Skipper Alf Collins collects the Denham Parker Trophy after a second successive Northants League championship triump in 1923 - they also won the Maunsell Cup as well as going within a whisker of knocking Third Division Chesterfield out of the FA Cup.

HIGHAM Town will be joining in the NFA Centenary celebrations this year with a twinge of sadness.

For 1986 is an important anniversary for Higham as well, marking 50 years since the end of professionalism in the town.

And although that may not seem greatly significant to those who know only the modest modern-day outfit which is not even eligible for the Senior Cup it was a devastating development for local sports enthusiasts of the time.

Indeed, the rise and fall of Higham Town is among the most astonishing stories of any concerning Northamptonshire's leading clubs — a company the 'Lankies' certainly belonged to until their dramatic demise.

No club, surely, had a more spectacular start to life than Higham, the village team who within two years of forming, in 1920, were good enough to hold a leading Third Division club to a 4-4 away draw in the FA Cup.

Higham set off like a shooting star, achieving a unique treble by winning the Northants Junior Cup, Senior Cup and Maunsell Cup in their first three seasons.

Though they had to settle for a runners-up spot in the Wellingborough League in their very first campaign those among the 4,000 crowd at Burton Latimer who saw them beat Walgrave Amber 3-1 in a Junior Cup second replay had been given an early indication of how high they were setting their sights.

This was clearly no ordinary team. Higham were gathering some of the outstanding talent in the area for an assault on the Northants League (UCL).

And they hit it like a whirlwind, losing only three of their 30 games as they immediately took the title, over 3,000 people seeing them clinch it with a 2-1 win at Kettering Town.

Horace Clarke cracked both the goals on that particular red letter day and then scored the first two as Higham beat Wellingborough 3-1 in a Senior Cup final replay at Rushden — after a 1-1 draw in the absence of inspirational skipper Alf Collins.

For good measure they rounded things off with a 2-0 canter over a 'Rest of the League ' eleven. Yet even higher peaks would be climbed the following season when they not only retained the Northants League crown with 48 points from 32 games but also put Higham on the map nationally with a 12 match FA Cup run.

They needed two replays each to get rid of Bedford and Fletton. And although Peterborough GN(8-0) and Spalding (3-0) were blown over at Wharf Lane at the first attempt another two games, against King's Lynn were needed to earn a visit to Chesterfield.

Then prominent in the race for promotion from the Third Division North — they would finish six points behind the champions — Chesterfield had never met up with a team quite like that which ran out in front of 7,467 fans at Saltergate on December 2 1922.

Wing-half Bob Parry, a recruit from the Liverpool area, shows how the best dressed footballers went into action in the roaring 20s.

Though the full-timers led 3-1 with eight minutes to go they were rocked by a magnificent Higham revival, the villagers roaring back to lead 4-3 with goals from F Clarke and Dick York before keeper Walker's failure to hold a long range shot presented Chesterfield with a last gasp equaliser.

The replay, on the following Thursday afternoon, was a carnival occasion with children given a half day off school to swell a 5,700 crowd, many of whom perched precariously on farmer's carts and beer crates to get a glimpse of the action.

The giant, however, would not be slain, Chesterfield winning by the only goal. But there was consolation for Higham as another 1-0 result, against Northampton Reserves, bought home the Maunsell Cup, so completing their clean sweep of NFA honours.

Higham's results were no fluke. They paid their players well by the standards of the early twenties — over 10 shillings a week.

And the squad they got for their money prompted the Evening Telegraph correspondent to write, on their slump in the thirties: "Few teams outside first class football have played with greater skill than the original Higham eleven with its nippy and clever forward line of Cadd, Clarke, York, Eaton and Ingram."

One player bound for even better things was Ernie Toseland, a Kettering-born winger who joined his centre-forward brother, Herbert, at Higham in 1923 and gave five years service before his transfer to Coventry.

Toseland would play in two FA Cup finals for Manchester City, collecting a winners medal in 1934 and a League Championship medal in 1937.

He was one of several Higham players who would go on to the Football League, the club's participation in the East Midlands League with reserve teams from Coventry, Luton and others getting them known far beyond the county.

But little could Toseland have known when he left Higham that his old club were already heading for trouble.

Perhaps fans weaned on such spectacular early successes found achievements like second place in the Northants League (1924 and 1927) or runners-up in the Senior Cup (1933) an anticlimax.

1923 Maunsell Cup and Northants League winning side. Back row (l-r): H Clarke, A Collins, H Walker, W Jones. Middle row: W Cadd, F Clarke, R York. P Eaton, S Upton. Front: W Day, F Smith. Solly Upton was perhaps the most celebrated figure of them all having played for Spurs before returning to his home town.

Whatever the reason, however, crowds slipped alarmingly and the financial problems got so out of hand that on February 10 1936, a few days after a team of amateurs had been crushed 12-0 at Kettering, Higham's officials and players were suspended by the NFA for non¬payment of fees amounting to £2 and eight shillings.

Their last great day had been two years earlier when they beat a full strength Cobblers first team 2-1 at Higham in the Maunsell Cup final, Webb and Brown getting the goals just before half time.

It was memorable not only for the fact that both captains, Cowper (Higham) and Davies, were sent off — left-back Percy Johnson received the trophy - - but because Northampton had won 2-0 away to the First Division runners-up Huddersfield in the FA Cup earlier in the season.

At the dinner which followed at the Green Dragon Hotel NFA secretary L E Swain said he hoped the win would be a forerunner for the resuscitation of the already desperate club.

But it was not to be. And though Higham would return, as amateurs, to launch other sparkling careers such as that of Greg Downs (Norwich and Coventry), the Evening Telegraph recorded the end of a era on February 8 1936.

"One remembers well," wrote the Pink Un scribe in a final flourish of nostalgia, "the Duchy Farm Field, the first calls of 'come one you Lankies', and the splendid response of that first and famous eleven."