Valley Parade

Sunday 27 March 2011

Bradford City 1-2 Shrewsbury Town

Aerial shot of Valley Parade (Bing Maps)

Programme (£3.00)

Ratings

Overall Ground Quality : 8/10

Ease of getting there : 6/10

Atmosphere : 6/10

Programme : 7/10

View of Action : 8/10

Quality of the game : 6/10

The "football" feeling : 7/10

Chances of coming here for a random game : 4/10

Legroom : 5/10

Surrounding area : 5/10

Overall : 62/100

Midland Road Stand

Carlsberg Stand

TL Dallas Stand

The Valley Parade Fire Memorial

Co-operative Stand

'Bradford City AFC'

Donated Memorial of the Valley Parade Fire outside Reception

Carlsberg Stand

Midland Road Stand

TL Dallas Stand

Carlsberg Stand

Co-operative Stand

Midland Road Stand

TL Dallas Stand

Bradford City 1-2 Shrewsbury Town

With the International Break in action meaning there was no Premier League and no Championship. We decided to go to Bradford City against Shrewsbury Town, with the Shrews needing points to keep their automatic promotion dream alive following a match official blunder the previous weekend, awarding close promotion rivals Wycombe a goal that didn’t cross the line which cost Shrewsbury 2 points in a 1-1 draw. Bradford City are near enough safe in League 2 and are preparing for next season after sacking Peter Taylor and replacing him temporarily with former Bantam, Peter Jackson who is hoping to get the job full time.

Our first stop of the day was at Stocksbridge Park Steels who play at the Look Local Stadium which has a capacity of 3,500. Stocksbridge Park Steels was merged by two teams in the mid 80’s, Stocksbridge Works and Oxley Park Sports FC. The Steel’s highest ever league attendance at the Look Local Stadium is 610 against local rivals Worksop Town.

We then continued travelling north to Huddersfield where the old Leed’s Road ground used to be be which is now a retail park. There’s an alleged plaque where the centre spot used to be yet myself or Adrian couldn’t find it. It’s either been tarmaced over or it’s under stacks of compost outside the B&Q!

Next up was FC Halifax Town or as you may remember them as Halifax Town in the Football League. The Shay holds up to 10,000 people and the ground is in better shape than some Football League grounds currently. The previous Family Stand was demolished in 2000 and work on the new East Stand started and then stopped due to finances. It remained half built until 2008 when the local council agreed to contribute to completing the stand. It was opened in March 2010, 10 years after the previous Family Stand was demolished!

Not long after we found ourselves at Bradford (Park Avenue) where they play at Horsfall Stadium which has a capacity of 5,000. Bradford (Park Avenue) has had a few well known players including Paddy Kenny and Ron Greenwood.

The short distance down the road saw ourselves visiting Odsal Stadium, famous for Rugby League, Speedway, Home of Bradford City briefly following the Valley Parade fire and most recently featuring in the film ‘The King’s Speech’ where Odsal was used as the Empire Stadium (Old Wembley) in one of the scenes.

We parked on the Midland Road and walked around the ground.

Wikipedia states that ‘on 11 May 1985, one of the worst sporting disasters occurred at Valley Parade. Fifty-six people died and at least 265 were injured when the main stand was engulfed by fire. The fire started 40 minutes into the club's final game of the 1984–85 season against Lincoln City and destroyed the main stand in just nine minutes. For the next season and the first five months of the 1986–87 season, Bradford City played home games at Leeds United's Elland Road, Huddersfield Town's Leeds Road and Bradford Northern's Odsal Stadium, while Valley Parade was rebuilt. Huddersfield-based firm J Wimpenny carried out the £2.6 million work, which included funding from insurance pay-outs, Football League stadium grants, club funds and a £1.46 million Government loan obtained by two Bradford MPs. A new 5,000 all-seater main stand was built, longer than the structure which had burned down.’ ‘The Kop was also covered for the first time and increased to a 7,000 capacity. Other minor work was carried out to the ground's other two stands. On 14 December 1986, 582 days after the fire, The Hon Sir Oliver Popplewell, who had conducted the inquiry into the fire, opened the new stadium before an exhibition match against an England international XI. It was first used for a league game on Boxing Day when City lost 1–0 to Derby County.’

‘The two stands which were not altered after the fire were both improved during the 1990s. The Bradford end of the ground was made a double-decker, all-seater stand, with a new scoreboard, in 1991. City's promotion to Division One in 1996 meant that chairman Geoffrey Richmond announced the construction of a 4,500 seater stand on the Midland Road side. It was first used for a Yorkshire derby against Sheffield United on Boxing Day 1996, before being officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 27 March 1997. Richmond continued his plans to redevelop the ground as City continued to rise through the league. The roof of the Kop, which was the largest safe-standing terrace in the country at the time, was removed and the capacity reduced during City's 1998–99 promotion season, to prepare for a summer £6.5 million rebuilding programme. The Kop was converted into a two-tier 7,500-seat capacity stand. An additional 2,300-seat capacity corner section was built, which filled in the corner between the main stand and Kop. When opened in December 2000 it took the capacity of Valley Parade to more than 20,000 for the first time since 1970. A suite of offices and a shop were added at the same time. Once the work was completed, a second tier was added to the main stand at the cost of £6.5 million. It was opened in 2001, increasing the main stand's capacity to 11,000, and the ground's capacity to 25,000.’

Myself and Adrian were not impressed by the ticket pricing at Bradford City. For League 2 football we both paid adult price of £20 each. I’m (Ross) a full time student with a student card and I couldn’t pay a student price which would be £15 (still far too much for League 2) as I didn’t have a club membership which would cost £5 similar to Crewe Alexandra. When are football clubs going to stop being pathetic about complicated pricing for students.

After being totally ripped off by the Bradford City ticket office, we went into the ground.

The game saw Shrewsbury Town beat a poor Bradford City side 2-1. The first goal of the game came from Bradford’s Tom Adeyemi and then in 74^th minute Tom Bradshaw stepped onto the Valley Parade pitch and grabbed Shrewsbury their equaliser on 77 minutes followed by their winner in 87^th minute.

We really enjoyed visiting Valley Parade as it has a very well known history, unfortunately for the wrong reason the same as Hillsborough in Sheffield. Valley Parade is by far one of the best grounds in League 2 and maybe in League 1 and The Championship too. Unfortunately, the ground was redeveloped for Premier League football and now looks a bit silly being well under capacity every game.