The official launch of a new book which celebrates the 125 year history of Bradford City AFC’s Valley Parade ground will take place at Waterstones at 6.30pm on Thursday 8 December. Entitled ‘Paraders, the 125 year history of Valley Parade’, it has been written by David Pendleton, curator of Bradford City’s bantamspast museum and author of the critically acclaimed book Glorious 1911.
Paraders tells the story of the Bantams’ home from its inception as a rugby ground in 1886 right through to the present day. From the fire disaster of 1985 to the FA Cup winners of 1911; the brief Premier League sojourn to all too many years in the basement division of English football. The full sweep of the history and development of Valley Parade is captured. Scores of previously unpublished images enhance the painstakingly researched text. Even the most dedicated Bradford City supporter will learn something new from this comprehensive history.
Paraders is much more than a history of a football ground. It touches on the social, industrial and demographic changes that have shaped the wider city of Bradford over the last 125 years. Priced at just £16 the book will appeal to even those who do not make the fortnightly pilgrimage to Valley Parade.
Paraders is on sale in the bantamspast museum on matchdays and at Waterstones in Bradford city centre. The author will be signing copies in the bantamspast museum prior to home matches during December.
Our band of travellers at Jimmy Speirs' grave. An appropriate way to end the celebrations of Glorious 1911.
The huge Menin Gate at Ypres has become the site of one of the best known and poignant ceremonies that surrounds the modern memory of the First World War. Every night members of the Ypres fire brigade play the last post beneath the imposing gate on which are inscribed the names of 56,000 men who died in the defence of Ypres and have no known grave.
The village of Poperinghe was for British troops a respite from the hell of Ypres. This was the railhead for the infamous Ypres Salient but also a place where bars and restaurants could be visited. For City's amateur centre half Gerald Kirk it was the place he came to die. Badly wounded during the defence of St Julian following the first ever gas attack in the history of warfare, when the German's released poison gas on French colonial troops who ran for their lives at the sight of the yellow gas clouds.
As you walk down the gravel path to the Tyne Cot Cemetery halfway up the Passchendaele ridge, a soft woman's voice reads a name, regiment and age at the time of death. It's a beautiful litany of the 300,000 men who died in the infamous Battle of Passchdaele. Tyne Cot is the largest British and Commonwealth war cemetery in the world. Over twelve thousands graves and an additional 36,000 on its Memorial to the Missing. This truly is the Silent City.
Line after line of brilliant white headstones. Étaples British Cemetery, within sight of the sea, is a poignant place. Here wounded soldiers were brought from the front. If they survived they were placed on a boat for Britain and home. Sadly, over 12,000 got within sight and sound of the sea, and by association, home, before succumbing to their wounds.
The huge Arras Memorial to the Missing lies alongside a major road just west of the city centre. Once inside the high walls of the memorial the noise of the traffic disappears and once again you find yourself in the tranquility of an English garden.
The tiny village of Hebuterne has a plaque on its church wall commemorating the Bradford Pals. The location was chosen because it is close to where 44 Pals were killed in woodland, but it is a couple of miles distant from Serre where the majority of them were mown down on 1 July 1916. The area around Serre has several Pals memorials - Accrington, Barnsley, Sheffield to name but a few, so it does feel a bit odd that the Bradford Pals memorial stands on its own at Hebuterne.
The Somme.
Another remote French village, set in rolling fields of barley, Ramicourt. Situated on the edge of the village and on a rise is the final resting place of Bradford Park Avenue's Jimmy Smith. He was a striker with an incredible scoring rate. Signed to strengthen the Avenue side in the wake of their promotion to the top division, he carried on hitting the net with an unerring regularity. Just a few days before he was due to return home to Bradford to marry his fiancé at Heaton he was killed in action. His portrait hung in the boardroom at Park Avenue as as a reminder of his supreme sacrifice - I wonder what became of it after Park Avenue was demolished in 1980?
Under glorious skies the final commemoration of Glorious 1911 took place on the Great War battlefields of Belgium and France. No Bradford City supporter will need reminding that the captain and goal scorer in the 1911 FA Cup Final, Jimmy Speirs, was killed during the Battle of Passchendaele just six years later. Thus the centenary of the FA Cup victory was the appropriate occasion to visit the final resting places of the nine Bradford City players who lost their lives in the Great War. Over the next couple of weeks we will feature sections of the journey, along with a commentary and photographs.
In the wake of the club’s lowest position in the Football League since 1966, and the ongoing debate as to whether Bradford City will continue to play at Valley Parade, the 26th anniversary of the fire disaster was a timely reminder and it helped to place the club’s current travails into perspective. As the flowers were piled around the memorial to the 56 fans who died on 11 May 1985 I did wonder whether Bradford City could ever leave Valley Parade while the generation who survived the fire remain active supporters of the club?
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.
An exciting day today as a team from Bradford Industrial Museum went to Birmingham to secure the loan of the original design drawing for the current FA Cup produced, by Bradford's own Fattorini & Sons, back in 1911. From tomorrow it will take pride of place in the exhibition When the FA Cup Came Home. This image does not do it justice. Be sure to go and see it yourself.
As you can see, preparations for the forthcoming exhibition at Bradford Industrial Museum are coming together well. When the FA Cup Came Home is open from Saturday, with a special viewing on Thursday 7 April (more on that to come). It's going to be good!
Things are really hotting up at Bradford Industrial Museum in readiness for the exhibition about Bradford City’s FA Cup triumph 100 years ago. On Tuesday we went across to Preston, to the National Football Museum (currently in the process of moving to Manchester) to collect a splendid Newcastle United shirt from the game.
In the summer of 1914 Bradford City spent heavily on a forward line to compliment a defence that was widely recognised as being the best in the Football League. It should have been the start of a new exciting era. However, the outbreak of the Great War ruined any chance of the club firmly establishing itself among the elite of the game. Had the war not come City would have probably added to their FA Cup triumph of 1911 and pushed for the league title that had eluded them on several occasions.
