Port Vale

City went on to lose this game 1-0.
With the debate about Odsal Stadium raging, we thought it would be timely to bring you a comprehensive history of public investment at Odsal. Some may wish to contrast it with policies towards Valley Parade.
Bradford Northern were formed when Bradford Rugby Club became Bradford Park Avenue AFC in 1907. The disenfranchised players and supporters of Bradford RFC formed the new rugby league club. The infant Park Avenue football club refused to let Northern share the Park Avenue ground, so Northern were forced to find a home at one of Bradford’s existing stadiums. They played one season at Greenfield Stadium at Dudley Hill. However, poor attendances forced them to move to Birch Lane at West Bowling. With good access to Manchester Road, attendances improved, but the tight ground was never really suitable for professional rugby.
Salvation came in 1932 when Ernest Call, Bradford Corporation’s director of public cleansing, floated the idea of turning Odsal tip into a stadium by the means of controlled tipping. Call, a keen Northern supporter, approached the club’s chairman Tom Smith and, despite much public scepticism, work commenced and on 23 June 1933 Northern signed a 10-year lease.
In return for providing the ground, the council received a mere 1% of gate receipts. In 1937 the switching of a scheduled England v France international to Halifax, forced the council to address the state of the pitch, which had been unsatisfactory since the opening day. They installed a drainage system and, as their contribution to the work, Northern increased their payment to the council to 4% of gate receipts. The council’s investment continued the following year, when they spent £3,000 on terracing the Rooley Avenue End and constructing a stand on the Hospital side.
The sheer scale of the new ground began to attract proposals for grandiose developments. No fewer than fifteen separate plans were put forward in the first ten years of the grounds life. These included a 1930s plan to cover the entire bowl and create a massive multi-use complex, including ice skating rinks, dance halls and other sports, as well as the rugby pitch.
The ground became a multi-sport venue when a 390-yard speedway track was laid. Bradford Northern’s Harry Hornby invited Johnnie Hoskins to bring speedway to Odsal. The Lord Mayor, Alderman Cecil Barnett, officially opened the track on 23 June 1945. Over 20,000 flocked to see the first meeting of the Odsal ‘Boomerangs’.
An earth slip in 1945 caused the rebuilding of the 8-year-old Hospital side stand. The £16,397 cost, included driving new piles, a virtual new stand and converting the wooden railway sleeper terracing to concrete on the northwest corner of the Rooley Avenue end. A further £5,650 was spent seating the lower part of the New Stand, as it inevitably became known. To prevent another earth slip, golden elder, flowering currant and gorse were planted to help absorb water from the banking.
Council engineer Wardley drew up a plan in September 1951 for a 92,000 capacity ‘European’ style stadium, at a cost of £250,000. In the event £50,000 was spent on terracing the Rooley Avenue end in 1964, before the Wardley plan was officially dropped the following year. Arguably, the Wardley plan was the biggest missed opportunity of Bradford’s sporting history. From almost that moment, any hope of a cohesive plan for developing a shared City of Bradford stadium was gone.
However, three years later only 324 souls witnessed Northern play Barrow in November 1963. Northern subsequently folded, but a quick reformation was wholeheartedly supported, as 14,500 saw the ‘new’ club’s first match. The council did their bit, spending £50,000 on new terracing.
The council paid out £40,000 for new floodlights in 1979 and they were officially turned on for the visit of St Helens on 29 November. Despite that investment the future of Odsal was far from assured, on 12 August 1980 the Telegraph & Argus revealed that the council were looking to sell Odsal to West Yorkshire County Council. Ironically, the proposal was for tipping household waste, the county had a chronic shortage of tipping sites and Bradford Council saw Odsal as the ideal site. They hoped to raise £5m and were prepared to offer Bradford Rugby Union Club’s Lidget Green (now Scholemoor) ground as a home for Northern.
The history of Odsal and the council will conclude in the Brentford programme.