Inverness Caledonian Thistle are enjoying an outstanding season in the Scottish Premiership under the management of John Hughes.
They go into Saturday’s home game with Kilmarnock in third place, three points behind Aberdeen and just six adrift of leaders Celtic.
Here are 10 things you may, or may not know, about the Highland club.
1 The club was formed in 1994 through the merger of two Inverness sides – Inverness Thistle and Caledonian. The object of the merger was to secure one of the two places available in the Scottish Football League when it moved to a four division set-up for season 1994/95. Neighbours Ross County obtained the other spot, with the first Highland derby in Inverness being held at the Telford Street ground that had belonged to Caledonian.
2 The club was originally known as Caledonian Thistle and played for the first two seasons in senior football under that name before Inverness was added.
3 Sergei Baltacha was the first manager of the merged club. He had been in charge of Caledonian prior to the two clubs joining together and the 45-times capped USSR player also played nine times in that first season.
4 Inverness Caledonian Thistle won the Challenge Cup back in October 2003 with a 2-0 win over Airdrie. David Bingham and Steven Hislop were the goalscorers at McDiarmid Park.
5 The First Division was won in 2004 and 2010 and the Third Division in 1997 but the Second Division title eluded ICT when Livingston pipped them to the title in 1999.
6 Caley Thistle recorded a stunning 3-1 win over Celtic in the Scottish Cup at Parkhead in February 2000 and created another upset three years later when Celtic were defeated 1-0 at the Tulloch Caledonian Stadium in the same competition.
7 The highest home crowd for an Inverness Caley Thistle game was at Tannadice. A crowd of 11,296 was in attendance when Rangers were the visitors in a Scottish Cup quarter-final tie in March 1996. Rangers won 3-0, with Brian Thomson scoring an own goal and Paul Gascoigne hitting a double.
8 The club’s 1,000th goal was scored by long-serving defender Grant Munro in an away game at St Mirren in a 1-1 draw in February 2008.
9 The club’s record away victory came in a 7-0 success at Ayr United in 2010 that wrapped up the First Division title. There were seven different goalscorers, with Jonny Hayes, Adam Rooney, Richie Foran, Eric Odhiambo, Danny Sanchez, Robert Eagle and Gavin Morrison all finding the net.
10 Ross Tokely is the club’s record appearance holder, with the defender having played in 456 league games from 1996-2012. In total, Tokely played more than 500 times before embarking on a short spell at Ross County.
Craig Stewart
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