Bradford City - Oxford 30 October 2010

Well another joyful trip up North. This time on the bargain East Coast line from King's Cross via Leeds. £10.50 travelcard to London, £20 for singles to Leeds and back, and £3.60 return to Bradford, although I later found I could have added Bradford onto the East Coast tickets for an extra £1.

Another train, another bizarre set of instructions to operate the lock in the loos. <Press close, wait for the lock button to flash for three seconds, press lock> As I was waiting in the queue, cue the door opening unexpectedly to one occupant, and on my visit, trying to lock the door resulting in it opening again as I pressed the lock/unlock button too early, before finally sussing it out.

I'd always thought of Leeds and Bradford as one big conurbation, but the short journey showed a green and pleasant land, with green fields, streams and stone walls. The nearer we got to Bradford, I was reminded of Gravesend and Northfleet, with housing estates built on the top of hills. As we approached Bradford itself were views of grassed over ex-pit workings on the hills, but nearer the city was the depressing identikit out-of-town warehouse shopping centre of Halfords, JJBs, Comet and Tescos.

crooked steps

We arrived at Bradford Forster Square and weren't sure where to go for pre-match refreshments. Tried walking towards the ground, found a pub but it was generic lager and John Smiths and Yeovil. Remembering the advice to try the Corn Dolly, we asked a few locals who pointed us in the wrong direction, but amazingly I found the Maps app on the i-phone does actually work and not only did it find the pub, but was able to show us the walking route and time of 12 minutes for 1/2 a mile. We got to the Corn Dolly up some very croooked steps to avoid a hairpin road route, and was pleasantly surprised to find several friendly faces in there already who had caught the earlier train, and predictably it was only a short walk from the station too. 

Corn Dolly

They had a decent range of real ales, although London Pride and Black Sheep are already familiar so gave them a miss. Also they sold the City Gent fanzine, which is nice to see that paper fanzines are still around. The landlord was most apologetic about my 30 second wait to get served, blaming a bar-man who had called in sick.

Valley Parade was an odd view approaching from the station. It seems to be hanging off the side of the hill like the villains lair from a James Bond film, with 2 huge stands sweeping in a boxed in curve round the side of the pitch and behind one goal.

Valley Parade

Once navigated through the maze of stairways and entrances to the stadium, we were in half of a relatively small stand (although it is probably as big as our North Stand). It was a decent seated view too.

The home support was spread across their 3 1/2 stands, with a mix of their singing fans behind both goals, but the liveliest seemed to be in the top tier of the smallest stand to our left.

A number of big flags were displayed in areas of empty seating to remember the victims of 1985. It was very strange imagining the wooden stand in what is now a big capacity all-seater ground and took me back to watching the tragedy unfold live on was it World of Sport on that Saturday afternoon, initial reports coming in of a small fire amongst half-time match-day reports from around the country, followed by the horrific scenes broadcast.

As for the game, the first half was about even I thought. "Sacked in the morning", we sang to Peter Taylor, and I'm not sure the Bradford fans didn't join in too. Taylor jovially waved back at us - presumably using this as his inspiration for the half-time team talk.

Wilder seemed to have used the bromine soaked tea-bags for halftime, as yet again we capitulated. Two nil down and we had a chance, but the retaken Penalty, followed by the sendings off finished the game as a contest.

A few idiots apparently tried to cross the netting, which always seems a waste of time as they never reach the opposition, yet can afterwards claim to have had a go.