miles (160 km) away. After consulting with supporters, the Board decided the 'sacrifice' of one season in Aberdeen would be an acceptable compromise to ensure Premier League participation for the club. 2001 Name Change Ballot In late January 2001, following Inverness' Scottish Cup match against Ayr United, in which Caley Thistle overturned a 0–3 deficit to win 4–3, fans were asked to fill in a voting card on whether the club should change their name to reflect Inverness's recently granted city status. However, the name change was overwhelmingly rejected by the fans in attendance by 412 to 1,067, mostly on the grounds of the amount of success they had under the Inverness Caledonian Thistle name, namely it being just shy of a year since they had beaten Celtic in the Scottish Cup. The name Inverness City was registered by the club, seemingly in case of a change of heart within the voters, however it was soon dropped when Inverness CT won the Scottish First Division in 2004, and were promoted to the Scottish Premier League. With the name now free to use, in 2006 now defunct local amateur side Inverness City were born, and competed in the lower echelons of the Scottish Football Tier System, playing in the North Caledonian Football League and later the North Junior Superleague, before folding in 2019 due to lack of a home ground. Scottish Premier League (2004–2009) A change in SPL rules during the 2004–05 season reduced the stadium seating requirement to 6,000 seats for SPL membership. The Caledonian Stadium was rendered a valid SPL venue after a rapid ground expansion, with two new stands added. The stadium was renamed as the Tulloch Caledonian Stadium in honour of the local building firm that completed the work in only 47 working days. The chairman of Tulloch, David Sutherland, was also chairman of the club at the time and remains a major shareholder. The club returned to playing in Inverness, defeating Dunfermline 2–0 in their first SPL game in their own ground on 29 January 2005, thanks to goals from Barry Wilson and then player-manager Craig Brewster. A significant event in the club's history was the signing of Romanian international Marius Niculae. Niculae was involved in the club's 2007–08 campaign and played at UEFA Euro 2008, before leaving for Dinamo București. He later became involved in a dispute with the club over a share of the