I had been to the Goldstone Ground, to see Brighton and Hove Albion's home league match in Division Four in 1964 against Bradford PA. The score was 0-1 to the northerners and it was not a very impressive match. Mind you at 13 years old, who was I to judge?
Today I was at the BPAFC Stadium, the club's present home, a 4G surface with nice stands and so on. We played on the grass pitches next door. Our U18s won comfortably on a dodgey pitch. The ground is opposite a huge cemetery, where many Bradfordians will have been laid to rest.
Bradford (Park Avenue) AFC, in the National League North and play at the Horsfall Athletics' Stadium, with a capacity crowd of 3500. This is a club that was formed in 1907 and "re-instated" after leaving the football league in 1984. It had been through hard times, financially.
Bradford PA used to play at the Horton Park Avenue stadium, hence the name to help distinguish it from rivals Bradford City FC. The club played in the Football league from 1908 until 1970, when it dropped out of the FL, going into liquidation in 1974. The club was re-vitalised in 1987 and has worked its way up to the National League.BPA is one of 35 clubs that has played in all four top tiers of English Football. It would test you to name the other 34.
BPA rose from the ashes in the 13th tier (Pyramid level) of Division Three of the West Riding County Amateur League and seemingly has never looked back.
The club originally formed in 1863 (the year the FA was founded) as Bradford Football Club, BUT playing rugby. In 1907 the club took part in the "Great Betrayal" by leaving the Northern Union rugby game (basically rugby league) in favour of Association Football. Originally the club had to join the Southern League because there was no alternative and the club took Fulham's place, as they had "dropped out". Bradford FC's closest club then was 130 miles away in Northampton. In 1907 the club became known as Bradford Park Avenue. They joined the Football League Second Division in 1908 and was promoted to the top division in 1914.
The club dropped out of the Football League in 1970 and was replaced by Cambridge United. The club had huge debts (£57,000+) and went into liquidation, reforming as a Sunday league side immediately.
In 1988 the club rejoined Saturday football (13th Tier) in the West Riding Counties Association League and then moved to the Central Midlands League. The club by then was owned by the supporters, a Community Benefit Society.
I remember the Park Avenue stadium very well as 1) it was very close to the University Halls where I resided in my first 2 years (you could tell when there was a home game as all the toilet rolls vanished from the hall toilets) & 2) I often played cricket next door at the county cricket ground. It was a lovely old football stadium.
ReplyDeleteAnd if you're doing a piece on BPA, you could give Kevin Hector a mention! He scored over 100 league goals for them in 4 seasons - that's impressive at any level.