bantamspast Annual Dinner

Tickets are selling fast for the bantamspast museum’s annual 1911 dinner which takes place on Saturday at Bradford City AFC’s 1911 Club.
The organisers of the bantamspast museum host an annual dinner on 26 April, the anniversary of Bradford City’s famous FA Cup triumph of 1911. That feat is all the more poignant given that 2014 marks the centenary of the outbreak of the Great War, a conflict in which two of the cup winners, Jimmy Speirs and Robert Torrance, were killed.
This year the anniversary falls on a Saturday and so it is appropriate that the dinner will taker place in Bradford City’s 1911 Club overlooking the Valley Parade pitch on which the likes of Speirs and Torrance played during the club’s golden era in the years before the Great War. Diners will enjoy a three-course carvery dinner and then listen to the stories of the nine City players killed in the Great War and proposals of how the club, and its supporters, could mark the centenary of the conflict.
The dinner takes place on Saturday 26 April, 7.30pm for 8pm at the 1911 Club, Valley Parade. There are less than twenty places remaining and the event is expected to sell out. Tickets are available by telephone from the 1911 reception on 0871 978 200.

The 1911 Annual Memorial Dinner

26 April 2014

1911 Club, Valley Parade

Ever since the success of the dinner that commemorated the centenary of Bradford City’s FA Cup triumph, the organisers of the bantamspast museum have arranged an annual dinner on 26 April, the date when Jimmy Speirs' headed goal won the famous trophy for the Bantams. This year the 103^rd anniversary falls on a Saturday, so it is appropriate that the host venue will be Bradford City’s own 1911 Club. 

The evening will comprise a three course carvery dinner and an after dinner speaker. The cost is, perhaps appropriately, £19.11. As we approach the centenary of the Great War, the bantamspast museum’s David Pendleton will speak about the impact of the conflict on the football club and will reveal plans in place to commemorate the centenary. Nine City players died in the war, including the captain and goal scorer in the FA Cup final Jimmy Speirs and the man-of-the-match Robert Torrance.

The dinner takes place on Saturday 26 April, 7.30pm for 8pm at the 1911 Club, Valley Parade. There are only sixty places available, so the event is expected to sell out. Tickets are available from the 1911 Reception.

Belgian Blog - Day Two

Glorious sunshine greeted the second day of the bantamspast trip to the battlefields of the Great War. In the morning we left a football, used in the warm up at Wembley this year, at the site of the 1914 Christmas Day truce when British and German troops played football in no man's land. The site is marked by a wooden cross where visitors regularly leave footballs. Bradford City chairman Mark Lawn kindly supplied a ball and he wrote a message of remembrance from all at Valley Parade.

The day was to be dominated by thoughts of City's captain and goal scorer in the 1911 FA Cup Final Jimmy Speirs. A chance meeting at the site of one of the huge British mines exploded on the Messines Ridge with a group of Scottish doctors, who were undertaking a cycling tour of the Ypres area, gave us an insight into the fate of Jimmy Speirs. One of the doctors had written a book entitled 'War Surgery 1914-1918' examining the treatment of wounds during the conflict. Jimmy Speirs was shot through the thigh during the Battle of Passchendaele. The doctor explained that he would have suffered a broken femur. By 1917 the rapid strapping of such wounds, using a specially developed strap, vastly improved survival rates. However, it had to be applied almost immediately and as Jimmy was shot advancing across an open field it is probable that such a procedure was unlikely. His fate was probably sealed the moment he was shot. The muddy shell hole he was placed in lessened even further the chances of survival as infection was probable. In the end Jimmy was left in the shelter of the shell hole as his company continued their advance. The intention was to return, but sadly they were unable to and Jimmy was never seen alive again. In all probability he died an agonising and lonely death.

In the afternoon we visited the exact spot where he died, The two farms, named Iberian and Gallipoli by the British troops, from where the German's opened fire on Jimmy's company are still in existence - although they were probably rebuilt after the war. The open field over which Jimmy advanced offered little cover. We looked across the windy farmer's field where our great cup winner met his untimely end, it was difficult to visualise how it would have looked during the war. Appropriately we ended our trip at the graveside of Jimmy Speirs. Once again Bradford remembered.

Bantams’ History Week in Review

The inaugural Bantams’ History Week ended on a high note at the Midland Hotel on Friday night. Exactly 102 years to the day since Jimmy Speirs walked onto the balcony of what is now the Forster Suite, diners enjoyed a fabulous meal and listened to The Guardian’s David Conn describe his journey from terrace fan to football’s leading financial investigative journalist.

History was brought back to life when bantamspast museum’s curator David Pendleton described the scenes on the packed streets of Bradford when the Bantams brought the FA Cup back to the city in which it had been designed. From our view from the Forster Suite we looked across the street to the location of Fattorini’s where W. N. Norman drew the design of the iconic trophy. Next door was the headquarters of Sports & Pastimes who produced thousands of football shirts, including those worn by the Bantams’ players in the FA Cup Final of 1911. We looked out of the french windows from where Speirs emerged with the glittering trophy and imagined the sea of cheering faces packed onto the streets below. Bradford City chairman Mark Lawn brought along Speirs’ FA Cup winners’ medal – probably the first time it had been into the hotel since Speirs himself carried it, and the cup, into the hotel on the evening of 26 April 1911.

It was a fitting end to a wonderful week. From the opening walk the previous Saturday which raised £85 for the Burns Unit; the pulling of the first pint of the specially brewed Baines blonde by Mark Lawn at the Sparrow (the beer sold all 210 pints inside four hours); a tour of Undercliffe Cemetery, where a small collection gave £38 towards the upkeep of the vast cemetery, which is undertaken almost entirely by volunteers; and finally the dinner.

We would like to thank those who enabled the history week to go ahead: Turls Green (Wetherspoons); Sparrow Bier Café; Bradford City AFC; Friends of Undercliffe Cemetery; Midland Hotel; John Ashton; John Dewhirst; Gary Peacock; Glyn Watkins; Andy Tyne; Mark Lawn; David Conn; David Pendleton and, of course, everyone who took part and attended the events.

We'll be back next year bigger and better!

Up for the Cup Edwardian Style

As travel plans are made for the League Cup Final, it is remarkable how similar the experience will be to our last appearance in a major cup final – the FA Cup Final of 1911. Although a large proportion of the 31,000 supporters heading south will be travelling by road, a significant number will use the railways. Thankfully, an overnight journey in toiletless carriages has been left behind us. For the team, they will, like their 1911 counterparts, travel to London prior to the day of the match. However, it is unlikely that they will be staying at the Midland Hotel at St Pancras. City fans with an eye to history could stay at the hotel, which has recently been spectacularly refurbished, but as well as an interest in history, they would have to have deep pockets, as the cheapest room is over £220 per night!

We take the following text from David Pendleton’s Glorious 1911 book, which is still available from Waterstones in the city centre and will be restocked in the club shop shortly.

To the Palace for the Cup

A staggering two hundred trains poured fans into London from all over the country. The Great Northern Railway, which served both Bradford and Newcastle, ran 43 trains into Kings Cross. Twenty trains, including one conveying the City team, ran into St Pancras on the Midland Railway. City had something of a special relationship with the Midland, not least because the company leased Valley Parade to the club. The Midland Railway Company’s carriage works in Manningham made a silver horseshoe, which they presented to the team. A large crowd gathered to witness the departure of the official party, including the fifteen players from whom the team would be selected, as they left Forster Square at half past three on the afternoon of Friday 21 April 1911. Driver Luck, who had driven the team’s train to the semi-final, was once again at the controls as the train pulled away from Forster Square, past Valley Parade and towards the distant capital. The great invasion of London had commenced a few hours earlier with the departure of the reserve team from Forster Square.

Eleven trains conveying some six thousand City fans followed in their wake. The streets of Bradford were busy all through the night. Streams of supporters made their way to Forster Square and Exchange stations. Along the route vendors sold claret and amber ‘favours’ that trippers placed in their lapels or attached to hats. As each train started, cheers went up and the fans began singing the popular City song ‘Hello Hello’ which echoed down the platforms as the trains departed into the night. The first train disgorged its bleary-eyed travellers onto the capital’s streets at half past four in the morning! The first team party arrived at St Pancras at quarter past eight in the evening. Waiting at the hotel for the team was a good luck horseshoe, sent by the men of Bradford’s Tramways. The team visited the Euston Empire Theatre, a short walk from their base at the Midland Railway’s fabulous St Pancras Hotel. Given the huge number of fans of both clubs arriving at St Pancras and the adjacent Kings Cross in the early hours, it may not have just been pre-match nerves that kept the City players awake in their hotel rooms above the great station.

France-Belgium 2011

The final event to commemorate the centenary of the 1911 FA Cup triumph took place this weekend when twenty people visited the final resting places of the nine Bradford City players killed in the Great War. We also took in the graves of the the two Bradford Park Avenue players and the Serre area where the Bradford Pals attacked on the first day of the Battle of the Somme.

Further images and a report will follow.

Speaking of events, this is the absolute final week of the When The FA Cup Came Home exhibition at Bradford Industrial Museum. It all finishes next Sunday 12 June. If you've not visited, shame on you! But there's still time - just.

Another Little Mystery

A member of Robert Torrance's family has kindly loaned a number of images to us, including this one. The big question is, who is it?
We know that a comedian by the name of Sammy Shields recorded a humorous sketch around the time of the 1911 Cup Final win. Could it be him? Unfortunately the internet doesn't provide much of a clue - there's very little information given regarding Mr Shields.
Can anyone out there help?

Glorious 1911 and BBC Look North

Well, we're all still getting over the fantastic celebrations of last Tuesday, 26 April 2011, the centenary of the epic FA Cup win. As many readers will know, both the BBC and Yorkshire TV covered the various events throughout the day on their local news programmes.
Thanks to the BBC's Martin Armstrong and Look North Editor Tim Smith, here is what was broadcast on Look North, some of it live from the Midland Hotel.


Video courtesy of BBC Look North

A letter to Jimmy Speirs

On 19 April 1911, Newcastle United captain, Colin Veitch was staying in The Alexandra Hotel and Hydro, Saltburn-by-the-Sea, in preparation for the FA Cup Final the following Saturday. Using the hotel's headed notepaper, he replied to a letter from Bradford City captain, Jimmy Speirs:

Thanks for your letter, which expresses in sound terms the spirit of comradeship, and the proper sentiments one would expect to see associated with the sportsman and the sport.

Please express to your colleagues the admiration which we all feel for your kindly thoughts for the injured players. You will be pleased to hear that recent reports are not so unfavourable in the case of Albert Shepherd, whilst Willis has improved so rapidly during the Easter weekend that there is every chance of him appearing on Saturday.

I trust we will have a splendid game at the Crystal Palace, and by our united efforts, serve to bring the professional side of football even more prominently in front of the public, as the essence of everything good in the sport.

May the best team win, as you say.

Again thanking you for timely and kindly letter.

I remain

Yours sincerely

Colin Veitch

When the FA Cup Came Home - Grand Launch

A fantastic evening at Bradford Industrial Museum attended by over 300 people. The celebration of Bradford City's 1911 FA Cup win was officially opened when Mary Needham, granddaughter of City's first chairman, Alfred Ayrton, cut the claret & amber ribbon.
Alexander Jackson, who works for the National Football Museum, said that in his opinion it was the best football related exhibition he had ever seen.

You can see more launch pictures here.

When the FA Cup Came Home - Now Open

The exhibition celebrating the centenary of Bradford City's epic FA Cup win is now open! First comments are most encouraging. If you're going to Bradford Industrial Museum to see it, be sure to take your camera so you and your loved ones can be pictured with the team.