Rotherham United

In this, the last home match of the 2008-2009 season, City beat Rotherham 3-0.

In the final part of our Odsal odyssey we chart the departure of the Bulls from Valley Parade and the proposed Odsal Sporting Village. Ground sharing between Bradford’s two professional sporting clubs is back on the agenda, but despite the grand plans for Odsal, it’s debateable where the shared ground will be.
With the collapse of the Tesco development at Odsal in 2002 the council came under increasing pressure to fund a return of the Bradford Bulls to Odsal. Though the Bulls had received £1.2m from the council to compensate them for their two year sojourn at Valley Parade, they also wanted the council to foot the bill to bring Odsal up to standard. Bulls chairman Chris Caisley even threatened to take the Bulls out of Bradford. In truth it was probably a bluff to increase the pressure on the Council as they assed the options. The council revealed that repairs and improvements to Odsal would cost at least £660,000 just to bring the ground back up to the basic health and safety standards.
Chris Caisley claimed the Council was only prepared to do 'the bare minimum' for the club over the next decade-and-a-half: "That means spending a minimum amount on health and safety grounds. It will mean that after two years, capacity will drop from 25,000 to 14,000 and that in the interim period, there will be no bars and hospitality facilities open to the public. It doesn't seem to be a stadium for the World Club Champions, does it?
"It seems to me that over a number of years, and certainly throughout my involvement in the club, the Council has abrogated that responsibility to the point where it's allowed the stadium to rot, to become an eyesore in due course and, if their present plans are to be believed, to make it very difficult to sustain a business within that stadium."
Councillor Simon Cooke, Deputy Leader of Bradford Council commented: "We're obviously in a situation that none of us, not the Bulls, not the developers nor the Council or indeed the people of Bradford, wanted to be in and we have now got to work for a long-term solution. In the short-term, however, we have a requirement, and Chris has made it absolutely clear on a number of occasions that he wants to go back to play at Odsal, and I understand why he wants to do this, and why Bull fans want to do that. What we are doing as a Council is the bare minimum at this point necessary to enable him to get back and play next season.”
The shenanigans put even greater momentum behind the supporters campaign to return the Bulls to Odsal. The council eventually bowed to public pressure and in August 2002 announced details of the agreement that was to take the Bulls home. The council agreed to pay the Bulls £4.64m over two years. The deal attracted intense criticism from sections of the public, but the council said the deal would be paid for by the sale of land and properties owned by the council, as well as some borrowing. A 150-year lease was signed at a peppercorn rate, reputedly £1 per year. The council also spent £660,000 on health & safety work to bring Odsal up to standard for the 2003 Super League season.
The Main Stand was refurbished, with nearly 5,000 new seats and roof. New floodlights completed the refurbishment and all was ready for the triumphant return on 9 March 2003 when the Bulls met Wakefield Trinity. The improvements didn’t stop there. A two-storey corporate hospitality facility was later constructed on the site of the speedway pits at the Low Moor end of the ground.
The cost to the local taxpayer for the collapse of the Tesco development was immense. The Bradford Bulls received just short of £6m of public money between 2000-03. Another £1m was spent on a combination of bringing Odsal back up to scratch to facilitate the Bulls return and consultancy fees.
In 2004, when Bradford City was on the brink of closure, council leader Margaret Eaton told City fans that the council was unable to help out as City was ‘a private business’. Today in 2009 the council have set aside £15m of public money to help develop the Odsal Sporting Village. If the Sporting Village goes ahead it would mean that since 2000 £23m of public money will have been spent on Odsal related matters.
The council seem determined to press ahead with a development that has, at its heart, a brand new stadium for the Bradford Bulls. Yet reports suggest that Valley Parade – a virtually brand new 25,000 capacity all-seater stadium – is for sale for around £2.5m.