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.
An earlier feature on VINCIT examined the attempt to launch soccer at Park Avenue in 1895 and the first side in Bradford to compete in league football. The absence of a local competitive framework was one reason why the experiment was not successful and why it lasted only four years.
Ultimately, association football – that is soccer, as distinct from rugby football – did not make a breakthrough in Bradford or West Yorkshire until the twentieth century, notably with the formation of Bradford City AFC in 1903 which was the first club in the county to gain membership of the Football League.
The monopoly position of rugby in the nineteenth century owed much to its traditional popularity and the status of its clubs who controlled the sporting infrastructure by virtue of stadia development during the 1880s and 1890s. A major hurdle for any emergent association club with aspirations to compete at a senior level was to find a place to stage games. The financing of a new stadium from scratch represented a significant commitment, particularly alongside the assembly of a playing squad. The dilemma was that without the infrastructure, the chances of joining the Football League were slim and yet without membership of the Football League there was little chance of funding the expense in the absence of a benefactor.
Circumstances meant that rugby clubs were best placed to foster a soccer team through utilising existing resources which provided a crucial advantage. In 1895 when the Bradford, Halifax, Huddersfield and Leeds (rugby) football clubs diversified with the launch of soccer through new association football sections, it also meant that they could dictate the development of association football whilst denying any possibility of an emergent competitor.
In Bradford there was an additional constraint attributable to the physical geography of the town. For example, where could a new stadium have been developed in Bradford even if funding had been available. The shortage of available and affordable flat land that was not required for industry or housing had effectively crowded out the development of association football in the town. Quite literally there were few places for association football to be played at any level because all the available fields were already secured by rugby clubs.
Another resource consideration for a new-start football club was the availability of players who were actually familiar with the round ball code. The absence of a pool of talented players from which to recruit was an obstacle that persisted into the twentieth century and had implications for playing standards – a factor that also forced the reliance of Bradford City AFC upon transfer signings. For example, it was not until the beginning of the twentieth century that soccer was played in local schools, another area where rugby had monopoly control.
The lack of first hand familiarity with football was a challenge in itself. Although newspapers in West Yorkshire provided coverage of association football and there was a latent curiosity about the other code, in the absence of television few in West Yorkshire actually knew much about the round ball game and its rules.
Hence if association football in West Yorkshire was to be a viable proposition at a professional level, not least to groom clubs capable of joining the Football League, it was imperative that a competitive framework existed to encourage public interest as well as to raise standards. A critical success factor therefore was membership of a league that would promote the round ball game and indeed the same issue has been relevant for the promotion of womens’ professional football in England this century.
West Yorkshire Association Football League, 1894-96
The formation of a West Yorkshire Association League in 1894 and the launch of Leeds AFC as founder members was a landmark event in the history of association football in West Yorkshire, influential in the formation of a soccer section at Park Avenue the following year.
The original competition had been confined to local sides and its bias towards Leeds districts confirmed that Leeds was originally the stronghold of soccer in West Yorkshire. However it was incongruous for Leeds AFC, based at Headingley, to be surrounded by the likes of Rothwell, Pontefract Garrison, Oulton or Altofts. Thus it was felt that the addition of other town clubs in 1895 – namely Bradford FC, Halifax and Huddersfield – with the status of established enclosures would provide the necessary civic rivalry for the competition to succeed.
In many ways the West Yorkshire League represents an interesting case study in launching a new sporting competition. It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the promoters were naïve in what they considered necessary for the league to succeed: the impression is that they felt all that was necessary was to bring together a collection of teams from across the county.
The standard of play was generally acknowledged to be poor and public enthusiasm for the venture was always going to be tempered by the calibre of competitive rivalries. Fixtures between Bradford and Oulton, Pontefract Garrison or Rothwell were hardly the stuff to encourage interest and in the early years any rivalry between say, Bradford and Halifax would have owed more to rugby heritage. Neither was it possible to disguise the fact that the competition was a shallow imitation of the national Football League; it was peripheral at best and nor could it match the excitement and occasion of local rugby rivalries. In other words, it was a substandard product for the customer.
The formation of the West Yorkshire Football Association (WYFA) in 1896 was intended to provide greater impetus to the sport. Paradoxically, it withdrew support from the West Yorkshire League at the end of 1895/96 which therefore disappeared after only two seasons of existence. The reason cited was that the WYFA refused to constitute a competition whilst several of its constituent clubs would not form association sides – that is, organisations competing in the Northern Union including Manningham FC who were considered to have their own agenda.
The collapse of the league was unfortunate in that it prevented the association section at Park Avenue – ‘Bradford AFC’ – developing momentum and consolidating on the achievements of the club’s first season. It also represented a significant financial set back with receipts falling from £268 in 1895/96 to £156 in 1896/97 with a corresponding deficit of £185. Sadly the revenues never recovered and even in the Yorkshire League in 1897/98 amounted to only £173. My estimate is that average attendances were no more than two thousand in 1895/96 and less than a thousand by 1897/98. To put this into perspective, in 1895/96 the soccer revenues were less than one eighth those generated by rugby at Park Avenue. Not only that, the soccer gates were also skewed by a couple of high profile fixtures.
Notable is that Bradford AFC generated a surplus of £3 in 1897/98 which would suggest that operating costs were cut in half compared to the previous season. Those cost savings would have been achieved by reducing player payments, a measure that may explain the team’s poor performances. In the final season, 1898/99 the receipts had collapsed to only £80 and the average number of paying customers could not have been much more than seven hundred.
Yorkshire League, 1897-99
Whilst encouragement was given to the West Yorkshire Challenge Cup competition, the suspension of league competition in 1896 appears to have stemmed from a fall-out within the organisation about members of the WYFA who did not participate in the sport. Specifically, Northern Union clubs including Brighouse, Castleford and Manningham were members of the WYFA yet did not have teams. The WYFA leadership therefore appears to have taken the view that it was simply not possible to establish a meaningful and representative West Yorkshire league. As a consequence, in 1897/88 the WYFA co-ordinated with the Sheffield & Hallamshire FA to establish the Yorkshire League. A West Yorkshire League was revived in 1897/98 however to cater for junior sides including the Bradford AFC ‘A’ team.
The introduction of the Yorkshire League in 1897 was designed to provide higher-profile competition as well as raise standards by introducing West Yorkshire clubs to competition from South Yorkshire. Thus, the Bradford, Halifax, Huddersfield and Leeds clubs joined Hunslet to compete with the reserve teams of five South Yorkshire clubs – Sheffield United, The Wednesday, Doncaster Rovers, Mexborough and Barnsley St Peters – who were members of the Football and Midland Leagues
Before long the weakness of the new competition was becoming apparent in that it was only as strong as its weakest clubs. The West Yorkshire clubs were consistently struggling at the foot of the league and unable to provide much of a challenge to the South Yorkshire sides. At the end of 18997/98 all five of the West Yorkshire clubs finished in the bottom half of the league and the fact that they were unable to compete with the reserve teams of the South Yorkshire clubs only underlined the gulf in standards. This disparity impacted on the enthusiasm of both spectators and players and by the start of the 1898/99 season it was reported that Bradford FC struggled to raise a side. In 1898 Leeds AFC disbanded, faced with demands from its landlords at Headingley landlord for a rental contribution. Halifax similarly withdrew and in 1898/99 the two were replaced by Dewsbury (the soccer section had been formed by the rugby club in 1896) and Wombwell Town (who finished as champions). Additionally, Sheffield FC had replaced Barnsley St Peters.
As an entertainment product the Yorkshire League was no more appealing than the predecessor West Yorkshire League and there was an inevitability that it would not continue for long. At the end of the 1898/99 season the South Yorkshire clubs resigned to join a newly-formed South Yorkshire League. As Pullin observed, ‘their defection is not to be wondered at, for whilst they were undoubtedly assisting their weaker brethren north of Sheffield they were getting practically nothing in return.’ However, a rumoured attempt by Sheffield United to poach one of Hunslet’s leading players in 1898 suggests that the South Yorkshire clubs looked upon the Yorkshire League as a means to identify local talent.
The strongest West Yorkshire based side was routinely Hunslet AFC which can probably be explained by the fact that it was the longest established, originally formed in 1889 and founder members of the West Yorkshire League in 1894. Subsequent to their cup defeat at Park Avenue in December, 1895 it was claimed that Hunslet did not lose a cup game until February, 1902 and in that period won the West Yorkshire FA Cup four times in succession. After the eventual collapse of the reincarnated West Yorkshire League in 1900 Hunslet were invited to join the Sheffield & Hallamshire League which was a measure of their stature. In 1900, if you were going to bet on a West Yorkshire club achieving Football League status, it would have been Hunslet AFC.
Under the shadow of rugby
The collapse of the Yorkshire League after only two seasons in 1899 was followed by the collapse of the West Yorkshire League in 1900 which had managed no more than three seasons after being revived in 1897. By 1899 therefore the situation that existed in West Yorkshire with regards to association football was akin to the modern day experience of soccer in the USA. In both cases there was strong grass roots enthusiasm for the game, particularly at secondary school / college level (although corresponding womens football was distinctly undeveloped in West Yorkshire). In both cases there had been limited success with introducing senior leagues.
There was an inclination on the part of associationists to blame the Northern Union clubs for the plight of their sport but the Yorkshire rugby clubs had every reason to look upon association football as a competitive threat. Pullin recognised that if West Yorkshire was to achieve prominence in English soccer it would need the injection of monies to ensure that it was self-sufficient. Writing in the Yorkshire Evening Post on 2 September, 1899 he commented: ‘It is unfortunate that some of the best local clubs in the large towns should have got into the hands of the Rugby organisations, for without a doubt this step has been against the interests of those concerned in the ‘socker’ (sic) code.’
Later, on 23 September, 1899 Pullin wrote: ‘They say that although the Leeds, Bradford and Halifax clubs have abandoned ‘socker’ after an experiment, the failure has been, to a large extent, due to the half-hearted support that was given to the game. As a matter of fact, as has been previously pointed out in this column, it is a fact that ‘Rugger’ and ‘Socker’ cannot be run by one club side by side for the interests of the ‘socker’ team have always to be subservient to those of the Rugby fifteen. The only way to make an Association team a success in Leeds would be to secure a good ground in a central position and to have sufficient money behind the venture to ensure the responsible authorities against loss in securing the services of a really first-class eleven.’
At the time that Alfred Pullin was writing, the junior rugby clubs in Yorkshire were still bitter towards the seniors for the schism in 1895 and the financial predicament that they now found themselves in. Just as popular opinion was critical about what had happened to junior rugby after 1895 the Bradford, Halifax, Huddersfield and Leeds senior rugby clubs were similarly blamed for the impact that they had had upon the advancement of association football.
Soccer abandoned at Park Avenue
Despite growing grass roots enthusiasm for association football in Bradford (which contrasted to the relative apathy felt towards junior rugby), soccer was abandoned at Park Avenue. It seemed inexcusable and convinced critics that by acting according to self-interest, the senior clubs had not only failed to nurture rugby in West Yorkshire, but also association football. Whilst it is difficult to prove, it may go a long way to explain how the nascent Bradford City was successful in capturing public sympathies. When rugby was abandoned in 1903 there was no ambiguity about the commitment of the Manningham FC leadership to soccer.
The West Yorkshire FA believed that the Yorkshire League helped promote the game and valued the exposure to the South Yorkshire clubs. Its viability however had been questioned in April, 1898 and the venture was continued for another season in the hope that somehow things might improve. In this regard Bradford FC persisted and the decision to disband was not in isolation of what was happening elsewhere. At Huddersfield there was a similar situation and in December, 1899 it too struggled to raise a team. For reasons of cost saving Leeds and Halifax had also exited in 1898.
Associationists might argue that their code had been given no encouragement by rugby clubs but it was hardly to be expected otherwise that members of Bradford FC would contemplate rugby being undermined by its association rival. Exactly the same prejudice existed among rugby members about soccer in the 1890s as in 1882 and this played its part in the minimal investment afforded to the sport. In 1897/98 Halifax had similarly been denied signing (more) professional players and it was this sort of veto that effectively handicapped the West Yorkshire teams from matching those from South Yorkshire. However, even if such spending could be afforded (which was questionable at Park Avenue anyway) it would have been difficult to make an investment case in terms of what it would achieve.
What could the clubs of Northern Union pedigree have done differently? Success in the Yorkshire League was hardly a blue ribbon achievement and it is unlikely that success in a national competition such as the FA Cup could be secured. In February, 1897 the West Yorkshire FA had requested the Football Association to stage an FA Cup semi-final in West Yorkshire to give the game a fillip but it is unclear whether any of the clubs made the effort to do so. Given that Aston Villa played Liverpool at Bramall Lane, Sheffield and Everton played Derby County at the Victoria Ground, Stoke it is not implausible that Park Avenue could have been adopted. I wonder if Bradford FC ever made the effort?
Grass roots interest
Undeniably the West Yorkshire clubs were handicapped by a dearth of local (amateur) talent. It is telling that Bradford AFC struggled to raise a team at a time when the sport was enjoying a boom in popularity. Why was this? The immediate suspicion is that of a disconnect between those involved with Bradford AFC and local players, possibly a throw-back to the accusations of elitism twenty years previously when team selection of Bradford FC at Park Avenue had been relatively exclusive and dominated by cliques and favouritism. However, this was not unique to Bradford with Huddersfield also reported to have struggled to raise a team in 1898. Maybe local enthusiasts failed to engage with the club out of a preference to play the game or watch their own friends do so. There is a good chance local sides were more entertaining than Bradford AFC and whereas a season ticket for Bradford AFC games cost 5s, I suspect that there was no charge to attend local soccer matches. My conclusion is that the public were just not attracted to attend county league football. Had the West Yorkshire League continued in 1896/97 and the Bradford FC side continued to be successful then possibly the enthusiasm could have been nurtured but it would still not have been sufficient to bridge the gap in talent with association clubs outside the county.
In practical terms the club may have lacked the means to select available talent. The boom in soccer participation was fairly recent and it would have been easier said than done to identify suitable recruits in the absence of established scouting networks. The club could hardly invite every enthusiast for a selection procedure. The reality was that the standard of play at a local level was actually pretty poor and there were few local players available to bridge the gap between junior football and the standard corresponding to that of Football League reservists. Indeed, this is why Halifax would have sought to engage professionals. Therefore, whilst association football was popular it didn’t guarantee the success of the county league.
The Yorkshire Evening Post of 3 January, 1903 questioned whether the standard of soccer was better than it had been four years before when Bradford, Leeds, Halifax, Castleford and Hunslet were playing: ‘Although in point of general excellence the game has undoubtedly advanced, we are of the opinion that the best five clubs in West Yorkshire today are unable to produce talent equal to that contained in the best clubs of a few years ago. The reason is easily explained. Years ago clubs were recruited from players who had already learnt the game before coming into the district, and could play good football, whereas at the present time a representative eleven is almost wholly made up of the home-grown article, possessing but a vague idea of the finer points of the game though want of an ideal.’
The Yorkshire (association) League was disbanded in the same year as the West Riding and West Yorkshire Cricket Leagues which had been launched in 1893. The failure of these competitions contrasted with the success of the Bradford & District Association League that was formed in 1899 and that of the Bradford Cricket League established in 1903.
If a generalisation is to be made, it seems that as far as soccer and cricket was concerned, local rivalries were far more attractive and emotionally engaging than those between town clubs. Why this was so is difficult to explain. After all, spectators could identify with civic rivalries in the Football League. I suspect that as far as soccer in West Yorkshire was concerned, the civic rivalries were a poor imitation of what people were familiar with in respect of rugby competition where the dynamics were longer established and where there was more pride at stake. It was therefore unrealistic to believe that rivalries could be generated after only four years with fluid league structures.
Another explanation is that levels of participation in cricket and soccer seem likely to have exceeded that in rugby which may have created the mindset that these were games to play rather than watch. With regards to association football in West Yorkshire, the players and recent converts to the game in the 1890s were also relatively young and hence more active. Local competition, by contrast to county competition, would have increased opportunities for active engagement and involvement. Again, at the local level, even if you were not playing yourself you may have had friends, neighbours or family members who played which commanded interest. The same ingredient had sustained local rugby clubs for so long and the transfer of enthusiasm to local soccer in the second half of the 1890s would have therefore made it all the more difficult for those (rugby) clubs to survive.
Lessons learned
The collapse of the football experiment at Park Avenue in 1899 was hardly surprising. In the first instance, the Bradford Cricket, Athletic & Football Club had been half-hearted in its formation of an association football section in 1895 and there was never a major commitment of resources in soccer which was also due to the financial constraints that existed. Yet neither could Bradford take encouragement from an absence of commitment to soccer elsewhere in West Yorkshire with the Leeds, Halifax and Huddersfield clubs withdrawing their support. In the final event, established rugby organisations were never likely to encourage a competitor to challenge the dominance of rugby and this betrayed the fact that their original dalliance with soccer in 1895 had more to do with securing a contingency option that later proved to be unnecessary.
The failure to establish a competitive and durable league structure proved fatal although a West Yorkshire League was always going to be a poor relation to the national Football League and a lesser product. At a local level a critical mass of competitors didn’t exist and neither was there a pyramid of junior clubs who could have been feeders in the development of local talent.
Take for example the fact that in 1897 there were only three other association clubs in Bradford in addition to the soccer section at Park Avenue – Bradford Spartans (est 1895), Bowling (1897), Airedale (1897). Ironically, attempts by junior rugby clubs to launch their own association football sections were undermined by the launch of that at Park Avenue.
By 1899 the number of local clubs had expanded to around two dozen but these were all of junior stature and the leading proponents competed in the Bradford Junior League. In March of that year the original members of the Bradford & District Football Association comprised Airedale, Pudsey, Park Chapel, Girlington, Clayton, St Andrew’s, Bowling, St Jude’s, Sedgefield, Bradford Wanderers, Moorland United, Frizinghall Juniors, West View, Park View, St Columba Athletic and Wesley Place.
Pullin himself commented that it was unrealistic to expect that the development of the game could be hot-housed by establishing (county) leagues. He also highlighted the financial difficulties of the soccer section at Bowling FC (members of the West Yorkshire League north division) that had been forced to disband. The club had been unable to afford travel expenses, struggled to attract crowds and was unable to raise a team. Another member of the West Yorkshire League, Featherstone AFC had disbanded in 1897, similarly as a consequence of financial difficulty. Alfred Pullin argued that Bowling had tried to run before it could walk and cited this as an example of the danger of league competition for smaller clubs. Whether it says more about Pullin’s dislike of commercialised sport and the inadequacy of financial management at Usher Street is a matter of debate. However, the losses of the association section represented a final blow for (the parent) Bowling FC who were wound up shortly after.
Had there been an FA Cup semi-final staged in Bradford or Leeds it could have provided a catalyst for public interest. Whilst a finger could be pointed at the Football Association for not actively supporting the proposal it is far from clear that any of the rugby clubs at whose ground the game would have been staged had any enthusiasm. Likewise had there been greater leadership of the West Yorkshire FA it is possible that more could have been achieved.
Collectively these were lessons that were learned ahead of the successful launch of Bradford City AFC in 1903 that enjoyed the benefit of active support from the Football League management committee in conjunction with the leadership of Manningham FC who were committed to adopt soccer. Other critical success factors – that had not existed previously – were the leadership of prominent association evangelists (referred to as ‘associationists’) such as John Brunt and James Whyte as well as the popularity of soccer at a grass roots level that had been encouraged by the B&DFA formed in 1899, the same year that the association section at Park Avenue was dissolved.
The first of a three part series about the aborted launch of association football at Park Avenue in 1895
The launch of soccer in Bradford
Bradford City AFC is credited with having pioneered association football in West Yorkshire as the first club (within the borders of the modern county as distinct from the West Riding) to join the Football League and later, to win the FA Cup. Yet the formation of Bradford City at Valley Parade in 1903 came eight years after the launch of a side at Park Avenue.
Bradford (A)FC played its first home game on 14 September, 1895 – a friendly – against Moss Side FC (Manchester). The crowd was reported to have been three thousand and whilst not exceptional it would have been considered respectable. The 4-1 victory was also extremely encouraging. [1]
Bradford, and the rest of West Yorkshire had hitherto been a rugby stronghold and soccer had been crowded out. An earlier attempt to promote the association code through an exhibition game at Park Avenue on 16 September, 1882 between Blackburn Rovers and Blackburn District had come to nothing. So called rugbyists had jealously protected the status of the traditional code in the face of a potential insurgency by ‘associationists’. However, the success of Bradford FC at winning the Yorkshire Cup in 1884 cemented the popularity of rugby in the district and prior to 1895 there was no further suggestion about introducing soccer to Park Avenue. [2]
The launch of the Football League in 1888 had gone almost unnoticed in West Yorkshire and there had been little incentive to switch to soccer. In 1890 for example, Bradford FC was reputedly the richest football club in England and the club’s stature was such that it could command prestige fixtures. By 1895 however the outlook at Park Avenue had changed considerably and the finances of the parent Bradford Cricket, Athletic & Football Club had been severely stretched by the purchase of the freehold to the ground that came at the time of an economic slowdown.
The fact that the club’s financial strength had been diminished had inevitably influenced the attitude of its leadership with regards a looming split in English rugby. Mindful of the club’s financial commitments, there had been considerable apprehension at Park Avenue about the merits of a breakaway from the Rugby Football Union (RFU). The issue of professionalism was extremely contentious with growing pressure in the north for broken-time payments to be permissible in order to compensate players for loss of earnings.
The wider debate about professionalism was framed as a matter of principle but in essence it was all to do with the economics of sport and the affordability thereof. It raised concerns both of unfair advantage as well as the viability of smaller and less wealthy football clubs. It was a routine theme in newspaper reports for example that in the Football League, professionalism had resulted in clubs making significant losses and becoming heavily indebted. A fear was that the same might apply across rugby if amateurism was relinquished.
Visit to Goodison Park in 1894
On the other hand the Bradford FC leadership was sympathetic to the view that if professionalism was to be adopted, the financial viability of the club was more likely if association football was adopted as opposed to persisting with rugby.
In 1893 it was highlighted that Everton FC had an annual wage bill of £3,529 which was not much less than the total income of Bradford FC. On the other hand, soccer was capable of generating much greater revenue – in 1893 Everton reported revenues of £9,915 – and in 1892 Everton FC had opened the impressive Goodison Park stadium that put northern rugby grounds to shame. Admittedly Everton FC was probably the only solvent Football League club at the time but it was a club of Everton’s stature that Bradford FC was more likely to benchmark itself against.
Motivated as much by curiosity as self-promotion, on 14 March, 1894 Bradford FC played an exhibition rugby game at Goodison Park and the club’s leadership saw for itself what had been achieved. Bradford FC had for so long lauded in the fact that Park Avenue was the premier ground in the north and that their club was the wealthiest. I have no doubt that the visit would have prompted members of the Finance & Property committee of the Bradford Cricket, Athletic & Football Club to ask whether the wrong shaped ball was being used at Park Avenue. In my opinion the findings of the trip to Liverpool made Bradford FC receptive to establishing an association section just over twelve months later.
In terms of the strategic agenda, adopting soccer was more about finding ‘a game that would pay’ as distinct from any intrinsic affection for the round ball game. The Bradford FC leadership was also sensitive to the role that the club had assumed as the champion and sponsor of sporting activity in the district. Irrespective of the club’s proud rugby traditions, the feeling was that if the local public was likely to be more inclined towards association football, then that should dictate the future.
Nevertheless, the club’s finances meant that adoption of soccer was a last resort. Funds were not available for major investment to build a team from scratch to compete in association football (although at least a new ground did not have to be funded). There was also a considerable risk that without the assurance of Football League membership, there would be limited commercial benefit.
Hence provided that some form of wage control existed, the preferred option for Bradford FC was always going to be that of remaining as a rugby club. Bradford FC had previously enjoyed premium status as members of the RFU and if circumstances had allowed it would have persisted with the status quo as long as it could afford. The dilemma faced by the club was the threat of being left behind by other clubs in Lancashire and Yorkshire (not least its rivals, Manningham FC at Valley Parade) forming a new Northern Union. Ultimately it was the intransigence of the leadership of the RFU in accommodating broken-time payments that meant some form of schism was inevitable.
The launch of the Northern Union
A new Northern Union was established on 29 August, 1895 and Bradford FC and Manningham FC were among the 21 founder members. Whilst it put an end to the uncertainty and speculation that had hung over English rugby for the last two or three years there were also contradictions and shortcomings in the new body. There was subsequent criticism of the Bradford Cricket, Athletic & Football Club that it was an unenthusiastic convert to the Northern Union but it was not unreasonable for there to have been misgivings. [3] For example, the new competition would remain limited in its geographic footprint and appeal. Equally significant it lost a pyramid of junior clubs beneath the seniors who had previously provided a ready supply of new players. During the next five years the number of junior rugby clubs in the Bradford district alone was decimated as the financial implications of the split eroded the viability of smaller clubs, thereby undermining the strength, popularity and ecosystem of local rugby. [4]
Nonetheless, the immediate impact of the split was that – in the short term at least – it made it less likely that rugby would be abandoned at Park Avenue in favour of association football.
By the time that soccer was played at Park Avenue, in September, 1895 much of the uncertainty about a new Northern Union had gone away. Crucially the new body 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. There was now the prospect that rugby could be managed on a profitable basis. And thus the original need for soccer as a viable alternative was removed.
One of the leading sports journalists of his era, Alfred Pullin of the Yorkshire Evening Post was later critical of the motives of rugby clubs such as Bradford – but also the likes of Huddersfield, Halifax and Leeds – for diversifying into association at this time with the allegation that it was for the purpose of protecting their names. Indeed, in the case of Bradford it was a defensive measure to pre-empt anyone else – in particular Manningham FC – from doing so. 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.
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. Faced with a significant decline in gate receipts since 1893 it had made financial sense for Bradford FC to investigate other sources of income. Experimentation with soccer enabled the rugby clubs to evaluate for themselves whether association football represented a threat to rugby football as a spectator sport in West Yorkshire.
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.
The end of the soccer experiment at Park Avenue in 1899
Ultimately a number of factors conspired against the short-term viability of a new start soccer 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 a rugby team, let alone be cross-subsidised by gate receipts. 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 Cricket, Athletic & Football Club committee with regards to association football were essentially defensive and 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 to explore different options.
Unfortunately, as far as the soccer section at Park Avenue 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 by the Bradford Cricket, Athletic & Football Club would be doomed to failure. After three seasons based at Park Avenue, the soccer section was exiled to Birch Lane [5] and disbanded at the end of the 1898/99 season.
Former members were subsequently involved in the promotion of association football at a local level in the Bradford district and can be credited with encouraging interest in the sport that helped the launch of Bradford City AFC at Valley Parade four years later. And finally, in 1907 rugby was abandoned at Park Avenue in favour of soccer with Bradford AFC admitted as members of the Southern League and then in 1908 it was elected to the Football League (with the club becoming known as Bradford (Park Avenue) AFC to distinguish itself from its Valley Parade rivals). Had Bradford been a founder member of the Football League twenty years earlier, in 1888 there is good reason to believe that Park Avenue could have become a major centre for association football in England. At that time for example, the revenues of Bradford FC were far in excess of the likes of Wolverhampton Wanderers and even Blackburn Rovers but by the twentieth century it was an altogether different story. [6]
By John Dewhirst
Subsequent features on VINCIT will provide more information about the association football section of the Bradford Cricket, Athletic & Football Club between 1895-99 and its participation in league / cup competition. You will find more about the origins of sport in the Bradford district from the drop down menu above and on the author’s blog, WOOL CITY RIVALS. Read more about the origins of football – both rugby and association – in books by the author, published as part of the BANTAMSPAST History Revisited series.
[1] Earlier that year, was possibly the first game of association football to have been hosted at Valley Parade. On 7 May, 1895 there was an exhibition game that featured women players and attracted a crowd of between two and three thousand people. The origins of women’s football in Bradford – bradford sport history
As we approach 2025, locally there’s lots of talk about the celebration of culture. But let’s not forget that there is more to culture than the art-farty stuff fashionable with luvvies. Sport is a big part of culture – a way of life for a lot of people, something that shapes behaviours, embraces passions and forms identities. With regards ‘football’ and its place in local culture, the milestone of when it really began can be traced back 140 years to 1884 when football truly became embedded in local life…
The Victorians regarded rugby and association as two variants of the same sport and made limited distinction between the codes. Indeed, in West Yorkshire rugby was known colloquially as ‘football’ and it was not until after World War One that the round ball game became known as ‘football’. The phenomenon common to rugby football in West Yorkshire and association football in Hallamshire (South Yorkshire), Lancashire and the Midlands was that of becoming a mass spectator attraction and with it, growing commercialisation. With regards association football, the launch of the Football League in 1888 provided a major stimulus whereas in West Yorkshire, it had been the launch of the Yorkshire Challenge Cup in 1877/78 that had promoted public interest.
By the third quarter of the nineteenth century, Bradford was at the height of its textile boom having expanded rapidly as an industrial frontier town. During the 1870s there had been growing demand for recreational opportunities and athletic pursuits, of which rugby football and cross-country / harrier running were the primary outdoor winter activities. During the 1880’s, rugby football came to prominence in the district such that Bradford became known as a hotbed of enthusiasm for the sport. Surprisingly, given the attention given to religion, politics and ethnicity in the social history of the town, the impact of sport in shaping habits and behaviours has been overlooked. This is despite the fact that by the late 1880s the affairs of Bradford’s (rugby) football clubs were a big part of local life, a characteristic now taken for granted in all modern conurbations and thus a key stage in urban cultural development.
(** Links are annoted to other relevant features on VINCIT, refer bottom of page)
A landmark year
If you had to name a landmark year that was significant in charting the course of Bradford football history, it would surely be 1884 when the town celebrated its first major sporting triumph. Thus began an enthusiasm for cup competition that brought the launch of the Bradford Charity Cup and which continued into the twentieth century with the FA Cup and the Rugby League Challenge Cup competition. As events would prove, Bradford clubs were seemingly more adept in knock-out cup competitions and the origins of cup fever in the town can be traced back 140 years when it captured the attention of local people.
This was the year when Bradford FC finally won the Yorkshire Challenge Cup. Not only did rugby become fashionable among all classes of society as a sporting and social phenomenon, but so too the parent organisation of Bradford FC, the Bradford Cricket, Athletics & Football Club became established as a high-profile local institution with its lofty objectives of variously encouraging recreational activity, raising funds for charity and serving as a flag bearer of local patriotism, embodying the pride of a town that had been transformed by the industrial revolution
With regards the origins of (rugby) football clubs in Bradford, they emerged in two distinct waves. The original had been in the late 1870s as enthusiasm for organised football took hold. The second wave came in the aftermath of Bradford FC’s victory with a mania for cup competition. Numerous local sides emerged, inspired by the achievement of Bradford FC and hungry for the glamour of participating in a competitive tournament whether the Yorkshire Cup or the Bradford Charity Cup. It was the success of Bradford FC and its defeat of Manningham FC at Park Avenue in March, 1884 to progress to the quarter-finals, that gave particular impetus to Manningham FC, forerunner of Bradford City AFC which had been formed in 1880. It is no coincidence that Manningham FC came of age in the immediate aftermath of the 1883/84 campaign and progress in the Yorkshire Cup during the two following seasons gave the club’s members confidence to develop Valley Parade as their ground in 1886.
Footballers themselves became local celebrities and feted by Bradford society to the extent that a Bradford-based satirical publication, The Yorkshireman magazine even featured a cartoon about the hangers-on who sought to engage in the social circles of footballers and their partying. Around this time there was the phenomenon of ‘mashers’, the yuppies of their era – young upwardly mobile, nouveau riche males seeking to flaunt their disposable income through the latest clothing and patronage of fashionable restaurants or bars. Support for Bradford FC as well as being seen at Park Avenue and places frequented by the leading players (for example, the Talbot Hotel) was considered a part of this lifestyle.
The partying and the congregation of wealthy people attracted criminals. Capacity crowds at Park Avenue became a magnet for pick-pockets and in March, 1885 for example a number of people were reported to have had personal effects stolen at the Yorkshire Cup game against Hull. However, the partying had evidently become so well-known that, according to the Leeds Times, in December, 1885 a gang of professional thieves from Manchester targeted supporters of Bradford FC in the Talbot Hotel and on Cheapside in Bradford town centre, to steal watches and money. It was clearly worth their while to travel afar.
Winning the cup in 1884 gave a massive fillip to the commercialisation of rugby football in Bradford such that by 1890 Bradford FC was known as the wealthiest club among those playing association or rugby football in England. Likewise, it provided profitable opportunities for others, from provision of refreshments at Park Avenue by Messrs Spink & Co (whose business was given an enormous boost from catering to events staged at the ground by the Bradford Cricket, Athletics & Football Club) to the hoteliers and publicans who served visiting players, club dignitaries and spectators. Not least bookmakers benefited from the interest in football and the predilection for gambling.
This and other Baines cards featured on this site are from the collection of the author and any reproduction should be credited, preferably avoided.
Locally it also allowed John Baines (1) to build a business through the sale of trading cards that further reinforced the status of footballers as local heroes and celebrities. After 1884 his turnover increased and he enjoyed growing interest in trading cards that allowed him to develop his product, for example with more intricate designs. The origins of the business can be traced to 1882 and initially his focus was the production of cards featuring the names of local football clubs but it is no coincidence that by 1884 his subject matter had shifted to individual players with those of Bradford FC in particular featured extensively. Opportunities also emerged for the supply of sporting goods and trophies (2). Collectively these were formative developments in the evolution of a local football industry.
The significance of 1884 to Bradford’s sporting history therefore cannot be under-estimated. Winning the cup had a major impact on the self-identity of Bradford FC as well as Bradfordians generally, reinforcing a sense of community and civic unity in addition to providing a feelgood factor (3). At a personal level it undoubtedly offered a novel and unprecedented form of escapism and excitement. It also had a transformative effect upon the development of football locally. Such was the popularity of rugby that association football was effectively crowded out, delaying the launch of soccer in Bradford by a generation.
The events of 1884 represented a watershed after which football became firmly embedded in local culture, impacting on public discourse as well as social habits and routines. After that year football was far more visible and prominent, afforded more attention in newspapers than had been the case previously. Hence 1884 can be regarded as a particular milestone locally in the development of traits that we can recognise within modern urban society. What is all the more surprising therefore is why published accounts about the social history of Bradford have thus far overlooked the enthusiasm for football and its impact on life in the town.
A defining purpose
A non-descript retail park on Kirkstall Road, Leeds now occupies the site at Cardigan Fields better known as the location of the first major cup success of any Bradford team. Between 1880 and 1889 (except for 1887) the Cardigan Fields ground hosted the showpiece Yorkshire Rugby Union Challenge Cup Final. The ground – which was the home of the Leeds St John’s club who relocated to Headingley – was subsequently sold for house building and latterly redeveloped to its current use. Yards from where you can nowadays get a Five Guys burger, Victorians came to watch their sport including Bradfordians who witnessed the triumph of Bradford FC in 1884 and the subsequent cup final disappointments of Manningham FC in 1885 and then Bradford FC in 1886.
After the launch of the Yorkshire Challenge Cup competition by the Yorkshire Rugby Football Union in 1877 there had been a local expectation that Bradford FC should satisfy the honour of the town and win the trophy. In the absence of league competition, cup success remained the measure of the best teams in the county and having not been shy of proclaiming itself to be a leading side, the club was expected to prove it.
It was therefore considered anomalous and unacceptable that during the first six seasons of the competition, the town’s premier side had failed to progress. After reaching the semi-final in 1878, the club had been defeated in the early rounds in each of the next four seasons and in 1882 Bradford FC had even suffered the indignity of a giant-killing at Horbury. Getting as far as the quarter-finals in 1883 was insufficient to satisfy expectations. Proud Bradfordians questioned how it was that Wakefield Trinity (three times winners and twice runners-up), Halifax, Dewsbury and even the underdogs Thornes had won the ‘Owd Tin Pot’ and yet Bradford FC – tenants at Park Avenue, considered the foremost sports venue in West Yorkshire and an inspiration for a new ground at Headingley – had failed at the task.
Expectation weighed heavily which is evident from contemporary newspaper reports and accounts of club meetings to the extent that winning the Yorkshire Cup became a defining purpose for Bradford FC and the measure of its existence. In 1882, rugby enthusiasts had thwarted the prospect of association football taking hold in Bradford but there was no guarantee rugby would remain the favoured code in the town if success in the Yorkshire Cup was not forthcoming. (4) There was also the matter of another club claiming Bradford FC’s status as the best team in the town, notably Manningham FC who were then based off Carlisle Road.
The Wakefield bogey
Recruitment of a new generation of players at Park Avenue in 1882 and 1883 had strengthened the Bradford squad and at the start of the 1883/84 season there was muted optimism. Defeat of the club’s old rivals Halifax at Park Avenue in October, 1883 and a successful tour of Scotland in December provided encouragement. The test of the club’s credentials however came at Belle Vue, Wakefield on the last Saturday of 1883 and the long-anticipated fixture against Wakefield Trinity, the cup-holders.
The rivalry between Wakefield and Bradford was intense and Trinity had come to be regarded as something of a bogey side. There was a mutual jealousy: Bradford coveted the cup success of Wakefield whilst the latter could only dream to have the commercial strength of the Park Avenue based club. Bradford’s tour of Scotland had been motivated as much to raise its profile as to emulate Wakefield’s own tour of Ireland.
Defeat at Wakefield was thus a major blow to Bradford FC and its supporters with newspapers quick to highlight that any chance of cup success the following spring was extremely remote. The Park Avenue committee was desperate to rebuild confidence and opted to do so by poaching two of Manningham FC’s best players less than a fortnight later – it was openly reported that the brothers Fred and Frank Richmond had been encouraged to join Bradford FC through financial inducements. On the part of Manningham FC there was anger and the sense that Bradford was actively seeking to undermine their club. The attitude at Park Avenue however was that the town’s leading side needed to be represented by the best players in the town if the Yorkshire Cup was to come to Bradford.
Yet even with the Richmonds in the team Bradford FC was unable to beat Wakefield in the return game at Park Avenue that attracted a then capacity crowd of ten thousand. The report in the Bradford Daily Telegraph of 22nd January was taciturn in its assessment that ‘at the present time at least Bradford has no chance of being able to successfully compete with the Wakefield club for supremacy at football.’
In the cup competition, Bradford at least had the benefit of a favourable draw. In the same way as the World Cup or the Euros, cup opponents were set by a pre-determined format that plotted the permutations of opponents in different rounds. Hence it was possible to work out who a club might play in subsequent rounds and when particular rivals would meet. The only element of chance in the draw was the selection of teams in the first round although it seems likely that there was seeding to avoid the leading sides from meeting until the later rounds.
In the first round Bradford faced Stanley at Park Avenue and in the second round, opponents Wakefield St Austins were offered compensation by Bradford FC to surrender home advantage. Victory for Bradford was something of a formality but what was more remarkable was that the junior Wakefield side exited the competition at the same stage as the senior town club, Wakefield Trinity who fell to a surprise defeat at Heckmondwike. No doubt the upset came as a major relief to those at Park Avenue by eliminating the side that Bradford would otherwise have had to play in the final.
Manningham rivalry
The rivalry between Bradford FC and its successor, Bradford Park Avenue AFC with Manningham FC and in turn, Bradford City AFC came to define Bradford football. It was in 1884 that the two clubs first met.
In the third round, Bradford again had the benefit of a home draw yet whilst the opposition was junior in status, a cup tie with Manningham was anything but the easiest hurdle to overcome. The rivalry had already become imbued with a strong sense of grievance and Manningham supporters considered that the Park Avenue leadership sought to undermine their club. On the part of the town club there was resentment – driven by a sense of entitlement – that the new pretenders aspired to be sporting equals. Denied the chance to play Bradford in the absence of league competition through an invitation fixture, the cup tie offered the opportunity for the Manningham team to prove itself.
What the Bradford club had most reason to fear was the record of Manningham in developing young players and the rise of the latter since formation in 1880 despite the inequality of resources and support. The circumstances mirrored a similar situation at the end of the 1870s when junior clubs had challenged the claim of Bradford FC to be the town’s foremost representative in the Yorkshire Cup competition. At stake was the expectation of Bradfordians to boast that their town was a leading centre of sporting endeavour; for Bradford FC, the commercial and psychological imperative to maintain its status as the leading club and rightful resident of the town’s prestigious sporting venue.
The tie commanded considerable public interest, as reflected by the extent of press coverage. It was no coincidence that the growing enthusiasm for football and cup competition played its own part in the evolution of local papers with dedicated sports journalism. The best example of this was the pioneering Victorian sports journalist, Alfred Pullin (1860-1934), who was known as ‘Old Ebor’ and wrote for the Leeds-based paper, Yorkshire Evening Post. Pullin had strong local connections and he was intimate with happenings in Bradford cricket and rugby such that his commentaries about the affairs at Park Avenue in particular were both extensive and incisive. Pullin’s opinions were highly respected and accordingly he carried influence in Yorkshire rugby as well as being relied upon by betting men for his assessments of form.
By 1884 the affairs of Bradford FC and Manningham FC were also being afforded increasing coverage in The Yorkshireman, a Bradford-based publication that had originally been launched to provide a mix of local social commentary and gossip, political satire and cultural reviews. There was evidently commercial benefit to be derived from diversification into football coverage which extended beyond match reports to the discussion of club affairs and rumour as well as club politics and intrigue. Again, it was both unprecedented and pioneering with its features about the local football scene. (The topic of Bradford sports journalism is a subject for a future feature on VINCIT.)
The preparation of both Bradford clubs for the cup-tie was given extensive coverage including that of Manningham’s training break in Blackpool. The Bradford Daily Telegraph of 17 March, 1884 reported that ‘thirteen of the Manningham players spent from Tuesday morning until Friday evening at Blackpool, where plenty of exercise combined with fresh and invigorating air served to put them in first class condition’.
For most working people a leg of mutton and a fortnight in Blackpool would have been considered a real luxury, not to mention beneficial. Apart from gains to physical well-being there was also a motivational bonus for the players concerned. For the moment we will leave aside the question of how the (amateur) Manningham players could afford the loss of wages or, for that matter how a trip to Blackpool could be afforded by the club, but it demonstrates that there was a willingness to pamper players and a commitment to build team spirit. Never before had a rugby club made such an investment of time and money ahead of a cup-tie. (Ten years later, Manningham FC embarked on another pioneering tour to a fashionable and glamorous destination. On that occasion it was to Paris which was a measure of the club’s upward mobility in the decade.)
In the final event the Bradford team was reported to have been physically stronger and it achieved a convincing victory. The Manningham membership later described this as ‘the famous Blackpool mutton Cup-tie’. In his series of ‘Rugby Memories’ published in the Bradford Telegraph & Argus in 1928, ‘by ‘Bong Tong’ (pen name of journalist Tom Riley) he wrote that whilst the Manningham players were in Blackpool, ‘the Bradford team stayed at home and did little or nothing extra in the way of training. As soon as the game commenced it was plain to see either that the high living at Blackpool had done the Manningham lads no good or that they were not in the same class as Bradford.’
At the finish the ‘mutton eyters’ had been well-beaten. Even so, the Bradford Daily Telegraph of 17 March, 1884 referred to the ‘rising young Manningham club’ and added prophetically that ‘if they were defeated they were not discouraged, and no doubt will again at some future date try conclusions with their powerful rivals.’
The Bradford derby attracted a capacity crowd of between sixteen and seventeen thousand and established new record gate receipts of £280 (the previous record of £262 having been set in January, 1884 for the visit of Wakefield). The Leeds Mercury of 18 March, 1884 described Park Avenue as having been ‘crammed to excess’ with some spectators on the roof of the pavilion to witness the meeting ‘between the premier Bradford team and their small but plucky opponents from Manningham.’ The crowd was reported to have been so large that it encroached onto the field of play and it was also reported that people unable to get access to Park Avenue watched from Horton Park (the Horton Park kop terrace not being constructed until 1907).
However, it was not just the size of the crowd that drew attention in the press but also its composition. Women were afforded free entry to Park Avenue although the expectation was that they were escorted by a male companion. The Bradford Daily Telegraph of 17 March, 1884 reported that ‘the favourable condition of the elements had a further happy effect in tempting numerous ladies to be present on the ground, and enabling them to appear in costumes of more cheerful tones than would otherwise have been the case’.
The Yorkshireman of 22 March, 1884 commented on the ‘amazing popularity attained by the game of football of late years! Who would have been believed ten years ago if he had prognosticated that £260 and £270 would be received as gate money at Saturday afternoon football matches in Bradford?… Roundly speaking, everybody and his wife or daughter were present at the great tussle on Saturday at Park Avenue, and the most fortunate were those who got there soonest… all sorts and conditions of men were represented. There were clergy and ministers, pastors and deacons; very good people and some that were only so-so; lawyers, doctors, magistrates, tinkers and tailors, soldiers and sailors, rag-tag and bob-tail… And better than all, there was a large sprinkling of ladies – bless ‘em, and a good many were evidently partisans, for they wore the colours – black, red and gold – of the winning team, and a striking combination they form.’
The all-Bradford cup tie added a new dimension to the rivalry between the Bradford and Manningham clubs. It was even suggested by those following Bradford FC that Manningham FC should stand aside and not challenge the duty of their club to bring sporting glory to the town. Victory in 1884 defined Bradford FC’s status as the town’s premier representative, a status that was jealously guarded as Manningham FC later rose to prominence. The irony is that victory for Bradford FC in 1884 served only to motivate Manningham FC to emulate the achievement and give claim for recognition as an equal.
The following year Manningham FC would reach the final and had it not been for the fact that Bradford FC was defeated in the other semi-final, the two sides could have contested an all-Bradford final in 1885. In March, 1886 however the two sides met again at Park Avenue for a fourth round quarter-final Yorkshire Cup tie. Again, Bradford FC was victorious although on this occasion it was a much closer match. (That season would be the third in a row that a Bradford side contested the final although it was Halifax that won the trophy.)
Bradford and Manningham were due to play again in March, 1887 in a third round Yorkshire Cup tie that was controversially postponed due to the failure to clear snow from the Park Avenue pitch. Manningham members alleged that the home side had deliberately sought the game to be rearranged to optimise the chance of victory. The dispute eventually led to a legal challenge and a hearing in the Queen’s Bench Division of the High Court which was dismissed. The Leeds Mercury of 19 March, 1887 commented ‘it is regrettable that the Challenge Cup, the possession of which is a much-coveted honour, and the struggle for which brings into play all the dash and bravery of old, should become a bone of strife and bitterness.’
The case received considerable attention in the national press. The Athletic News of 22 March, 1887 reported how the London papers, such as The Globe, Pall Mall Gazette, and St James’s Gazette ‘wax funny at the expense of Bradford’s application for an injunction. The Park Avenue people are unmercifully chaffed, and we are told that ‘since the very first storm that ever occurred in a tea cup there has been no such topic as this.’’ The recourse to litigation came to be seen as symptomatic of the Bradford club’s high and mighty, antagonistic attitude. To suggest that relations between the Bradford and Manningham clubs were fractured by the affair is an understatement.
Thereafter they were kept apart as rugby clubs in the Yorkshire Cup although were drawn together as association clubs in the FA Cup on three occasions with each of the ties played at Park Avenue. Of those games – in February, 1912; December, 1951 and finally in December, 1958 – Bradford City AFC won two and Bradford Park Avenue was the victor in the second. Even in 1912, newspaper coverage referred to the belated revenge enjoyed by the visitors, highlighting the extent to which cup competition remained a central element of the acute rivalry that existed between the two clubs. By the post-war period, the possibility that either of them might be a winner of the FA Cup, (let alone overcome their rival to do so), was remote to say the least but considerable pride remained at stake.
By the end of the 1880s there was a raw edge to the rivalry. After fourth consecutive defeats, Manningham achieved its first victory over Bradford at Valley Parade in September, 1893 in a league match. In its preview of the game the Bradford Daily Telegraph of 30 September, 1893 commented: ‘For a real display of the human passions commend me to a football contest between those very true, sincere, and affectionate friends, the supporters of the two leading Bradford clubs. Both sides regard the meeting today as the new battle of Waterloo. A great question of procedure hangs on the result. In future it will be BRADFORD and Manningham, or MANNINGHAM and Bradford.’
(A few days later came news of the death of a Manningham supporter in the Huddersfield Daily Chronicle of 4 October, 1893, entitled A Football Enthusiast’s Sudden Death: ‘On Tuesday the Bradford coroner held an inquest on the body of Tyas Beaumont (61), a retired coffee roaster of Manningham. The deceased got up on Sunday morning as usual, and was getting ready for breakfast, but shortly afterwards was seen to fall, and he expired almost immediately. He had been talking about the result of the match between Bradford and Manningham just before his death. The jury returned a verdict of ‘Death from natural causes.’ It is stated that the deceased was an enthusiastic supporter of the Manningham club, and that he was very much excited over the previous day’s victory. In talking over the probable result of the meeting to some neighbours during the week, the deceased is credited with having jocularly remarked that if Manningham won he should be content to die.’)
The rivalry appears to have become institutionalised in popular Bradford culture, no less than at the music hall. The Hull Daily Mail of 27 January, 1896 reported: ‘Judging from what occurred at one of the ‘pantos’ in Bradford, the showing of the Manningham colours in the town must produce an effect similar to that produced by exhibiting a red rag to an infuriated bull. ‘Widow Twankey’ in Manningham colours was the signal for a round of hooting which was only stopped when that lady retired. When she re-appeared in Bradford’s colours, a prolonged round of cheering ensued.’
The rivalry between the players was as intense – if not, more – as that between the supporters themselves. The Yorkshireman of 13 December, 1892 referred to the fact that Bradford FC supporters had attended the game between Manningham FC and Dewsbury at Valley Parade after their own fixture at Hunslet had been called-off. It suggested that ‘the old hostility between the two sets of followers was dying out. This was very noticeable again on Saturday, when the Bradford lot shouted lustily for Manningham, and gave them every credit for the good game they had played.’ Notable however was the comment that ‘the players don’t take kindly to each other, as that little scene at night at the Belle Vue Hotel proves.’ Similarly, the Bradford Daily Telegraph of 30 September, 1893 reported that ‘Pocock says if he can only get one more chance at his old enemies and help bring about their downfall then he would not care if the Valley Parade Committee selected him or not. He could then be satisfied with either yes or no.’ (NB Pocock had been Manningham club captain the previous season.) Manningham FC in particular had a reputation for raising their game against Bradford FC, described by the Yorkshire Evening Post in October, 1898 as ‘form which cannot be reckoned on paper.’
Given the emotions, it is not surprising that the atmosphere at derbies was charged and rough play was regularly reported to have been a feature of the games. In October, 1896 it was alleged that Manningham ’s star player George Lorimer had been subjected to physical targeting that had been planned ahead of the game. Writing in the Yorkshire Evening Post of 7 November, 1896 Alfred Pullin referred to comments among Bradford FC supporters in the grandstand enclosure who had encouraged these tactics.
The encounter in February, 1898 had been another violent match in which the Bradford player Jack Crompton was reported to have lost his front teeth. As a result of his conduct in the same game, the Manningham forward, Arthur Leach (who had joined from Bradford FC in October, 1893) was suspended until the end of the season. ‘Old Ebor’ commented in the Yorkshire Evening Post: ‘If I mistake not this is the third time in Bradford v Manningham matches alone in which he has been requested by the referee to retire from play.’ He also reported that ‘‘Until the end of the season’ was also the sentence on six players who made the Bradford-Manningham reserve game degenerate into a Donnybrook Fair.’ It doesn’t require much imagination to work out why the matches became known as ‘skin and hair’ affairs.
These examples serve to demonstrate that the rivalry between the clubs was firmly embedded among the respected players which was at the heart of it. Not surprisingly, this inflamed passions among (non-playing) club members and supporters of both sides. Although there is no record of any trouble between supporters we should not pretend that the late nineteenth century was a mythical era of sportsmanship. The following comment in the Bradford Daily Telegraph hints that derby encounters raised emotions: ‘A parting word to partisans – Whichever team wins kindly brook, no excuses, but win and lose on your merits as true sportsmen.’ The competitiveness of the encounter and the presence of so many people following the other side meant that the atmosphere at Valley Parade or Park Avenue was bound to have been heightened. Indeed, for the same reason, the atmosphere at league games generally must have been distinct from the more traditional match atmosphere for regular friendlies or the visits of touring sides.
In the Yorkshire Evening Post of 18 February, 1899 Alfred Pullin wrote: ‘A year ago I witnessed a game between the two Bradford clubs at Park Avenue. On that occasion the language that was used in the enclosure in front of the members’ pavilion was simply filthy. The worst feature, too, was that those who used it were chiefly lads or young men who have had the ‘benefit’ of modern educational methods.’
Duty and destiny
Back in the 1883/84 Yorkshire Cup campaign, Bradford FC defeated Ossett FC in the fourth round, quarter-final (although had been unable to persuade Ossett to cede home advantage) and then overcame Batley in the semi-final at Halifax to earn a place in the Yorkshire Cup Final against Hull FC.
The route to the Final
1st March, 1884: First Round, vs Stanley (at Park Avenue)
8th March, 1884: Second Round, vs Wakefield St Austins (at Park Avenue)
15th March, 1884: Third Round, vs Manningham (at Park Avenue)
22nd March, 1884: Fourth Round (QF), vs Osset (A)
29th March, 1884: Semi-Final, vs Batley (at Halifax)
5th April, 1884: Final, vs Hull (at Kirkstall, Leeds)
Accounts of the final testify as to the popularity of rugby across all social classes in Bradford. Here was tangible evidence that sport was a social unifier, a goal of those who had been involved with Bradford Cricket Club forty years before and something which had been aspired to when Park Avenue had originally opened in 1880. It strengthened the reputation and profile of the Bradford Cricket Football & Athletic Club as a civic institution in the town and epitomised what might have been described as a ‘One Bradford’ outlook. It also reinforced the self-image of Bradford FC not just as the premier football club in Bradford but as the town’s club, with a patriotic duty to uphold the honour of Bradford.
The same chauvinism – a Bradfordist or Bradford first agenda – that had been a dominant factor in the development of Bradford CC was thus assumed by Bradford FC. Not only would the Park Avenue organisation have been considered fashionable, it would have also been regarded as a respectable and progressive force for social cohesion. It was this which further encouraged the patronage of civic leaders and which inflated the growing self-confidence of Bradford FC, perceived by its critics as high and mighty arrogance. A further outcome was that it led to a mushrooming of new clubs around the town as enthusiasm for football permeated local life.
It was reported that a crowd of fifteen thousand attended the final at the ground of Leeds St. Johns FC and as many as six thousand travelled from Bradford. According to the Yorkshire Post of 7 April, 1884:
‘The match excited a vast amount of interest among the population of Bradford. Swelldom vied equally with the rabble in manifesting their lively concern in the great event of the time. Great numbers, representing the former class, left Bradford shortly after one o’clock in vehicles of all sorts and sizes, including omnibuses and waggonettes, many of the latter being of handsome appearance, drawn by four fine horses, and driven by coachmen in gay livery. Leeds Road was thronged with these vehicles. Vast numbers of other patrons of the humbler sort departed by the excursion trains provided for them by the railway companies. During the afternoon the central streets of Bradford were thronged by persons who were anxious to ascertain the result of the contest, and great was the joy and the commotion manifested in Kirkgate when it was announced that the Bradford team were victorious…In the evening the return ‘home’ of the victorious team was commemorated by a popular demonstration regarded as quite unique in its intensity. The team arrived late at the Midland Station but in the meantime the band played a variety of popular airs, including frequently ‘See the Conquering Hero Comes’.’
Those who could not attend the game relied on telegram updates of the score with news spread among crowds waiting in central Bradford and those congregating outside the Talbot Hotel on Bank Street. Newspaper reports refer to supporters of the club wearing ribbons in its colours of red, amber and black – an illustration of how traders capitalised on the occasion.
The team was conveyed to the Talbot Hotel and the victors ‘were everywhere hailed with immense cheering.’ An immense crowd filled Kirkgate whilst the team were entertained to dinner at the Talbot Hotel. The celebrations were unprecedented, the achievement being as significant in its day as the FA Cup victory of 1911. Not everyone however was happy about the festivities as the following letter from ‘An Indignant Father’ printed in the Bradford Daily Telegraph of 9th April, 1884 attests:
‘I see the papers to-day have a great deal to say about the great victory the Bradford football team won on Saturday. I can understand this and feel proud too of the skill and courage which led up to the result. If there were nothing also I would heartily join in the general chorus of congratulation. But I am grieved to learn that there is another side to the victory, one which makes me ask whether the prize, valuable as it is, may not have cost more than it is worth. I have heard from the father of one of those who took part in Saturday’s proceedings a story that causes me to feel ashamed of my young townsmen. He tells me that the dinner degenerated into a drinking bout, and that many of those at it were in a state of dreadful intoxication, many of them not reaching home till next day, and then in a condition which I will not attempt to describe. If these are to be the consequences of winning the cup I am sure I heartily hope that it may be long before there is another occasion for such proceedings. I am sure that if the Football Club desire to enjoy public sympathy and support they will exert themselves to avoid anything that has a tendency to encourage among their members drinking as to lessen the disgrace attaching to being drunk.’
The celebration of cup success in 1884 defined the practice in Bradford for future occasions, combining the reception of the winning team by a brass band and involving a processional march. Indeed, this was later replicated by Manningham FC in 1894 to celebrate winning the Yorkshire Senior Competition and again repeated with a parade through Manningham on 25 April, 1896 to celebrate the club’s Northern Rugby Football Union championship. The same format was even the basis of the funeral procession for Manningham FC player, George Lorimer in February, 1897.
The Bradford Daily Telegraph of 8 April, 1884 reported that ‘the goal of the Bradford Club’s ambition has been reached at last.’ The triumph distracted from the fact that the club had been defeated twice by Wakefield in the 1883/84 season. Instead, cup victory had a profound impact on Bradford FC and encouraged a sense of invincibility. For a start, defeat of Manningham FC had left no-one in any doubt – for the moment at least – about the club’s premier status in the town and by winning the Yorkshire Cup it could claim primacy in the county.
The winning team – Fred Richmond, Robert Robertshaw, Edgar Critchley, Frank Ritchie, Fred Bonsor (captain), James Wright, Laurie Hickson, Sam Asquith, Edgar Wilkinson, Proctor Carter, Herbert Robertshaw, John Marshall, Sam Haigh, Tom Atkinson and Joseph Potter – became feted as Bradford celebrities. The players were all local men and of mixed social composition: Carter, the spinning overlooker; Marshall, the warehouseman; Richmond, the gardener; and the Robertshaws, Bonsor and Hickson who were the privileged sons of successful woolmen.
The hubris
The profile of Bradford FC was enhanced enormously. Such was the new-found prestige of the club that it was able to arrange a tour in November, 1884 to play Marlborough Nomads (at Blackheath), Oxford University and Cambridge University. The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News of 29 November, 1884 reported that ‘the tour of the Bradford Club has excited far more interest than any matches that have been played under Association rules.’ The Bradfordians returned home undefeated with wins against Marlborough and Cambridge and a draw in Oxford.
In December, 1884 Bradford FC defeated Llanelly FC, holders of the Welsh Cup at Park Avenue. Although the visitors included three guest players from Hull, the Bradford side was under strength and the result was interpreted as further affirmation of the club’s strength. Sporting success reinforced the self-belief – and what might even be described as a sense of entitlement – that already existed in Bradford (in abundance) and the achievement of the club was emulated in succeeding months by Bradford Harriers (cross country running) and Bradford Chess Club. (Chess was a popular activity in Bradford at the time and widely reported in the press, the equivalent of ‘mental athletics’.) As significant, in the final game of the year there was also victory over Wakefield Trinity at Park Avenue – this time in front of a reported seventeen thousand, the ground having been expanded to cater for growing crowds – with a last-minute try scored by Joseph Hawcridge, another player poached from Manningham FC.
(In its own attempt to save face, the Wakefield club disputed the result but was unsuccessful in appealing to the RFU for it to be reversed. The return fixture at Wakefield however never took place and was postponed twice on account of Bradford FC claiming that it was unable to raise a side. The episode added to the mythology of the rivalry and Trinity supporters inevitably claimed that the Bradford captain, Fred Bonsor was afraid of bringing his team to Belle Vue.)
The cup success of 1884 became part of Bradford folklore with routine mention in the Bradford press for the next five decades as it remained in living memory. Members of the winning team also accrued considerable influence in club politics at Park Avenue. The achievement of having won the cup – and the subsequent glory era enjoyed by Bradford FC before the formation of the breakaway Northern Union in 1895 – inevitably encouraged a nostalgia amongst Bradford supporters about former membership of the English Rugby Football Union. In turn this led to the launch of Bradford RFC in 1919 and revival of Rugby Union in the city.
Winning the trophy played a big part in helping to define – in addition to reinforcing – the self-identity of Bradfordians. With regards civic pride, Bradfordians could hardly complain at a Leeds newspaper offering praise: ‘Bradford has the distinguished honour of holding three silver challenge cups. Her stalwart football team were winners of the Yorkshire Football Challenge Cup; her fleet ‘Harriers’ ran away with another cup from Leeds; and, to crown all, her astute chess players carried off the West Riding Association Challenge Cup. These three honours are but an exemplification of the pluck and enterprise of Bradford men. Whatever they attempt they do with all their might; throw their whole soul into the task; ‘never say fail’ is their motto; and this principle, which applied equally to the public affairs of the borough as to its individual citizens, accounts, in a great measure, for the rapid progress and prosperity of the borough.’ (The Leeds Times, 7 February, 1885).
Bradford prided itself that ‘Labor Omnia Vincit’ was not an idle motto and that it was a guiding principle and spirit of the town. The observation in The Leeds Times reveals how sport could provide an affirmation of the Bradford psyche and how sporting success was seen as the prize of a work hard, play hard outlook. This was not confined to the field and in September, 1886 for example The Yorkshireman referred to the fact that ‘complaints have frequently been made by our neighbouring football friends of the extreme partisanship of the Park Avenue spectators.’ This demand for success played its part in shaping the culture of the club. In 1884, as in 1911 when Bradford City AFC won the FA Cup, it was a feature of the Leeds press to question when Leeds might emulate Bradford’s sporting glories and there is an element of self-doubt on the part of the (Leeds) journalist who wrote what he did in 1885. A compliment indeed about Bradford sport and the will to win.
As to why Bradford should have established sporting ascendancy over Leeds, my observation is that in Leeds there was greater fragmentation of sporting effort and in the nineteenth century at least, Leeds Cricket, Football & Athletic Club at Headingley was late in asserting itself as the local champion. Equally it could be suggested that with regards association football, Bradford did not sustain success at a national level in the twentieth century due to the fact that neither Bradford City nor Bradford Park Avenue enjoyed the civic monopoly of Leeds United and hence Bradford lost the advantage.
In the aftermath of cup victory Bradford FC was successful in developing a national profile and reputation as one of the leading sides in the country and the ability to command prestigious fixtures. There was even the suggestion of playing exhibition games in Germany in 1886 but despite the promise of expenses being underwritten, the tour never materialised. In practice the Bradford leadership was calculating when arranging its tours with regards to optimising the club’s reputation. By the end of the 1880s the club’s annual tours had become infamous, said to be done in regal style with questions of cost a mere detail which, according to Alfred Pullin in The Athletic News of 18 November, 1889 was characteristic of Bradford FC. Not least the club also established an enviable record of Park Avenue players being ever-present in the England Rugby Union team between 1885-95 (5) and by offering a higher probability of selection for Yorkshire and England, it ensured that the best players were attracted to play for Bradford FC.
By the second half of the 1880s the club was being accused by its Yorkshire-based rivals of its arrogant outlook and whilst jealousy was a factor in this, there was also substance to the accusation of the self-assured hubris of the club’s leadership. This personality was virtually a caricature of the brash, self-made and nouveau-riche men who had made their wealth from Bradford’s wool trade, for whom the success of Bradford FC would have appealed to their vanity by giving further recognition to the town in which they had flourished. The club proved adept at self-promotion and getting national attention as a sporting phenomenon of the age such that Bradford FC – and Bradford rugby – would enjoy peak fame during the next decade. By contrast, Wakefield Trinity – winners of the Yorkshire Cup three times and runners-up twice in the first six seasons – never attained the same profile or became as fashionable.
Football mania had no bounds as this classified advert from January, 1885 demonstrates, another example of how traders looked to capitalise on interest in football. The fact that the cup victory should be commemorated on a piano might seem bizarre but it reveals the pride and cachet of the achievement for this to have been a design feature of a premium consumer product.
Charitable purpose
It was a characteristic of Bradford FC that it sought to differentiate itself from its rivals by claiming that it served a higher purpose and there were two elements to this, the first of which was the promotion of recreational activity as an antidote to hard work. This sentiment had roots in the politics of the 1840s when the Tory sponsors of Bradford Cricket Club had seen the opportunity to attract working class support and challenge the Liberal, non-conformist mill owner establishment but it evolved to demonstrate that Bradford and its people had interests and passions beyond work. The second dimension was the promotion of charity fundraising, establishing a tradition of support from Bradford sportsmen for the town’s infirmary which continued through the inter-war period (for instance with gate receipts from pre-season friendlies at Valley Parade or Park Avenue donated to charity).
In order to demonstrate the club’s commitment to charity fundraising, immediately after the Yorkshire Cup Final the Bradford FC leadership gave its encouragement to a game at Cardigan Fields on 15 April, 1884 – a mere ten days after the earlier cup victory at the same venue – at which a Leeds & District XV played a Bradford & District side to raise money for the Leeds and Bradford Infirmaries. The following month, the Bradford Charity Cup competition was instigated by Bradford FC with the patronage of the Mayor, Isaac Smith as the club continued to bask in the glory of its cup success. (6)
The launch of the new local competition – for what became known as the ‘small pot’ as distinct to the ‘T’owd tin pot’ by which the Yorkshire Cup was known – fuelled cup fever and this contributed to an explosion in the formation of new clubs in the Bradford district (7). In turn Bradford became a rugby stronghold. Association football was quite literally crowded out with nowhere to stage soccer and no-one to play the alternative code which had implications for the development of professional sport in the district.
By 1890 Bradford FC was recognised as the wealthiest football club in England. With the accumulation of profits, Park Avenue was progressively upgraded to accommodate ever-larger crowds. However, anxious to avoid the suggestion that it was chasing mammon the club steadfastly proclaimed its commitment to charitable fund raising. The club’s mission became that of securing ownership of Park Avenue to provide a dedicated venue for sporting activity in the district and in turn, a means of supporting local charities.
The club’s commitment to rugby would eventually prove a disadvantage and the launch of the Football League in 1888 ensured that in terms of balance sheet strength, Bradford FC would soon be overtaken. Ambitions to develop a three-sided ground at Park Avenue were revealed in 1893 but later abandoned as the club struggled to repay borrowings taken out to secure the long leasehold of the ground. Inevitably the commitment to charity fund raising became sacrificed to financial survival.
The match day experience
Although high profile cricket fixtures staged by Bradford Cricket Club had attracted large crowds (probably no more than five thousand), the only precedent for mass spectator events in Bradford had been the Whitsun Galas at Peel Park that reputedly attracted crowds of sixty thousand. The attendances at Park Avenue did not exceed the numbers reported to have attended the latter, but what was unique about them was the frequency and regularity of large crowds. With regards the match day experience the biggest differentiator with today would have been the lack of attention to health and safety considerations.
For a start, ground facilities were rudimentary with terracing invariably being no more than earth mounds topped with chimney waste, for example ashes or clinker. Even the prestigious pavilion at Park Avenue with little more than a basic grandstand with basic, bench seating. High profile matches increasingly attracted bumper crowds that forced pressure for the progressive expansion of Park Avenue.
Understanding of capacity limits was crude and subject to arbitrary estimates. Entry of people to the ground would have been based on what was physically possible as opposed to defined limits. The comfort and convenience of spectators was a secondary consideration, a charge equally applicable to leading British football clubs until the 1980s.
On Christmas Day, 1888 a twelve year old boy, Thomas Coyle was killed only seven minutes into a game at Valley Parade as a result of the collapse of the wooden pitch perimeter barrier on the Midland Road side. He had been a member of a reported ten thousand crowd for the visit of Heckmondwike and this must have been the upper tolerance of what the ground could accommodate – much less than the much vaunted eighteen thousand capacity.
The wooden barriers were ill-suited to withstand a crush and the inquest was told that the foundations on the ash banking had yet to settle, a problem no doubt exacerbated by the soft ground conditions caused by rain. However, the inquest was told that there had been a similar incident the season before. Comment was also made at the hearing that the barriers were not as strong as those at Park Avenue. The fact that a reported crowd of twenty thousand had attended the Boxing Day derby between Bradford and Halifax – and that a similar incident had been avoided – would not have been unnoticed either.
The adequacy of facilities at Park Avenue to safely accommodate large crowds was questionable although thankfully there was no loss of life as at Valley Parade in December, 1888. An account in The Yorkshireman of December, 1884 testified to the cramped conditions with people tightly packed at the time of the Wakefield game. Warnings of a potential incident were highlighted by a report in the Bradford Observer of 22 September, 1885: ‘The increased accommodation in the pavilion and enclosures is a great boon to the members…The alterations are not quite completed, and it might be suggested to the management here that the enclosure stand is far too close to the railings at present and will result in the latter giving way under pressure, with possible danger to life and limb. There ought to be fully twice as much space as there is at present between the last row on the stand and the railings.’
A crowd of twenty thousand attended the game with Halifax on 4 March, 1893 (the decider of the Yorkshire Senior Competition) which highlighted the capacity constraints of the ground and the urgency for redevelopment. What is remarkable is that the bumper gate with its record receipts came on the same day that twenty-two thousand attended the England international against Scotland at Headingley in which Toothill and Duckett of Bradford FC represented the home nation. The Halifax derbies were popular and two years before, a crowd of just under twenty thousand had attended a cup-tie between the teams at Park Avenue. There had been a similar attendance on Boxing Day, 1888 for the same fixture and at the time, both of these games represented then record gate takings.
The Bradford Daily Telegraph of 7 March, 1893 reported that: ‘As the enclosures and stands became packed the boundary walls soon began to swarm with persons. Considerable amusement was caused by the swarm of youngsters who were pitched over into the field, to make room for the late arrivals. The safety of spectators was a secondary concern and the game was delayed following the collapse of a barrier at the town end of the field owing to the surging pressure of the crowd.’ Thankfully no-one was reported to have been injured.
An account of the same game was provided in the reminiscences of former Bradford FC President, Mr TA Corry in January, 1915: ‘Just before half-time one set of railings gave way, and a couple of thousand spectators rolled down the bank on to the field. Fortunately, only one boy complained of his leg being hurt. The situation looked very dangerous as the crowd got close up to the goalposts. At half time there was discussion about abandoning the game but the Halifax captain preferred to go on. I spent the rest of the game on the field trying to keep the crowd in order.’
Another near escape was reported by the Bradford Daily Telegraph on 20 September, 1897: ‘During the progress of the Bradford v Heckmondwike match at Park Avenue on Saturday, the football pavilion caught fire at the Horton Park end. The blaze, however, was extinguished with a couple buckets of water.’
The Bradford Daily Argus of 6 March, 1897 similarly included an account of straw being set ablaze on ‘the touchline of the 3d side’ (that is the Horton Park Avenue side) that caused the game to be stopped for a few minutes whilst a policeman smothered the fire with more wet straw. It was said that the fire was attributed to a spectator who had been swearing because Bradford had missed a chance to score and presumably, in his rage he had dropped his pipe.
Describing the record attendance at Park Avenue, the Yorkshire Post of 6 April, 1904 stated ‘the number of people admitted to the ground – reported to be 27,000 – was really larger than was consistent with safety’ and reported how barriers at the city end of the ground had given way: ‘those in the front were hurled forward, and those directly behind fell on top of them. Just for a moment it appeared as if a serious accident had occurred, and it was a great relief to find that those in the melee were more frightened than hurt.’ It added that ‘from the time the barriers gave way until the close of a most stubborn and exciting game the self-restraint of the encroaching crowd was simply splendid. Hundreds of persons could not help being forced inside the enclosure, but once there they did all that men could do to avoid interference with the game and see that the combatants had fair play. It was as fine an example of the real Yorkshire Sportsmanship as one could possibly wish to see.’
Police attendance at games was not for the purpose of crowd control or safety management as opposed to deterring theft or robbery. Packed crowds encouraged pick-pockets although this was by no means a new issue and the minutes of a Bradford Town Council meeting in September, 1848 reported police attendance at cricket matches staged by Bradford CC at its former Claremont ground to provide deterrence. Disclosure of the cost of police wages in the accounts of Bradford FC would similarly suggest between five and ten policemen on duty at Park Avenue on matchdays in the 1880s to deter pickpockets and prevent the theft of gate receipts.
Bradford FC and Manningham FC were the largest clubs in the Bradford district but were not the only ones established on a commercial basis. What came to characterise Bradford football was the number of gate-taking clubs with as many as thirteen gate-taking sides within the current Bradford Metropolitan District, a statistic that is significant in itself. The principal clubs were as follows: Bradford; Manningham; Bowling (8); Bowling Old Lane; Shipley (7); Saltaire; Windhill; Idle; Wibsey; Bingley (9); Keighley; Ingrow; and Silsden. However there were other village sides in addition to these who committed to renting fields and whose operating expenditure was also dependent upon spectator monies – for example the likes of Buttershaw, Heaton, Wibsey and Wyke who were enthusiastic competitors in local charity cup competition. Aside from a limited number of cup-ties, median attendances at these clubs would have been a fraction of those at Park Avenue, Carlisle Road or Valley Parade (after 1886) and in practice the vast majority of those clubs struggled to remain solvent. Nevertheless it demonstrates the extent to which football had captured the local imagination and of how the business of football became established. It was evidence of the phenomenon of how a sport had become monetarised and then commercialised to create a widespread business activity.
Although there are reports of players or referees being routinely abused, I have not come across any mention of crowd violence. When trouble did arise, this was typically attributed to gambling disputes as opposed to partisan loyalty.
As referenced in this account there are numerous reports in contemporary newspapers to foul language at matches. There is however no mention of communal singing which, in Bradford at least, was a phenomenon that did not emerge until after rugby was abandoned at Valley Parade in 1903 with terrace songs that could be traced to a combination of music halls and viral spread from hearing the songs of supporters from other clubs.
Partisan rivalries
New rivalries emerged between junior sides across the district but none could match the sheer intensity and pettiness of that between Manningham FC and Bradford FC which continued in the twentieth century through the rivalry between Bradford City and Bradford Park Avenue. However, it is wrong to claim that the basis of the rivalry was based in social class, religion or ethnic division (10). Underlying the rivalry was urban geography. The fact that Park Avenue was relatively inconvenient to access from Manningham and the corridor in north west Bradford where much of the urban growth was focused gave impetus to a club becoming established on the other side of town. Ultimately the distinction between the clubs had more to do with the grounds that they were based at – Park Avenue being a cathedral of sport as opposed to the more utilitarian Valley Parade being better described as a chapel.
In time it became appropriate to describe the rivalry of the two clubs as derived from a narcissism of small differences. However, what animated their supporters were the myths, legends, accumulated grievances (imagined and real), heroes and personalities which added to the innate competitiveness that came bundled up with following Bradford FC or Manningham FC. It would be wrong to say that football culture began in 1884, but what happened in that year provided the ingredients to bring substance. From thereon, football began to matter.
The cup success of Bradford FC in 1884 served to motivate Manningham FC who reached the final of the Yorkshire Cup in April, 1885 and were defeated by Batley who had beaten Bradford FC in the semi-finals. An all-Bradford cup final in 1885 would have been a momentous event and crowned the growing reputation of the town as a centre of sporting activity.
(Notable is that in 1885 a change of diet was instituted for Manningham players as reported by The Yorkshireman of 28 March, 1885: ‘Last year at this time, when training for the Cup, after his sprinting he could sit down to a good feed, consisting of oysters, beefsteaks, mutton, etc; but now, alas, he has to be content with a teacake and a pint of tea…‘ A week later, with the club having defeated Dewsbury to gain a place in Yorkshire Cup Final, The Yorkshireman commented that ‘A certain stalwart Manningham forward was strolling along the Lane on Saturday night when he met a prominent Bradford player, who congratulated him heartily on Manningham’s victory. ‘’Yes, yes,’’ replied the Manninghamite, with a wry smile, ‘’muffins and teacakes have not been so bad for training purposes, after all!‘’ ‘ Consistent with the more puritanical approach, another training camp was arranged ahead of the final with Batley but on that occasion, it was to Morecambe where there were fewer distractions compared to Blackpool. In February, 1906 the practice was revived by Bradford City AFC which had a fortnight’s training break in Blackpool in advance of the Third Round FA Cup tie at Everton.)
The Manningham-Bradford rivalry became even more bitter in 1887. The relationship between the two clubs dictated the future of professional sport in Bradford and their conversion to soccer in the first decade of the twentieth century. The reluctance to join forces through amalgamation and the fragmentation of sporting effort was surely at the expense of future glories. Thus the events of the 1880s helped shape the future of football in the district and in turn, Bradford football became the prisoner of its history.
The historic context
Sadly, future occasions for sporting celebration in Bradford were few and far between which might explain why the achievement of 1884 remained uppermost in the sporting folklore of the town in the late Victorian era. For example, in 1885 Manningham FC was defeated in the final of the Yorkshire Cup and then in 1886, Bradford FC lost to Halifax at Cardigan Fields. Enthusiasm for the competition became much diminished at Park Avenue in favour of high-profile invitation fixtures and Bradford FC did not enter in either the1887/88 or 1888/89 seasons. Between then and 1895 both Bradford FC and Manningham FC reached the semi-finals on two occasions (Bradford FC in 1890 and 1894; Manningham FC in 1893 and 1895) but the cup did not return.
It seems incredible that even in the late nineteenth century heyday of Bradford rugby, headline trophy success was rare. The next occasion that a Bradford rugby union club won the Yorkshire Challenge Cup for example was in 1923, long after the rugby schism of 1895 and when the trophy was much diminished in stature (11 & 12). Manningham’s success as inaugural champions of the Northern Union in 1896 was the next major success for a Bradford side followed by Bradford FC winning the Northern Union play-off in 1904, the Challenge Cup in 1906 and the Northern Union Yorkshire Cup in 1907.
The intense rugby rivalry of Bradford FC and Manningham FC continued after the respective cubs converted to association football at Valley Parade in 1903 and at Park Avenue in 1907. Whilst at the latter, Chairman Harry Briggs dominated decision-making, to all intents and purposes the two organisations operated much the same as association clubs as they had as rugby clubs. Indeed, although they attracted new, predominantly younger followers there remained considerable institutional loyalty to the respective ‘new’ clubs from existing supporters. For example, at Park Avenue this overcame much of the bitterness about abandoning rugby and at Valley Parade in particular, there remained a strong Manningham identity despite the change of code. The football experience in Bradford thus continued to be overshadowed by the petty jealousies of the two long after rugby was abandoned to the extent that it was almost incidental what shaped ball was being chased on the pitch. Indeed, it was far from the case that conversion to association football represented an entirely clean break from the past and a reset of local football culture.
By the beginning of the twentieth century, association football was in the ascendancy in Bradford and interest in rugby was waning. The achievement of Bradford City AFC winning the Division Two championship in 1908 and then the FA Cup in 1911 overshadowed the earlier triumphs and ‘Glorious 1884’ was thus forgotten.
In many ways the triumph of 1911 mirrored that of 1884 in so far as the population of Bradford had an expectation of sporting glory to complement the commercial, cultural and civic accomplishments of a confident and successful metropolis. As in 1884, sporting glory in 1911 played a big part in consolidating local pride and a sense of local patriotism in Bradford. Likewise, just as the 1884 victory became a big part in the self-identity of Bradford FC, so too ‘Glorious 1911’ did much the same for Bradford City AFC. As with Bradford FC at Park Avenue after it became a founder member of the Northern Union in 1895, memory of cup glory sustained a sense of self-belief and pride at Valley Parade long after that club’s glory era had disappeared.
Neither Bradford City not Bradford Park Avenue were particularly successful in league competition and between 1908 and 1970 when the city of Bradford had two representatives in the Football League, they managed only three promotions apiece. Had rugby been abandoned much sooner, it is possible that Bradford could have established itself as a soccer hotbed (13). It remained cup competition that focused the interest of the Bradford public with celebrated (if not rare) exploits in the FA Cup during the post-war period. Successive generations all hankered for the chance of cup glory such was the local sporting folklore that had surrounded the success in 1884 and later in 1911.
As to why the two Bradford clubs proved more adept at preparing for cup games than sustaining effort over the course of a league season may be explained by their status in the football world. Their fall from grace after World War One was accompanied by financial difficulty and lack of strength in depth. On the one hand it meant that they had limited resources to build a squad of players to be consistently successful but on the on the hand, there was a financial imperative to achieve success in the cup simply to generate revenue.
After the disappearance of Bradford Park Avenue, the achievement of Bradford City as a basement club reaching the final of the Football league Cup at Wembley in 2013 and the famous victory in the FA Cup at champions, Chelsea in 2015 maintained the record of cup exploits.
Bradford Northern RLFC (the successors to Bradford FC in the Northern Union / Rugby League) and Bradford Bulls (as Bradford Northern became known after 1996) likewise derived their own reputations from cup competition – for instance with three successive Wembley Challenge Cup finals between 1947 and 1949 including victory in 1944, 1947 and 1949 and latterly three World Club Championship successes between 2002 and 2006. (14)
Read more in ROOM AT THE TOP and LIFE AT THE TOP by the same author, published as apart of the BANTAMSPAST HISTORY REVISITED series
Notes and links to relevant features published on VINCIT about the early history of football (rugby / soccer) in Bradford:
Collectors guide for Baines trading cards(NB John Dewhirst is collaborating in the production of an in-depth history of Baines cards with likely publication in 2026)
The author’s blog can be accessed from this link which has other features about the history of Bradford sport.
Thanks for visiting VINCIT, the online journal of Bradford sport history which features all clubs and codes of sport in the district. The motivation for the site was to ensure a resource for people interested in the origins and history of Bradford sport without recourse to superficial, inaccurate and on occasions, imagined narratives that are commonplace on the internet and social media. The same objective is behind the BANTAMSPAST History Revisited series of books about the history of Bradford football.
There are few surviving artefacts of Bradford rugby and cricket clubs from the nineteenth century other than trade cards, of which those published by John Baines of Bradford were among the most prolific and commonplace. The following provides a reference for collectors to identify and date Baines trade cards.This has been compiled by James Crick from information sourced in surviving papers from Alexander Shaw Baines.
JOHN BAINES Litho, Manningham Bradford sports cards from Pears Soap to J.Baines Ltd 1882 – 1926
This history of John Baines cards dates the oldest sports cards in the world accurately.
John Baines was not a printer, he was a lithographer. He employed designers & etchers then
Baines outsourced their designs, as finished plates, to printers like Alf Cooke & Berry Brothers.
Bradford Zingari played in gold and black jerseys
Key dates :
1882 Simple shield designs, no players, 1-colour team name cards, primitive designs, plain backs some with Baines Cigars rubber stamps.
1882 Square cards with “Baines Lucky Bags” backs, printed by Alf Cooke of Leeds.
1882 First use of ‘Good Morning Pears Soap’ cards (no baby) shield shapes, team names no players – ie as illustrated above Bradford Zingari, a club which was defunct by 1883
1883 Star-shapes (triangle overlaid on clover) & shield cards without coat of arms, cricket & football word making, famous players 68 Carlisle Road, Bradford
1883 Octagonal-shape cards, Australian cricketers 1st Ashes Test match series, no coat of arms, cricket & football word making, 68 Carlisle Road, Bradford
1883 Second series of star shape cards (triangle over clover) famous players WITH sportsmen coat of arms, cricket & football word making, 68 Carlisle Road, Bradford
1883 Famous players on Pears Soap (no baby) shield cards, no address, J.Baines Litho Manningham, E.G. Bonsor, captain of Bradford FC. NOTE: newspapers of early 1884 reported on these very cards!
1884 Ball shape cards & shields with redesigned, different sportsmen coat of arms, cricket & football cards, 68 Carlisle Road, Bradford
1885 final issues of cards with the sportsmen coat of arms & “word making” legends, ball shaped cards, 68 Carlisle Road, Bradford – thereafter the Royal Beasts crests and only legends mentioning football & cricket prize packets are mentioned.
1886 “Cup Ties” back cards (annual competition end-date stated as April 1887) 68 Carlisle Road, Bradford
During 1886 Baines acquired a patent 80607 and a 2nd address at 72 Carlisle Road, Bradford – for a short time some cards bear both 68 & 72 Carlisle Road, Bradford
1886 Baines Litho cards start seeing the first use of the newer Pears Soap backs (with a baby) which ran until the early 1890s
1887 onwards a new, larger shield card, the largest of 3 shields now used by Baines, appears. It has upturned shoulders
1887 fan-shaped cards, no protecting patent, three Baines backs known, each different Royal Beasts, each 72 Carlisle Road, Bradford
1888 fan-shaped cards with protecting patent 13173 advertising backs, shops & soaps, ointments, etc Baines Litho Manningham, no address
1888 cards shaped like handheld rugby balls are seen, Pears Soaps & Baines 72 Carlisle backs are known
1888 oval-shapes, 72 Carlisle Road, Bradford.
1889 new address, with double numbers: 65 & 72 Carlisle Road, these cards date between 1889 and 1891
1890 saw the first rectangular cards, large rugby commemoratives for the home nations rugger tournament
1891 yet another new address, double: 65 Carlisle Road AND 15 North Parade, Bradford dates from mid 1891 onwards
1895 address becomes just 15 North Parade, Bradford
After an 1895 award Baines may start adding gold medals but it seems they only arrive on cards after 1897
1897 “Gem” and “Green Eleven Silver Seven” cards backs are seen
After 1898 patent number 197161 is seen on cards
1900‘s only the basic shield shape, 15 North Parade, Bradford gold medal backs
1909 First time “J.Baines Ltd” is seen on cards – Ltd = Limited, a registered company limited by shares.
1909 onwards heirs run 2 firms bearing Baines’ name, J.Baines and J.Baines Ltd
1910 until around 1916 J.Baines Ltd 15 North Parade, Bradford
1910 onwards J Baines Oak Lane, Bradford
1916-1926 J.Baines Ltd, George Yard, Barnsley
1923-1926 J.Baines Nelson Road, Gillingham
THANKS to James Crick (born 1952), great-grandson of John Baines senior, for his help with this definitive history. His grandmother & his great uncles & aunt, including Alex Shaw Baines (died Bradford fire, 1985, RIP) feature on Baines cards. His grandmother, Winifred Elsie Shaw Baines, features on a 1920’s Nelson Road, Gillingham card as a baby with initials “W.E.S.B.”
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.
Exif_JPEG_420
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.
Exif_JPEG_420
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.
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. Initiatives to promote soccer in Bingley at the turn of the twentieth century therefore tended to be limited 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
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.
* * * * * * *
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.
Thanks for visiting VINCIT. We publish content about the history of Bradford sport, irrespective of code or club and encourage contributions. Follows the links from the drop down menu above.
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.
* * * * * *
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.
An alternative history of BCAFC with embedded links to other features on VINCIT that provide further information.
On 25th May, 1903 a delegation comprising Messrs James Whyte, Arnold Foxcroft, John Brunt and John Fattorini attended the Annual General Meeting of the Football League to make the case for ‘Bradford City AFC’ to be elected to the Football League. In the ballot of existing clubs, Bradford City was elected to membership in place of Doncaster Rovers. The voting was as follows: Bradford City 30; Stockport County 20; Burnley 19; Doncaster Rovers 14; Crewe Alexandra 7; West Hartlepool 7; Southport Central 4; and Wellington 1.
That evening, with the exception of John Brunt who remained in London they returned to Bradford to report the successful outcome at the Belle Vue Hotel at a meeting chaired by Alfred Ayrton and attended by the Manningham FC committee, prominent supporters and old rugby players numbering around 160 in total. The formation was to be achieved by Manningham FC abandoning rugby at Valley Parade and switching to association football. Elected to the Football League without ever having played a game of soccer and prior to the formal agreement of the Manningham FC members to abandon rugby (which was not confirmed until five days later), it was a remarkable birth all the more so for the fact that the nascent Bradford City AFC had virtually no assets let alone any players.
The delegates were all senior members of the Bradford & District Football Association which had been formed in 1899 to promote soccer in what was a rugby stronghold. Behind the scenes, committee members of Manningham FC had been actively involved in the Bradford City project led by the club president, Alfred Ayrton and included former (rugby) players Ike Newton and Harry Jowett as well as businessman, Arthur Lancaster and John Nunn, a local sporting celebrity.
The club’s founders had high expectations and the fact that Bradford City AFC won the FA Cup just eight years later surely validated their original convictions. Imagine then that the leading personalities from 1903 could reconvene in the old club rooms at the Belle Vue Hotel opposite Valley Parade to reflect on the fate of Bradford City AFC and ask how it was that 120 years later, the club found itself in the basement division?
When it began
There was no shortage of self-belief in Bradford at the turn of the twentieth century. It was a city with a strong can-do mentality and pluck, where people boasted of a ‘work hard, play hard’ culture. To outsiders, successful Bradford businessmen and dignitaries were often considered arrogant and self-confident to a degree that bordered on expressions of entitlement. Bradfordians were also known as stubborn. Bradford was, after all, a place where considerable fortunes had been made and a town that had grown out of nothing from a population of just 13,264 in 1801 to 145,830 in 1871. The grand Victorian architecture in the centre of Bradford was not just a reflection of the wealth of the district but also a statement that this was a place to be reckoned with. And when city status was finally granted in 1897, Bradford was given recognition of its importance and significance as a major trading centre.
In the final quarter of the nineteenth century Bradford had already established for itself a reputation for sporting excellenceand endeavour. The pioneering sports journalist, Alfred Pullin oft wrote about the strong sports culture in Bradford and the extent of grass roots participation in activities as diverse as rugby, cricket, athletics or cycling. In particular Bradford was known as a rugby stronghold from the exploits of its two senior clubs, Bradford FC and Manningham FC. (Bradford’s rugby heritage) Prior to the split in English rugby in 1895, Bradford FC at Park Avenue had established a reputation as one of the strongest clubs in Great Britain and in 1890 the club had even been talked of as the richest football club in England.
Manningham FC and Bradford FC had been fierce rivals with distinct personalities. The two had more in common than their supporters might care to admit but Manningham FC had always seen itself as the underdog whereas Bradford FC had defined itself as the senior club in the town, accused of a ‘high and mighty’ outlook. Their respective grounds were the basis of their identities: Park Avenue was the grand cathedral of sportin Bradford whereas Valley Parade was the functional, no frills chapel but it was physical geography as opposed to religion or politics that tended to define allegiance. (Background about the City / Avenue rivalry) The underdog mentality was inherited by the new Bradford City AFC which saw itself fighting against the odds and it was fitting that in 1908 a bantam had been proposed as the club identity by Toni Fattorini on account of it being known as a small fighting bird that was not afraid to tackle much bigger rivals.
The growth of association football and the launch of the Football League in 1888 had bypassed Bradford which was an area where rugby dominated. (Notable is that two of the founder members of the Football League, Burnley and Preston North End had abandoned rugby in 1880 and there is a strong case that had there been a commitment to soccer at Park Avenue, Bradford could have established itself as a leading side.) In 1895 both Manningham FC and Bradford FC had become founder members of the new Northern Union (that later became known as the Rugby League) and in fact Manningham FC were inaugural champions of the new competition. By 1903 however, the Northern Union was no longer as popular and Manningham FC was struggling in its second division. Conversion to association football provided Manningham FC with the opportunity to avoid financial collapse and to become Bradford’s sole representative in a prestigious national competition. In turn the leadership of the Football League was anxious to have a member based in the existing rugby stronghold of West Yorkshire.
The launch of Bradford City AFC was thus an opportunist measure to both safeguard the future of Manningham FC as an institution and to launch professional (association) football in Bradford. On the part of the founders and the Football League Management Committee, the focus was on Manningham abandoning rugby and gaining election to the Football League. There was no business plan as such for what happened once this was achieved and nor was there a wealthy industrialist or benefactor ready to bankroll the new venture. Instead, it was assumed that when the new club was launched things would somehow take care of themselves. The issue of finance was almost incidental and something to worry about later. It was taken for granted that the catchment of the Bradford district would guarantee the club’s viability.
For the Valley Parade committee, conversion to association football in 1903 had as much to do with representing Bradford at a senior level in the sport as it was about being a pioneering West Yorkshire soccer club and encouraging local interest in the round ball game. The latter was a cause that the new club embraced with an almost messianic zeal and the founders would likely recall the effort invested in those early years through exhibition games and links with the Bradford & District FA. The founders would look upon the club’s current community initiatives and football camps as a natural successor to their original efforts. However, at no stage was women’s football a consideration for the founders. Mindful that this is now a big theme for the future of the sport, the extent to which Bradford City has helped promote local women’s football in the modern era would be topical for discussion. (The origins of women’s football in Bradford)
Formative early years
Looking back, the outcome of the merger referendum in 1907 dictated the course of football history in Bradford. This had been to decide whether Bradford City should remain independent at Valley Parade or move across to Park Avenue and combine resources with Bradford FC.
By voting against merger, the City membership had secured the independence of the club and its Valley Parade home but had also denied themselves the use of the city’s premier stadium – Park Avenue – and the largesse of the Park Avenue benefactor, Harry Briggs. Yet whilst the City committee was broadly united at being unimpressed about how Briggs dominated the affairs of the Bradford Cricket, Athletic & Football Club, in 1907 they differed between themselves in terms of whether joining forces with Briggs was a risk worth taking. It was indeed a divisive issue that had threatened the unity of Bradford City and its supporters. However, by going alone the club committed itself to the financial burden of developing Valley Parade, investment in new players as well as losing monopoly status in Bradford as a consequence of Briggs launching his own club at Park Avenue in direct competition.
The club had never found itself a rich benefactor like Harry Briggs and became reliant instead upon a combination of share capital, borrowings and making a profit to remain solvent. It was a precarious existence as the founders had discovered for themselves and they would observe that the club had remained under-capitalised throughout. In 1906 the club came close to insolvency and had required Alfred Ayrton to keep it afloat with a temporary loan. The founders would likely highlight that until Stefan Rupp invested in Bradford City in 2016 there had never been a single individual who had committed his personal wealth to the affairs of the club. Indeed, there had been a similar story at Park Avenue after the death of Briggs in 1920 where a replacement benefactor had never come forth. The founders would note that other than Briggs, no other wealthy Bradfordian had been prepared to dig deep and give his financial backing to the cause of professional football in the city.
Historically, Manningham FC which had been founded in 1880 prided itself that it was not beholden to a single individual as was the case across the city at Park Avenue. The club had also been averse to debt and as a consequence its financial security had been dependent upon the combination of annual member subscriptions and gate receipts. The consequence was that Manningham FC had never had the luxury of a buffer fund that could be relied upon in times of difficulty or to fund major projects such as ground development.
With hindsight the founders would agree that in 1903 there had been a degree of naivety that Bradford City AFC could be managed in much the same way as Manningham FC, not only in terms of its finances but with team selection determined by committee (In 1903 for example the team selection committee comprised John Brunt, John Fattorini, Arnold Foxcroft, James Whyte and Alfred Ayrton). Manningham FC had been a members’ club with members paying an annual subscription and one vote per member to elect the composition of a leadership committee.
Rivalry with the Bradford club at Park Avenue had always been a factor for the partisan Manningham supporters who lived in constant fear of being overshadowed. It seems unlikely that a Manningham FC committee meeting at Valley Parade had passed without consideration of what was happening across the city in Little Horton. That insecurity had been renewed when it became known that Harry Briggs was looking to abandon rugby for association football but it continued for the best part of another seventy years. It could even be said that ascendancy over Bradford became the benchmark of success and a distraction. Newton and Nunn in particular would celebrate the fact that Bradford City AFC had remained at Valley Parade and they would be satisfied that the successor of Manningham FC had finally vanquished the Park Avenue rivals even if it was a pyrrhic triumph.
With the passage of time the founders might share a joke about heated meetings of the membership and the club politics of Manningham FC; about the disagreements between committee members and the struggle to keep the club afloat before rugby was finally abandoned. They would likely comment about things having remained pretty much unchanged during the first few years of the life of Bradford City AFC and how it continued to be difficult to make executive decisions.
A legacy of the rugby tradition in the district was the absence of established feeder clubs. In its formative years the club was therefore wholly reliant upon transfers in the absence of home-grown players which had financial implications. This was exemplified famously by the fact that the team that won the FA Cup in 1911 comprised eight Scotsmen, one Irishmen and two Englishmen from Nottingham.
No-one could claim that it had been easy after the launch of Bradford City in 1903 and during the first four years there had been major disagreements between the founders as to how the club should be run. Inevitably, frustrations at the limited progress made in its first few seasons as well as the state of Valley Parade had come back to the contentious issue of money. Newspaper reports of club meetings were a reminder of how finance had dominated meetings of the leadership committee. Alfred Ayrton, the man who had been called upon to rescue Manningham FC in 1899 at a time of financial difficulty, made no secret of his frustration about Bradford City’s financial affairs.
Opponents of merger had claimed that by issuing shares in the club it would be possible to derive financial stability. However, when this had been attempted in 1908 the outcome had proved a considerable disappointment that failed to raise sufficient capital and of the targeted £7,000 only £3,814 had been secured. Observers at the time contended that the merger debate had undermined the share issue. The fact that respected City personalities such as Alfred Ayrton and Tom Paton had argued during the course of the contentious merger debate that Bradford could not afford two football clubs and that merger was the best option could hardly have been interpreted as encouragement for people to buy shares. On his part Ayrton had always been sceptical that a share issue would be successful and so it proved.
Another factor that may have influenced attitudes about the purchase of shares had been the high incidence of financial failure among rugby clubs in West Yorkshire at the turn of the century which was hardly inducive to encourage potential investors to dabble in football capitalism. Indeed, the failure of such clubs had been accompanied by pitiful reports of inadequate financial control. (The story here of junior rugby clubs in the Bradford district.) In 1906 something similar was being written about the way things were managed at Valley Parade and as a consequence the press coverage of Bradford City’s affairs would have made people wary about investing.
Other than City supporters themselves, it was clear that in 1908 insufficient people had been convinced of the business case to invest in the club. The founders could reasonably ask if this outlook ever changed at Valley Parade and whether subsequent regimes had themselves been more successful at promoting share ownership. They would be told of the efforts of the Bradford City Shareholders and Supporters Association established in 1921 with the objective of encouraging new investment in the club and learn of its limited success other than to encourage supporters themselves to increase their commitment. In 1999 Geoffrey Richmond had planned an issue of shares to raise between £10-15m to help fund team strengthening. That plan was aborted shortly after the club secured promotion to the Premier League with stock market analysts quoted to the effect that the image of Bradford was ‘not sexy enough’ to attract interest. The founders would note how the club had remained reliant upon the fundraising of supporters themselves to remain solvent and avoid collapse when it faced recurring financial crises.
The golden era, 1908-15
The share issue was accompanied by the incorporation of the club as a limited company in 1908 and thereafter Bradford City began to be managed in a much different way to that previously. With the redevelopment of Valley Parade, at last the club had the self-respect of a decent stadium even if the pitch would continue to be known for its poor drainage. By 1908 the amount that had been spent on the ground was around £15,000 (c£15m in today’s money) and the bulk of this had had to be funded out of operating receipts, a not insignificant commitment. (The development of Valley Parade, 1886-1908)
By 1908, of the original founders only Lancaster, Newton and Nunn remained involved in a leadership position at Valley Parade which demonstrated the continuing influence of senior figures from the days of Manningham FC, long after rugby had been abandoned at Valley Parade. The merger debate was divisive but the outcome had been determined by a two to one majority and the founders would agree that it had allowed a line to be drawn. Crucially there was also the assurance from the club’s landlord, the Midland Railway that the Valley Parade site could continue to be used for football.
The certainty provided by the merger decision helped to establish a momentum that resulted in Division Two championship success in 1907/08 and further self-belief came the season after when the club was able to consolidate its place in Division One. Parallels might be drawn with the experience in 1997 or 2000 when the club similarly avoided relegation on the last day of the season having been promoted the previous year. The same positivity came from promotions in 1929, 1969, 1977, 1982 or even 2013 and in 1985 for instance there was a tangible spirit of solidarity among players and supporters alike that fed into a sense of purpose, not dissimilar to that of the golden era.
Undoubtedly the success of 1911 built upon the club’s momentum but what helped to sustain it were the changes behind the scenes at Valley Parade. For a start the club had become more professional in its affairs and one man in particular, Peter O’Rourke played a big part in this as Secretary-Manager who was engaged in a full-time role and even lived adjacent to the ground on Burlington Terrace. And notably, O’Rourke was given responsibility alone for team selection. It was no coincidence that as the longest-serving manager in the club’s history (1905-21 and 1928-30) he was also the most successful and in this regard the founders would note that in the history of the club only five others (David Menzies, 1921-26; Jack Peart, 1930-35; Peter Jackson, 1955-61; Trevor Cherry, 1982-87; and Phil Parkinson, 2011-16) have served as managers for more than four years in peacetime with the average tenure of the others in the post-war period being around 18 months. Was it also a coincidence that longer serving managers such as Trevor Cherry and Phil Parkinson could boast having achieved more in their tenures at Valley Parade?
Even O’Rourke had not been successful at first but the club had stood by him. His eventual success came from building a team around a strong defence and demanding a hard work rate from his players. He was clearly an excellent motivator but was also not averse to wheeler-dealing in the transfer market, prepared to make unsentimental decisions such as the sale of FA Cup goal scorer Jimmy Speirs to Leeds City in 1912. Yet O’Rourke did not have the luxury of a big transfer pot and was forced to recoup his expenditure from player sales. His ability to source new talent ultimately came from the assistance of Tom Paton (The forgotten man of Glorious 1911, Thomas Paton).
Tom Paton’s contribution to Bradford City was immeasurable and the founders would likely highlight that he has been the forgotten man of ‘Glorious 1911’ when City won the FA Cup. The share issue had contributed towards the redevelopment of Valley Parade but was insufficient to provide a war chest for player signings and that is precisely why Paton was so important to the club. His network in Scottish football allowed City to overcome its disadvantages of (i) not being able to compete head-on with larger clubs to sign established players; (ii) the club’s lack of youth development; and (iii) the absence of local feeder clubs in West Yorkshire. Had it not been for him and Peter O’Rourke it is questionable whether the club could ever have transformed itself after 1907 and enjoyed its golden era. Never was the combination of O’Rourke and Paton repeated at Valley Parade although ironically their reunion in 1928 was a big part of the Division Three (North) championship success in 1928/29.
Tom Paton’s connection with Bradford City was by chance and arose from his original employment in the city where he eventually launched his own accountancy practice. The founders might reminisce about the network of successful businessmen who had been eager to get involved with Bradford City AFC, particularly after its promotion to Division One when the club had been fashionable and enjoyed social cachet. All of this reinforced the self-belief of the club and a sense of destiny. The highpoint was the prestige and respectability that came from victory in 1911 with the club serving as a proud ambassador for the city. If Bradford FC had been known as the town’s club, it was Bradford City who inherited the status of the civic side as the naming of the club as ‘City’ had intended. By contrast, Bradford (Park Avenue) would come to be regarded as the plaything of Harry Briggs and the club remained in the shadow of Bradford City. The help and support provided to the club by its network of friends was invaluable – even if it stopped short of overt funding – and it would be recalled that many of those connections had been reinforced through freemasonry contacts.
When things started to go wrong
Long before the original founders had all died Bradford City AFC had fallen far from the top. For the club to be in the fourth tier in 2023 is therefore hardly anything new. In their hearts the founders would be disappointed at the discovery that the club remains in the wilderness but would they be surprised?
Membership of the top tier had originally been lost in 1922 and by 1927 the Paraders (as the club tended to be referred to in the press) found themselves in Division Three (North). The collapse mirrored that of Bradford (Park Avenue) who had been relegated from Division One in 1921 and then from Division Two in 1922. The 1920s proved to be a difficult decade for the district and local business leaders were more pre-occupied with the survival of their own enterprises than either gifting money or guaranteeing the borrowings of two failing football clubs.
Notwithstanding a successful championship season in 1928/29 that had rekindled memories of the golden era before World War One, City managed only eight seasons in the second division before returning once more to the basement tier in 1937. And the low point had come in 1949 when Bradford City finished bottom of Division Three (North), the ultimate indignity only 27 years after being a top-flight side.
Long before the modern era Bradford City had discovered that escaping from the lower divisions was particularly difficult. Even in the 1920s the club was sensitive to the growing inequalities between clubs at either end of the football pyramid. In the last hundred years that gulf has grown exponentially to make talk of competition between equals nonsensical.
The founders might dwell on the managerial failings that led to relegation in 1926/27 and then ten years later in 1936/37. In both cases the club was managed by men respected in the football world of that time and both had been considered credible appointments: Colin Veitch (August, 1926 – January, 1927) had been a celebrity player at Newcastle United before World War One and had played against City in the 1911 FA Cup Final whilst Dick Ray (April, 1935 – February, 1938) had a good managerial record with both Doncaster and then Leeds. In neither case were they able to reverse a downward slide and both would point to financial restrictions placed upon them, in particular Veitch whose tenure was at a time when the club was in acute difficulty that had required a radical restructuring of its debts in the 1927 close season. The fact that the club had come so close to insolvency in that year – which would have had considerable personal consequences for the directors and guarantors – had a major psychological impact on those in charge at Valley Parade who became distinctly risk averse. When Dick Ray took over from Jack Peart at Valley Parade he inherited a demoralised club and narrowly avoided relegation at the end of the 1934/35 season. He attempted to rebuild the team through reliance on a combination of juniors and recruits from his former club but financial pressures dictated that he was forced to sell most of his promising players and it was a measure of their talent that they made names for themselves elsewhere.
Arguably the outbreak of war in 1939 had scuppered any prospect of building a side capable of challenging for promotion from Division Three (North). Thus the club had found itself trapped in the third tier where it remained until the restructuring of the Football League in 1958 and the formation of new national third and fourth divisions. City did not escape from the lower divisions until 1985 but in the 27 seasons prior to that, all but 10 were spent in the fourth division basement.
It would be disingenuous for the founders to claim that they were not familiar with the accident of history because the declaration of war in 1914 had similarly impacted the club. For instance, during that close season the club had spent heavily in new signings and the outbreak of hostilities would significantly undermine the opportunity to recoup that investment. As in 1946, by the time that peacetime football recommenced in 1919, Bradford City AFC was heavily indebted and unable to afford the extent of team rebuilding that was necessary.
Life at the bottom
Had they been alive, the founders would have probably recognised similarities at Valley Parade at the time of the club’s 50th anniversary in 1953 with the early years of the club’s existence. Essentially Bradford City AFC was impoverished and operated from week to week at the mercy of game cancellations or a poor cup draw and the bonus of player sales. The lack of financial stability conspired against longer-term planning, transfer payments or overdue expenditure on ground improvements. In the case of Valley Parade, the Midland Stand built in 1908 that had been designed by the famous architect Archibald Leitch had been condemned and because the club could not afford its immediate demolition it was taken down in stages between 1949-52. Additionally, the Main Stand on South Parade had persistent problems with a leaking roof.
Not surprisingly, ambitions were revised and the measure of success was to finish above Bradford (Park Avenue) in the league. Until the involvement of Stafford Heginbotham at Valley Parade in 1965 the pre-occupation of the directors was essentially the survival of the club rather than advancement. (Feature on VINCIT about the doldrums of the 1950s .)
Whilst the club had enjoyed a reboot in 1907 which led to an era of success why had something similar never come about in subsequent decades and why had it taken 48 years (ie 1937-85) to escape the lower divisions? The answer once more was about finance. With each succeeding decade, the proposition of investing in Bradford football generally, let alone Bradford City had been increasingly unattractive. And with each decade the inequalities and gulf between the resources of Bradford City and much bigger clubs had widened.
Bradford (Park Avenue) had lost its place in Division Two in 1950 and twenty years later had failed to gain re-election to the Football League which marked the end of the Harry Briggs folly. (The final demise of Bradford (Park Avenue)) In 1973 the club had vacated Park Avenue to share at Valley Parade, a phenomenon that might have surprised the founders as previously unthinkable. After the death of Briggs in March, 1920 his club had struggled to remain solvent and by 1953 there was again talk of Bradford’s collapse. In 1974 Bradford (Park Avenue) had finally been liquidated. The nadir for Bradford football had come in the 1960s when both sides were in the basement division and their financial record was toxic. If in the late nineteenth century Bradford had been known as a centre of sporting excellence, the opposite had become the case by the 1960s with all three of the city’s professional football clubs – Bradford City, Bradford (PA) and Bradford Northern – basket cases in extreme financial difficulty. (The story of Bradford City’s struggles in Division Four in the 1960s)
In the early years Bradford City had been supported by people across West Yorkshire as the pioneering club in the area. In later years the club became vulnerable to the same phenomenon in reverse as competing attractions emerged elsewhere. For example, the rise of a successful side in Leeds under Don Revie in the 1960s attracted support from people in Bradford, much the same as the emergence of Huddersfield Town as a leading side in the inter-war period had impacted on attendances at Valley Parade and Park Avenue.
Bradford City was also vulnerable to competing attractions within the district. For instance, different clubs in Bradford came in and out of fashion: the ascendancy of Bradford Rugby (Union) in the 1920s; the attraction of Bradford Northern at Odsal in the late 1930s and immediately after the war as well as the ascendancy of Avenue on the back of FA Cup excitement in the late 1940s. Once lost it became extremely difficult to entice back former customers and the Bradford public proved footloose with a considerable proportion of floating supporters who followed each club in turn.
The appointment at Valley Parade in 1965 of a new chairman, Stafford Heginbotham brought charismatic leadership to the club and promotion in 1969 for the first time in forty years but his turnaround was ultimately undone by lack of financial resources. Thus in 1972 Bradford City AFC found itself back in Division Four. The lesson, as in pre-war years when there had been the flicker of a revival was that success could not be built on sand and that it needed deeper resources.
Even if the club could call upon the goodwill of successful Bradford entrepreneurs there was a limit as to how many were prepared to risk their personal assets and at what level. With successive generations the substance of local businessmen capable and willing to guarantee the club’s debts gradually diminished. Gradually it became both unfashionable and financially risky to be involved with Bradford City. Those joining the board did so for all the right emotional reasons but few if any had the surplus funds or for that matter the wherewithal and nous to make a difference. It meant that financial survival at Valley Parade continued to be about selling players, the benefit of a cup run or cutting corners.
The cost of Valley Parade
The physical geography of Bradford has always made it difficult to find a location for a stadium that was accessible. After the fire disaster in 1985 the directors struggled to identify a credible alternative site and the same would be the case nowadays. Even in 1907 when the Bradford City leadership considered relocation, the best that they could come up with was the Clock House Estate (now occupied by Bradford Grammar School). The advantage of Valley Parade in 1886 when Manningham FC had needed to find a new ground was that it was a vacant site in proximity to the centre of town and with good rail links but it was far from ideal. Occupation of a stadium built into a hillside had significant financial implications for Manningham FC and its successor, Bradford City AFC because not only was Valley Parade more difficult and costly to develop and maintain than comparable flat sites, it also posed unique drainage issues. For just about every succeeding regime at Bradford City AFC, Valley Parade has been an expensive problem. By the 1920s for example the ground was already starting to look tired and the club faced the expense of rectifying the lack of upkeep during the war. By the 1950s the club had to deal with replacement of the Midland Road stand and it was not until the current stand was built in 1996 that the matter was properly resolved. Accordingly, the founders would recognise the financial burden posed by the Valley Parade site and sympathise with their successors in charge of the club.
Running the club on the cheap was not only at the expense of longer term planning because in 1985 it could be attributed as a cumulative factor behind the fire disaster at Valley Parade. The founders recalled the challenge of providing covered accommodation at Valley Parade and that it was not until January 1904 that the original wooden grandstand on the South Parade side of the ground had been covered. Because the club lacked security of tenure and did not own the Valley Parade site the dilemma was that it could not erect a permanent structure. Hence in 1907 the criteria was that any new stand should be of a transferable nature as a contingency measure in case the club was forced to relocate. During the 1907 close season the existing stand was extended along the full length of the pitch and completed in time for the fixture with West Bromwich Albion in November, 1907. It was that stand which burnt down in 1985.
The Main Stand structure had provided a quick solution to the need for additional covered accommodation at Valley Parade and it was claimed that it had a capacity of 12,000 of which 5,000 were seated but the minimal facilities and lack of dressing rooms hardly made it worthy of being described as a grandstand. The founders would likely acknowledge that even by contemporary standards in 1907 it was considered basic and protest that the predominant use of wood was a cheaper (and transportable) option compared to concrete. It was nonetheless a potential fire trap and there were at least two documented instances of fires in the main stand prior to 1985as told on the blog of the author. The irony is that the stand had always been considered a temporary structure, constructed as cheaply and quickly as possible with the intention of eventual replacement by a cantilever stand. In fact plans had been prepared to develop a cantilever stand on South Parade but were finally abandoned in 1921 when it was clear that it could not be afforded.
The founders would therefore be surprised by the scale of the current stadium and not unreasonably, they would question how it had been paid for. The answer to that is quite simple because in practice, much of the cost of Valley Parade was suffered by creditors in the insolvency of 2002 because they were never paid in full. Furthermore, the extent of the current rental payments is such that they effectively incorporate a contribution to the development value of the stadium from that time. Whilst the club has incurred a significant rental burden since 2004, in all probability it would have had to pay much more if it had paid all that was due instead of relying upon an insolvency process to write-off a good chunk of its liabilities. If you then go back to 1986, the club benefited from the dissolution of the West Yorkshire County authority which helped fund the rebuilding of the ground. In other words, for all the wrong reasons Bradford City AFC has ended up with a stadium far bigger than it could have self-funded and for that matter, far bigger than it ever needed. The founders would be dazzled by such alchemy.
(Of course the founders would have known nothing about Odsal but it would have provided an interesting interlude for them to hear of the plans that had been made in the last ninety years and of why they never came to fruition. They would likely remark on the continuing ‘Valley Parade sentiment’ that made City fans resistant to any suggestion of the club relocating, much the same as the strength of feeling in 1907.)
What then of the modern era?
The demise of Bradford (Park Avenue) removed an erstwhile competitor and mention of this would undoubtedly have brought a chuckle among certain of the founders. Nevertheless, it had taken time before Bradford City reaped the advantage of having the city to itself and a generation before the old enmity was forgotten. (Read here about following BCAFC in the 1980s and 1990s.) The redevelopment of Valley Parade in 1986 played a big part in the club defining a new era and, as had been the case after the original redevelopment of Valley Parade was completed in 1908, Bradford City AFC derived considerable self-respect from having a modern ground and which this time could accommodate families. The new stadium thus played a big part in the reinvention of the club.
The failure to gain promotion to Division One in 1988 was another milestone for the club, not dissimilar to the situation in 1932/33 when the failure to strengthen the team at the beginning of 1933 when it was at the top of Division Two was considered to have cost promotion. In both cases, relegation back to Division Three in 1990 and 1937 respectively had followed the ‘nearly seasons’. For the bubble to have subsequently deflated so easily raises obvious questions about strength in depth at Valley Parade in both eras.
Was it a lack of ambition or a lack of substance that held the club back in those times? In the decisive moment why had it not been possible to invest to make promotion more likely? Was it the case that the directors didn’t want the expense of promotion to a higher level? Not surprisingly in 1933 the directors faced considerable criticism from supporters which translated into lower gates at Valley Parade. Across at Park Avenue, Bradford was similarly derided as a ‘selling club’ at the end of the following decade. All of this fed into a detachment of the Bradford public and a decline in support at both clubs. Likewise, in 1988 there was considerable ill-feeling and disappointment at what could have been and it was not until 1996 that Bradford City won back the public.
It then brings us to the club’s achievement in finally managing a return to the top-flight in 1999. From the historical perspective the founders would have considered it a vindication of their original faith that a Bradford side could play at the highest level of English football. The symbolism of Bradford having previously celebrated its centenary as a city in 1997 would not have been lost on a generation of men with strong civic loyalty and patriotism. No doubt they would tell us of the potential benefit that could accrue from the 2025 City of Culture award and its encouragement of Bradford identity. As commented above, they would have recognised the momentum that had come from the Play-Off Final success in 1996, culminating in promotion in 1999 and the self-belief that came from winning that end of season game against Liverpool in May, 2000. All of this had historic parallel with what had happened ninety years before.
Richmond’s impact on the club through the changes he introduced to its organisation with his full-time supervision was not dissimilar to the impact made by Peter O’Rourke when he was appointed in 1905. To some extent the leadership combination of Richmond and Jewell matched the partnership of Paton and O’Rourke although the obvious difference was that in his case there were almost no limitations on Richmond’s authority. The failing was as much the fact that Richmond resorted to an ‘all or bust’ gamble to keep Bradford City in the top-flight, as the fact that Richmond was allowed full freedom to act according to his discretion (not to forget that he relied upon borrowings which he could not hope to repay).
The founders would certainly not have condoned Richmond’s actions or his financial management. However, they would have understood why Richmond took such a desperate measure as to bet the future of the club on the success of his signings during that so-called summer of madness. Whilst that desperation was born of greed to partake in the riches of the Premier League, it was also a reflection of the weakness of the club trying to play catch-up with the big boys after so many decades in the wilderness. Although gambling on expensive transfers is part and parcel of life in the Premier League, the key difference is that established clubs are better able to absorb losses when the transfers don’t work out. Bradford City had no option other than to gamble in some form during the 2000 close season although plainly the club couldn’t afford Richmond’s chosen gamble to fail. In the end it resulted in formal insolvency and the sale and leaseback of the ground which has provided the backdrop to the past twenty odd years.
The long view
We can dissect he minutiae of events since 2001 at our leisure. Taking the long view however, the founders would recognise similarities with the experience after 1922 when Bradford City lost its place in the sun and fell into oblivion as it struggled to escape the bottom reaches of the Football League. Need anyone be reminded that it is now 27 years since the club has been promoted out of the third tier and 19 since it last competed in the second division?
Manningham FC had come to prominence in cup competition and so too, Bradford City AFC is best known for having won the FA Cup in 1911. The founders might comment that it has been in cup competition as opposed to the league that Bradford City has continued to have most success. They might ask whether there is any significance in this, for example suggesting that the club has been more adept at motivating players for individual games than building a squad strong enough to sustain a promotion challenge. They would identify the ‘History Makers’ campaign in 2013 as following in the tradition of ‘Glorious 1911’. Similarly, they would see the continuity of celebrated giant-killings through the club’s history from defeat of first division Wolverhampton Wanderers in 1906 to that of then Premier League champions, Chelsea in 2015. The club’s self-identity as underdogs – plucky bantams – came into its own in cup competition against ‘bigger’ clubs. Even in the bleakest years, the fact that Bradford City had won the FA Cup could not be taken away and provided the club with respectability.
Adopting a longer historical perspective the founders might reflect that had Bradford FC opted to play soccer at Park Avenue much sooner – and joined the Football League in 1888 – there is every reason to believe that the city of Bradford could have established a leading side. As a wealthy club with monopoly Bradford representation in the Football League there is every chance that it would have become a major force, at least on a par with the likes of Blackburn Rovers or Wolverhampton Wanderers. Of course, the fact that the Park Avenue club had been dismissive of soccer was considered Manningham’s opportunity in 1903 but it left the question whether a single Bradford club based at Park Avenue would have been more successful. Had that been the case maybe Manningham FC would have continued as a rugby club at Valley Parade.
Undoubtedly the founders would dwell on the implications of the outcome of the 1907 merger debate. Of how Bradford City ultimately lost the monopoly advantage of having the city to itself when the new Bradford (Park Avenue) was elected to the Football League in 1908 and of how its potential support was further fragmented by the launch of a new successor rugby club, Bradford Northern in 1907. The topic would have rekindled heated arguments of the past, of those who wanted to remain at Valley Parade at all cost and those who had been sympathetic to combining resources for the good of one team. Partisan sentiments aside, the financial consequences of going it alone were there to be seen, of how Bradford City AFC had been unable to derive the full benefit of the Bradford district, its population and business base and of how City and Avenue divided loyalties. However, it would not go unnoticed to the founders that the recent demise of the Bradford Bulls, successor club to Bradford Northern now gave Bradford City an unprecedented position of no meaningful competition within the city.
Having brought the founders back together it is unlikely that their conversations would be confined to football. For sure they would share observations about the state of contemporary Bradford and contrasts with the city that they knew. They would likely ask with regards the future of Bradford City the pertinent question asked by successive boards of directors: where are the wealthy men of Bradford and those of substance willing and able to help bankroll the club? The founders would not fail to notice that it had been outsiders as opposed to Bradfordians – Stafford Heginbotham, Geoffrey Richmond and Stefan Rupp – who have made an impact on the club in their respective ways. All of which would lead to the question of where is the wealth of Bradford?
The founders would note that in the 1970s and 1980s, Ken Morrison – likely the richest local businessman of his era – had resisted the invitation to be parted with his riches despite persistent calls from City supporters. The founders could be forgiven the observation that deprived of sporting success, the people of Bradford had been denied a potential feelgood factor and a boost to local pride or what they might refer to as civic patriotism (and they might remark that that could have been a factor in the struggle to arrest economic decline in the city).
What of the founders?
By the end of the club’s third season in 1906 there was considerable frustration among the Bradford City membership as to the lack of progress being made. Whilst the club had established itself in a midtable position there was little prospect of gaining promotion. The members demanded team strengthening but this ranked alongside the need to develop Valley Parade which inevitably led to the question of how it could all be financed and by whom. It wasn’t helped that the club was badly run and an investigation into the finances had discovered that not only was there inadequate control over money but the club was also insolvent. It was clear that the club could no longer muddle through and that radical changes were needed; the two emergent solutions were either merger with Bradford FC at Park Avenue or for Bradford City AFC to attempt a share issue.
Among the founders there were essentially three camps: (i) those who had been involved with the Bradford & District FA, best described as association enthusiasts; (ii) those with a partisan Manningham FC heritage, fiercely independent and protective of their Valley Parade connection and wanting to remain at the ground at any cost; and (iii) people with a business background who had been introduced by Alfred Ayrton to help guide the club’s affairs. Of the original delegates to the Football League AGM, John Blunt, Arnold Foxcroft and James Whyte were all firmly in the first group. They became disenchanted with how the club operated and what they considered to be intractable differences of opinion including the lingering and obdurate partisan sentiment towards Park Avenue. By March, 1907 each had severed their connection with Bradford City as committee members and in fact Blunt and Whyte transferred their allegiance to Park Avenue where Blunt became a director of the new Bradford (Park Avenue) club. Alfred Ayrton had similarly stood aside in 1906, in so doing expressing concerns about the future prospects of Bradford City and not disguising his support for potential merger.
Of those remaining in charge – the ‘Valley Parade camp’ – the old Manningham FC loyalists such as Ike Newton and John Nunn were prominent. They were joined by other former Manningham rugby players such as William Fawcett and Rob Pocock as well as the former Manningham committee member James Freeman, a leading Bradford lawyer. Nunn would later be responsible for project managing the redevelopment of Valley Parade between 1907-08 and the former terrace at the Burlington Terrace end of the ground was known as Nunn’s Kop in his honour.
Newton and Nunn in particular would both celebrate the fact that Bradford City AFC had remained at Valley Parade. They would note how the club’s supporters had continued to resist the notion of merger or relocation to Park Avenue when the suggestion had arisen in succeeding decades. And in the final event they would be satisfied that the successor of Manningham FC had finally vanquished the Park Avenue rivals.
Putting differences aside, the founders would all agree that things had not turned out as they had hoped in 1903 but at least the club had survived and had had its moments of excitement and glory. There was much that had changed and yet so much was the same. Whilst the founders were long dead and long forgotten they would recognise the pain of our most recent disappointment. They would likely joke that coping with regular setbacks had always been part and parcel of following Bradford City AFC.
The author is currently working on two volumes in the Bantamspast History Revisited series which will tell the history of the Bradford City / Park Avenue rivalry between 1908-39 and 1939-74 respectively. News of these books will be announced shortly.
Thanks for visiting VINCIT, the online journal of Bradford sport history covering all codes. The drop down menu above provides further links to features. Contributions always welcome!
bradford sport history 