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!

Bradford City History Week Additional Event

A walk through the history of Bradford sport

Bradford city centre

10.30am-noon

20 April 2013

The hidden sporting history of Bradford will be brought to life in a guided walk around the city centre on Saturday 20 April. The walk, staged as part of the inaugural Bantams’ History week, will follow part of the route taken by Bradford City’s victorious team when they returned in triumph with the FA Cup in 1911.
Buildings and locations will include: where Bradford Northern Rugby League Club were formed; where the Bradford jewellers Fattorini’s designed the current FA Cup; the hotel where City’s players celebrated their cup triumph; the wool warehouse which was the business of Bradford City’s chairman during the Great War; a sports outfitters owned by a Bradford rugby international in the days when players were supposed to be strictly amateur; the premises where millions of football collectors cards were manufactured.
Walkers are requested to meet downstairs in the Turls Green public house (formerly known as Lloyds) in Centenary Square 10am for 10.30am. The pub has kindly agreed to host the meeting place of the walk. There will be a halt for refreshments at the Midland Hotel and the walk will end at the Sparrow Bier Cafe on North Parade in time for the official launch of the Bantams’ History Week at midday.
The walk will be led by the bantamspast museum curator David Pendleton and the irrepressible Glyn Watkins, poet, writer and leader of the recent walk celebrating Bradford’s patron Saint Bishop Blaise. The walk is free but a donation to the Bradford Burns Unit would be appreciated.

Locations en route:
Bradford fire memorial, Centenary Square
Site of Mechanics’ Institute, Centenary Square
Former Bradford Daily Telegraph office, Centenary Square
Site of Great War recruiting office, Norfolk Gardens
Site of Bradford Exchange railway station
Great Northern Victoria Hotel
Route taken through streets of Bradford by Bradford City team parading FA Cup in 1911
Wool Exchange, Market Street
Site of Fattorini’s where FA Cup was designed
Site of Sports & Pastimes, makers of Bradford City’s shirts in 1911
Plaque commemorating FA Cup win outside Midland Hotel
Site of former Bradford Midland (Forster Square) Railway station
Midland Hotel, Spirit of Bradford bar
Former warehouse of I & G Lancaster, Cheapside
Former British Sport Depot shop, Darley Street/Duke Street
Former shop of Baines Cards, North Parade
Sparrow Bier Cafe, North Parade

Wembley Competition Closed

  

The deadline for submitting photographs from the League Cup Final at Wembley has now passed. We would like to thank each and every one of you who have sent images from that unforgettable day. In due course we will announce the winner and put many of the images you have sent onto our website. We are delighted to have received snapshots of the day from a fan's perspective. Please note: the image above is one of ours. We weren't allowed to enter the competition!

Defeated But Not Downhearted

Don't forget, send us your photos (see below).

Bantams in Photo Finish?

Supporters’ chance to win cash prize in Cup Final photo competition

The Bradford City Football Club museum, bantamspast, is running a competition for supporters to send in their best images of the Bantams’ fairytale League Cup Final experience, both for supporters going to Wembley, those celebrating the occasion in Bradford.

The competition will allow the bantamspast museum to build up an archive of how supporters celebrated Bradford City’s first cup final appearance for 102 years. It will be an invaluable resource that will illustrate to future supporters how we, in 2013, followed the Bantams either at Wembley or back in Bradford.

The museum's competition for the best images is being run in association with British Future, a think-tank which promotes debate about identity and integration. 

The winning images will be displayed in the museum and there is a £250 prize for the best entry in each of the two categories.

Wembley Way: images from those making the trip to London

Bringing Bradford together: images of celebrations of the occasion in Bradford.

The entries can be either still photographs or video clips. The closing date is 3 March 2013. Please submit entries to info@bantamspast.co.uk

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

By entering our competitions you are deemed to have read and agree with these terms and conditions

1. The photographer must be the author and owner of the copyright of photos entered in to the competition. Entrants will retain full copyright in their entries, and will be credited if their images are published. The contest is open to all, but excludes images which have been published, for payment, in professional news or media outlets prior to the closing date. (Images published personally, through social media, or elsewhere but not for payment are allowed). 

2. The winning image will be placed in the bantamspast museum and a selection of other entries will appear at www.bantamspast.co.uk and on the British
3.  Please send images to HERE by the closing date of 3 March 2013.   Submitted images should be no larger than 600kb files size.
4. By entering this contest, you agree to grant bantamspast and British Future a non-exclusive, irrevocable licence to publish the image submitted. A selection of entries will be published online. Copyright will remain with the entrants.  Winning photos and other selected images may be used to report the result of the competition, to promote the contest and to provide a record of the competition and the Wembley final on the bantamspast website. This will not be time-limited; after the contest, the winning images and a selection of other images will be used as part of the bantamspast archive, with the photographers credited.
5. The judges' decision is final.

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.

Good Luck Everyone!

 

Different century. Different venue. Same sentiment. History in the making. And it was! And it is!