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Older than the Bantams: Celebrating 112 years of black footballers in Bradford
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Saturday 22 October 2011, 1.15pm. Admission free. Bantamspast museum, Valley Parade
Over a century of black footballers will be celebrated at Valley Parade on Saturday as the bantamspast museum plays host to a Black History Month event which will reveal the long history of black football in Bradford.
In 1899 a team of black players from South Africa played a Bradford & District team at Park Avenue four years before the Bantams were formed.
Two years later, in 1901, the spectacular show Savage South Africa was staged at Valley Parade in a three week run that played to over twenty thousand people. The show, complete with 500 hundred actors and 120 horses, also featured, what the Bradford Daily Argus termed ‘real African darkies’. Today the show is often criticised as being a human zoo, but for a working class family, perhaps living in a cramped terrace house, in days long before radio and television, the show must have been simply fabulous entertainment.
In 1905, only four years after the staging of Savage South Africa, Bradford City signed their first black player, the mixed race winger Billy Clarke, from Aston Villa. He had already become the first ever black player to score a goal in the first division of English football whilst with Villa. At Valley Parade he would win a second division championship medal in and score Bradford City’s first ever goal in top flight football in 1908. A hugely popular player with the Valley Parade crowds, it is interesting that, during his near 100 games for the Bantams, the newspapers barely mention his race. It seems that he was accepted almost without comment into the Bradford City family.
In the 1970s Bradford City welcomed the pioneering modern day black players Ces Podd and Joe Cooke to Valley Parade. The two men became immensely popular with the supporters and Ces is still the club’s record appearance holder, playing 565 games for the club between 1970 and 1984. Arguably, the presence of both men in Bradford City’s team, during an era that defined race relations in Britain, helped shape the culture of the club. Being a racist and a Bradford City supporter was simply incompatible. Today, the club still enjoys a reputation for openness and tolerance. Ces and Joe’s role in establishing that culture will be one aspect of Bradford City’s celebration of Black History Month.
The bantamspast museum curator, David Pendleton, will give a presentation about the visit of the black South African team to Bradford in 1899; the arrival of the show Savage South Africa at Valley Parade in 1901; and Bradford City’s first black player, Billy Clarke, who joined the club in 1905.
Professor Matt Taylor, of De Montfort University, Leicester, will speak about the pioneering black footballers of the 1970s, including Bradford City’s own Ces Podd and Joe Cooke.
The director of the International Centre for Sports History and Culture, De Montfort University, Leicester, Professor Tony Collins, will talk of the contribution of black sportsmen and women to the culture of the north of England.
We hope that our guests of honour will include, Joe Cooke and Des Hamilton, scorer of Bradford City’s opening goal during the Wembley 1996 play-off final when the Bantams secured promotion to the Championship.
The bantamspast museum event is part of Bradford City’s One Game, One Community day, which is dedicated to the Kick Racism out of Football initiative. It takes place when the Bantams play Northampton Town on 22 October.
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All 19 articles by Dave Pendleton
- Older than the Bantams: Celebrating 112 years of black footballers in Bradford on Friday October 21st, 2011. Filed under Articles. Comments Off.
Saturday 22 October 2011, 1.15pm. Admission free. Bantamspast museum, Valley Parade
Over a century of black footballers will be celebrated at Valley Parade on Saturday as the bantamspast museum plays host to a Black History Month event which will reveal the long history of black football in Bradford.
Read more on Older than the Bantams: Celebrating 112 years of black footballers in Bradford…
- In a Bantam Frame of Mind on Thursday October 6th, 2011. Filed under Articles. Comments Off.
A mini-photographic exhibition featuring life around Bradford City’s Valley Parade ground
A mini photographic exhibition will open in the bantamspast museum on Saturday 8 October. A series of twelve shots, taken by Bankfoot photographer Jess Petrie, captures a taste of life around Bradford City’s Valley Parade stadium. The photographs were taken as part the bantamsmemories project, which sought to gather the memories of the varied communities that have lived in the shadow of the football ground over the last fifty years.
- Patience is here and there as Bradford City face AFC Wimbledon - Bradford City play AFC Wimbledon at Valley Parade in League Two, 2011/2012 on Friday September 23rd, 2011. Filed under Match Previews. 2 comments.
When the history of early 21st century football is written, the emergence of clubs with AFC prefixes will surely loom large. Whether they will be portrayed as grassroots revolutions or romantic daydreams only time will tell. At present their impact on the greater game is limited. They are a curiosity more than a threat to the established structure of the game. However, if AFC Wimbledon progress further up the divisions their ethos and ownership structure has the potential to reverberate throughout the professional game. The watershed moment would surely arrive if AFC Wimbledon overhauled the MK Dons.
However, we would do well not to over romanticise AFC Wimbldeon. Multiple promotions, and even a debt controversy, suggest that they are not FC United-esque mid-life crisis, revolutionaries. AFC Wimbledon are a limited company, albeit one dominated by the shareholding of their Supporters’ Trust.
Read more on Patience is here and there as Bradford City face AFC Wimbledon…
- Happy Birthday Valley Parade on Sunday September 18th, 2011. Filed under Articles. Comments Off.
When Bradford City meet AFC Wimbledon at Valley Parade in a League Two match on Saturday 24 September it will mark the 125th anniversary of the first use of the Bantams’ home ground as a sports stadium. A birthday party will be held in the club’s bantamspast museum at 1.30pm – Admission free.
- Happy Birthday Valley Parade! Bradford City’s home ground celebrates its 125th year on Monday August 15th, 2011. Filed under Articles. Comments Off.
On 24th September when Bradford City play AFC Wimbledon Valley Parade will be exactly 125 years old. Supporters will celebrate the landmark with a birthday party in the cafe and museum. There will be a birthday cake, birthday cards and balloons (claret and amber of course).
Read more on Happy Birthday Valley Parade! Bradford City’s home ground celebrates its 125th year…
- Celebrating 106 Years of Black Footballers at Valley Parade on Wednesday July 6th, 2011. Filed under Articles. 8 comments.
In the popular imagination pioneering black footballers are epitomised by Cyril Regis and Viv Anderson, at Valley Parade thoughts turn to those icons of the 1970s Ces Podd and Joe Cooke. However, they were far from being Bradford City’s first black players, over sixty years earlier the Bantams signed the mixed race winger Billy Clarke from Aston Villa.
In 1901 Billy Clarke had already become the first ever black player to score a goal in the first division whilst at Villa. After moving to Valley Parade in 1905 he helped Bradford City win the second division championship and in September 1908 he scored Bradford City’s first ever goal in the top flight of English football.
At Valley Parade on 22 October 2011 this forgotten piece of the Bantams’ history will be celebrated, along with the contribution black footballers have made to the history of Bradford City in the ensuing 106 years.
Read more on Celebrating 106 Years of Black Footballers at Valley Parade…
- A reminder, if one were needed on Wednesday May 11th, 2011. Filed under Articles. 2 comments.
‘Abide with me’ was sung softy. It was a beautiful moment. Until then those gathered to commemorate the 26th anniversary of the Valley Parade fire had kept their emotions in check.
- Bradford City’s 1911 team and the Great War on Monday March 7th, 2011. Filed under Articles. Comments Off.
If Glorious 1911 was Bradford’s finest hour, then the years 1914-18 were the bleakest the city has ever faced. The fate of Bradford City’s FA Cup winning captain Jimmy Speirs perhaps epitomises the era. In 1911 he held the glittering FA Cup aloft to the cheers of 100,000 people packed onto the streets of Bradford; six years later he lay dying in a muddy shell hole.
As we celebrate the centenary of Bradford City’s greatest triumph we will also remember the nine Bradford City players who lost their lives in the Great War. As we have seen among that number was the captain and goalscorer in the 1911 FA Cup final Jimmy Speirs. Also killed was the man-of-the-match of the FA Cup final Robert Torrance. Sadly, Torrance has no known grave and is thus commemorated among the 36,000 names on the Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing near Ypres, Belgium. Others with no know final resting place include City’s England internationals Jimmy Conlin and Evelyn Lintott.
Bradford City supporters will have an opportunity to visit the last resting places of the nine players during a trip to France and Belgium in June. As well as the nine players the trip will also take in Serre where the Bradford Pals attacked on the first day of the Battle of the Somme and the grave of Bradford Park Avenue’s Donald Bell – the only professional footballer to be awarded the Victoria Cross.
The trip will take place between Thursday 2 June and Sunday 5 June 2011. People can book an early bird price of £270 if they pay before April. It includes all travel to and two night’s accommodation in Lille and one night in Arras (including breakfast). The trip is strictly limited to twenty places and will be sold on a first come first served basis. To register interest please contact the bantamspast museum curator David Pendleton by email davidpendleton1@gmail.com or drop into the bantamspast museum at Valley Parade prior to home games.
- Bradford City FA Cup Winners 1911 Centenary Celebration Dinner on Wednesday February 16th, 2011. Filed under Articles. Comments Off.
On the evening of 26 April 1911 Bradford City’s FA Cup winning team arrived back in the city following their 1-0 victory over Newcastle United in a replayed FA Cup Final at Old Trafford, Manchester. The scenes which greeted their arrival in Bradford were unprecedented. An estimated 100,000 people were on the streets to welcome their heroes; an incredible third of the entire population of the city.
Read more on Bradford City FA Cup Winners 1911 Centenary Celebration Dinner…
- We want football, for now - Bradford City play Burton Albion at Valley Parade in League Two, 2010/2011 on Friday January 21st, 2011. Filed under Match Previews. 8 comments.
Before the last game at Valley Parade everything seemed good for Peter Taylor and his Bradford City team.
The team had beaten impressive Bury to record back to back wins and Taylor had turned down an offer from Newcastle United. Indeed at half time in the in the Barnet game few would have predicted what the next two and a half games would bring: Nothing at all. Three straight defeats and barely a shot worthy of the name.
