![Highfield Road - geograph-2008790](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/Highfield_Road_-_geograph-2008790.jpg)
Highfield Road 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 ...
stadium
A stadium ( : stadiums or stadia) is a place or venue for (mostly) outdoor sports, concerts, or other events and consists of a field or stage either partly or completely surrounded by a tiered structure designed to allow spectators to stand o ...
in the city of
Coventry
Coventry ( or ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its ...
,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
. It was the home ground for
Coventry City F.C.
Coventry City Football Club is a professional association football club based in Coventry, West Midlands, England. The team currently compete in the Championship, the second tier of the English football league system. The club is nicknamed th ...
for 106 years.
History
It was built in 1899 in the Hillfields district, close to the city centre, and staged its final game on 30 April 2005 when Coventry City beat
Derby County
Derby County Football Club () is a professional association football club based in Derby, Derbyshire, England. In 2022, it was announced that DCFC was acquired by Clowes Developments (UK) Ltd, a Derbyshire-based property group.
Founded in 188 ...
6–2 in the
Football League Championship
The English Football League Championship (often referred to as the Championship for short or the Sky Bet Championship for sponsorship purposes) is the highest division of the English Football League (EFL) and second-highest overall in the En ...
with the last goal appropriately being scored by
Andy Whing
Andrew John Whing (born 20 September 1984) is an English football manager and former professional player who played as a right back. He is the manager of club Banbury United.
Playing career Coventry City
Whing was born in Birmingham West Midla ...
, a product of Coventry City's youth academy. A concert by pop star
Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight; 25 March 1947) is a British singer, pianist and composer. Commonly nicknamed the "Rocket Man" after his 1972 hit single of the same name, John has led a commercially successful career a ...
was held at the stadium afterwards. The club then moved to the
Ricoh Arena
The Coventry Building Society Arena (often shortened to the CBS Arena or just simply Coventry Arena, and formerly known as the Ricoh Arena) is a complex in Coventry, England. It includes a 32,609-seater stadium which is currently home to footb ...
, at
Foleshill
Foleshill is a suburb in the north of Coventry in the West Midlands of England.
Longford, Courthouse Green and Rowley Green are to its north and Keresley is to its west. The population of the Ward at the 2011 census was 19,943.
History
Fole ...
in the north of the city.
Highfield Road had one of the largest playing surfaces in the English leagues and was the English league's first
all-seater stadium
An all-seater stadium is a sports stadium in which every spectator has a seat. This is commonplace in professional association football stadiums in nations such as the United Kingdom, Spain, and the Netherlands. Most association football and Ame ...
(the first all-seater in the UK was
Clydebank
Clydebank ( gd, Bruach Chluaidh) is a town in West Dunbartonshire, Scotland. Situated on the north bank of the River Clyde, it borders the village of Old Kilpatrick (with Bowling, West Dunbartonshire, Bowling and Milton, West Dunbartonshire, Mil ...
's
Kilbowie Park
Kilbowie Park, also known as New Kilbowie Park, was a football stadium in Clydebank, Scotland. It was the home ground of Clydebank.
New Kilbowie was built for Clydebank Juniors in 1939. In 1964, Clydebank merged with East Stirlingshire and ente ...
). The all-seater policy introduced by
Jimmy Hill
James William Thomas Hill, OBE (22 July 1928 – 19 December 2015) was an English footballer and later a television personality. His career included almost every role in the sport, including player, trade union leader, coach, manager, director ...
was later abandoned when
Leeds United
Leeds United Football Club is a professional football club based in Leeds, West Yorkshire in England. The club competes in the Premier League, the highest level of England's football league system, and plays its home matches at Elland Road S ...
fans tore-out several hundred seats after losing their First Division game to Coventry City 4–0 in 1981, only months after the seats had been installed.
Standing accommodation returned to Highfield Road in 1983, but it became all-seater once again 11 years later when all top division clubs were required to have all-seater stadiums as a result of the
Taylor Report
The Hillsborough Stadium Disaster Inquiry report is the report of an inquiry which was overseen by Lord Justice Taylor, into the causes of the Hillsborough disaster in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, on 15 April 1989, as a result of which, ...
which was the response to the
Hillsborough disaster
The Hillsborough disaster was a fatal human crush during a football match at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, on 15 April 1989. It occurred during an FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest in the ...
of 1989.
The stadium's record attendance was 51,455 when Coventry City played their West Midlands rivals
Wolverhampton Wanderers
Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club (), commonly known as Wolves, is a professional football club based in Wolverhampton, England, which compete in the . The club has played at Molineux Stadium since moving from Dudley Road in 1889. The club's ...
in a Football League Division 2 game in 1967. However, after it was converted to an all-seater stadium for the second time in the mid-1990s, its maximum capacity was 23,489 at the time of its closure, and all of the pre-1990 seats had been replaced in 1995. The stadium had by then been well-developed with one corner filled to provide a more modern look and feel.
However, it lacked facilities compared to the new stadia of similar-sized clubs, which was one of the main causes of the move to the
Ricoh Arena
The Coventry Building Society Arena (often shortened to the CBS Arena or just simply Coventry Arena, and formerly known as the Ricoh Arena) is a complex in Coventry, England. It includes a 32,609-seater stadium which is currently home to footb ...
. Another reason for relocation was that parking facilities in the local area were inadequate. When the stadium was first given the go-ahead in 1999, it had been planned to build a 45,000-seat stadium as part of England's bid to host the
2006 World Cup. However, England's failure to win the bid to host the tournament – combined with Coventry's relegation in 2001 – saw the stadium's capacity scaled down.
Demolition work began in February 2006 and was completed by the end of the following month.
Post-stadium housing development
The site of the stadium was regenerated by
George Wimpey plc
George Wimpey was a British construction firm. Formed in 1880 and based in Hammersmith, it initially operated largely as a road surfacing contractor. The business was acquired by Godfrey Mitchell in 1919, and he developed it into a constructi ...
to provide housing on the areas which were originally the car parks and stands. The area which was the playing surface was relaid with grass so that the local children can continue the tradition of playing football on that space.
Image:Former pitch of coventry city 27a07.JPG, New buildings around the site of the former football pitch.
(photo April 2007)
Image:New buildings on thackhall st 27a07.JPG, View eastward along Thackhall Street in April 2007; the stadium was on the right and a car park was on the left.
References
External links
Stadium Guide Article*
*
{{Coventry City F.C.
Coventry City F.C.
Defunct football venues in England
Sports venues in Coventry
Premier League venues
Sports venues completed in 1899
Sports venues demolished in 2006
1899 establishments in England
2005 disestablishments in England
English Football League venues
Demolished sports venues in the United Kingdom
Demolished buildings and structures in the West Midlands (county)