As soon as an integral a part of the cities and cities they referred to as residence, dozens of the nation’s Soccer League grounds have disappeared over the previous 30 or so years. All took with them a wealth of reminiscences for generations of supporters.
However what occurred subsequent? The Athletic has travelled the nation to seek out out, taking in an array of housing estates, retail parks and even the odd hospital alongside the way in which.
Kicking off our four-part collection, operating every Tuesday in August, is maybe probably the most poignant of the lot, Bradford Park Avenue. Dwelling to a League membership for 62 years and county cricket for greater than a century, Park Avenue sits forgotten and forlorn, with one among its few guests previously decade being an archaeological dig…
Wanting up at a row of turnstiles that after led to a soccer floor the place England performed a global match, it’s as if time has stood nonetheless.
Painted excessive on the wall is ‘5/-’, indicating an admission worth of 5 shillings in outdated cash. One other couple of bricked-up entrances might be discovered across the nook, together with an enormous rusting iron gate topped with spikes to discourage anybody attempting to get in free of charge.
A gents’ bathroom block may clearly be seen in direction of the again of a banking the place supporters final stood greater than 50 years in the past, whereas a stroll inside reveals two massively overgrown terraces and a crumbling perimeter wall staring out over the bumpy stays of a pitch as soon as graced by greats akin to Stanley Matthews and Len Shackleton.
(Richard Sutcliffe/The Athletic)
Additionally buried amid the shrubbery that has been allowed to run wild are two floodlight pylon bases, plus a mountain of sporting reminiscences. Welcome to Park Avenue, Bradford, the forgotten residence of the previous Soccer League membership who glided by the identical identify that’s now the ghostly protect of Mom Nature.
In an age when the demolition crews appear to maneuver in nearly the second the gates shut for the ultimate time at nice sporting cathedrals akin to Highbury, Roker Park and White Hart Lane, this one-time sporting mecca actually is a throwback.
Not solely does the cricket floor the place Yorkshire performed for greater than a century till 1996 stay, albeit in a semi-derelict state, however sufficient survives on the adjoining soccer aspect — the 2 sports activities shared a principal stand, designed by main architect Archibald Leitch — to go away supporters of a sure classic misty-eyed.
Cricket at Bradford Park Avenue in the summertime of 1949 (S&G/Getty Pictures)
Park Avenue was all the time regarded domestically as superior to Valley Parade, the house of Bradford Metropolis — as soon as of the Premier League and now of League Two. For a begin, it had cowl for 14,000 and a capability of 37,000. The railway station and tram spur that could possibly be discovered the place the ornate Grand Mosque now stands simply throughout Horton Park Avenue meant 1000’s of followers is also ferried to and from the realm in hardly any time in any respect.
Then there was the nook pavilion, nicknamed the ‘Dolls’ Home’ by guests. This charming two-storey constructing served an identical function to Fulham’s Craven Cottage, housing the soccer membership’s dressing rooms and committee room with officers in a position to watch matches from an upstairs balcony.
This, although, couldn’t put it aside as Bradford’s fortunes declined markedly because the Swinging Sixties morphed into the subsequent decade.
Voted out of the League in 1970, the membership found within the Northern Premier League for one more 4 years earlier than folding amid money owed of £57,652 ($73,580 in right now’s trade charges). By then, the soccer floor had been bought to a property developer, with Avenue enjoying their last season throughout the town at Valley Parade.
Bradford Park Avenue, as seen in 1955 (George W. Hales/Getty Pictures)
A restrictive covenant that dictated the land might solely be used for sport and recreation pursuits meant the soccer floor ended up being left to wither and die, even after the native council stepped in to buy the positioning with grandiose plans to construct a sports activities advanced.
By 1980, Leitch’s ornate principal stand had turn out to be so unsafe it needed to be demolished. The information sparked a wave of nostalgia throughout the town, as a whole bunch of followers streamed to the outdated floor for one final look.
A pensioner was even helped onto the weed-infested Canterbury Avenue Finish and left, leaning unsteadily on a rusting crash barrier, to stare silently over what will need to have felt like an unkempt grave.
Tim Clapham, a supporter since 1963 and now the membership historian, was amongst these making one final pilgrimage earlier than the wrecking ball claimed not solely the 4,000-seat principal stand and its distinctive three gables, but in addition the Dolls Home and the Horton Park Finish roof.
“Solely the half-time scoreboard was left standing, with even the outdated social membership bought to a neighborhood pig farmer,” Clapham says. “Such a tragic time. So many turned up, hoping to take a souvenir, one thing to recollect the bottom by.
“Some wished the ‘BFC’ letters etched on the center gable of the stand, whereas others fancied the 2 coats of arms at both finish. However, once they got here down, these items had been a lot larger than they’d appeared. You’d have wanted a truck to hold them away!”
As Bradford mourned for a second time the lack of a venue that had hosted not solely an England versus Eire worldwide in 1909 but in addition what stays the fastest-ever Soccer League aim (4 seconds, Jim Fryatt in opposition to Tranmere Rovers in 1964), cricket not less than survived.
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That was till 1996, when Yorkshire County Cricket Membership opted to focus totally on Headingley as their residence with a small variety of video games each season additionally performed in Scarborough. Others to lose their standing as out-grounds had been Middlesbrough, Harrogate and Hull, the place a part of the MKM Stadium now sits on the outdated Circle cricket floor as the twin residence of Hull Metropolis and rugby league membership Hull FC.
Park Avenue had turn out to be a shell of its former self lengthy earlier than that last County Championship match in opposition to Leicestershire in 1996.
(Richard Sutcliffe/The Athletic)
Simply what anybody in a position to bear in mind Park Avenue in its heyday would make of the outdated place in 2024 is anybody’s guess. The cricket sq. has, lately, been introduced again to first-class normal, permitting Yorkshire’s second XI to return and play the odd match.
However the environment are in a sorry state. The place the grand-looking pavilion as soon as stood till the late Eighties is now only a wasteland and the place Fred Trueman, Ray Illingworth et al would plot the downfall of visiting batsmen now sits 10-foot bushes. Time is a formidable opponent when sports activities arenas are left to rot.
Simply in entrance sit just a few dilapidated rows of seats, a superb quantity vandalised and all doing battle with the weeds steadily creeping by the concrete steps. It’s an identical story elsewhere, with fenced-off sections of crumbling terraces interspersed with banks of vegetation.
The one brilliant spot is a mural depicting England spin bowler — and native hero — Adil Rashid that was painted to mark the launch of the Hundred competitors in 2021. Even that, although, is fading so as to add to the rundown really feel of a floor as soon as considered the jewel in Yorkshire’s cricketing crown.
(Richard Sutcliffe/The Athletic)
What stays of the outdated soccer floor isn’t any much less miserable, even permitting for the way its deserted state allowed an archaeological dig in 2015 that unearthed all method of fascinating artefacts.
The haul, captured for posterity by the Breaking Floor artwork challenge, included boot studs, cash, marbles, aim hooks and even a nappy pin. The latter, it transpired, associated to the elastic on goalkeeper Chick Farr’s shorts snapping throughout one match, forcing the coach to carry out an emergency restore. Farr by no means lived the episode down, often discovering himself showered by pins when standing between the posts.
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Hopes of Bradford ever returning to their non secular residence ended when a cricket faculty (now a health club) was constructed on half of the outdated soccer pitch in 1988. A brand new Park Avenue membership was shaped in the identical yr and their residence for nearly three a long time has been Horsfall Stadium, an athletics venue that sits a few miles away from this outdated floor.
(Richard Sutcliffe/The Athletic)
On the cricket aspect, nonetheless, grand plans had been unveiled only a few years in the past to carry Yorkshire again to their outdated stomping floor through an formidable £5.5million revamp.
Stage one noticed a state-of-the-art altering facility, out of doors nets and a score-hut open in 2017, with England and Yorkshire team-mates Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow and Rashid amongst these slicing the ribbon. The nets, constructed between what was the midway line and roughly the penalty space of what remained of Avenue’s outdated pitch, had been transformed to an indoor facility final yr.
The remainder of the unique scheme — a group pavilion with altering rooms that had been to be situated to the aspect of the place the unique stood, a restaurant catering for 250 diners, 1,000 seats for spectators and safety fencing — by no means materialised. Because of this, the mooted return of county cricket to the town of Bradford by no means turned actuality. As an alternative, York joined Leeds and Scarborough on the roster of Yorkshire’s residence grounds.
That could be the ultimate nail within the coffin for any hopes of bringing skilled sport again to this nook of Bradford. Now, all that’s left behind is the ghostly presence of the previous to go along with the deserted turnstiles and terraces that, for the previous 5 a long time, have been residence to only the worms and the weeds.
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(Prime photograph: Richard Sutcliffe, Tim Clapham)
