not like Clach have been much kop in most of those seasons since.

Are you trying to entice Rab B Nesbitt onto here? (And, no, I will not tag him in, I made that mistake before.)

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4 hours ago, Toby said:

There’s been a seven goal margin, four six goal margins,  five five goal margins and four four goal margins in the first few weeks of the season.

I won’t pretend to be an expert on the Highland League, but the last two Saturdays I was at Strathspey v Lossiemouth and saw the second half of Clach v Buckie after we were told we weren’t getting into Caley Thistle v Morton.

The first game was a walk in the park for Strathspey- I’d argue Lossiemouth were the worst senior team I’ve ever seen in 30 odd years of watching football. Clach weren’t much better against a Buckie team that didn’t get out of second gear. To suggest they played well against Buckie is really pushing it, unless I missed a brilliant first half performance that mustered nothing.

Fort William taking on a group of boys en masse after whoring themselves out to the media for being sh*te, getting a bit of publicity and scraping a 1-0 win over another rancid team who haven’t been so fortunate to be viewed as enough of a comedy club to garner sympathy and media focus hardly constitutes “getting their house in order”.

Do you need a snickers? Reducing our goals against significantly and a good cup run shows improvement. I was gauging the Clach performance on the highlights,  why didn’t you get into the Caley / Morton game? Was it you’re sunny disposition?

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20 minutes ago, Woody from Fort William said:

Do you need a snickers? Reducing our goals against significantly and a good cup run shows improvement. I was gauging the Clach performance on the highlights,  why didn’t you get into the Caley / Morton game? Was it you’re sunny disposition?

I didn’t say you haven’t improved. It’s the least I’d expect when you bring in 9 players from a club at a much higher level, youth players or not.

I’m disputing your point that there aren’t any easy games in the Highland League anymore by giving you some statistics that prove otherwise and some (admittedly limited) first hand experiences which also dispute this.

You appear to have a problem with criticism of your club and their methods, why is that?

I’ve seen it plenty of times before when teams have been monumentally sh*te and attracted media attention- East Stirling in the mid-2000s being the obvious example. If it were my club, I’d be uneasy about marketing them on that basis, and being in the front of the queue for a minibus load of a bigger club’s kids when there are other makeweights in the League such as Strathspey, Lossiemouth and  Clach that don’t appear to be in such a privileged position.

What Fort William are doing isn’t breaking any rules, so it’s up to them if they want to do that. But that doesn’t mean that everyone’s going to be applauding them for their efforts in improving whilst others haven’t quite garnered the same attention because they weren’t quite as sh*te as them.

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3 hours ago, Waspie said:

Certainly not expecting a surge up the table, but neither do I think anybody should be doing cartwheels because they beat Clach 1-0. Fort being shite for years doesn't mean they are above reasonable scrutiny! And from the point of view of the boys on loan they need to be winning games, the whole reason they have been sent there is sink or swim. 

True, and it was by no means convincing but there is obvious relief about getting the first league win.  Also true that the Loanees are In the shop window, still celebrating though.

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8 minutes ago, Toby said:

I didn’t say you haven’t improved. It’s the least I’d expect when you bring in 9 players from a club at a much higher level, youth players or not.

I’m disputing your point that there aren’t any easy games in the Highland League anymore by giving you some statistics that prove otherwise and some (admittedly limited) first hand experiences which also dispute this.

You appear to have a problem with criticism of your club and their methods, why is that?

I’ve seen it plenty of times before when teams have been monumentally sh*te and attracted media attention- East Stirling in the mid-2000s being the obvious example. If it were my club, I’d be uneasy about marketing them on that basis, and being in the front of the queue for a minibus load of a bigger club’s kids when there are other makeweights in the League such as Strathspey, Lossiemouth and  Clach that don’t appear to be in such a privileged position.

What Fort William are doing isn’t breaking any rules, so it’s up to them if they want to do that. But that doesn’t mean that everyone’s going to be applauding them for their efforts in improving whilst others haven’t quite garnered the same attention because they weren’t quite as sh*te as them.

I was just matching your tone, you make a good point regarding other clubs being in the same position. I think the difference is that we had already hit rock bottom.

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If it were my club, I’d be uneasy about marketing them on that basis, and being in the front of the queue for a minibus load of a bigger club’s kids when there are other makeweights in the League such as Strathspey, Lossiemouth and  Clach that don’t appear to be in such a privileged position.


I’m happy my club is nowhere near a position to get involved in this kind of thing.
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