Club histories

Inverness Caledonian Thistle

Also written as Inverness, Inverness CT.

The club

Inverness Caledonian Thistle were formed in July 1994 by the merger of Caledonian and Inverness Thistle, both founded in 1885, specifically to take a place in the restructured Scottish Football League. They play at the Caledonian Stadium, completed in November 1996 and expanded in 2005 to meet SPL requirements, capacity 7,512 all seated. The club are Caley Thistle or the Caley Jags, and style themselves the Pride of the Highlands. The home strip is red and blue vertical stripes. Alan Savage is chairman and owner.

Recent seasons

Inverness spent the early part of this run as an established Championship side: fifth in 2020/21, fourth in 2021/22, when they lost the Premiership play-off final 6-2 on aggregate to St Johnstone, and sixth in 2022/23, the season they reached the Scottish Cup final. Relegation to League One followed in 2023/24 after a play-off defeat.

Then came the worst period in the club's short history. Inverness entered administration on 22 October 2024, the first SPFL-era club to do so, and were immediately deducted 15 points. They still finished seventh in League One in 2024/25. Alan Savage acquired 100 per cent ownership in April 2025 and the club formally exited administration in June 2025, but a further five-point deduction carried into 2025/26 as a consequence.

That season they won the division anyway. Under Scott Kellacher, Inverness took 69 points from 36 games after the deduction, with 21 wins, 11 draws and only 4 defeats, scoring 60 and conceding 24. The title was clinched on 2 May 2026 with a 2-1 home win over Hamilton Academical, the first League One championship in the club's history, two points clear of Stenhousemuir. Chanka Zimba was top league scorer with 11; Alfie Bavidge scored 20 in all competitions. They reached the Challenge Cup final and lost it 4-1 to Raith Rovers at Firhill on 5 April 2026 in front of 4,812. They went out of the League Cup at the group stage, third in their group with six points, and out of the Scottish Cup in the fourth round, beaten 4-2 on penalties by The Spartans on 17 January 2026.

Honours and landmarks

Inverness won the Scottish Cup in 2015, beating Falkirk in the final, and were runners-up in 2023, losing 3-1 to Celtic. They were League Cup runners-up in 2014, losing to Aberdeen on penalties. They won the First Division in 2003/04 and 2009/10 and League One in 2025/26. The Challenge Cup has been won twice, in 1983/84 and 2017/18; the 2019/20 competition was declared shared with Raith Rovers when the pandemic curtailed it.

The best league finish is third in the Premiership in 2014/15, which brought European football, a 2015/16 Europa League tie lost to Astra Giurgiu. On 8 December 2012 the club stood second in the SPL, the highest position it has ever held. They have been relegated from the top flight twice, in 2009 and 2017.

Record attendance is 9,530 on 16 October 2004, set at Pittodrie while ground-sharing with Aberdeen during their first SPL season; the record at the Caledonian Stadium is 7,512 against Rangers in the SPL on 6 August 2005, a 1-0 defeat. Iain Stewart in 1996/97 and Denis Wyness in 2002/03 each scored 27 league goals in a season; Wyness scored 118 league goals across two spells. Ross Tokely made 490 league appearances between 1995 and 2012. Record fee received is £400,000 for Marius Niculae to Dinamo Bucharest in July 2000; record fee paid is £65,000 to Ross County for John Rankin in July 2006.

Notable scorelines

Record win: 8-1 against Annan Athletic in the Scottish Cup third round on 24 January 1998. Record defeat: 0-6, suffered three times, against Airdrieonians in September 2000, Celtic in the League Cup in September 2010 and Celtic in the Premiership in April 2014. The match the club is known for outside the Highlands is the Scottish Cup third round of February 2000, a 3-1 win at Celtic Park that produced the headline "Super Caley Go Ballistic Celtic Are Atrocious", now framed at the stadium.

Head-to-head notes

Inverness do not publish all-time head-to-head records. Raith Rovers do publish them on their own match pages, but those pages returned a 403 to automated fetching, so the Raith figure is not established here. No published all-time record was found for any 2026/27 Championship opponent: Arbroath, Ayr United, Dunfermline Athletic, Greenock Morton, Livingston, Partick Thistle, Queen's Park, Raith Rovers or Stenhousemuir. What can be stated from sources: Raith beat Inverness 4-1 in the Challenge Cup final at Firhill on 5 April 2026; Stenhousemuir finished two points behind Inverness in League One last season, both promoted; and in the League Cup group stage on the way into this season Inverness beat Greenock Morton 1-0.

Right now (2026/27)

Scott Kellacher remains manager, having taken the club from administration to the League One title. The summer recruitment was entirely free transfers. Defender Graeme Shinnie joined from Aberdeen on 26 June, midfielder Liam Sole from Livingston on 9 June, defender Noa Boutin from Bournemouth on 16 June, midfielder Ryan Duncan from Aberdeen on 3 July and forward Hamzad Kargbo from Maidstone United on 4 July. Defender Ross Millen left when his contract expired on 31 May and joined Raith Rovers; midfielder Jake Davidson and forward Chanka Zimba were released.

Inverness won Premier Sports Cup Group F with 11 points from four games, scoring five and conceding one: 1-1 with East Fife with the shootout won, 1-0 against St Johnstone, 2-0 against Linlithgow Rose and 1-0 against Greenock Morton. The second round draw was made on 26 July 2026 and sent them to Tynecastle to play Heart of Midlothian on 16 August 2026. The Championship season starts at home to Dunfermline Athletic on 1 August 2026, with Arbroath away on 8 August, Partick Thistle at home on 21 August and Stenhousemuir away on 29 August.

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverness_Caledonian_Thistle_F.C. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025%E2%80%9326_Inverness_Caledonian_Thistle_F.C._season https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026%E2%80%9327_Inverness_Caledonian_Thistle_F.C._season https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025%E2%80%9326_Scottish_League_One https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026%E2%80%9327_Scottish_Championship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026%E2%80%9327_Scottish_League_Cup https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026%E2%80%9327_Heart_of_Midlothian_F.C._season https://www.stevesfootballstats.uk/inverness_caledonian_thistle_club_record.html

Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.