Valley Parade celebrates milestone after Tordoff reveals how close City were to leaving

AS the man who masterminded the re-building of Valley Parade in the wake of the fire disaster and someone who, by his own admission, “has done most jobs at Bradford City but manage the team”, Jack Tordoff understandably has a huge attachment to one of Yorkshire’s oldest sporting venues.

However, had the club’s life president had his way a little over a quarter of a century ago, the Bantams would now be playing elsewhere in the city.

“I do feel we missed something of an opportunity in the aftermath of the fire,” admits Tordoff to the Yorkshire Post when asked about Valley Parade’s forthcoming 125th anniversary as a sports ground.

“The fire was, of course, a horrible time. Fifty-six people lost their lives and the effect on the city was huge, and probably something that can’t be put into words. You had to be in Bradford at that time to understand just what the city went through.

“I had returned to the board in 1983 with Stafford (Heginbotham, City chairman at the time of the fire) to save the club. We did that and Trevor (Cherry, manager) built a good, young team and things turned round.

“But then the fire happened...” Tordoff’s voice trails off as his thoughts return to the horrors of May 11, 1985, when it took just four minutes for the Valley Parade main stand to be engulfed in flames during what should have been a day of celebration for City, who ahead of kick-off had been presented with the Third Division title.

“Bradford was left in shock but we, at the club, had to try and plan a way forward for Bradford City,” says Tordoff, whose tremendous drive and acute business sense helped transform JCT600 into one of the country’s leading companies with a turnover of more than £600m.

“So, a few days after the fire, I told Stafford that I would sort out the stadium, if he concentrated on the rest such as seeing people in the hospitals and speaking to the press.

“I have always been used to building things so I set about the task. When it was finished the following year, I got a great compliment from Stafford when he said: ‘This is the only thing that has been built in Bradford on time and to budget that I can recall.’ His words meant a lot to me.”

Valley Parade was, indeed, a sight to behold when reopened in December, 1986, with the £2.8m work including a state-of-the-art new main stand plus a roof over the Kop for the first time. But, as Tordoff reveals for the first time, it could have been so very different.

He said: “I was proud of Valley Parade when it reopened. I also think it is still a good ground today, even if Geoffrey (Richmond, former City chairman) didn’t quite finish things off when it was rebuilt during the Premier League days. It looks a bit lop-sided as a result, but it is still Bradford City’s home and I am glad about that.

“That is why I never wanted the proposed move to Odsal earlier this year to go ahead. Valley Parade is Bradford City’s home and not Odsal.

“Having said all that, we did miss a chance after the fire as I think we should have looked at starting from scratch in another location.

“I suggested we should look at getting a better piece of land from Bradford Council and spending the money on building a new stadium there.

“We did look at one possible site near Shipley but the idea never really got off the ground, which I thought was a shame. The supporters didn’t like the idea of not being at Valley Parade, which is understandable because 56 people had lost their lives there.

“Bradford Council were also keen for us to return and did help us at Valley Parade by improving car parking and so on. But I do look back now all these years later and think it was a huge missed opportunity.”

The prospect of City having spent the past quarter of a century playing at another site is one that may intrigue supporters.

In terms of Valley Parade, however, the Bantams opting to stay put during the Eighties means their home is about to celebrate a very special landmark with Sunday being the 125th anniversary of Manningham rugby club, who later morphed into City when association football arrived in Bradford, playing their first game at the venue.

Only Sheffield United’s Bramall Lane, which was opened in 1854 as a cricket ground, of Yorkshire’s existing football stadia boasts a longer history.

During that time, Valley Parade has undergone several transformations – the most notable other than the rebuild that followed the fire coming in 1908 and 1999 after City had been promoted to the top flight. Throughout it all, the club’s fortunes have ebbed and flowed with all too brief periods of success intermingling with times when it has been a struggle to pay the bills.

It was during a couple of those fiscally challenging periods that Tordoff joined the Bradford board, first in 1973 and then, after quitting four years later following the sacking of manager Bobby Kennedy, again in 1983.

He recalls: “When I came back the second time the club had huge problems. The finances were in a mess, while Valley Parade was in an equally bad state. The floodlights had just blown down in a gale and the whole place looked like a battleground.

“It was a challenge to sort out, especially as money was really tight. But we managed it with the help of supporters, tradesmen and so on. We scrounged anything we could and got the work done, including sorting out the floodlights – which meant we didn’t have to kick-off at 1.0pm any more.

“My relationship with Stafford worked well. Stafford dealt with team matters, while I concentrated more on the administration side of the club.

“In terms of the football, we were lucky in that we had a very good team and a good manager. Trevor Cherry did very well with no resources to put together such a smashing set of lads.

“Bobby Campbell coming back was a big thing, as was the signing of John Hawley. He had been abroad and initially I thought, ‘He’s just here for a pay day’ – especially as he only trained one day a week due to having an antiques shop.

“But I was wrong and he turned out to be a great signing. He was a very special player.

“Trevor built such a good team that we got to the stage where we never thought we would lose. We were all in it together and things were going well. But then came the fire.”

Football returned to Valley Parade four months after the fire when City’s reserves played in front of the charred remains of the old stand. No supporters were allowed in but the game served as a symbol of hope that the Bantams would return.

Tordoff added: “I was in charge of the project but that didn’t stop me having some disagreements with Stafford on what work needed to be done. He wanted a luxurious directors’ box, whereas I wanted the Kop to have a roof.

“I told him, ‘Those people have come here for decades, season after season, without the protection of a roof when it rains and it has to change. Our supporters deserve that’.

“That was the big thing for me. We built the two new stands and polished up the other two, so Valley Parade looked a fine ground.

“The capacity was about 16,000, which to me was a more than adequate figure for Bradford City. Put it this way, we didn’t have to turn many people away after the ground had been reopened.

“The only area we didn’t touch was the dressing rooms. There was too much to do and other priorities to spend the money on.

“But I do remember when we played an England XI in the game that reopened the stadium just how embarrassed I felt by the state of them. Everything was run down and there were cockroaches and all sorts lurking in there.

“So, when we sold Ian Ormondroyd for £650,000 – a sizeable sum in those days – to Aston Villa, I said straight away to the manager, ‘You can forget about spending that on players, we are sorting those dressing rooms out’.

“So, that is what we did and, I am reliably told, they haven’t been touched since. Looking around the rest of Valley Parade and all the development, they must be the oldest part left. That shows how much has changed in a quarter of a century.”

Leaving home would have been the beginning of the end

RARELY can a sports ground of 125 years standing have faced quite so much uncertainty over its future than Valley Parade.

Younger supporters may have viewed the threat earlier this year by joint chairmen Mark Lawn and Julian Rhodes to move Bradford City to Odsal as a new development but it was nothing of the sort.

In fact, talk of a potential move away from Manningham began just a couple of years after City had been formed in 1903. Fuelled mainly by the club only having a short lease off London Midland Scottish Railway Company, the rumours only died down when the committee formally denied they were considering a switch to Park Avenue.

By 1907, however, an amalgamation of City and the Park Avenue-based Bradford FC was back on the agenda with the ‘new’ club to be installed at a ground that also hosted county cricket. The plan, though, was vetoed by City’s members by 1,031 votes to 487 – leaving Bradford FC, then a rugby club, to set up their own football team called Bradford (Park Avenue).

With Valley Parade then undergoing a substantial overhaul, talk of a move subsided.

Indeed, by the Twenties the old ground was being preferred by Bradford Northern RLFC as a temporary ‘home’ when the prospect of a larger crowd meant Birch Lane, their own base, would not be able to satisfy demand. This happened four times, including once in February, 1926 when a Challenge Cup tie against Keighley was watched by 20,973 fans at Valley Parade.

Northern’s subsequent move to Odsal in 1935 brought to an end the staging of the oval ball game. What it also did was prompt the floating of an idea just two years later by Park Avenue chairman Stanley Waddilove that the two football clubs should merge and move to Odsal, a proposal that was flatly rejected by City.

Following the Second World War, in common with the rest of the country there was an appetite for change in Bradford and a plan to turn Odsal into a 92,000 capacity venue was passed by the local authority – only to flounder amid concerns over finance.

In the early Seventies, the plan of City, Park Avenue and Northern sharing Odsal was revisited twice but, again, no agreement could be reached.

It was not long before the next scheme for Bradford sport was put forward, the sale of Park Avenue in 1973 seeing the club become tenants at Valley Parade. Once again, a merger was suggested that never got off the ground and Avenue folded after just 12 months at the home of their one-time rivals.

Ambitious plans to redevelop Park Avenue were unveiled in 1980 with the Bantams mooted as the ground’s new tenant but the proposal again stalled.

A year later, it was Valley Parade’s turn to be the subject of a grandiose scheme that had no hope of becoming reality with the plans including a cambered track to stage greyhound racing, speedway, cycling and athletics.

Unsurprisingly, this was soon forgotten and it was not until the aftermath of the 1985 fire that the idea of a move from Valley Parade was revisited with the local council, who had just spent millions on upgrading Odsal, seeming particularly keen.

However, supporter pressure won the day to ensure the Bantams returned home once the rebuilding work had been completed.

Stuart McCall, now in charge of Scottish Premier League side Motherwell, was in the City side on the day of the fire.

The former Scotland international’s father Andy, a former professional footballer, was among those seriously injured so it is understandable that he should have such an emotional attachment.

It is why he was so pleased to see City return in 1986 and also why a more recent proposal to decamp to Odsal filled him with horror. McCall, pictured right, who had two spells as a Bradford player and managed the club for three years until 2010, said: “The possibility of us moving to Odsal first reared its head during my second year as manager.

“It was explained to me that the rent was so high that the club had no alternative but to explore the possibility. Of course, I understood the financial pressures.

“But I also made it clear behind closed doors that if Bradford City left Valley Parade then I would be on my way, too. Leaving would, to me, have been the beginning of the end for a club that will always be close to my heart.

“Bradford City is Valley Parade to me. I don’t care what it is called – Pulse Stadium, Coral Windows, Bradford & Bingley or whatever. It will always be Valley Parade.”

Happily for Bantams supporters, the threat of having to uproot to Odsal was lifted during the summer.

A new book is being published to coincide with the anniversary. Written by David Pendleton, ‘Paraders: The History of Valley Parade 1886-2011’ will be available in November. Subscribers can purchase the book at a discount. Further information from [email protected]