- Caledonian Stadium
Infobox_Stadium
stadium_name = Caledonian Stadium
nickname =
location =Inverness ,Scotland
broke_ground =
opened =1996
awards =
closed =
demolished =
owner =Inverness Caledonian Thistle F.C.
operator =
surface = Grass
construction_cost =
architect =
former_names =
tenants =Inverness Caledonian Thistle F.C.
(Scottish Premier League )
seating_capacity = 7,711The Caledonian Stadium, currently known as the Tulloch Caledonian Stadium for sponsorship reasons is a football stadium situated in the Longman area ofInverness ,Scotland . The stadium plays host to the home matches ofScottish Premier League teamInverness Caledonian Thistle .The club was formed in 1994 by the merging of two Highland Football League clubs,
Caledonian F.C. andInverness Thistle F.C. Originally, Caley Thistle (as Inverness Caledonian Thistle are also known) played their home matches at Telford Street Park. However, one of the conditions of their acceptance into theScottish Football League was that they would move to a newly-built ground in within their first few seasons. Constructions on the ground begun in1995 and in November1996 , the ground hosted its first SFL match: a 1-1 draw between Caley Thistle and Albion Rovers.When the club won the First Division in
2004 , they faced a problem in that the Caledonian Stadium did not meet the SPL's rules on stadium criteria. As a result, the club groundshared with Aberdeen atPittodrie for the first half of the2004 -05 season, while redevelopment works were carried out at the Caledonian Stadium.The redevelopment included the construction of two new stands at either end of the ground, which made the stadium all-seater and increased its capacity to over 7,500. These stands were built in a remarkable 47 days by the
Tulloch Construction Company who are also the club's biggest shareholder. As Tulloch also paid part of the development cost, the stadium had the Tulloch name added to it on completion of the work.The club recently added a very small stand, opposite the club's Main Stand called "the West Stand." With a capacity of around 400, the stand is the smallest free-standing football stand in the Scottish Premier League. There are plans to build a full scale west-stand which would look very much like that of the Main Stand though a gas pipe in the area may cause a problem. If a full scale west stand was added to would take the capacity of the ground to around 10,000 seats. There may also be plans in the future to join the Main Stand with the North Stand to give the ground an even larger capacity.
Record attendance
*7,753 set on
20 January ,2008 , Inverness CT 0 Rangers 1 [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/scot_prem/7194829.stm Inverness CT 3-1 Rangers] BBC Sport, 20 January 2008]References
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