Highgate United F.C.
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| Full name | Highgate United Football Club |
|---|---|
| Nickname(s) | The Gate |
| Founded | 1948 |
| Ground | The Coppice Shirley Solihull |
| Capacity | 2,000 |
| Manager | Ashley Pulisciano |
| League | Midland League Premier Division |
| 2016–17 | Midland League Premier Division, 7/22 |
Highgate United Football Club is an English football club that originated from the Highgate area of Birmingham and moved to the Shirley district of Solihull in the early 1960s. The club joined the Worcestershire Combination Division Two in 1964 and is now currently a member of the Midland League Premier Division at the ninth tier of English football.
Formed in 1948, Highgate joined the Worcestershire Combination in 1964, initially in Division Two, and gained promotion to Division One at the first attempt.
In 1967, Highgate played Enfield in the quarter-finals of the FA Amateur Cup. Midway through the first half, which was being played in heavy rain, a lightning strike saw several players collapse. One player, the Highgate centre half Tony Allden, did not recover consciousness and died the next day in hospital. As a gesture of goodwill and sympathy, Aston Villa agreed to host the replay of the game concerned. They also donated a new set of Aston Villa kit to Highgate United to use in the match, which ended with a 6–0 victory for Enfield. The replayed game drew an attendance of over 30,000 at Villa Park. He is commemorated by one of the Midland Combination's cup competitions, the Tony Allden Memorial Cup.
The most successful period in the club's history was the mid-1970s. The club won the league championship (by now known as the Midland Combination for three consecutive seasons between 1972 and 1975 and also experienced its best runs in the FA Cup, FA Amateur Cup and FA Trophy within this three-year period.
Following a 25-year planning battle, in 1997 floodlights were eventually turned on at the club's Tythe Barn Lane ground.
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