Bradford City A.F.C.
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Bradford City Association Football Club is a football team based at the Bradford and Bingley Stadium (formerly known as Valley Parade) in Bradford, England. The club was originally known as Manningham, a rugby club and a founding member of the Northern Rugby Union. They left the code in 1903-04 to switch to association football, hence the "AFC" in their title. Their invitation in 1903 to join the Football League was an attempt to introduce the sport to the rugby-dominated region, and they were actually accepted into the League even before they had a team.
Bradford's main strip consists of claret and amber striped shirts and black shorts. This unique combination is either loved or hated - it even won both Best Strip and Worst Strip awards in the same year from one football publication.
The club's nickname is "The Bantams", after a type of small chicken with similar colouring to the main Bradford strip. These birds are small, fast and agile, which was hoped to represent the club's playing style, though obviously the nickname has adverse "chicken" connotations. With this in mind, in the 1960s, attempts were made to replace the nickname with "The City Gents" or just "The Gents". These attempts were unsuccessful, probably due to the fact that in England the word gents is a colloquialism for men's lavatories. The nickname survives, however, in one of the club's mascots, the City Gent, a man in a bowler hat who throws sweets to children in the crowd before matches.
Although their original neighbours and fierce rivals Bradford (Park Avenue) are now a non-league club, they still engage in fierce competition with local rivals Leeds United, Huddersfield Town, and Halifax Town, and to a lesser extent with Sheffield United, Sheffield Wednesday and Barnsley. Matches against these sides have produced both amazing spectacles and some terrible moments - the 1996-97 season providing examples of both. On February 1, 1997, Huddersfield Town defender Kevin Gray broke the leg of Bradford City striker Gordon Watson in two places with a horrific sliding tackle. Watson was, at that time, the most expensive player in Bradford City's history having cost them £550,000, and was playing in only his third match for the club. He required a 6 inch plate and 7 screws in his leg. It took Gordon almost two years of recovery and five further operations before he was able to return to football, after which he made just a handful of appearances for City before leaving the club. At Leeds High Court in October 1998 he succeeded in becoming only the second player in the history of football to prove negligence by another player and was later awarded £950,000 in damages, making it "the most expensive tackle in British football and legal history".
The return fixture that season was a happier affair. It provided a spectacular display of goals in which Bradford took a 3-0 lead, including one famous goal scored directly from a corner by ex-England star Chris Waddle, before the game swung in Huddersfield's favour as they fought back to the final score of 3-3.
Bradford's City's greatest achievement came in winning the FA Cup in 1911, in which season they finished 5th in the English First Division. Since then they have had less success. They were soon relegated to the lower leagues and spent the entirety of the 1940s through to the 1970s in the old Third and Fourth Divisions.
Tragedy struck the club on May 11 1985, when the main stand caught fire and 56 people lost their lives. This is one of the worst tragedies in world footballing history. Ironically the club were that day celebrating promotion to the English Second Division - the first time they would be in that league since 1937. (See Bradford City disaster.)
City have had mixed fortunes since. They were promoted to the Premiership in May 1999, and spent two seasons in the top flight before the almost inevitable relegation took them back to the Nationwide League. Unfortunately, debts accrued expanding their stadium, paying higher wages and loss of Premiership level income forced the club to the brink of bankruptcy in 2003 and 2004, and led to another relegation. They will be in Football League One for the 2004-05 season.
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Cup competitions | |
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| English football league system | Records | FA NLS Cup |
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