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Bradford City A.F.C.

Encyclopedia : B : BR : BRA : Bradford City A.F.C.

Club Logo in 70s
Bradford City Association Football Club are a football team based at Valley Parade in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England (otherwise known as The Bradford & Bingley Stadium, due to stadium sponsorship). Bradford & Bingley will also be the clubs official shirt sponsor for the 2006/2007 season.

Bradford's only major trophy to date is the F.A Cup, which they secured in 1911.

Their stadium, Valley Parade, was the scene of a fierce inferno on 11th May 1985 which claimed the lives of 56 spectators on the last day of their Third Division campaign, when they finished champions of that division. They ground-shared with Leeds United and Huddersfield Town over the next 18 months before returning to a rebuilt Valley Parade. Further development at the ground have seen it achieve an all-seated capacity of 25,000.

Bradford reached the Premiership in 1999 - ending a 77-year absence from the top flight - and stayed up on the final day of the season thanks to a shock 1-0 win over Liverpool. They went down a year later after a terrible season, and a financial crisis later pushed the club to the brink of closure. They survived this financial nightmare, but were unable to avoid another relegation in 2004.

The Bantams remain in League One, the third tier of the English league, and their current manager is Colin Todd. Permission was given five years ago to increase Valley Parade's capacity to 30,000, but this seems unlikely to proceed unless the club returns to the Premiership.

Significant former managers of Bradford include Jim Jefferies, Paul Jewell, Frank Stapleton and Trevor Cherry. Significant former players include Lee Sharpe, David Wetherall (Current Club Captain), Gary Walsh, Dan Petrescu, Stan Collymore and Benito Carbone.

Contents

History

Early Years

The club was originally known as Manningham, a rugby club and a founding member of the Northern Rugby Union. Manningham RFC left that code at the end of the 1902-03 season to switch to association football and the club changed its name to Bradford City AFC. The invitation in 1903 to join the Football League was an attempt to introduce the sport to the rugby-dominated region, and the club was accepted into the League even before it had a team. Bradford City and Chelsea share the distinction of being the only clubs to join the League without having played a competitive fixture.

Cup Glory

Bradford City have won the FA Cup once, on April 28, 1911 beating Newcastle United 1-0 at Old Trafford after a goalless draw at Crystal Palace four days earlier. The goal, scored by Jimmy Spiers, ensured that they were the first winners of the new FA Cup trophy made by Bradford company [Messrs Fattorini and Sons].

Decline

City were relegated to the Second Division in 1922 and would spend the next 77 years outside the top flight. At one stage they were in the Fourth Division, and went into formal insolvency in 1983. A new company - Bradford City (1983) AFC - was formed (replacing the original company formed in 1908) and this facilitated the survival of professional football at Valley Parade.

The Bradford Fire Tragedy

Main article: Bradford City disaster

On 11th May 1985 Bradford City played the final game of the 1984-85 Third Division season against Lincoln City at Valley Parade having been confirmed as the division's champions beforehand. During the game a fire broke out in the main stand that dated from 1908. Most spectators managed to escape on the pitch but those who headed for the locked turnstiles were trapped in an inferno which killed 56 spectators and injured more than 200 others. An investigation into the tragedy decided that it had been caused by a building up of rubbish under the stand which had been ignited by a cigarette or matchstick that had gone unnoticed long enough to cause an inferno.

Valley Parade was closed after the fire and the City club played its home games at Odsal Stadium, the local rugby ground, and at Huddersfield Town's Leeds Road ground. The club returned to a completely re-built Valley Parade in December 1986.

Modern Times

City came close to a return to the First Division in 1987-88, but lost in the playoffs and went down to the Third Division just two years later. They remained at this level for six years before Chris Kamara guided them to victory in the 1996 Division Two playoff final.

Kamara's successor Paul Jewell took City into the Premiership in 1999 as Division One runners-up. They beat Liverpool on the last day of the 1999-2000 season to avoid relegation but Jewell left soon afterwards to take charge of relegated Sheffield Wednesday.

Jewell's assistant Chris Hutchings was installed as manager for the 2000-01 season but was sacked in November after a terrible start to the season confined them to the bottom of the Premiership. Scotsman Jim Jefferies took over but was unable to stave off relegation and left halfway through the following season with financial problems beginning to count against the club. He was replaced by Chesterfield manager Nicky Law.

In the summer of 2002, debts of more than £30million - not helped by the collapse of ITV Digital and the payment of Premiership wages to players like Benito Carbone - forced City into administration and they were reputedly just ten minutes from being forced out of business. However, despite their financial problems, the club completed the Division One schedule for the 2002-03 season and survived again.

Law was sacked in December 2003 with City battling against relegation from Division One, and with financial problems once again putting the club at risk of closure. Bryan Robson took over on a short-term contract but was unable to prevent relegation and made way for his assistant Colin Todd after the club's relegation had been confirmed.

Todd has established the Bantams as a competent League One side in his two seasons at the helm, but he will be expected to mount a promotion challenge in the near future if his stay at Valley Parade is to be a long one. Towards the end of the 2005-2006 season, Bradford City mounted a good run together, which saw them take 13 points out of a possible 15 at home at the end of the season before finishing in 11th position. In the final game of the season they denied Nottingham Forest the chance to go into the League One Play-Offs after a 1-1 draw in front of a crowd of over 15,000. Nottigham Forest's Julian Bennett equalised in the 88th minute after Dean Windass opened the scoring in the 20th minute with his 20th goal of the season.

Colours

Bradford City is the only professional football club in England to wear claret and amber. The colours were inherited upon the conversion of Manningham FC from (northern union) rugby to soccer in 1903. However whereas Manningham traditionally wore claret and amber hoops City have always worn stripes. Manningham FC was formed in 1880 (although a Manningham Albion club is recorded prior to that date) and adopted claret and amber in 1884 before the move to Valley Parade in 1886. Manningham had originally worn black shirts with white shorts and the first game in claret and amber was against Hull on 20th September 1884 at Carlisle Road.

The reason for the adoption of claret and amber is not documented but it is a strong coincidence that these are also the colours of the present day West Yorkshire Regiment which continues to be based at Belle Vue Barracks on Manningham Lane. Both Manningham FC (after 1886) and later Bradford City FC (from 1903-08) used the Belle Vue facilities as changing and club rooms.

Bradford City have worn claret and amber with either white or black. The club's away shirt has traditionally been white and to a lesser extent blue although in recent years there has been a profusion of both colours and designs. Goalkeepers usually play in light grey or green kits but again there has been a profusion of styles. City scarves have sold in large numbers in recent years to fans of Harry Potter, as the colours are the same as those of Harry's house scarf at Hogwarts School.

In Scotland Motherwell is the only professional club to wear claret and amber. Motherwell originally wore blue but subsequently changed to claret and amber in 1913, wearing those colours for the first time on 23 August, 1913 in a game with Celtic. Contemporary opinion was that 'while the new colours were distinctive they were by no means pretty!'. It has been suggested that one reason for the colour change was due to the fact that blue was such a common colour and one which was subject to frequent clashes with opposing teams such as Rangers and Kilmarnock. It was originally thought that claret and amber were chosen because they were the racing colours of Lord Hamilton. This explanation has subsequently been discounted. It may be the case that Motherwell copied the colours from Bradford City, FA Cup winners in 1911 and a strong English First Division club with many Scottish connections at that time.

Contrary to any suggestion the City colours were certainly not derived from the civic identity of Bradford given that the primary colours of the Bradford coat of arms were red and blue with gold. Manningham was a township within Bradford and its identity was defined more by sporting (and social?) rivalry with the township of Horton where the Park Avenue ground was situated. The fact that red, amber and black (with white) has been worn by three of the city's senior football clubs (namely Bradford AFC, Bradford RFC / Bradford & Bingley RUFC and Bradford Northern RLFC / Bradford Bulls who were all descended from the original Bradford FC which was based at Park Avenue) has made many people assume that these were the de facto sporting colours of Bradford. Indeed the colours have also been used by other sports organisations in Bradford such as cycling, hockey and athletics principally in the style of a red, amber and black band on a white shirt (as typically worn by Bradford Northern and as an away kit by Bradford). Red, amber and black are also the historic colours of Bradford Cricket Club formed in 1836. Bradford FC had been formed in 1863 by former pupils of Bramham College and in 1880 joined Bradford CC at Park Avenue. However it is not known whether one club took the colours of the other at this time. Bradford did not achieve city status until 1897 and to that extent red, amber and black could well have been associated with Bradford prior to the granting of the arms and certainly well before Bradford's city status.

Nickname

The club's nickname is 'The Bantams'.

Bradford City's 'Bantam' identity arose from the suggested resemblance of their claret and amber colours to the plumage of bantams. There was no objection to being associated with the small but fearless fighting creatures and the nickname was encouraged by the club. The shirt which was worn by City in the First Division (from 1908 to 1922) and the 1911 FA Cup Final was probably designed to reinforce the bantams identity with the broad amber yolk on the claret shirt seeking to resemble the neck and chest of the bird. 

Contemporary reports from before the Great War refer to live bantams being taken to games by supporters as mascots for the team. (The author is aware of this having been repeated at an important promotion game at Sheffield United in 1982 and then at Newcastle for the FA Cup game in January, 1999.) By contrast, Manningham's claret and amber hoops had earned them the nickname 'The Wasps' although at one stage they were called 'The Robins' (?). (Newspaper reports from early 1903 also refer to Manningham RFC as the 'Paraders' - a nickname subsequently adopted by Bradford City. Manningham had played at Valley Parade from 1886 until the formation of Bradford City in 1903.)  


In the early years City were also referred to as 'The Citizens' and the Bradford coat of arms was used as the club's formal crest until the early 1960's. The Bradford coat of arms adorned the central gable of the Midland Road stand during City's First Division years and later the side gables until demolition in 1952. Bradford (PA) also adopted the Bradford civic crest and liked to present itself as the Bradford 'civic club' although Bradford City FC had stolen a march on its rivals given the fact that it was formed four years earlier.  


A lesser used nickname was 'The Woolwinders' (derived from the city of Bradford's status of the 'Worstedopolis') and there are examples of this in away programmes from before the First World War. During the inter-war period 'The Paraders' identity (which had been used by Manningham RFC) was more frequently used in preference to 'The Bantams' and it was also adopted as the title of the club's programme from 1931 until the outbreak of war.

In the 1950's the 'Bantams' identity was revived and the Burlington Terrace offices overlooking the Kop were adorned with a hoarding on which a bantam character with ball (similar to the Spurs crest) was painted. The character left dates from the late 1950's and was used on the club programme until 1964. After 1966 Chairman Stafford Heginbotham actively marketed 'The Parader' identity alongside the City Gent character and the club introduced a crest which included the civic feature of a boar's head.

In 1974 City adopted a contemporary style crest incorporating the club's initials (with a 'b-c' logo) although maintained the nickname of the 'Paraders'. By the early 1980's however 'Paraders' had an empty resonance given the state of Valley Parade and in December, 1981 the club relaunched the 'Bantams' as the official identity.  

The club's programme for the start of the 1981/82 season was titled 'Parader' and the cover featured a silhouette of a floodlight and stand. Few City fans realised that the designer, an old Bradford AFC fan, had used a photograph of Park Avenue for the design. Thankfully a new 'Bantams' programme from December 1981 saved any further embarrassment. 

Stafford Heginbotham reintroduced his boar's head and shield at the start of 1985/86 season and this was retained until the end of 1990/91 when it was replaced by the current crest. Apart from this relatively short period a bantam has been the main feature of City's crests since the end of 1981. In 2003/04 a crest to mark the centenary of the club was introduced and this featured two bantams. The 1991 crest was subsequently re-used from 2004/05. 


Whilst Valley Parade is known as the home of the bantams other creatures have also taken residence since 1886 when the ground was first built. For example, prior to the last war it is understood that hens were kept under the old Main Stand and stray cats were regularly adopted by the groundstaff up to 1985. The modern day colony of bats at Valley Parade is thought to be a more recent phenomenon but mechanised lawn-mowers have long since replaced the sheep which were used to trim the grass until the 1930's. 


Coventry City were known as 'the Bantams' before adopting their sky blue identity in the early 1960's. Coventry were first called the Bantams in December 1908 after the local newspaper noted that they were one of the few clubs who did not have a nickname. Being the lightweights of the Southern League, the Bantams was suggested and stuck with the press and supporters.They remained the Bantams until the summer of 1962 when Jimmy Hill re-christened them the Sky Blues, when they switched to an all sky blue kit. The only other English football club to have adopted a bird of fowl is Tottenham Hotspur who have a cockrel on their crest. Other birds associated with football clubs include a robin (Bristol City), a canary (Norwich City), an eagle (Crystal Palace) and a seagull (Brighton & Hove Albion).


It is wrong to refer to Bradford City as Bradford FC which is a different club entirely: supporters of Bradford AFC are equally offended. The Bradford club adopted the appendage 'Park Avenue' (that club's original stadium) to avoid confusion with Bradford City.



Rivalry

Although their original neighbours and fierce rivals Bradford (Park Avenue) are now a non-league club, they still engage in fierce competition with local rivals Leeds United, Huddersfield Town, and Halifax Town, and to a lesser extent with Sheffield United, Sheffield Wednesday, Barnsley and Oldham Athletic. Matches against these sides have produced both amazing spectacles and some terrible moments - the 1996-97 season providing examples of both. On February 1, 1997, Huddersfield Town defender Kevin Gray broke the leg of Bradford City striker Gordon Watson in two places with a horrific sliding tackle. Watson was, at that time, the most expensive player in Bradford City's history having cost them £575,000, and was playing in only his third match for the club. He required a 6 inch plate and 7 screws in his leg. It took Gordon almost two years of recovery and five further operations before he was able to return to football, after which he made just a handful of appearances for City before leaving the club. At Leeds High Court in October 1998 he succeeded in becoming only the second player in the history of football to prove negligence by another player and was later awarded in excess of £900,000 in damages[link] Bradford City FC Official Website: Detailed page on Watson v Gray [link] Singer & Friedlander 
Football Review, detailing the Watson v Gray case, making it "the most expensive tackle in British football and legal history". 


The return fixture that season was a happier affair. It provided a spectacular display of goals in which City took a 3-0 lead, including one famous goal scored directly from a corner by ex-England star Chris Waddle, before the game swung in Huddersfield's favour as they fought back to the final score of 3-3.


The most recent derby with Huddersfield Town at the Galpharm Stadium on the 19th of November 2005 finished 0-0.



Famous players/managers


Goalkeepers



Defenders



Midfielders



Strikers



Managers



Famous Fans



Current squad


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Players who have recently left the club


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Full List Of Manager





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