The third feature of the series examining the aborted launch of an association football team at Park Avenue in 1895 examines the record of Bradford AFC in the four seasons of its existence.

Motives

The dalliance with association football at Park Avenue and other rugby grounds proved to be short lasting and in fact the soccer section of Bradford FC – herein referred to as Bradford AFC – lasted for no more than four seasons. The apparently lukewarm approach made critics question the original commitment.

The poor finances of professional soccer were an open secret and there would have been concern that association football might prove to be costly. For this reason, as well as a shortage of available funds, the rugby clubs would have been naturally cautious. To what extent there had ever been a detailed financial assessment of the profitability of association football is unclear. It was not out of character for financial commitments to be made on the basis of bluster and hope. So far as soccer was concerned, each of the rugby clubs appears to have embarked on the venture with a degree of naivety that if they provided the ground then miraculously the game would thrive. Inevitably there would be disappointment and a mismatch of expectation from all involved.

By the time that soccer was played at Park Avenue, in September, 1895 much of the uncertainty of the previous nine months had been removed. The Northern Union had been formed and whilst this had led to a split in English rugby, it had been established on the basis of broken-time payments rather than full professionalism. As far as Bradford FC was concerned it did not represent the radical shift in business operation that it had once feared and allowed the prospect that rugby could be managed on a profitable basis. The original need for soccer as a viable alternative was thus removed.

Although there were members of the Finance & Property Committee at Park Avenue – most notably Harry Briggs – who championed soccer as a game with greater commercial potential, the attitude among most members towards the code was unlikely to have been much different than in 1882 when the original experiment with association football (the exhibition game at Park Avenue involving players from Blackburn) had not been progressed. The constitution of the Bradford Cricket Athletics & Football Club as a members’ organisation effectively prevented major change without a voting majority of the legible members. In other words, the prospects for soccer at Park Avenue (as well as at Headingley, Fartown or Thrum Hall) were always going to be at the mercy of rugby enthusiasts.

Alfred Pullin of the Yorkshire Evening Post was later critical of the motives of the rugby clubs for diversifying into association with the allegation that it was for the purpose of protecting their names. Indeed, it was a defensive measure to pre-empt anyone else, least of all Manningham from doing so in Bradford. There was also a lesson from the experience of cricket and rugby that to be excluded from the leadership and administration of a sport at county level in its formative years was to risk compromising future prospects. All said, it was a classic strategy of risk minimisation – better to be in control of a potential threat than to lose the initiative. With the state of the club’s finances in 1894/95, Bradford FC could not afford further downward pressure on gate revenues.

The introduction of soccer was also experimental in so far as the club would be a beneficiary if the initiative succeeded. Bradford FC could not afford to risk being left behind and it would have concluded that it had more to lose by not introducing soccer to Park Avenue. The observation was also made that whilst West Yorkshire was a predominantly rugby stronghold, so too was Wearside ten years previously and yet by 1895 Sunderland AFC had emerged as one of the leading sides in the country, champions of the Football League in three out of four seasons between 1891-95 and runners-up in 1893/94. To all intents and purposes Bradford FC was hedging its bets and the example of Sunderland AFC proved what could be achieved.

As far as Bradford FC was concerned there was legitimacy in diversification because there was deemed to be an historic duty for the town’s premier sports club to promote popular sports for the benefit of the people. No self-respecting Bradfordian could allow the soccer initiative to be progressed in Leeds and other local towns at the potential expense of Bradford. Likewise, in 1900 the sport of bowling was introduced to Park Avenue which emulated what had happened at Headingley in 1896. Thus, whilst Bradford’s eventual exit from soccer was blamed on operating losses, the club’s strategy can be recognised as that of an oligopolist matching the actions of its rivals in a market: Bradford FC became involved in the sport when its principal rivals did so and exited likewise.

Soccer offered an insurance policy or fall-back in case the Northern Union project failed and it is no coincidence that commitment to the game receded as the new rugby body became established and demonstrated its permanency. Experimentation with soccer actually enabled the rugby clubs to evaluate for themselves whether association football represented a threat to rugby football as a spectator sport in West Yorkshire. Regardless, faced with a significant decline in gate receipts since 1893 it made financial sense to tap into other sources of income.

Concerns about soccer offering a more attractive spectacle than rugby were sufficient to encourage a bizarre experiment to be organised by the Northern Union at Valley Parade on 1 October, 1895. This involved a 13 aside game in which line outs were abolished and a round ball substituted for an oval one.

The Yorkshireman of 28 September, 1895 reported that ‘There can be no doubt that the Northern Union Committee have acted with great wisdom in allowing an experimental match to take place, for it will afford an interesting exhibition, as well as furnishing a useful test of the desirability of the proposed new changes in the game. Association has taken a great hold on the Yorkshire football public of late, and the Rugbyites will need to lose no opportunity of opening out the game if they desire to retain their popularity with the public.’

Antonio Fattorini had been a champion of trialling new approaches to the game and the Manningham club in particular had a vested interest in countering the potential threat of soccer. It was therefore no coincidence that the Valley Parade experiment was staged so soon after the two opening games at Park Avenue had confirmed local enthusiasm for Association football. The game with Halifax finished as a draw but the innovations were insufficient to persuade people of the need for change. It wasn’t helped by the fact that the round ball burst and a heavy downpour of rain adversely affected the playing conditions.

For the best part of a decade the Northern Union game remained generally similar to that of the Rugby Union. Modifications were made – intended to improve the appeal of the game to a commercial audience – but the changes were marginal and it was not until 1906 that the northern game could genuinely be described as a distinct sport. Whilst traditionalists were opposed to wholesale alteration of the rules – including those who may have held out hope for an eventual rapprochement with the Rugby Union – another reason why radical change was not introduced is that the Yorkshire rugby clubs derived confidence from the failure of soccer to take-off. Of course it was questionable whether the laboratory conditions were ever ideal and whether those clubs had their own predetermined conclusions that they sought to prove. Critics argued that the rugby clubs had a vested interest in killing the sport that they had volunteered to nurture. A decade later, Bradford FC derived more criticism than credit for how it had introduced soccer to the town.

It is fanciful to claim that soccer was intended to cross-subsidise rugby because the former struggled to stand on its own two feet. It was common knowledge that few association clubs actually made a profit despite the existence of a competitive national league structure and established local rivalries. Whilst existing rugby clubs in West Yorkshire had the advantage of enclosures capable of accommodating large crowds, as well as an established organisational infrastructure – both of which would have represented a considerable set-up cost for anyone contemplating the creation of an association club – it was a far cry to suggest that soccer would generate profits without the need first for considerable financial investment.

Ultimately a number of factors conspired against the short-term viability of a new start operation in West Yorkshire: (i) the absence of an established local league structure and a pool of talented local players; (ii) the lack of Football League membership; and (iii) the fact that rugby continued to have a strong local appeal.

Furthermore, in 1895 there remained murky waters about whether a professional soccer team could sit alongside an amateur rugby team, let alone be cross-subsidised by gate receipts from a professional sport without reprimand by the Rugby Union. Notwithstanding that this already occurred in respect of cricket, soccer represented an altogether different (and more emotive) issue.

On balance the motives of the Bradford FC committee with regards to association football were essentially defensive and were certainly not driven by any intrinsic love of soccer. Having endured a 30% collapse in income from £3,302 in 1892/93 to £2,306 in 1894/95 – with a corresponding reduction in profit from £1,167 to £138 – there was also a degree of desperation on the part of Bradford FC who had every incentive to explore different options.

Unfortunately, as far as Bradford FC was concerned there was no surplus funding that could be invested on a speculative basis in an association team – even if the club’s membership was prepared to countenance the option. All told, the experiment with soccer at Park Avenue would be doomed to failure.

Socker at Park Avenue

Instead of forming a new team from scratch, an existing club was co-opted to become the soccer section at Park Avenue to play in the West Yorkshire League. Buckstone Park AFC had been formed in 1893 and played its games at Apperley Bridge. Among its players was Arthur Shepherd (later prominent in lobbying for conversion to soccer at Park Avenue in 1907) and Captain Harry Armitage, a future president of Bradford City (subsequently promoted to colonel and commanding officer of the Artillery Volunteer Corps in Bradford).

At the Bradford FC meeting in May, 1895 it was said that ‘the Association game was growing in popularity in the West Riding, and he had no doubt that there were young fellows in the town who might be anxious to play that game, and the committee thought they ought to have the right to play it on their own enclosure.’

Writing in the Yorkshire Sports on 30 May, 1903 ‘Bong Tong’ (Tom Riley) referred to the launch: ‘I have a lively recollection of Association being first introduced into Bradford. How we laughed at the game and looked upon it merely as the hobby of a few ‘toffs’…but what a difference there is now.’ Nevertheless, there were major reservations among the Bradford FC membership and the opposition was probably no different to that in September, 1882 when soccer had last been played at Park Avenue. The Bradford Observer of 24 August, 1895 reported that ‘an agitation for an inauguration of the Association game at Park Avenue has been going on for some considerable time’ although it added that ‘rugby enthusiasts are looking forward with a mingled feeling of interest and anxiety to the future.’

The journalist’s choice of words was a tactful way of describing the fact that this would have been an extremely emotive affair. It would have added to the tension that already existed in connection with the proposed breakaway [northern league] and raised further suspicion over the intentions of the Bradford FC leadership. The issue of soccer thereby added to the intensity of debate about the northern league and further polarised opinions. Relations between the committee and lobbying groups based around the so-called footballer pubs would have been further fractured as a result.

The members would have been even less enthusiastic about soccer once the Northern Union had been established. The Yorkshireman of 7 September, 1895 commented: ‘A matter which is exciting attention in Park Avenue is how the club’s connection with the Northern Union will affect the Association game there. Is the club still going to try the Association experiment?’

The initial response to soccer at Park Avenue was enthusiastic but the momentum was not maintained. The Bradford Observer of 27 August, 1895 reported: ‘Last night members of the Bradford Amateur Association Club turned out for practice at Park Avenue. The weather was very inclement and the practice was consequently of short duration. It was noticed that several of the members are benefiting from the practice games. About forty of fifty members have up to the present given in their names and a good deal of enthusiasm prevails.’ The deliberate description of the club as amateur may suggest that the venture was originally intended as an amateur affair to avoid the wrath of the Rugby Union.

The club’s first game was at Swinton on 7 September followed by a home game the following Saturday against Moss Side (Manchester). It was reported that a crowd of three thousand attended the debut fixture at Park Avenue and the gate receipts of £40 were described as encouraging. Whilst it was not an exceptional crowd, it was one that the club could have been satisfied about.

On 24 September, 1895 a crowd of four thousand saw the visit of Bolton Wanderers to Park Avenue who played a West Yorkshire representative XI. Included in the Bolton side was the former Bradford FC player, John Sutcliffe as goalkeeper.

In its first season the Bradford team was relatively successful, winning the Leeds Workpeoples’ Hospital Cup by defeating Featherstone in the final and finishing as runners up to Hunslet AFC on goal average in the twelve team West Yorkshire League. If results are going to go by, there was a gulf in standards between the different clubs and considerable inconsistency. There were however a good number of high-scoring games including a 13-0 victory over Rothwell, and a couple of rare victories against Hunslet, 7-4 in the cup and 6-0 in a friendly which offset an earlier 1-7 league defeat.

The subsequent playing record was undistinguished. In 1896/97 Bradford lost to Hunslet in the semi-final of the West Yorkshire FA Cup and again in the semi-final of the Leeds Workpeoples’ Hospital Cup. For good measure they were defeated by Hunslet again, this time in the FA Amateur Cup.

In 1897/98 Bradford finished second to bottom of the ten strong Yorkshire League and was defeated in the first qualifying round of the FA Cup; the following season there was a minor improvement with a seventh place finish and the team reached the second qualifying round of the FA Cup.

Possibly the most prestigious fixture of the era was the visit of the Corinthians to Park Avenue on 30 December, 1897 with a side that included three internationals but neither the 1-6 result nor the attendance of only five hundred was particularly encouraging. The Corinthians was a touring side like the Barbarians and during the 1903/04 season attempts were made by the Bradford City committee to secure a visit to Valley Parade. This proved impossible and it was not until February, 1932 that the Corinthians finally played a game in Manningham and on that occasion 4,662 saw a home victory of 1-0.

On 14 September, 1896 there was an exhibition game at Park Avenue featuring Blackburn Rovers against a West Yorkshire side. The Yorkshire Evening Post reported that ‘the West Riding team led at half-time by 1-0, owing to the Rovers playing a very dilletanti, drawing-room sort of game, gallery tricks being the order of the day.’ (The game was subsequently abandoned in storm conditions with Rovers winning 2-1.)

With the abandonment of the soccer section at Bradford FC at the end of the 1898/99 season it meant that when the visiting Kaffir team from South Africa came to Park Avenue in November, 1899 they played a team comprising district players.

In 1903, when there was talk of conversion at Valley Parade, the Bradford soccer section experiment was looked upon as having been a failure and it made the Park Avenue leadership dismissive about launching a new club. The Bradford Daily Argus of 4 April, 1903 was matter of fact in its assessment of what had happened: ‘There was gate money during the first season to the extent of some £100. But the support afterwards was by no means sustained. The gate receipts of the second and third seasons was about £150 per year, and then there was a sudden drop in the fourth year to about £40. The club recorded a loss of £300, and then wound up its concern in Association affairs.’ The tragedy was that the initiative had never been given a proper chance.

Bradford AFC

Bradford FC remained first and foremost a rugby club and the prevailing attitude towards the association project was that it had to live within a tight financial budget. Other than being allowed rent free tenure at Park Avenue during the club’s first three seasons (NB rent was paid at Old Bowling in 1898/99) the financial support provided to the club appears to have been limited to funding losses and there was an expectation among members that the soccer section should stand on its own two feet.

Because the project was loss-making it was necessary for the members to be consulted and this brought rugby bias to the fore. Among the membership the attitude towards association was lukewarm at best and by 1899 when Bradford FC was dominating the Northern Union, soccer would have been regarded as very much the poor relation. Furthermore, attendances at Northern Union cup games in 1898 confirmed the public interest in rugby. In March of that year a crowd of twenty thousand – boosted by excursion trains from Bradford – witnessed a Bradford victory at Hull. The month later, there was a crowd of just under twenty-eight thousand at Headingley for the final between Batley and Bradford FC. In other words there was no compelling financial argument to abandon rugby and take up soccer. The majority of the Park Avenue membership would have considered association football to be as irrelevant as it had always been.

On the same day of the final in 1898, Bradford AFC had hosted the Sheffield United reserves at Park Avenue ‘before a small gathering of spectators.’ The Bradford Observer reported that news had reached Park Avenue of a Bradford FC victory at Headingley and the association game had had to be suspended, the consequence of ‘a scene of wild enthusiasm for some minutes.’ When the actual result – the defeat of Bradford FC – became known it was said that the altered demeanour of the crowd was most marked.

The reason that the soccer initiative was not progressed came down to the fact that the decision was made by the club’s membership itself at the very time that the parent club had seen a revival in its fortunes; success in the Northern Union contrasted with the association team struggling in the Yorkshire League. The members were committed rugby supporters and generally contemptuous of soccer. It is therefore hardly surprising that when the opportunity arose they opted to withdraw support. Despite a boom in soccer on a national stage, the Bradford members would have seen the failure of the association section to attract decent crowds or break-even, as evidence that West Yorkshire was likely to remain a rugby football stronghold.

The abysmal failure of either the West Yorkshire or Yorkshire Leagues to capture the public imagination hardly inspired confidence that a future league competition might be viable in the county. There was probably also a tacit recognition that ground-sharing was not a feasible option. This, and a degree of shared antipathy, probably goes a long way to explain why ground sharing between association and rugby league clubs was the exception to the rule in succeeding decades.

Ground-sharing

A challenge for any rugby club seeking to adopt association was how to organise games on the same ground for its first team, its reserves as well as a soccer side. Indeed, the only way that Manningham FC could resolve the dilemma when it invited Girlington AFC to ground share at Valley Parade in 1901/02 was to disband its ‘A’ side. Even so, in referring to the number of postponed games the Leeds Mercury of 7 December, 1901 alluded to ‘the difficulties which the managers (of the Girlington club) have experienced with regard to their ground at Valley Parade.’ The previous month, Manningham FC had been refused permission by the Northern Union to cover the pitch with oat husks to remove standing water. It demonstrated the problems faced by rugby and soccer ground-sharing, a problem compounded at Valley Parade by the absence of separate pitches on which to train. Presumably the damage caused to the pitch by the Savage Africa Show in May, 1901 was another factor in this.

Whilst Bradford AFC used Park Avenue on alternate Saturdays during the three seasons, 1895/96 to 1897/98 inclusive, it was occasionally necessary for it to play either at Apperley Bridge, Lidget Green (Horton Grange) or Four Lane Ends (I believe that the latter venue was the one later adopted by Girlington AFC in 1899 at Duncombe Street). Intensive use of Park Avenue would have impacted on the state of the pitch, much the same as at Valley Parade where the Girlington AFC team trained on Monday and Wednesday evenings and that of Manningham on Tuesdays and Thursdays during the 1901/02 season. Another dimension to the ground-sharing issue is provided in an amusing account of rugby players at Ossett being confused by the association pitch markings in a game in October, 1899 and there must have been a similar irritation to the rugby enthusiasts at Park Avenue.

To accommodate the new soccer team, in 1895 the Bradford FC ‘A’ team was relocated to Birch Lane and then in 1896 to Lidget Green (Horton Grange). A ground at Bankfoot was also used. This became a cause of antagonism that led to Major Shepherd to appeal for good relations and at the Bradford FC AGM in May, 1897 he said ‘he would be extremely sorry if the team was not well supported by the Bradford Club.’ The admission at the same meeting that the financial results of the soccer section had not realised expectations reveals that, by the end of its second season, the goodwill and patience of rugby members had already worn thin.

In 1897, following the disbanding of Bowling Old Lane FC, there was a call for the association section to be removed there also. That proposal was rejected out of concern for the impact on gates but at the start of the 1898/99 season, presumably as a result of pressure from those unsympathetic towards soccer, the association section was decamped to Birch Lane where it was expected to pay a rent. Unfortunately, the finances suffered a double whammy from both the cost as well as a decline in attendances. However, the parent Bradford FC membership would have argued that this was the only way to optimise the continuing success of its first team and ensure the development of its reserves. In 1898/99 two games were played at Park Avenue including the club’s last, a victory against The Wednesday reserves on 29 April, 1899.

The association section lost £120 in 1895/96, £185 in 1896/97 and £104 in 1898/99, offset by a profit of £3 in 1897/98. Given the state of the Bradford FC finances, aggregate losses of £406 represented a not insignificant amount of money at a time when it could least be afforded. It is therefore unfair to suggest that the parent (rugby) club was not wholly supportive of the venture.

The extent of the losses in the first two seasons at least would suggest that there was investment in professional players, albeit at much more modest rates than in the Football League and in 1897 it was rumoured in the press that the Halifax team included professionals. It would have been surprising had this not also been the case at Park Avenue given that the Bradford side was of similar standard, if not better. The Bradford club might argue that its investment in soccer had actually been fairly shrewd. At Leeds, aggregate losses of £1,000 had been accrued with no greater degree of success than that at Park Avenue.

Newspaper reports of club meetings hint at the opposition amongst members towards soccer. Certain committee members, including Fred Lister, encouraged patience for the association section to become established. At the club AGM on 28 May, 1897 came the plea: ‘It would be wise to give the Association game a further trial, for another year or two, at any rate. It attracted a good class of players who helped to keep up the prestige of the club.’

By the end of the 1898/99 season however it was becoming a lost cause and the enthusiasm within the section itself had dissipated. In a feature on the history of soccer in Bradford, the Bradford Daily Telegraph of 1 September, 1903 said that ‘After its removal to Bowling Old Lane the club quickly went down and no wonder.’ At the Bradford FC annual meeting in May, 1899 it was reported that there had been six successive games when the team had been incomplete. In the end the Bradford Daily Telegraph reported that ‘it was felt that the club was not in a position at present to support a section of sport at so great a cost.’ In the final event, most people would have shared Tom Riley’s comment in the Yorkshire Sports of 15 August, 1903 that it was ‘a half-hearted effort at Park Avenue (and later at Bowling Old Lane) to establish an Association club.’

Post-mortem

Writing in the Yorkshire Evening Post in December, 1899 Fred Bonsor had referred to the fact that several of the Lancashire soccer clubs (including Bolton and Preston) were struggling financially and that this had led the President of the Football League to call for the pooling of gates. Like many members of Park Avenue, Bonsor considered soccer an expensive luxury that could not be afforded. Although he was not necessarily an expert in soccer finances, his opinion was influential.

In 1908 when Bradford FC applied for membership of the Football League it was claimed that the Northern Union had discouraged soccer and forbade Bradford FC to continue but there is no suggestion of this from contemporary reports. Notwithstanding that the Northern Union did not want to encourage a competing code, it was not until 1901 when soccer represented a much greater threat that opposition from the Northern Union became more public.

I struggle to envisage a scenario in which Bradford FC might have converted to association at the turn of the century. The club’s success in the Northern Union at this time and its recent experience of soccer is good enough reason to conclude that it was highly improbable. There were also financial obstacles to overcome. Firstly, the club would have required firstly heavy investment in new players; secondly it needed membership of the Football League to make it a viable proposition. Whilst envious eyes may have been cast in the direction of Liverpool, Manchester or Sheffield in 1899 I suspect that there was also a sense of being trapped by geography and circumstance – much the same as Glasgow Rangers or Glasgow Celtic nowadays – which prevented membership among the elite of English soccer.

By 1905 when there was talk of conversion to soccer at Park Avenue, the Bradford Daily Argus of 9 September, 1905 reflected on the lost opportunity. ‘It is easy to be wise after the event, and we may all say now that the experiments in Association play at Park Avenue should have been proceeded with, but there was no seer at that time to be relied upon to direct the destinies of the club. They elected to continue the game which had the greatest vogue at that time, and had too much at stake to gamble upon any risks.’ Similarly, from the Bradford Daily Argus of 31 December, 1906 ‘The play was good and the record of the team creditable, but amid adverse feeling the finances failed, and the wish was the father to the thought which led the committee to give up the game. Always relegated to second place, the removal to Bowling Old Lane was attended with such neglect that it became the cemetery of the Socker play of that day.’

The foray with soccer was not entirely wasted and had provided the local public with a taste of the sport. Those involved with Bradford AFC also became involved with other local sides, including Isaac Brogden described by Alfred Pullin in February, 1902 ‘as one of the leading promoters of socker in the Bradford district since the game was taken up. When the old Bradford club was in existence, he was generally to be found hard at work on its behalf and he was also involved with the B&DFA as a promoter and committeeman.’ The Bradford Daily Telegraph of 1 September, 1903 similarly credited the Bradford club for having done ‘a great amount of good to the district for the presence of its former players in other teams helped to raise the class of play.’ Among other former Bradford AFC players, Duncan Menzies later played for Airedale in the Bradford & District League – acclaimed as one of the best players in the competition.

Colonel Harry Armitage subsequently became president of the Bradford & District Football Association (B&DFA) and presented a trophy to be contested as the B&D FA Cup in 1899/90. Armitage was later to be involved with the launch of Bradford City AFC and abandonment of rugby at Valley Parade. In April, 1903 for example the Bradford Daily Argus commented that the endorsement and support of Armitage, ‘the former Buckstone Park pioneer’ towards the new association club at Valley Parade would ‘ensure the popularity and success of the effort.’

That the launch of a new club in 1903 to compete in the Football League should be at Valley Parade as opposed to Park Avenue was a matter of historical accident. At that time Bradford FC was relatively successful and benefiting from the demise of its erstwhile rival, Manningham FC such that it had no reason to abandon rugby. Indeed, the Park Avenue leadership initially rejoiced that Manningham’s conversion to soccer gave Bradford FC the monopoly position as the leading rugby side in the city. On the other hand, the financial circumstances at Valley Parade had created an imperative for change. Arguably the superior and more prestigious facilities at Park Avenue would have been better suited for the venture but instead, the Manningham club gained first-mover advantage which proved decisive in the course of the rivalry between the Valley Parade and Park Avenue organisations.

John Dewhirst

[1] The history of Birch Lane Lost football grounds of Bradford: Birch Lane – bradford sport history

[2] The late development of association football in Bradford and the attempts to launch the game in 1882.

[3] What if. How the history of Bradford football could have been different: Alternate outcomes. Considering what-ifs in Bradford football history – bradford sport history

A family story: the memory of Ernest Goodwin

by John Kermode

During World War One over 880,000 commonwealth services personnel were killed or mortally wounded. Among those casualties were several professional or semi professional footballers. Ten Bradford City players lost their lives. Among those players was Ernest Goodwin. He was a reserve part time player at City and there are no records of Ernest having played for the first team. Obviously we will never know his full potential and whether or not he would have succeeded as a professional footballer.

Ernest was born and bred in Manningham within walking distance of Valley Parade. He combined playing football with working in the textile industry for a wool merchant on Manor Row, Bradford.

Having signed up to the Prince of Wales Own WY Regiment 1st/6th Battalion in 1915 he eventually achieved the rank of Serjeant. He was wounded during the early days of the Battle of the Somme near Thiepval Woods. He actually died from his wounds at a field hospital near Boulogne sur Mer approximately three weeks later. His date of death was then recorded as 21st July 1916 at the age of 22. He is buried in the Etaples Military Cemetery in northern France.

Ernest was my Great Uncle on the maternal side of my family. Many years ago my father had told me that I had a Great Uncle who played for City and that he had been killed during the battle of the Somme. It wasn’t until I became acquainted with john Dewhirst that I discovered this information to be true. John advised me of Ernest’s playing career and that he had died during WW1. The nature and the whereabouts of his death were not clear at this stage.

Between 2014 and 2018 there was an exhibition at Bradford Cathedral for the services personnel killed at the Battle of the Somme. I visited the exhibition and could not find any reference to Ernest. After contacting the Bradford WW1 group I was advised that Ernest had been killed in December 1915 according to their records. This resulted in some confusion and led me to believe that my father’s recollections were incorrect.

In February 2020 Emma Clayton of the Telegraph and Argus wrote an article about Ernest. Apparently, during research being made about City’s players killed during WW1, discrepancies were uncovered regarding Ernest’s date of death. Various records and the headstone of Ernest’s grave showed he had died on 16th December 1915. This research had been carried out by David Whithorn and Andy Tyne, who are members of the Bus to Bradford group of City supporters.

By chance my brother passed Emma’s article to me, stating that he thought Ernest was our Great Uncle. I responded to this article and contacted Emma. In Emma’s article David Whithorn was appealing for any of Ernest’s family members to contact him.
This I eventually did and after several emails I advised David that I had a poem written by Lance Corporal Jack Tomlinson. It transpired that Ernest and Jack were very close friends. Unfortunately Jack was killed 3rd September 2016 and his body has not been recovered yet.

The poem confirmed that Ernest had died on 21st July 1916. David had been in contact with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission to advise them of the error in Ernest’s date of death. He requested that their records and the headstone be corrected. However, this could only be carried out with certain proof from a family member. I emailed the poem to the CWGC and it was agreed that this information was correct. It transpired that the error in the date of death had arisen through data transfer during the late 1980s.

The CWGC agreed to change their records and the headstone inscription. I visited the Etaples Cemetery in February this year with my youngest son and inspected Ernest’s grave and headstone. The headstone has been masterfully corrected. I read the poem at Ernest’s graveside.

During our visit to France we visited the Theipval Cemetery. There are more than 72,000 names on the memorial and in the cemetery there to those missing during the battle of the Somme. We located Lance Corporal Jack Tomlinson’s name.

The whole experience of visiting the two sites and learning about Ernest has been moving and emotional. I am extremely grateful to all the people mentioned above and the CWGC. I have learnt a great deal about a family member. David had confirmed where, when and how Ernest had received his injuries which resulted in his death. Another young man, like so many others, whose life was tragically brought to a premature end.

We will remember them.

by John Dewhirst

In terms of sporting endeavour, Bingley is nowadays probably better known for cross-country running and the Bingley Harriers & Athletic Club or its golf clubs at Beckfoot and St Ives. Yet whilst the merger of the Bingley and Bradford rugby clubs at Wagon Lane in 1982 failed to raise the prominence of the sport, it remains Rugby Union for which Bingley has greatest claim to fame. Even though team triumphs were limited, a total of 11 England caps were won by Bingley players in the five years, 1893-98 which was no mean achievement for a small town club.

As in Bradford however, it was cricket that was originally the principal sport in the town. Bingley can also claim to have been at the forefront of the politicisation of sport in the nineteenth century with Benjamin Disraeli celebrating cricket as a recreational and leisure opportunity for workmen – inducing a cordial interchange of the amenities of life and mutual good feeling amongst all classes – when he visited in October, 1844. At the time of promoting his Young England initiative, Disraeli seized upon the unlikely combination of cricket and allotments as the salve for those facing toil in the mills for Liberal factory owners.

The earliest mention that I have found in connection with team sport in Bingley was with regards the playing of cricket at Bingley Crow Nest cricket ground in Gilstead in 1838. Disraeli spoke of instituting a new Bingley Cricket Club in 1844 and subsequent references allude to the club playing on land provided by William Ferrand next to the river near Ireland Bridge at Beckfoot. Whether there was a direct lineage with the Bingley cricket club that was a member of the Bradford Cricket League from 1910 I cannot say.

By 1871 Bingley had a population of some eighteen thousand, a more than four-fold increase since 1801, of which around seven thousand lived in the centre of the town which was known somewhat romantically as ‘The Throstle Nest of Old England’.

In common with developments elsewhere in the Bradford district, from 1874 the local cricket club became the sponsor of annual athletic festivals and in 1875 Bingley Cricket Club had proudly reinvented itself as Bingley Cricket & Athletic Club. The new fashion of athleticism and pursuit of new outdoor as well as winter activities brought with it the launch of Bingley Athletic & Football Club in 1876 and the first reported mention in the press of Bingley Harriers in 1878.

Bingley FC was in the second wave of emergent clubs in the district that were formed in the second half of the 1870s and it was no coincidence that it came at the same time as new clubs in nearby Shipley and Keighley (both formed in 1876). The club originally played near Gawthorpe Hall, moving to a succession of grounds at Ireland Bridge, Ferncliffe and Royd Nook (Gilstead) before Wagon Lane in 1886.

Its headquarters was variously at the Ferrands Arms, The White Horse and The Midland Hotel in the centre of town. Needless to say, each was a good walk from the club’s Wagon Lane ground such that the arrangement was not necessarily as remunerative for the pubs as might have been hoped.

In the absence of reported connections with either the local Rifle Volunteers (which had relocated to Saltaire in 1871 and disbanded in 1875), Bingley Grammar School or the influence of a local church it seems a reasonable assumption that Bingley FC was closely connected to the cricket club with common social networks quite likely based around prominent pubs in the town. By 1879 the new football club could boast a membership of 40 which was ostensibly sufficient to field two teams.

After 1876 the Bingley Cricket Club dropped reference to athletics in its name. This may suggest that the new football club was launched with the intention of embracing those interested in winter athleticism as well as to appeal to the non-cricketers who had been members of the cricket club. In turn, the emergence of Bingley Harriers appears to coincide with the football club dropping the reference to athletics. All of this implies distinct specialisms between the respective organisations by the 1880s but probably also highlights common roots in the town cricket club (which had similarly been the case in Bradford).

The development of Park Avenue and the relaunch of the original Bradford FC in 1880 impacted the local network of football (that is, rugby) clubs with the disappearance of a number of pioneering sides and a consolidation of survivors. Within the Bradford district as well as West Yorkshire, Bingley thereby assumed the status of an established junior organisation that was sufficient to command respectable fixtures including with the likes of Manningham FC (at least until 1882 after which it began to establish itself as an aspirant challenger to Bradford FC).

The club also derived status and respectability from the fact that two of its former players had subsequently played for Bradford FC at Park Avenue and graduated to become England internationals. Edgar Wilkinson (1880-82) was capped five times between 1886-87 and Laurie Hickson (1879-82), also a cricketer with Bingley CC and later to become president of the Yorkshire RFU, gained six caps between 1887-90. Other players including Sam Asquith (1883) and Alf Leach (1891) moved from Bingley to Bradford, establishing themselves at a higher level.

Manningham FC’s upward mobility had come from prowess in the Yorkshire Challenge Cup in which it first competed during the 1881/82 season. Yet whereas Keighley and Shipley secured entry in the 1883/84 competition, Bingley had to wait until 1884/85. Participation in the Yorkshire Challenge Cup was prized and whilst admission was ostensibly about the perceived strength of a club, it also had a lot to do with politics within the Yorkshire RFU and successful lobbying to be invited. The fact that Bingley comfortably defeated Shipley in October, 1884 was sufficient evidence that the clubs were closely ranked.

Whilst Bingley did not progress beyond the first round of the Yorkshire Challenge Cup in its first season of entry, the club could at least boast of being semi-finalists in the inaugural Bradford Charity Cup competition of 1884/85. The Bingley membership was not alone in being overcome by cup fever even though in 1885/86 the ‘Throstlenesters’ were defeated in the first round of both the county cup as well as the Bradford Charity Cup.

The dream of cup glory was sufficient to encourage Bingley FC to commit in 1886 to a new 13 year lease on a new ground at the current Wagon Lane site in Cottingley. The following summer (in 1887), Bingley Cricket Club moved across from Beckfoot.

It was fitting that Bingley FC should invite Manningham FC to play at Wagon Lane on 11th September, 1886 to formally open the new ground. The rise of Manningham FC was an inspiration to other junior sides in the Bradford district (even though no others could realistically hope to emulate their achievement). Of course Manningham FC had its own new ground at Valley Parade having been forced to relocate that summer following redevelopment of its former home at Drummond Road.

The Leeds Times of 2nd October, 1886 reported: ‘The great popularity of the winter pastime is fully attested by the opening of new grounds which has been going on in this district for several weeks. The Bingley Club set the ball rolling in this direction, the Halifax men followed suit, and on Saturday the merry men of Manningham performed the ceremony of opening their extensive and convenient new ground. Football enclosures are coming to be well-appointed and attractive spots, every arrangement being made for the comfort of players and visitors.’

It was typical of the mania of the time and there was a new form of competition between clubs to upgrade facilities. In the Aire Valley for example, the bravado of Bingley was replicated by Shipley FC the following year who committed to ground improvements at its home opposite the Ring of Bells public house.

There was a similarly effusive description of the Wagon Lane site in The Leeds Mercury of 13th September, 1886: ‘a splendid new football field… said to be one of the best in Yorkshire and is very level, being 140 yards from boundary to boundary and 81 yards broad. A stand is not erected, but the committee hope to have one up by next season.’

A crowd of two thousand witnessed a Manningham victory. At the celebratory dinner at the Ferrands Arms following the match, Arthur McWeeney on behalf of the Manningham FC committee toasted the Bingley club adding that ‘he considered the Bingley field was the prettiest in Yorkshire, both for size and situation. He advised the club to pull together and good gates and many wins would follow.’

It was a turning point for Bingley FC, not simply on account of having a more prestigious ground. The club had committed itself to a lease and there was now a commercial imperative to win games and attract spectators. For all the words of encouragement from the Manningham guests, it would need more than simply pulling together to be successful.

Bingley FC remained proud representatives of the town and its players continued to be local celebrities at the centre of the community. However it was unrealistic that the club’s place in the pecking order of Yorkshire football would be transformed. For example there was no league competition at this time and the only way to raise the profile of the club was to progress in the Yorkshire Challenge Cup which was difficult given that the senior clubs were also hungry to win and had a financial imperative to do so. In all likelihood Bingley’s destiny was to remain a feeder club.

What the Bingley FC membership had probably not appreciated was that their club was now to all intents a business. Ten years before the critical success criteria had been a ground to play at, choice of opposition sides to play and sufficient players to raise a team. Now it was about having a good enough standard of players, attracting sufficient spectators and remaining solvent. Whilst the club enjoyed security of tenure at Wagon Lane and there was little prospect of losing the land for housing or industrial development, the one mile distance from the centre of Bingley was a disadvantage in terms of maximising attendances. Compared with its peers in the Bradford district the club’s ground was also the furthest away from a railway station.

Needless to say there was an upbeat mood among the Bingley members, sufficient to attract the former Manningham FC player Harry Inman as club captain in October, 1886. His time at Wagon Lane however was limited and shortly after he joined Bradford FC at Park Avenue.

On 30th October, 1886 Bingley won at Shipley in a first round Bradford Charity Cup match but the result was declared void with Bingley having fielded an ineligible player. The tie was replayed at Manningham’s new Valley Parade ground and in what was described as a rough game, this time it was Shipley that emerged victorious. The aggrieved Bingley players left the field three minutes before the end with the rivalry between the two sides continuing to be known for petty grudges. The two clubs played each other no less than three other times that season with Shipley winning the first round Yorkshire Cup tie at Wagon Lane and the ‘friendly’ fixtures each won by the respective home team.

Prior to becoming founder members of the new fourth tier of the Yorkshire league competition in 1893/94, Bingley’s record had been relatively undistinguished. Bingley’s mention in the sporting headlines was invariably for the wrong reasons, the ill-discipline of players being a not infrequent issue. It is impossible to say whether Bingley had a worse reputation than other comparable clubs but it is difficult to avoid the impression that the club was better known for rough play than what was then described as ‘scientific football’. It may have been the case that – as representatives of an independently-minded town – the Bingley players felt a particular duty to uphold its honour and in the absence of skill there was undue resort to brute force.

Unlike Shipley FC which made a name for itself in the Bradford Charity Cup, there was no cup glory for Bingley FC and the highlight of the season tended to be local derbies. For instance there was also a strong rivalry with Keighley FC and to a lesser extent, Saltaire FC (formed in 1883 as Saltaire Trinity and based off Albert Road). Another rival with whom there appears to have been a degree of tension was Guiseley FC and match reports are notable for the repeated reference to rough play. For routine games I doubt that attendances amounted to more than a couple of hundred with maybe just short of a thousand spectators at derby or holiday fixtures. For junior clubs such as Bingley it was cup ties that drew the crowds. Ominously, investment in ground improvements between 1891 and 1892 (including a new grandstand and drainage) coincided with a bad run of form and deterioration in finances.

In 1893/94 Bingley FC was ranked alongside other Airedale clubs Guiseley, Idle, Ingrow, Saltaire, Silsden, Skipton, Stanningley and Windhill. Shipley FC and Keighley FC meanwhile were members of the third tier. Surprisingly perhaps, the season marked the pinnacle achievement for Bingley FC thanks to the contribution of its star player, Tom Broadley and to a lesser extent that of his brother and teammate, Joe.

During 1893/94 Tom was capped three times by England and in 1892/93 he had won his first two caps as a Bingley player. This was a forward at the top of his game, playing in all but one of England’s six internationals in those two seasons and yet there he was in the lowest tier of the YRFU competition.

That season Bingley scored the most points of any side in Yorkshire and of 22 games played in 1893/94, won 19 and lost only once. As winners of (the geographic) Group ‘A’, Bingley faced an end of season play-off with the winners of Group ‘B’, Hebden Bridge at Valley Parade on Good Friday that resulted in a famous victory. The relative success would have been a source of pride and identity for the Bingley townsfolk, remembered and indeed cherished for years to come.

The celebrations must have been remarkable judged from the report in The Bingley Chronicle of 30th March, 1894: ‘Such enthusiasm as that manifested on Friday evening when the Bingley club returned victorious has never been seen in Bingley before. Young and old, grave and gay, were attracted to Main Street, the thoroughfare along which the team had to pass on the way to the Midland Hotel. The cheering was intense, not unlike the return of a popular candidate at an election… A large and enthusiastic crowd met the football team at Leonard’s Place, and the whole of the energies of four police officers were occupied in making a way for the wagonnettes to pass to the club’s head-quarters – the Midland Hotel. The Bingley Mission Band led the way with the strains of ‘See the conquering hero comes!’‘

The following day Bingley FC met Bradford FC in the third round of the Yorkshire Cup at Park Avenue. Never before had Bingley reached the last sixteen of the competition but Tom Broadley alone could not make an improbable dream come to life. Neither would excessive celebrations the previous night have been helpful. True to form it was Bradford FC that progressed to the quarter-finals. The eight thousand crowd was the biggest that Bingley FC had ever played in front of, albeit less than half of what would have been classified a bumper gate at Park Avenue. The previous day at Valley Parade, the gate receipts of £85 would suggest there having been an attendance of between five and six thousand. Earlier in March, 1894 there had been a record crowd of four thousand at Wagon Lane when Bingley had defeated Keighley in the second qualifying round of the competition.

On the Saturday after the Bradford cup defeat Bingley played the traditional end of season champion’s fixture against a select team comprising players from the rest of the division. Victory in that game provided further opportunity to celebrate although surprisingly, the match was reported to have not attracted a large attendance. Nevertheless the relative success of the season and the higher crowds overall provided a financial boost to the club and funded the repayment of debts.

The problem for Bingley was that it was essentially a one man team with undue reliance upon Tom Broadley. With no automatic promotion, at best Bingley could only emulate in 1894/95 what had just been achieved in 1893/94. Whilst playing for Bingley had suited his work commitments, at the end of the season Broadley was tempted to join the West Riding club in Leeds for a fresh challenge. (In 1896 he moved to Bradford FC, becoming the most famous of its players at the turn of the century.) Needless to say, in 1894/95 Bingley’s results collapsed. Neither was there any cup glory for Bingley with elimination in the first round of the Yorkshire Cup in 1894/95, the last season in which the senior clubs participated prior to the launch of the Northern Union the following August.

Bingley’s performances deteriorated further in 1895/96 but the following season the club won its division in a much weakened Yorkshire league structure. Defections of other clubs to the Northern Union allowed Bingley FC to be graded at a higher level in 1897/98 and again in 1898/99 but it failed to raise public interest in the club’s affairs and besides, results were poor. The hopelessness of the club’s viability would soon became apparent.

What had compounded matters was the 1895 schism in English rugby and the breakaway of the senior Yorkshire and Lancashire clubs. By 1897 junior rugby clubs in the north of England were either disappearing under financial difficulties or defecting to the Northern Union to try and improve their circumstances. Collectively it meant a loss of opposition, higher travel costs to play matches and a lack of spectator interest. And neither was there the possibility of a glamorous cup tie.

Even if the outlook was bleak, Bingley FC could still boast two other England internationals in its side. James Barron won his first cap in March, 1896 and played alongside Tom Broadley who was awarded his sixth cap (then with West Riding but still a registered Bingley player) for England in Scotland. Barron won two more caps the following season and in 1897/98 the achievement was emulated by Harold Ramsden who won two caps. Barron and Ramsden (who were from Micklethwaite and Harden respectively) had both rejoined Bingley from Bradford FC in 1895 to preserve their amateur status. By playing for junior Yorkshire clubs within the Rugby Union the best players could remain legible for international call-up and this alone discouraged a few of the best players from registering with a Northern Union club (and in the immediate aftermath of 1895 it was easier for them to get selected for England with most of the star players now in the Northern Union).

Of Bingley’s local rivals, Saltaire FC was dissolved in 1898. The following year, Shipley FC defected from the Rugby Union but that club was then wound-up in 1901 after its Ring of Bells ground was scheduled to be redeveloped for housing. Keighley joined the Northern Union in 1900 and it is the same club that has survived to this day.

In 1899 Bingley left Wagon Lane and returned to Royd Nook which was also used by Bingley Juniors. The club remained within the Rugby Union until 1900, possibly seeking to differentiate itself as a bastion of the amateur code and hence holding out for as long as it could until other teams to play had disappeared. For the start of the 1900/01 season the club moved again, this time to Healey Lane. Sadly the club would fail to reach the 25th anniversary of its formation and in January, 1901 was wound-up. The end of Bingley FC was ignominious with the goalposts distrained by the landlord in December, 1900 on account of unpaid rent!

The final experience of Bingley FC may explain why there was subsequently never any attempt to launch a junior or semi-professional association football club in Bingley. The financial difficulties of Bingley FC would hardly have encouraged people to invest money in launching a new club and so too the example of the rugby club had demonstrated the difficulty of competing against bigger neighbours.

Following the election of Bradford City AFC to the Football League in 1903 there was considerable local enthusiasm for association football. With the encouragement of the curate of Bingley Parish Church, the Rev Fred Smith – himself a keen footballer – Bingley AFC was formed in 1903 and adopted the former rugby ground at Cottingley Bridge, Wagon Lane. The club’s colours were reported to be ‘black and white in squares’.

The new association club was not lacking in ambition and graduated from the Bradford & District FA League to join the second division of the West Yorkshire League in 1905 albeit with a firm commitment to remaining amateur. The emergence of the Bingley club was encouraged by Bradford City AFC who likely identified it as a potential feeder and indeed, Rev FH Smith played a number of reserve games for the Paraders. However, Bingley AFC struggled to sustain itself at a higher level and was also denied the leadership of its founder who took up a position in Windsor shortly after the beginning of the 1905/06 season. At the end of the 1906/07 season, Bingley AFC resigned its membership and the club was wound-up shortly after. Thereafter, soccer initiatives were confined to schoolboy sides or linked to local churches.

Ultimately Bingley would revert to becoming a rugby town even though the revived club has remained low profile. A new club, Bingley RFC was formed at Wagon Lane in 1922 as part of the local revival of rugby union that occurred immediately after World War One. By coincidence, in the same year a new cricket pavilion was built at the ground. In 1982 Bingley RFC merged with Bradford RFC to become Bradford & Bingley RUFC – the ‘Bees’ – who remain at Wagon Lane. Meanwhile, Bingley Cricket Club merged with Bradford CC to become Bradford & Bingley CC in 1987. The Wagon Lane venue is thus one of the oldest surviving sports grounds in the Bradford district which has also established a reputation for itself as a versatile multi-purpose recreational facility for both locals and visitors.

Like so many other junior sides of its era, Bingley FC could hardly be described as having been successful. Nonetheless it carried the dreams of its members who enjoyed the brief moments of glory. Most importantly the club made up the numbers that allowed competition to be possible. In its own way therefore Bingley FC played an important part in the sporting revolution of late Victorian England and deserves to be remembered.

The author’s blog can be found from this link and his Twitter address is @jpdewhirst

Other related features on VINCIT:

The political origins of Bradford Cricket Club by John Dewhirst

Cricket as the DNA of Bradford sport by John Dewhirst

Athletics festivals in Victorian Bradford by John Dewhirst

Social networks and the early development of Bradford sport by John Dewhirst

The role of the railways in developing Bradford sport by John Dewhirst

The history of the Bradford Charity Cup by John Dewhirst

The story of Shipley FC and other junior clubs in the Bradford district by John Dewhirst

The story of Skipton RFC by Ian Lockwood

The revival of rugby union in the Bradford district after World War One by John Dewhirst

One hundred and twenty years ago Bradford City embarked on its Football League adventure and this season, 2023/24 will be the club’s 110th in peacetime. Of those a total of 12 have been spent in the top tier (1908-22 and 1999-2001); 29 in the second tier (most recently between 2001-2004); 25 in the third tier (most recently 2013-19); 28 in the fourth tier (currently since 2019) and 16 in Division Three North (1927-29 and 1937-58).

In 1903/04 the club played in Division Two of the Football League which then comprised just two divisions of 18 clubs apiece. Relegated from Division One in 1902/03 had been Bolton Wanderers and Grimsby Town and Bradford City had taken the place of Doncaster Rovers in Division Two.

The Football League had been formed in 1888 but by 1903 it was already well-established – a hierarchy of clubs had developed that has persisted and is still recognisable today.

Of the current Premier League membership (20), eight were members of Division One (18) in 1903/04 and three were members of Division Two (18). Making up the numbers, of the current second tier clubs (24), seven were in Division One in 1903/04 and three in Division Two. Hence, of the 36 Football League clubs in 1903/04 there is a total of eleven in the Premier League in 2023/24 and ten in the Championship (second tier). Most striking of all is that of the 18 Division One clubs in 1903/04, only three – Derby County, Notts County and Bury – are currently outside the top two divisions of English football.

Of the 18 clubs in Division Two in 1903/04, twelve are currently below the top two tiers of English football. Of those, Barnsley, Bolton Wanderers, Blackpool, Burton, Lincoln City and Port Vale are in the current third tier (six); Bradford City, Grimsby Town and Stockport County are in the fourth tier (three) and Chesterfield, Gainsborough Trinity and Glossop North End (three) are outside the Football League. That only eight clubs in total (including Bradford City) of the 38 members of the Football League in 1903/04 are currently outside the top three divisions of English football can be interpreted in a couple of ways. On the one hand it shows that the vast majority have retained a senior status and derived advantage from having been long established. The other doesn’t reflect particularly well on BCAFC and highlights the relative underperformance of the club.

The story of how the Football League developed is that membership was expanded through southern clubs and the eventual absorption of the Southern League to create a truly national competition that had originally been dominated by northern sides. For example, of the nine current Premier League clubs who competed outside the Football League 120 years ago there are six who were then members of the Southern League: Brentford (Southern League, Division One), Brighton & Hove Albion (SLD1), Fulham (SLD1), Luton Town (SLD1), Tottenham Hotspur (SLD1) and West Ham United (SLD1). Two had not then been formed: Chelsea FC was founded in 1905 and elected to the Football League in 1905. Crystal Palace FC was also founded in 1905 and elected to the Southern League, Division Two the same year. The most impressive upward mobility however has surely been that of AFC Bournemouth who (as Bournemouth & Boscombe FC) were playing at a local level in 1903 and the club was not elected to the Football League until 1921.

The extent to which southern – as opposed to northern – clubs have been an emergent force in the Premier League reflects firstly the shift in economic wealth in England in the last 120 years and secondly, the relative strength and potential of the former Southern League / Division Three (South) clubs compared to those with a Division Three (North) heritage. To a lesser extent southern clubs have also been an emergent force in the Championship.

Of the clubs currently in the Championship, ten were members of the Football League (Divisions One and Two) in 1903/04. Of the remaining fourteen, a total of five were then members of the Southern League: Southampton (SLD1), Millwall (SLD1), Watford (SLD2), Queens Park Rangers (SLD1) and Plymouth Argyle (SLD1). Another three have Southern League heritage albeit post-1903: Coventry City, elected to Southern League in 1908; Cardiff City formed 1899, elected to Southern League in 1910; and Norwich City formed 1902, elected to Southern League in 1905. The rise of Ipswich Town is also notable, formed in 1878 but not elected to the Football League until 1938. The five remaining clubs had not been formed in 1903: Leeds City, formed 1904 and elected to the Football League in 1905 (current club dates to phoenix in 1919); Swansea City formed 1912, elected to Southern League in 1913; Hull City formed in 1904, elected to the Football League 1905; Huddersfield Town formed 1908, elected to the Football League in 1910; and Rotherham United founded 1925 and elected to the Football League in 1925 (predecessor club Rotherham County was elected to Football League in 1919).

Of the current lower divisions, the vast majority of the combined 48 members joined the Football League after 1903 (with the exception of Derby County, Blackpool and Bolton Wanderers in the third tier and Bradford City, Grimsby Town, Notts County and Stockport County in the fourth tier). Notable is that of the remaining 41 clubs as many as twenty joined the Football League after 1945 of which thirteen since 1993 (excluding Barrow FC which is treated as having regained its status). The bulk of the rest joined the Football League when it was expanded after 1919 through the creation of Division Three (South) from the absorption of the Southern League and Division Three (North). The fourth tier (current League Two) continues to have a higher proportion of northern clubs compared to the third (League One) and includes eight clubs who have joined the Football League in the last 30 years (again excluding Barrow). However, the geographic split of the recent newbies has been pretty even between north and south.

A remarkable distinction for Bradford City AFC is that although Notts County can claim to have been founder members of the Football League in 1888, the club has the longest uninterrupted membership of the Football League among those competing in League Two in 2023/24. Of those in League One only four clubs can boast longer uninterrupted membership of the Football League: Derby County, founders in 1888; Bolton Wanderers, 1888; Barnsley FC, 1898; and Blackpool 1900.

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A recent feature on VINCIT by the same author provides an alternative history of BCAFC and attempts to explain the reasons for the club’s underperformance since 1903.

The author’s blog provides further features on the history of BCAFC as well as book reviews and can be found from this link.

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By John Dewhirst

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It is fascinating, albeit futile, to indulge in debate of how things might have turned out differently had history run a different course. With regards the history of professional football (association) in Bradford, the benefit of hindsight affords us the opportunity to consider alternate scenarios.

In the modern history of Bradford City AFC there remains the controversy about the nearly season of 1987/88 when a failure to strengthen the playing squad arguably cost promotion to Division One and the missed opportunity to consolidate at that level by the time the Premier League was launched in 1992. What if we had secured promotion in 1988? And then what if the club had been liquidated in 2004 and a phoenix had emerged? Or what if we’d defeated Millwall at Wembley in 2017? Invariably such debate has arisen in those all too frequent moments of despair and disappointment.

There have been key turning points in the history of both Bradford clubs that had a significant impact on their fortunes in succeeding decades. Bradford City AFC in particular was badly impacted by the outbreak of war in 1914 and 1939. Not only did wartime arrangements impact on the economics of football but hostilities also put a break on momentum. In the 1914 close season for example the club had increased its borrowings to invest heavily in team strengthening from which no benefit was derived and in 1939 there had been genuine optimism that City could successfully challenge for a return to the second division. Supporters at Park Avenue could also point to the leadership of their club in the late 1940s when the sale of star players resulted in the loss of second division status in 1950. Bradford thereby lost the opportunity to establish a major competitive advantage over its Valley Parade rivals that might have left it as the leading side in the post-war era.

In terms of the greatest seminal event for both clubs, surely this was the merger debate of 1907 and the decision of the Bradford City membership to reject amalgamation with Bradford FC and relocation to Park Avenue (the context of which is discussed in this feature on VINCIT about the history of BCAFC). The consequence of this was the emergence of a second professional football club in the district (Bradford Park Avenue) and the formation of a phoenix, Bradford Northern RFC who assumed the place of Bradford FC in the Northern Union which in turn resulted in the fragmentation of support and funding between the three competing entities. The obvious question to ponder is whether a single Bradford club at Park Avenue with a concentration of resources might have been able to establish itself as a leading side in the Football League.

The case for a single Bradford club likely to have been more successful than two rivals collectively is compelling but the events of 1907 were not necessarily the biggest missed opportunity in the history of Bradford football. The fact that a professional association football club was not established in the city until 1903 points to the disadvantage of timing. By that time the Football League – launched in 1888 – was already well-established and the existing hierarchy of clubs likewise. Of the twelve founder clubs, four are currently in the Premier League: Aston Villa, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Everton and Burnley and five play in the Championship: Preston North End, Blackburn Rovers, West Bromwich Albion, Derby County and Stoke City. (Bolton Wanderers in League One, Notts County in League Two and the original Accrington club are the remainder.) Notable is that in 1880 Burnley and Preston North End had adopted association football in preference to rugby union.

The tragedy for Bradford was that in 1888 its two senior football clubs were wedded to rugby and in 1895 Bradford FC and Manningham FC became founder members of the Northern Union (the predecessor of the Rugby League) in preference to rugby union. However, judged from the fact that within twelve and eight years respectively both had again converted to another code – association football – it could hardly have been described as a successful venture to persist with rugby.

I am tempted to see similarity with the position of Rangers and Celtic, trapped by geography and unable to compete with other leading clubs in Great Britain. The growth trajectory of the two Glasgow clubs has been severely curtailed by the isolation of Scottish football and neither has been able to realise the economic potential of its fan base. The same could be said of Bradford FC and Manningham FC in the nineteenth century in so far as their potential to be leading sports clubs on a national stage was ultimately curtailed by the fact that they played rugby – as opposed to association – football and that after 1895 they were stuck in a regional competition. Bradford FC went from being one of the wealthiest clubs in the country in 1890 to relative obscurity within ten years.

Had Bradford FC been established as an association club and been a member of the Football League much sooner I suspect that it would have been fairly successful. It seems a double tragedy that both Bradford clubs should have been trapped in this way; if history could have been rewritten the ideal outcome would have been that rugby football was played at one ground and association football at the other. The worst of both worlds was not only that the development of professional soccer was delayed in Bradford but that in 1907 it was hindered by the circumstances of the Bradford / Manningham rivalry which had been a product of rugby. For good reason it can be said that the heritage of rugby did no favours for association football in Bradford and indeed, during the 1880s and 1890s the local rugby establishment did its best to discourage the development of the round ball code in the district.

The growth in income of Wolverhampton Wanderers and Blackburn Rovers provides a good illustration of the economic forces in favour of soccer and the impact of joining the Football League in 1888. In 1887/88 their respective revenues were £821 and £1,424 compared to £3,481 at Park Avenue. Fast forward to 1892/93 and that had increased to £4,167 and £4,136 respectively whereas that of Bradford FC was £3,302. In 1897/98 it had grown to £5,522 and £5,431 but at Park Avenue it had fallen to £2,602. During the nine remaining seasons before conversion to association football, the average annual Bradford FC income was £3,200 – in other words, by the end of the nineteenth century it had already been left behind and stagnated. However, the marginalisation of rugby had occurred long before the split of 1895 and the formation of the Northern Union, arising from the formation of the Football League in 1888.

It is hardly difficult to work out why the differentials should have existed. For a start, Wolves and Blackburn had the monopoly of the Football League franchise in their towns (which were smaller than Bradford) and did not compete with a town rival. Furthermore, soccer was far more popular. Between them, the two Sheffield clubs generated aggregate income of £12,400 in 1897/98 – nearly three times the aggregate of Bradford FC and Manningham FC. The Northern Union was also disadvantaged by its regional confines. Whilst it needed a critical mass of clubs to provide a viable competition, too many clubs only diluted the financial rewards because of the limited catchment.

The Northern Union could never match the economic potential of soccer and the decision of Manningham FC and Bradford FC to eventually abandon rugby reflected this. Had conversion to soccer come much sooner (at Park Avenue) I am convinced that Bradford would have been known as a leading centre of the game in this country.

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Previously published on VINCIT by the same author an alternative history of BCAFC, 1903-2023: What would the Founders say?

John Dewhirst is author of ROOM AT THE TOP and LIFE AT THE TOP, volumes in the BANTAMSPAST History Revisited series that tell the story of the development of professional sport in Bradford.

You can find other features on the history of Bradford sport on this website – follow the links at the top of the page. Contributions welcome.