Inverness Thistle Football Club was a

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

club playing in the city of

Inverness Inverness (; from the gd, Inbhir Nis , meaning "Mouth of the River Ness"; sco, Innerness) is a city in the Scottish Highlands. It is the administrative centre for The Highland Council and is regarded as the capital of the Highlands. Histori ...

in northern

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

Formation and timeline

They were members of the

Highland Football League The Scottish Highland Football League (SHFL, commonly known as the Highland League) is a senior football league based in the north of Scotland. The league sits at level 5 on the Scottish football league system The Scottish football league syst ...

, winning the championship eight times, including its inaugural season: 1893–94. They set a postwar record for the heaviest scoring in a Highland League season, with 124 goals (an average of 4.13 per game) in the 1969–70 season, which stood for 45 years before being beaten in 2015 by

Brora Rangers Brora Rangers Football Club are a Scottish football club from the village of Brora, Sutherland, in the Highland council area of Scotland. They play in the Highland Football League, of which they have been champions four times, having won thei ...

. They wore black and red stripes and played their home games at Kingsmills Park. Like many clubs featuring the name "Thistle", they were often known as ''the Jags''. Thistle applied for membership of the

Scottish Football League The Scottish Football League (SFL) was a league featuring professional and semi-professional football clubs mostly from Scotland.One club, Berwick Rangers, is based in the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, which is located approximately 4 km south ...

for the 1973–74 season, but the club lost out to Ferranti Thistle by one vote. It was felt that this was due to clubs in the

Central Belt The Central Belt of Scotland is the area of highest population density within Scotland. Depending on the definition used, it has a population of between 2.4 and 4.2 million (the country's total was around 5.4 million in 2019), including Great ...

being unwilling to travel to Inverness. They occasionally qualified for the

Scottish Cup The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,Kilmarnock Kilmarnock (, sco, Kilmaurnock; gd, Cill Mheàrnaig (IPA: ʰʲɪʎˈveaːɾnəkʲ, "Marnock's church") is a large town and former burgh in East Ayrshire, Scotland and is the administrative centre of East Ayrshire, East Ayrshire Council. ...

by a 3–0 scoreline in season 1984–85. When two vacancies were recorded in the Scottish League in time for season 1994–95 Thistle decided to again apply for membership. However to improve their chances they decided to merge with city rivals Caledonian who also wanted to apply, as they felt it unlikely both clubs would get both places, and perhaps neither would gain entry if they both applied. This decision was not without controversy. Fans of both clubs bitterly opposed the merger and many tried to stop it. In this they were unsuccessful, and the new entity, Caledonian Thistle (subsequently renamed

Inverness Caledonian Thistle Inverness Caledonian Thistle Football Club, commonly known as Caley Thistle, is a professional football club based in Inverness, Scotland. The team currently competes in the Scottish Championship, the second tier of the Scottish Professional F ...

) were elected along with Ross County to membership of the Scottish League's Third Division for season 1994–95. The last game of Inverness Thistle Football Club was against Lossiemouth on Saturday, 14 May 1994. The club was 110 years old. Part of Inverness Thistle lives on at the

Harmsworth Park Harmsworth Park is a football ground in Wick in the Scottish Highlands of Scotland, which is the home ground of Highland Football League side Wick Academy F.C. It is located on South Road in the south of the town and has a capacity of 2,412 wi ...

, home of Wick Academy, as the floodlight pylons from Kingsmills Park were relocated there for their admission into the Highland League. However, their status is currently unknown, as they were replaced with higher quality floodlights in 2011 in order for Wick to keep their Licence to host games. In 2016, the club name was revived at amateur level. Although unrelated, Inverness Thistle AFC were part of the Inverness and District Football Association and played at

Bught Park Bught Park ( Gaelic: Pàirc nam Bochd ) is the largest park in the city of Inverness, Scotland, and is situated on the western bank of the River Ness. It is home to the Inverness Highland Games and a small scale outdoor music festival. It is ...

. However, their existence was short-lived, with the club folding in July 2018.

Kit history

Honours

– 1893/94, 1906/07, 1909/10, 1928/29, 1935/36, 1971/72, 1972/73, 1986/87

References

External links

Inverness Thistle FC

invernessthistlefc.co.uk
{{Defunct Scottish football clubs Former Highland Football League teams Inverness Caledonian Thistle F.C. Defunct football clubs in Scotland Association football clubs established in 1885 Association football clubs disestablished in 1994 Football clubs in Inverness 1885 establishments in Scotland 1994 disestablishments in Scotland