Born in New South Wales, Australia, Higginbotham emigrated to Scotland with his family in 1900, initially living in the Edinburgh area before moving to Glasgow.
He represented Scotland at junior international level while playing for Kilsyth Rangers, then signed for St Mirren in 1916.
After playing regularly as an outside right for the Buddies for two seasons during World War I[3][4] (the Scottish Football League continued during the conflict for morale reasons) he made no appearances in a third campaign despite still being contracted to the Paisley club;[5] this was possibly related to wartime commitments elsewhere, and he made guest appearances for several clubs including Hibernian and Third Lanark in Scotland and Fulham and Millwall in London.
[citation needed] In 1919 Higginbotham joined Football League Second Division side South Shields.
Higginbotham went on to make three more league appearances for Nelson, including a 1–0 win against Manchester United at Old Trafford on 8 March.