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.

Black History Month 2013

On the morning of the Wolves home match the bantamspast museum was delighted to welcome a tour celebrating black history month. Two minibuses of visitors were welcomed to Valley Parade by the museum’s David Pendleton. Sat overlooking the pitch, the visitors heard about the manner in which City legends Joe Cooke and Ces Podd helped shape the outlook of a generation of City supporters. They also learned about Billy Clarke, a mixed race player who scored City’s first ever goal in the top division of English football in 1908.

For some of the visitors it was their first ever visit to Valley Parade. That said, all of them knew about Nahki Wells, so who knows we may see some of them back for a match in the near future.

bantamspast and Black History Month 2013

bantamspast museum is delighted to be once again supporting Black History Month in 2013. In 2011 we hosted a hugely successful event involving former City player Joe Cooke as well as speakers from the International Centre for Sport History and Culture based at De Montfort University. 

Last year we were unable to host an event due to the relocation of the museum. On the morning of 26 October 2013 David Pendleton will be welcoming a Black History Month bus tour to Valley Parade where he will talk about the perhaps surprisingly long history of black footballers in Bradford. 

The bus tour is being organised by the museum’s good friend Katherine Canoville. Entitled the Bradford African Caribbean Heritage Bus, it will take place on 26 October and will conclude Bradford’s Black History Month 2013.  

The event will celebrate Bradford’s African & Caribbean Cultural Heritage, stopping off at key historical cultural and community sites within the Bradford District. The tour will visit sites associated with Bradford’s black community’s cultural achievements, scientific, artistic and sporting landmarks including: Billy Clarke, Bradford City’s first black footballer; Mary Seacole, who pioneered British Healthcare in the community; and hundreds of undocumented heroes and she-roes within the local district, who deserve to be put on the map.

THE TOUR:

• Bus will arrive at The Hilton Hotel, Bradford at 11.00am
• Bradford City Football Club – Valley Parade 11:30am
• David Pendleton talks about bantamspast and Black players at BCFC
• Bus tour leaves BCFC at 11:50am to arrive at Frontline Initiative
• Delroy Dacres to talk about growing up in Manningham & Young Lions Café through the Bradford riots & beyond.
• Bus tour leaves Frontline Initiative at 12:20pm to Malik House for Snapz Exhibition and WordSmithz (spoken word) and talk from Bradford Action for Refugees, Nigerian Community Association of Bradford, The NILE Project, Peace Studies from Bradford University/Peace Museum – refreshments will be available.
• Bus leaves Malik House 2.20pm and arrives at Claremont at 2.30pm
• ACAP (African And Caribbean Achievement Project), Claremont, Bradford BD7

Image above shows City stalwart Ces Podd tussling with Southampton's Peter Osgood during the 1976 FA Cup quarter final at Valley Parade

Bolton Woods People's Street Party

The bantamspast museum was delighted to be able to play its part in making the first Bolton Woods street party a great success. Held on Saturday 31st August, the party was the first of its kind for Bolton Woods. It was centred around the New Vic Public House on Livingstone Road and children's activities took place both at the pub and at the Bolton Woods Community Centre.The event was opened by the Lord Mayor of Bradford, Khadim Hussain, who welcomed the community in attendance and praised their community spirit following the recent stabbings in the area. Also in attendance was Labour Councillor Vanda Greenwood (Wrose & Windhill). Live music entertainment was provided by the Ali Campbell/UB40 tribute act and local folk singer, Creedy and there, with Caribbean Fusion from Sheffield providing a Caribbean food stall.

The landlord and landlady of the New Vic are keen City fans and several coaches left the pub for both of City’s 2013 Wembley appearances. Therefore, the raffle, in aid of the charity Little Heroes, had several City related prizes: a signed Bradford City shirt; signed Bradford City team picture; and a signed copy of the book "Paraders, the 125 year history of Valley Parade" by David Pendleton. The football club provided the signed shirt, while the museum provided the framed photo and book. The raffle raised nearly £200. 

It is hoped that there will be a repeat of this successful event in 2014. The museum and the football club are delighted to have played a small part in its success.

CTC 73 Forty Years Young

This weekend marks the fortieth anniversary of the formation of the independent travel club CTC 73. Initially started after the club stopped running coaches to away games, CTC 73 eventually found its niche as the operator of choice for those supporters who enjoyed sampling the public house provision of market town England. In days when the local police were decidedly against visiting supporters drinking with a ten mile radius of the town hosting the football match, CTC 73 decided to go to the nearest market town and enjoy a glass or two there. You would be mistaken for thinking that the trippers were attracted by the ambience and architecture of the ancient market towns, the reason for visiting market towns was a simple one – they are packed with pubs.

The tales from these trips are now the stuff of legend. However, although the trips were far from sober affairs, they were almost always welcomed with open arms (and tills). From Ely to Beverley; Dereham to Stamford; Bury St Edmonds to Brigg, we have left an often positive view of Bradford and its people. The main one being: those boys can certainly drink!

To celebrate CTC 73’s fortieth birthday there will be a reunion/gathering at the Fighting Cock on Preston Street immediately after the Sheffield United home match on Saturday 24 August. Be there or be sober!

An Artistic Donation

 

Bradford City’s 2012/13 season will be long remembered for the club’s double Wembley appearances. The remarkable season has inspired one supporter to commission a painting which will hang in the club’s bantamspast museum. The painting is a combination of private and public memories for Kathryn Hey. As she explains: 

“It was over 32 years ago (1981) when my father took me to see my first football match at Valley Parade.  Sadly this was the only game we saw together before he passed away.  Thanks to his work colleagues, who kindly took me under their wing, I carried on attending.  

“I know he would have been as thrilled and happy as myself for last season’s incredible achievements, the best in my memory.  ‘A dream’ and ‘sensational’ are words that spring to mind. 

“It was for this reason I decided to commission Paul Town, a Football Stadium artist and fellow Bradford City fan to paint this canvas as a thank you to all the players, staff and management at Bradford City. Paul has worked from an original 1950’s print and photographs to create an impression of Valley Parade as my father and many others would have remembered it - including the advertisement for Hey’s brewery that was located on nearby Lumb Lane. The painting also features the Bradford City locomotive, which regularly roared past the ground - the original locomotive nameplate is on display in the main entrance at Valley Parade. As well as loving football, by father was a keen steam train enthusiast and had one of the largest collections and displays in the north of England (most of which now is in the National Railway Museum at York). I take after him for my love of football and trains!

“Throughout the season I’ve made a great many new friends and spent much of my free time at the club.  I’ve always been made to feel so welcome. I’m sure that like myself and many others, my father would have been so proud of our club. A big thank you to Bradford AFC and to all the people I’ve met along the way.”

For the artist the painting has been a labour of love. The Baildon based builder recently began depicting football grounds and has produced and sold several paintings of grounds as diverse as Sunderland’s Roker Park, Heart of Midlothian’s Tynecastle and Tottenham Hotspur’s White Hart Lane. Paul said:

“It has been a real honour to be commissioned to paint this piece for the Bradford City museum by lifelong City supporter Kathryn Hey.

“I am myself a city supporter of nearly 40 years and found the research to produce this greatly satisfying. In coordination with both Kathryn, and bantamspast museum’s David Pendleton, we together came up with a design based upon how Valley Parade and the surrounding areas would have looked around the 1940s. I hope to produce many more period paintings of Valley Parade in the future which hopefully will be of interest to all diehard city supporters both young and old. My artwork can be viewed on my Facebook page, Stadium Portraits Paul Town.”

The painting will be on display in the bantamspast museum, currently housed in Bantams Bar on the Kop, in time for the start of the new season. The museum’s David Pendleton said: 

“We are delighted to receive this donation from Kathryn. It is a very kind gift and we thank both Kathryn and Paul for the painting, which we hope will be enjoyed by many City fans this season and beyond. It is a wonderful way to mark the unforgettable 2012/13 season.”