
One of the entrances to Highfield Road Stadium (now demolished)
The 'Highfield Road Stadium' was a multi-use
stadium in the city of
Coventry,
England. It was the home ground for
Coventry City F.C. until the club moved to the new
Ricoh Arena after the 2004-05 season. 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 6-2 in the
Football League Championship with the last ever goal appropriately being scored by
Andrew Whing, a product of Coventry City's youth academy.
Highfield Road had one of the largest playing surfaces in the English leagues (it looked enormous on television) and was the English league's first all-seater stadium (the first all-seater in the UK was Aberdeen FC's
Pittodrie Stadium). The all-seater policy introduced by
Jimmy Hill was later abandoned when
Leeds United 'fans' tore-out several hundred seats after losing their First Division game to Coventry 4-0 in 1981.
The stadium's record attendance was 51,455 when Coventry played their West Midlands rivals
Wolverhampton Wanderers 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. 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 such as Southampton and Leicester City.
Post-stadium housing development

New buildings around the site of the former football pitch.
The site of the stadium is currently being regenerated by
George Wimpey plc to provide housing on the areas which were originally the car parks and stands. The area which was the playing surface will be relaid with grass so that the youth of the area can continue the tradition of playing football on that space.