Valley Parade Complete History Valley Parade was constructed from a bare hillside in the summer of 1886. It was developed at a cost of £1,400 by Manningham Rugby Football Club who had been displaced from their Carlisle Road ground as a result of the construction of the Drummond Road Board School. Prior to 1886 the only feature of any real note in the Valley Parade environs was a holy well that emerged near the corner of the Midland Road and Bradford End; hence the road Holywell Ash Lane. Today the site of the well is covered by the pitch. Only the road name survives as a reminder of what was apparently one of the district's foremost attractions. On Sundays and holidays people would gather to take the waters and leave pins, coins, rags and food as offerings to the spirit that resided in the waters. Accounts suggest that the well was covered and had a great ash tree standing over it (hence 'holy ash'). There was also a standing stone called the wart stone of unknown antiquity. The stone had a carved depression that collected water. A wart sufferer would immerse the offending part into the 'magical' water and then hopefully all would be better. As early as 1638 the Holy Well had been credited with healing powers. The well suffered a decline in popularity during the late nineteenth century and its keepers resorted to importing sulphur water from Harrogate which they sold for a half penny per cup. The well disappeared under the Valley Parade pitch during the summer of 1886 and the wart stone was moved to the top of Holywell Ash Lane which then ran straight up to Manningham Lane. The stone was still there as late as 1911 but thereafter it seems to have disappeared into the mists of time. Tip material had been used to build Valley Parade and this had significant implications for the quality of future foundations on all sides of the ground. In 1986 for example an old road was discovered which lay across the front of the existing Kop and which had presumably been used for access to the tipping area. Manningham obtained a seven year lease of the Valley Parade site from the Midland Railway Company. The club's landlord had purchased the land at the time of the construction of the railway (opened in 1846) which ran into Forster Square along the valley floor below the Midland Road side of the site. Describing the new ground to the club's members it was said to be in an excellent central position and near the Valley Parade skating rink! The ground was hacked out of the hillside in under three months which was a notable achievement in itself. Having said that the ground was fairly basic with three sides being little more than open, ash covered slopes. The capacity of the new Valley Parade ground was around 18,000 of which the Midland Road side would have accounted for probably 6,000. The one construction of note was Manningham's wooden stand which was transferred from the former Carlisle Road ground and re-erected on South Parade (the site of City's present main stand). The stand accommodated 2,000 and although˛ˇ plans were devised for dressing rooms beneath they were never constructed. The opening game at Valley Parade was on 25 September, 1886 when visitors Wakefield Trinity narrowly defeated Manningham in front of a near capacity crowd. Unfortunately it was not long before the ground's shortcomings were cruelly exposed. On Christmas Day, 1888 tragedy struck on the Midland Road side during the local derby with Heckmondwike. There was only one central entrance into the Midland Road and the large crowd (estimated at 16,000) packed the central part of the ash bank. A number of boys had been passed over the heads of the spectators to be placed in front of the barrier. Seven minutes into the game spectators had surged forward and the barrier collapsed, trapping the boys beneath it. Play was stopped as players and spectators rushed to extract four boys from the melee. The injured were taken into the dressing rooms to receive attention. One boy, 12 year old Thomas Coyl of 6 Diamond Street Wakefield Road, was pronounced dead as a result of a broken neck. The other three suffered various injuries, the worst being a broken limb. The game was restarted but as word of the fatality spread through the crowd there was a demand for the contest to be abandoned. The officials of the two clubs retired to the Belle Vue public house where it was agreed that the gate receipts of £115 should be donated to the dead boy's relatives. Three days later on December 28th an inquest was held at the Town Hall where evidence was given in front of a jury of townsfolk. The jury heard that that a twenty yard portion of fencing had adjoining the fatal portion had fallen the previous season, albeit without injury. The wood of the posts was inspected and declared to be in remarkably good order. Such was the robustness of the fence that it was remarked that the forces that caused it to collapse must have been 'considerable'. The jury recommended that the central entrance be closed and two opened at either end of the Midland Road enclosure. Parallel barriers (similar to contemporary crush barriers) were also recommended. The club promised to act on both counts. In its defence the club said that its officials had made protestations to the crowd on the day to the effect that there was accommodation specially reserved for boys elsewhere in the ground. A verdict of 'accidental death' was returned. In the summer of 1893 the club leased further land at the 'Manningham End' (Kop) of the ground from the Midland Railway Company. According to the Bradford Daily Telegraph it was to 'be altered to so as to give increased and better accommodation to spectators'. Also what the paper termed 'the poor man's side' (Midland Road) was to be improved. The expansion plans were timely. Growing crowds watched Manningham win the Yorkshire Senior Championship of 1893-94. September 1893 cross town rivals Bradford to Valley Parade. 17,000 crammed into the ground to witness a frantic and close fought battle. The Bradford Daily Telegraph said the cheers were 'loud enough to waken the sleepers at Undercliffe'. The Paraders won the derby a late goal. It was greeted by wild scenes. 'The spectators almost frantic with joy', reported a breathless Telegraph. 'Hundreds of hats were seen flying in the air, whilst the players performed various acrobatic feats'. Manningham's annual meeting in May 1894 heard that, over the season, £135 had been spent on repairs to the grandstand and ground. £253 14s 14d, plus £59 legal fees, had gone on the land purchase deposit for the extension of the ground at what we today know as the Kop end. The meeting authorised spending £1,000 on a new grandstand. The existing stand - brought to Valley Parade from Carlisle Road in 1886 - was to be demolished and a long terrace constructed extending the full length of the ground. Accommodation for players, press and members would be improved. 12,000 spectators would be accommodated - with an increase of 500 seats. The Midland Railway Company had turned down a long lease, but had assured the club that the land would not be taken, unless it was required for railway use - apparently that was highly unlikely. In the event the works on the main stand didn't take place. Over the summer the pitch was lengthened by five yards and the embankment at the 'Manningham End' (Kop) was terraced, providing accommodation for an extra 3,000 spectators. Valley Parade's capacity was raised to 20,000. Manningham went on to become one of the founder members of the Northern Union (now the Rugby League). The club was at the forefront of changes to the game and often played in exhibition games to demonstrate proposed rule changes. One such game was played against Halifax on 1 October, 1895 when a round ball was used, the teams reduced to thirteen aside and scrums adopted in favour of line outs. The game was drawn 3-3. Although the changes were said to have been inconclusive the two latter innovations were eventually adopted by the Northern Union and now form two of the most notable differences between Rugby Union and Rugby League. Of course the round ball was eventually adopted at Valley Parade but not in the circumstances envisaged by the Manningham pioneers. Manningham were one of the leading clubs in the new code and won the inaugural championship in 1895. The club's main local rival was Bradford RFC (later to become Bradford (Park Avenue) AFC) and this provided the heritage to the intense City - Avenue rivalry of the twentieth century. The competition between the two clubs was also reflected in competition for 'floating' spectators. Following Manningham's relegation at the turn of the century the club's financial position detiorated significantly and the club's survival was only secured by the success of an archery competition. The Manningham officials came to the conclusion that the only way to ensure long term survival was through the adoption of the 'round ball' game. Indeed an application was made to the League by the Manningham management committee before the members had agreed such a venture. To provide a demonstration of 'soccer' an exhibition game was arranged at Valley Parade in April, 1903 between Sheffield United and a West Yorkshire Amateur XI select side (this was not the first such game however as Bolton Wanderers had taken on a Bradford & District team the previous year at Valley Parade). So keen were the football authorities to gain a foothold in the rugby stronghold of the woollen region of the West Riding that the infant Bradford City club was elected to the Second Division of the Football League in 1903 without having kicked a ball. With an eye to history, and doubtless the Valley Parade faithful, the new club retained Mannigham's claret and amber colours. By contrast City opted for striped shirts in preference to Manningham's hoops - though City's early games were played in Manningham's old hooped kit. The ground on which Bradford City played their first fixture was virtually unaltered since its opening seventeen years previously. On 25 September, 1903 Gainsborough Trinity arrived at football's newest venue and once again Valley Parade's big party was spoilt by a visitor's victory with Trinity winning 3-1. On 10 October, 1903 Valley Parade staged a representative international fixture between the English League and the Irish League. In 1927 club historian WH Sawyer recounted that in 1903 "the accommodation was not really all that it should have been for such an engagement, and in order to accommodate the crowd a number of lorries had to be borrowed, and put upon the plateau (at the top of the Manningham End terrace) which has since disappeared beneath the Spion Kop. There was no covered accommodation except for the Press, and a few life members." Minor improvements were subsequently made to the ground, in particular the erection of dressing rooms at the Bradford End of the ground in 1904 (which provides the backdrop for team photos taken at this time) and these were built to plans originally prepared in 1897. The provision of adequate changing facilities was a major problem at Valley Parade in the early years and not properly resolved until 1908. Prior to 1908 a number of schemes had been proposed but not acted on and a number of facilities had been variously used. These ranged from the old Manningham dressing rooms in the Belle Vue Hotel and then the Artillery Barracks for visiting players and properties in Bateman Street for the home side. Initially the City players had used a shed at the bottom of Burlington Terrace for the purpose! During the summer of 1907 the Main Stand was upgraded and a team photo of the side taken at this time shows the construction work on the roof at the corner of the ground with the Kop. The complex arrangement of roof struts and supports remained until 1985 and stadia historian Simon Inglis suggested that these made the view from the old Main Stand akin to looking out of the cockpit of a Sopwith Camel! It was City's promotion to the First Division in 1908 (as Second Division Champions) that sparked a huge building programme which according to local observers gave Bradford one of the finest stadiums in the country. It was this redevelopment that provided the basis of the ground until the disaster of 1985. The club's 1908 Championship brochure boasted that City enjoyed the distinction of not only being the first club in the Heavy Woollen District of the West Riding to introduce English League Second Division football but they were also the first to gain promotion to the First Division: "These are honours of which Bradford City (directors, players and supporters alike) may be justly proud. With characteristic enterprise, the directors have risen to the occasion so far as ground accommodation is concerned, and the scheme of reconstruction which has been carried out during the summer has transformed Valley Parade into one of the largest and best equipped grounds outside London. It is certainly second to none so far as comfort, convenience, and the excellence of its playing pitch are concerned." PART TWO 1908 -1952 During the summer of 1908 the ground was almost completely revamped at a reported cost of £9,958. The centre piece was the elegant Midland Road grandstand, designed by the prominent architect Archibald Leitch. Whilst this was smaller than the Main Stand it was much more elegant. The terraces behind the goals were both uncovered. At the north side of the ground the Manningham End terrace was doubled in size to provide the Spion Kop (originally christened Nunn's Kop after one of City's founder directors). In the top (north west) corner the club purchased the two lower properties in Burlington Terrace adjoining the Kop for use as offices and dressing rooms. (One of them was used as residential accommodation for the manager and secretary, Peter O'Rourke). A tunnel was built under the Kop from the cellars to provide access to the pitch below. At pitch level the new Midland Road stand appeared fairly modest by Leitch's standards. However what made Leitch's project exceptional was the fact that the stand had to be built into a steep incline. According to Simon Inglis, Leitch engineered a complex base consisting of reinforced concrete struts on which a timber base was laid. This was originally designed to take seating but was left as terracing for 8,000 standing spectators. The trademark of Leitch's work was a pedimented centre gable but Leitch adorned the Midland Road stand with three mock Tudor gables. The centre gable featured a clock although this was later replaced by the civic coat of arms. The same gable appears in most pre-second world war City team photos including those of the 1911 FA Cup winning side. (After the demolition of the original Midland Road stand in 1952 the gable was stored under the Main Stand but was subsequently destroyed in the 1985 fire.) The construction of the stand is recorded by a photograph of City's opening game in Division One with Manchester City in September, 1908. An estimated crowd of 30,000 was accommodated in City's three-sided ground and spectators can be seen standing on the foundations of the stand. On the eve of the game on 11 September, 1908 the Bradford Argus had reported that even without the completion of the stand the Midland Road side would hold a few thousand. Reports of the game suggest that people had actually been encouraged to stand on the foundations to ease congestion on the Kop. In March, 1911 the completed ground would accommodate a 39,146 crowd which is the longest surviving attendance record for any League club. The congestion experienced on 12 September, 1908 persuaded the City directors to abandon plans for the installation of seating in the new Midland Road stand. The Bradford Weekly Telegraph of 18 September, 1908 reported that certain plans were discussed with the architect, Mr Archibald Leitch and that the popular view was expressed "that two can stand whereas one can sit". The seating capacity of the Main Stand was however increased slightly to 3,500 and this remained the only seating facility in the pre-1985 stadium. Valley Parade is the one stadium in the Football League to have been built on a hillside and the scale of the engineering project should not be under-estimated. The construction of the Midland Road grandstand was even celebrated as a pioneering example of construction using pre-stressed concrete. Indeed the foundations of the stand were well laid and only completely removed in 1996. The use of concrete struts had probably been encouraged after the disastrous failure of wooden terracing and construction at Ibrox in 1902. The stand did not open to its full capacity until the 1908 Christmas Day fixture with Bristol City. The Yorkshire Observer noted that "it was fortunate that the covered Midland Road stand was completed for all useful purposes and it was filled apparently to its utmost capacity". A reported 36,000 crowd witnessed a 0-1 City defeat. At the interval the crowd entertained itself by singing seasonal hymns and repeating ad infinitum what the Bradford Daily Telegraph described as the 'famous' City chimes, "Hello, Hello!" Bradford City had been relegated from the First Division and were into their fourth season back in Division Two by the time the Midland Road stand next hit the headlines. A fierce gale hit the district on the night of 30 December, 1925. Structural damage occurred to homes and commercial properties throughout the city. Perhaps the most dramatic damage was at Valley Parade where a large portion of the Midland Road stand was lifted into the sky and deposited on to the road below. One piece even found its way on to the railway in the cutting further down. Gale damage occurred again on 28 October, 1927 when the roof was once more deposited on Midland Road. Quite by coincidence it came at the time of a Supporters' Bazaar and Carnival which sought to raise monies for the purpose of "restoring Bradford City AFC to a sound financial position". City had been relegated from Division Two at the end of the previous season and this clearly restricted the club's options for ground repairs, let alone improvements. The club had to rely upon the assistance of its Supporters Association to provide funding. The damage at Valley Parade was quite extensive with the section nearest the Kop losing all its cover; nevertheless City's game against Stockport on 29 October, 1927 went ahead with spectators standing directly under the damaged section. (Thereafter a number of openings were made at the back of the stand to allow wind to blow through and thereby prevent gale damage.) Recurring financial problems meant that ground maintenance had been kept to a minimum: the most notable inter-war projects were the re-roofing of the main stand in 1919, the repainting of the ground in 1925 and refurbishment of the Burlington Terrace properties in July, 1928. Indeed plans for the roofing-over of the Spion Kop end (which had been discussed shortly after the club had purchased the freehold to the ground in August, 1931) had been abandoned by 1934 when playing results began to detiorate. At one stage before the war there was a prospect of Valley Parade being vacated altogether. In December, 1937 there were exploratory amalgamation talks between Bradford (PA) and Bradford City; it was suggested by the Park Avenue Chairman (who made the approach) that the merged club would play at a new municipal stadium at Odsal with rugby and football staged on alternate Saturdays. The City directors rejected the idea in October, 1938 confident that their club could improve its commercial position without the need for merger. What might be surprising to those who can remember the old Valley Parade is that sixty years ago the stadium was regarded as fairly impressive and certainly of a higher standard than most grounds in Division Three (North). This is confirmed by the notes in the programme for City's game at New Brighton on 30 August, 1939 (a 1-2 defeat) which was the club's penultimate game before the declaration of war on 3 September: "Bradford City has had a chequered career, having been in the first division for fourteen years, the second division on three occasions for eight, five and five seasons and in the third division Northern Section twice for two seasons. Some record! When you visit Valley Parade the first time, you get a shock, for the enclosure with its covered accommodation and extensive land seems out of place for third division football, but there you are, you never know what is in store. Furthermore Valley Parade had an international League game - England v Ireland in 1903. How are the mighty fallen! Valley Parade has room for 40,000 spectators and we think the time will once more come when the Wool City will have first division football and draw big gates." During the war the abandonment of League competition had further implications for club finances and in fact Valley Parade was requisitioned by the military (in 1944 the ground was only available to the club for first team fixtures on Saturdays). By the time that League football restarted in 1946 Bradford City were the owners of a very ramshackle stadium and the club was forced to appeal for contributions from supporters to its Ground Repair Fund. Earlier that year there had been a tragedy at Bolton's Burnden Park and concern for ground safety was a very real issue. City's programmes from 1945 onwards contain information about the progress of fundraising and include many references to the donations of overseas servicemen who were presumably eager to get back to the pleasures of civilian life. In 1948 the FA began a system of voluntary licensing for all grounds holding 10,000 or more and it was in this context that Bradford Corporation undertook an inspection of the Midland Road stand in August, 1948. The Corporation immediately ordered a 75% reduction in the capacity of the Midland Road stand to a mere 2,000 spectators. This decision was based on structural weaknesses but one must assume that the Corporation was also concerned about the safety of supporters descending the steep stairways onto Midland Road. The City programme (vs Wrexham 28 August, 1948) included a request for spectators to stand as near to the front of the stand as possible. Eventually a screen was erected to close off the rear portion. Shareholders at the club's AGM in October, 1949 were told that reconstruction of the stand would have to be deferred as the club had just made a substantial loss and it would cost £12-16,000 to make it usable. In late August, 1951 work began dismantling the stand and the City Surveyor ordered the club to place a barrier on the roadway below in order to protect passing pedestrians from falling matter. Work progressed slowly and it was not completed until 1952. The frame of the stand was sold to Berwick Rangers for £450 and it was transported by rail to Shielfield Park where its erection cost Rangers a further £3,000. Apparently Berwick decided not to take the timbers which City kept for their planned new cover in solid ground. In 1990 the stand at Berwick was condemned. Having subsequently been re-roofed the structure now accommodates 1,366 seated spectators which is quite adequate for the needs of Berwick Rangers. Needless to say the structure at Berwick today is unrecognisable from what existed at Valley Parade between 1908-52. PART THREE 1953 -1960 Valley Parade remained three sided whilst the club examined ways of raising the necessary finance for a replacement stand. From the off the club was reconciled to the fact that it had to operate within a very tight budget and that any replacement structure would not be as imposing as its predecessor. In March, 1953 City successfully applied to the Football Association for a £3,000 grant to enable the construction of a new stand. The Supporters Association pledged itself to raise funds to help the club repay the loan. Various fund raising events were held including a penalty shoot-out against a cardboard cut out of legendary keeper Jock Ewart. The Supporters Association republished WH Sawyer's 1927 club history under the title 'The Jubilee Story, 1903-53' and all proceeds were donated to the fund. Plans for the new stand were passed by the Council on 9 June, 1953. The replacement was a modest affair with no gables or wrought iron work; it was literally a plain cover for 3,000 spectators. City's programme for the Barnsley fixture on 19 August, 1953 reported that "the Ministry of Works have granted us a licence for the Midland Road stand. Originally it was proposed to erect a tubular steel structure, but reports from other clubs with similar stands indicate that the many pillars necessary to support the roof obstruct the view of supporters. We did not want this to happen, and the directors have considered a cantilever design, with very few pillars to interrupt the length of the stand. This should also be a more substantial arrangement..." The same programme reported that the ground had been given a new coat of paint during the close season, and "not this time in its customary green but with a claret background and yellow lettering." A new stand on the Midland Road side opened in 1954 (the same year that floodlights were installed on telegraph poles along each side of the ground) but only survived for 6 years. Again the site was subject to a structural survey and doubt was expressed about the strength of its foundations given the steep topography. City were unable to afford the £12,000 necessary to make the stand safe and the Council was forced to order its demolition with the consequence that Valley Parade became three sided once more. In January, 1960 City had reached the Fifth Round of the FA Cup for the first time since 1936 and were rewarded with a home tie against the eventual League Champions of that season, Burnley. The capacity of Valley Parade was set at 26,300 and interest in the game focused attention on what could be done about the Midland Road side and the safety of its foundations. City forward and trainee architect, David Jackson was actually involved with surveying the area at the same time as preparing for the game. The Burnley Cup tie was something of a classic with 26,227 witnessing a 2-2 draw; 52,850 watched the replay which City lost 0-5. During the 1957/58 season the club's honorary architects, John Brunton and Partners had submitted plans for a £50,000 scheme to alter the Main Stand and re-develop the Midland Road side. The plans emerged at the time that City were challenging for promotion from Division Three (North) with average gates of 12,531. Despite the optimism City lacked the financial resources to implement the plans and ultimately the club was unable to sustain its form. At the end of the 1960/61 season City were relegated to Division Four. Another matter demanding investment at this time concerned the standard of floodlighting at Valley Parade. In October 1959 the Football League had complained to the club about the quality of its floodlights and in March 1960 the club spent £14,000 on second-hand floodlights from West Ham United (although these were not used until December, 1960). The old lights were installed at Myra Shay where they were used by City to illuminate the training ground. In November 1962 the (new) pylon at the corner of the Bradford End and the Midland Road side toppled over and City's Second Round FA Cup tie with Gateshead was played with only three pylons in operation. Eight months earlier a pylon had been blown down in a gale. PART FOUR 1960 -1970 For all concerned with Bradford City a three sided ground was clearly unsatisfactory. The restriction on capacity was not a frequent problem but the void on the Midland Road side was more than a cause of embarrassment for the club and its supporters. Former City goalkeeper David Roper, who made 16 appearances for the club in 1962/63 remembers the Midland Road side as a goalkeeper's nightmare in floodlit games. He recalls that "you looked across to that side of the ground and all you saw was pitch blackness. You simply couldn't see the ball against the night sky and this made life very difficult to say the least." All that existed was a large net to prevent the ball going over the sideî. Replacement floodlights and a new stand were not the only items on the list of major needs at Valley Parade. The dressing rooms and club offices in Burlington Terrace adjoining the west side of the Kop were also inadequate and are remembered by David Markham of the Telegraph & Argus as simply "the worst in the League". In 1961 work to the value of £45,000 commenced on the construction of the existing club offices and changing rooms in the south west corner of the ground and the 3,500 capacity Bradford End was also covered. In 1963 there was a proposal to cover the Kop with a fibre glass translucent roof of the kind that had been used to modernise Wembley in preparation for the World Cup finals of 1966. The proposals had been raised at a time when City were challenging for promotion from Division Four but a reversal of playing fortunes during the 1964/65 and 1965/66 seasons (when the club succumbed to making an application for re-election) made an ambitious development programme totally unrealistic. The ground therefore remained three sided for six years until the 1966 close season when chairman Stafford Heginbotham instigated a scheme that moved the pitch towards the Main Stand and involved creating a narrow twelve foot wide strip on the Midland Road side. The original plan had been for a £60,000 cantilever stand to accommodate 4,000 spectators but the club's financial resources dictated a more modest scheme. During the summer of 1966 the 32 year old Heginbotham (at the time the youngest chairman in the League) rolled up his sleeves and led a team of volunteers to undertake the ground improvements which also included the installation of new turnstiles. The buildings at the bottom of Burlington Terrace were also finally demolished during the 1966 close season and the old tunnel was sealed - this would be rediscovered twenty years later at the time of redevelopment. The weakness of the foundations on the Midland Road side meant that the pitch had to be moved five yards towards South Parade in order to establish firm footings. Thus the price of a fourth side was the sacrificing of part of the old terraced 'Paddock' in front of the Main Stand and it meant that City's pitch became the narrowest in the League (measuring only 70 yards across). Whilst Heginbotham's achievements may appear modest in comparison with the developments at Valley Parade during the last decade they were nevertheless very ambitious for a club that finished 91st in the League in 1963 and 1966 and which came perilously close to extinction during the 1960's. The narrow strip on the Midland Road side remained open to the elements until the final completion of the now 'famous' shed by City's groundstaff and volunteers (again including Heginbotham himself) in February 1968 at a time when City were challenging for promotion from Division Four. The new stand, similar in many ways to the previous Midland Road stand as well as the slightly bigger (Low Side) structure on the Horton Park Avenue side at Park Avenue, was used for the first time on 2 March, 1968 for the game with York City. Work on the stand had begun at the start of the 1966/67 season but dragged on until early December, 1966 by which time the frame was virtually completed. At that stage however City's heavy trading losses and unpaid bills dictated the suspension of efforts. The same month the directors were forced to make personal commitments to the club of around £30,000 and in January, 1967 Stafford Heginbotham staged the famous crisis meeting at St Georges Hall in the hope of raising new funds. The completion of the stand more than 12 months' later owed much to an increase in the club's authorised and issued share capital (from £15,000 to £25,000) in January, 1968 and an improvement in prospects both on and off the field. The ground surface of the stand was originally flat and consisted of loose stone. In order to increase the capacity of the Midland Road side for the prestigious 3rd Round FA Cup tie against Spurs on 3 January, 1970 the narrow terrace was sloped and then covered with tarmac. At the back of the stand was the old pitch perimeter wall and the sloping was achieved by running the terrace from the top of the old perimeter wall to the bottom of the new perimeter wall 12 feet in front. Although the spectator was provided with a better view at the back he nevertheless had to be mindful of the limited head clearance under the roof. The modifications helped 23,000 fans squeeze into Valley Parade to witness a thrilling 2-2 draw and BBC cameras filmed the game from the roof of the Midland Road stand for Match of the Day. Unfortunately City were unable to achieve a Cup upset in the replay at White Hart Lane where they were defeated, 0-5. To finance the work on the Midland Road side the club again depended upon the donations of supporters. The Bingley-Shipley Guardian-Chronicle quoted Stafford Heginbotham speaking at the City Supporters Club Baildon Branch Annual Dinner on 13 December, 1966: he told supporters that "the new stand needed 990 sheets of material at 14s each to cover it. If anyone cared to provide a sheet the directors would see to it that the donor's name was painted on it." Mark Neale remembers one of the fund raising methods: "Members of the supporters club walked around the perimeter of the pitch at half time using a blanket to collect coins. I remember the enthusiasm of some of the donors which made the job of holding the blanket very hazardous. There were also numerous children following the blanket and collecting those coins which missed the blanket." Despite achieving their highest League position for 22 years by finishing 10th in Division Three, Bradford City AFC Ltd was still heavily in debt and in May, 1970 the club approached Bradford Corporation to buy Valley Parade for £35,000 and then lease it back at an annual rental of 10% of the purchase price. The club would eventually buy back the freehold on 1 May, 1979 for the same amount. At the end of May, 1970 neighbours Bradford (PA) AFC were voted out of the League and three years later, as that club struggled to pay its creditors by selling its ground, Avenue supporters would claim that the Corporation was unreasonable in not offering the same sort of generosity that had been extended to Bradford City. Bradford (PA) AFC would spend a final season at Valley Parade in 1973/74 before liquidation in May, 1974. PART FIVE 1970 -1996 Valley Parade remained virtually unaltered between 1970 and 1985. In fact more effort was expended on preventing the stadium from crumbling rather than modernising it. For example in March, 1977 a wall at the Burlington Terrace corner of the Kop blew down in a gale and had to be replaced and part of the Paddock wall collapsed during promotion celebrations at the end of the Bournemouth game on 7 May, 1977. The most notable development at Valley Parade during that year was the erection of segregation fences on the Kop and at the front of the Bradford End. Although Valley Parade had been restored to a four sided stadium it had the narrowest pitch in the League which was only 70 yards wide. The Telegraph & Argus reported in May, 1978 that opposing managers regarded City's home ground as a place where it was easy to defend. As a consequence the (just relegated) club committed itself to spending £20,000 on ground improvements which Tony Arnold writes "included widening the pitch by 3 yards (by further reducing the Paddock in front of the Main Stand) and adding to the one woman's toilet in the ground". In November, 1981, nineteen years after the Gateshead FA Cup controversy (when City's defeated opponents had complained about having to play the Second Round tie with only three floodlights) TV engineers identified structural faults in both pylons on the Main Stand side as they prepared for coverage of City's League Cup Third Round replay with Ipswich Town. Inevitably this led to the postponement of the game and provided more evidence of the extent to which Valley Parade had become dilapidated prior to the 1985 disaster. Fifteen months later in the early morning of 1 February, 1983 there was gale damage to the two Main Stand pylons and the one at the corner of the Kop and Main Stand blew over. The following week the pylon at the other end of the Main Stand was dismantled and as a consequence the club was unable to stage any evening games for the remainder of that season. Indeed when the Receiver was appointed at Bradford City FC (1908) Ltd during the 1983 close season he not only inherited an insolvent football club but also a ground without decent floodlighting. More problems followed when cracks were identified in the floodlight pylon at the corner of the Midland Road side and the Kop in November, 1983. This pylon was replaced during the 1984 close season whilst two new pylons were erected on the Main Stand side in April, 1984. During the 1978 close season a clock was fitted to a floodlight over the refreshments hut at the Bradford End corner of Midland Road - the predecessor to the notoriously unreliable electronic scoreboard which was installed on the Midland Road stand in 1987. Perhaps the most notable addition to the Midland Road stand was the garden shed that was used as a commentary position and camera base for video and TV; during the last decade of the third Midland Road stand's existence the garden shed on the roof was a permanent feature. With the exception of new cladding, the Midland Road stand was left virtually unaltered at the time of the 1986 redevelopment of the ground. The most obvious projects were the construction of the current Main Stand on South Parade, the re-roofing and re-terracing of the Bradford End (renamed Holywell Ash Lane End) and the new covered Kop. However extensive work was also undertaken by the contractors, Wimpennys of Huddersfield, on the foundations of the Midland Road side and the Kop, the rebuilding of part of the wall backing on to Holywell Ash Lane and the building of new turnstiles, exits, tea bars and toilets in all parts of the ground as well as the provision of three car parks. The 'new' Valley Parade was officially opened on 14 December, 1986 by The Hon Sir Oliver Popplewell and there was a celebration friendly featuring Bradford City against an England XI to mark the occasion. In 1991 work commenced on providing seating accommodation at the Holywell Ash Lane End of Valley Parade to replace the terrace which had been first covered thirty years previously and then refurbished in 1986. The new double decker stand has been described as cheap and cheerful although given the physical constraints and the £600,000 budget this was perhaps inevitable. In retrospect it reflected the ambition of the club at that time and one can speculate on how this end could be developed in the future. The quality of the foundations at the corner with the Midland Road side (and the height of the pitch level relative to the road below) prevented this stand from extending the full width of the pitch. The marginal cost of building suitable, deep foundations for the new stand did not make the addition of around 400 seats a viable proposition. As a consequence, the corner of the Midland Road and Holywell Ash Lane sides now accommodates a refreshment kiosk and the electronic scoreboard that had previously been on the roof of the (third) Midland Road stand. This is the same corner where the Holy Well once existed. The floodlight in that corner, the final remaining pylon from 1960, was finally replaced during the 1987 close season at a cost of £15,000. After the completion of the double decker stand in December, 1991 the Midland Road was the only side of the ground recognisable from the pre-1985 era. Although the shed remained the same a considerable amount of work was undertaken in 1986 to strengthen the retaining walls at the level of Midland Road some twenty feet below. Stadium Manager Alan Gilliver recalls that until 1986 the foundations dating from the 1908 stand supported the ground: "when work commenced on the removal of those foundations there were cracks in the playing field, almost like a landslide, and there was a very real danger of the pitch falling down the hillside." New turnstiles and stairways to provide access to the stand were constructed and the strip of sloping land behind the stand was landscaped. During the 1980's a couple of schemes were proposed for the Midland Road side. The first was director John Garside's ambitious £500,000 redevelopment plan for Valley Parade in December, 1980 (incidentally announced the month after the demolition of Park Avenue). The second, and most viable scheme was the 1988 plan for a two-tiered stand. This was to have seating in the upper tier and terraces below but it was cancelled when City failed to win promotion to the First Division at the end of 1987/88. Another 8 years would pass before chairman Geoffrey Richmond announced the construction of a 4,500 seater cantilever stand. The announcement was made on 27 February, 1996 which coincided with City's home fixture against Wrexham. As it turned out City's attendance for that game was only 3,804 - much less than the proposed capacity of the new stand. The much maligned Midland Road 'shed' accommodated its last spectators for the post-Wembley celebration friendly against Dutch giants Feyenoord on 28 May, 1996. The 'shed' was sold for £5,000 to former League club Barrow, now playing in the Premier Division of the Northern Premier League. The structure was dismantled by a team of contractors and volunteers from Barrow. During June sections of the stand were transported nothwards by small convoy of transit vans. Alas the transferred stand was unable to make an early season debut at Barrow's Holker Street ground because its new owners forgot to apply for planning permission and to this date it has yet to be erected. PART SIX Into the 21st Century 1996 to date Valley Parade has been totally transformed since 1996 and the scale of that transformation has mirrored the dramatic changes in status that the club experienced during the same period. The oldest surviving structure in the stadium is now the Holywell Ash Lane stand that was constructed in 1991. The only feature of the stadium that would be recognisable to someone who had not visited Valley Parade since the eighties would be the stone retaining wall at the back of the Bradford End that runs up Holywell Ash Lane! The first stage of the redevelopment programme was the construction of the £1.4m, 4,443 all-seater Midland Road stand between June and December 1996, which raised the capacity of the ground to 17,951. The new stand was first used on Boxing Day, 1996 for the visit of Sheffield United and the attendance on that occasion (17,475) was the highest for a League game at Valley Parade since April 1964. Work on the Midland Road stand in 1996 revealed much of the earlier history of the ground. For example it required the removal of the substantial ferro-concrete foundations from 1908 and the six-foot thick retaining wall that had been built in 1986. Of much greater antiquity were several dry stone walls running down the slope from almost pitch level to the roadway. It is likely that they predated the original ground but they were notable for the quality of their construction and their size, being built up to four feet thick and at one point thirty feet high! The history of the site confirms the importance of solid foundations and during the construction of the Midland Road stand in 1996 this was something of a challenge for the contractors. When Valley Parade was constructed in 1886 the pitch was levelled using spoil material and this had to be bored through in order to reach a solid foundation on the bed rock some forty-five feet down. At the Bradford End of the ground a Victorian tip was discovered and had to be excavated; the floodlight at the corner had to be supported as a hoard of bottles and other detritus of the period was removed. Over the whole length of the site some two thousand truck loads of spoil was removed and tipped into the old reservoir on the opposite side of Midland Road. Found against the 1908 foundations at the Kop end of the site was a child's leather work boot. One can only speculate whether the object found its way there during construction or at a later date; the obvious question is whether child labour had been employed at Valley Parade. The stand was officially opened by Her Majesty The Queen on 27 March, 1997 and there is a plaque in commemoration of this in the stand itself. On 6 April 1997 The Football League presented an award to Bradford City in recognition of Design and Innovation for the construction of the new stand: "Bradford City have used great imagination to build this new stand in order to overcome the peculiar problem caused by the significant slope behind the former terraced area, which falls away sharply to the road below. The structure is built on stilts and this striking new development adds to the transformation of the West Yorkshire club's stadium." To comply with the Taylor Report, City had to make Valley Parade all-seater by August 1999. Plans for a two-tier 7,500 all-seater Kop were placed before the Council. The granting of planning permission was a stormy affair, the planning committee had been recommended to reject the application. The overbearing nature of the structure on the adjacent Rock Terrace being the main stumbling block. The fanzine The City Gent lobbied all 90 Bradford Councillors and staged a demonstration outside City Hall. The pressure told, after an unprecidented site meeting, the application was passed, albeit on a split vote. Work began on the new Kop stand in December 1998, the £2.5m two-tier stand. With a capacity of 7,486, it was first used for a pre-season friendly against Barnsley in the summer of 1999. The corner between the Kop and Main Stand was filled in adding 2,300 to the grounds capacity. What became known as the North West Corner opened on Boxing Day 2000 when 20,370 witnessed Sunderland's visit to Valley Parade. The final piece of the Premiership developments was the complete rebuilding of the Main Stand which commenced in the summer of 2000. Costing some £7.5m, it took the grounds capacity to over 25,000. Unfortunately, when it was fully used for the first time, for a pre-season friendly against Blackburn Rovers in the summer of 2001, City had been relegated to Division One. | ||
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