Finally, the new season is upon us. The first 2 competitive games of the year are over and now the League campaign is ready to begin.

Alba Challenge Cup v Montrose:

The Alba Challenge Cup is a comptition for all League teams outside the SPL. So if you happen to get relegated it is a cold reminder that you are no longer among Scotlands Elite.

I however was optimistic as I went into the stadium hoping for a comfortable win to put any dissapointment from last season behind us. At half time it was going fairly well. We were 1-0 up thanks to an own goal. It looked much better than it really was. We had no real chances and could not string more than 2 passes together. In the second half it got even worse. Long balls were the order of the day which is not the best tactic to employ when you have no target man and then in the last 10 minutes Montrose took their one and only chance of the match to level the scores and send the game to extra time. Extra was still very dissapointing but we started to create a few chances and even hit the post. However that was still not enough and the game went to a penalty shootout. Fully deserved for Montrose as Caley were not at the races.

The penalty shoot-out went to plan with Inverness converting all of their penalties will Ryan Esson (Inverness Goalkeeper) saving one of the Montrose penalties to send us through to the second round to face Stranraer

Despite going through it was not enough to stop the fans showing their disapointment and it was looking very bleak for the start of the league campaign never mind the League Cup next week against Annan Athletic.

Co-op League Cup v Annan Athletic:

After last weeks poor performance we were still expecting a win but we just wanted to see an improvement. The first 45 minutes were a bit better but still not brilliant. Inverness went in at the break 1-0 up after Adam Rooney headed in from 6 yards. It was better than against Montrose but still nothing to get excited about. Terry Butcher (ICT Manager) must have felt the same way as the team came out with renewed energy and thankfully we managed to pretty much turn the match into a training game - Attacking v Defending. The attacking put their chances away and the game finished 4-0. Robert Eagle, Dougie Imrie and Dani Sanchez completing the rout. I very promising performance and all is looking well for the next game against Dunfirmline at East End Park

This is were the real stuff starts as we finally get to start our assault on the SFL and get back to the SPL.

Details will come up next week about the game and just general details

Throughout this week I will get you all updated on the players, staff etc

Thanks for reading and feel free to leave comments on how I can improve this and what you want me to include in the review of the matches