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NAME: Caledonian Stadium
ADDRESS: East Longman, Inverness, IV1 1FF
CAPACITY: Approx. 6,700.
CELTIC ALLOCATION: Approx 2,000 – The South Stand. Access from the away car park.
RECORD VICTORY: Celtic 5, Caley Thistle 0, 15 September 2007
RECORD DEFEAT: Celtic 1, Caley Thistle 3, 8 February 2000
DIRECTIONS
BY CAR: Possibly the easiest stadium in Scotland to find, follow the A9 to Inverness and take a right off Longman Roundabout there. The Stadium sits next to the Moray Firth in front of you! If you hit the Kessnock Bridge you've gone too far!
BY BUS: The bus station is about a mile into Inverness along Longman Road (aka the A82 – now you know why they call it the GREAT Western Road…) Supporters buses can park in the away car park, which is off the same exit of the A9 as the cars would take. The Megabus company runs a service to Inverness which is fairly regular, it'll even get you there from Glasgow in time for a half past twelve kick off on a Sunday. Timetable
BY TRAIN: The train station is next to the bus station. There are taxi ranks that can get you to the stadium from there should you wish. Timetable The train coming back after the match is subject to an alcohol ban enforced rigidly by the Police. Inverness has far and away the worst train service of any away ground in Scotland. The trains are few and they don't run very early in the day.
PARKING: The away car park should be open to both buses and cars.
WHAT TO EXPECT
Shiny new stands. Caley Thistle have just done up the stadium to bring it up to SPL standard. A new stand behind each goal mouth and undersoil heating has been added. Unfortunately, guess what happens when you heat snow…
A wait to get in. These shiny new stands have one major downfall. There's only four turnstyles (two each side) to get the whole capacity (that's 2000 people) into their seats. Shocking when its five minutes to kick off!
A bit of a walk into town. Caledonian Stadium lies outside the rest of Inverness.
A dodgy road up. The A9 is sometimes closed to traffic due to severe weather.
Although it sits next to the Moray Firth, the wind isn't QUITE as bad as it can be in Aberdeen!
SAD TRIVIA
Celtic have only visited Caledonian Stadium on one previous occasion. A Scottish Cup game in season 2002/03 saw the home team win 1-0, just days after Celtic had succeeded in beating Liverpool in the UEFA Cup on their way to the final in Seville! As such, Caley Thistle actually have the best record against Celtic in the Scottish Cup of any team in Scotland – 100% success!
Celtic first visit to the stadium for the SPL game will be only the second SPL game to be played there, despite being in February. The first 11 "home" games of the season were played at Pittodrie.
Dunfermline Athletic were the first team to visit the stadium on January 29th 2005. Caley Thistle won the game 2-0, the second goal coming from player manager Craig Brewster who had started the season… at Dunfermline.
Inverness Caledonian Thistle moved to Caledonian Stadium in 1996, two years after they had been admitted to the newly restructured Scottish Football League (along with Ross County) after the merger of Inverness Caledonian FC and Inverness Thistle FC. Inverness Clachnacuddin were also to be part of the merger, but pulled out early in proceedings. Between 1994 and 1996, Caley Thistle played their home games at Telford Street – the former home of Inverness Caledonian.
The ground that Caledonian Stadium stands on is reclaimed land.
TIM FRIENDLY PUBS
The Innes Bar, Innes Street and the Caley Social Club, Greig Street are listed on the Caley Thistle web site as welcoming "travelling supporters". The Social Club in particular welcomes supporters from both sides on matchdays, despite being a members club.
Gunsmiths in the centre of town is a Tim friendly pub and there is a bar in Culloden a few miles to the east of Inverness called the Sports bar that is also very welcoming to those of us of the Celtic persuasion.Shots bar in the centre of town is also friendly to football fans of all teams.Hope this info is of help to any Tims making the journey up to Inverness.
Any more???
PUBS TO AVOID
The Portland Club is strictly hun friendly.They are putting a flute band on for them.
Any more??