‘I saw this coming… I took an instant dislike to him’ – How Scot Gardiner’s talk of scrapping the Caley Thistle youth academy had Inverness club legend Ross Tokely fearing for the future four years before administration struck
Caley Thistle legend Ross Tokely first feared the club he loves was heading for disastrous “mismanagement” four years ago - as boardroom talk turned to scrapping the youth academy.
The Caley Jags stalwart, who made 593 appearances under five managers in 16 years, will never forget the day ex-CEO Scot Gardiner revealed he and directors were considering the cost-cutting move.
Tokely, who left the club as a player in 2012, returned to the Caledonian Stadium as under 16s coach in June 2018.
Gardiner arrived in April 2019 against an already challenging financial backdrop.
By July 2020, he was declaring that “cold, hard decisions” were needed to stabilise club finances.
Tokely says it was only when head of youth Charlie Christie pushed the idea of a £40 per month charge for parents that the threat to the youth academy receded.
But the Caley Jags record-breaker was by now convinced that the club could be heading down a worrying path.
He saw links between the club and community severing, the basics falling away, while focus turned to live concerts and other grand schemes to raise blockbuster sums of cash.
The Inverness youth system had produced talent including future Scotland stars Graeme Shinnie and Ryan Christie, the latter bringing a reputed seven-figure cash injection with sale to Celtic.
Other academy graduates like Cammy Harper, Roddy MacGregor and Dan MacKay were nurtured to play for Scotland under 21s before landing moves south.
Many generations of Highlanders had missed out on a local pathway to senior football but now ICT had come close to closing off theirs.
Tokely, still absorbing bitter news of administration this week, is above all heartbroken for staff and friends at the club who could lose their jobs.
It began on Wednesday afternoon with confirmation that Everton legend Duncan Ferguson had been axed from the manager’s post along with backroom staff Gary Bollan and Stuart Garden.
The insolvency firm BDO UK, which handled Glasgow Rangers’ liquidation in October 2012, will address the media on Thursday in the Caledonian Stadium boardroom, but the immediate future is grim.
A 15-point deduction as punishment for insolvency threatens a return to Scotland’s fourth tier for the first time since Tokely helped Steve Paterson’s flamboyant side win the old Thirds Division in 1996–97.
Tokely, who would like to see club advisor Alan Savage lead the club forwards after administration, said: “I’m not blaming one person. I think everyone on that board over the last five or six years has to take responsibility.
“Even Scott Young and Grassa (Graeme Bennett), everyone has to take responsibility over how they have let it get into the state it is in.
“I’m not clued up on every detail, but I’ve watched a lot, listened a lot and read a lot, and for a club that won the Scottish Cup and was in a Scottish Cup final a year or two back, and had a good record of selling players, it is just incredible, beyond belief.
“In my work away from football, I’ve got a boss managing me and I manage people as well.
“If I’m not doing my job, I expect my boss to have an influence on me, making sure I’ve got targets to keep, KPIs (key performance indicators).
“People might laugh at me, but I saw this coming as soon as Scot Gardiner came in, a guy with just no connection with the club.
“He was talking about getting rid of the youth set-up and, if it wasn’t for Charlie (Christie) and a few others fighting to keep it in place, it could be gone.
“As soon as the £40 a month was coming in for each young player, he changed his tune a bit.
“I took an instant dislike to him. I spoke to him, but (he was) not for me.”
Tokely saw plenty in the club’s direction that worried him, with concerns cemented by the youth academy experience.
He said: “It was worrying when I heard this guy speak. He hadn’t been there for that long, either, and there were alarm bells for me.
“I had heard other things that concerned me, people involved in the game talking about how he had been at past clubs.
“Charlie was full-time there, unlike me, and put the plan to Scot Gardiner for players’ families to contribute.
“Charlie reasoned that he had to contribute for his own daughter at some other sport and thought ‘why not?’
“It had been done in the past and it kind of gave a lifeline to the youth academy.”
Tokely believes the right people remain at the club to guide it forward.
But given how he lived through the entire, hard fought and won process of establishing the club in the Scottish leagues and then rising up through the ranks to First Division glory in May 2004, he knows it will be a lengthy, difficult road back.
A composed powerhouse in central defence and a marauding force of nature as an attacking full-back, few gave more than Tokely to the cause through the years and decades.
Having marvelled at how high the club climbed, he is startled and distraught at how quickly it has unravelled.
He said: “I think about all the great effort and dedication that went into lifting the club up through the leagues, with literally hundreds of committed people involved in getting Caley Thistle to where it was.
“I’m not just talking about players on the park, but a lot of good people who have worked tirelessly for the club behind the scenes
“I look back at the players involved and Inverness has had a major positive effect on just about everyone who played for them. The majority have left with good memories of Inverness.
“A lot of work went into it over the years to get the club up the leagues, to a Scottish Cup win, Europe, and to really put Inverness on the map in a sporting sense.
“It is crushing for the fans who have supported the club so loyally.
“I see them - and they’re hurting.
“All they want is a football club to represent them. They’re not getting that. They’re not getting the enjoyment from it over the last five or six years.
“The club has disengaged from the community, we can see that. Attendances have suffered. The connection between them and businesses and the community has been broken.
“It is going to take a lot of work to fix that. I just can’t believe it has been allowed to happen.”
Tokely knows Caley Thistle’s past success was built on a culture of hard work and spirit of defiance.
The teams he played for were full of players written off and rejected, who used ICT as a springboard to prove people wrong.
Barry Robson, later the scorer of a Champions League goal against Barcelona, was plucked off the scrapheap by Steve Paterson. Many others experienced similar career rejuvenation.
Tokely added: “It is tough for past players, but what is really tough for me to contemplate is the fate of the other staff.
“There are a lot of good people down there who are good at their jobs and have been there a good many years.
“It is not just them losing their jobs, they are losing something they have enjoyed that is a huge part of their lives, through no fault of their own.
“The club has not been run properly. It has been mis-managed by a number of people.
“It is not just one person’s responsibility, but it affects so many people.”
