Odsal Stadium - History

History

Structure

The Bradford Northern club signed a ten-year deal on 20 June 1933 with Bradford Council to make land at Odsal Top into their home ground. At the time, it was a tip; Ernest Call M.B.E., the Director of Cleansing for Bradford City Council devised a system of controlled tipping that saw 140,000 cart loads of household waste removed from the banking at Odsal. To be able to turf the pitch, and other areas, a turf fund was put into place, the fund raised a total of £900 to cover the work. A stand was erected at the cost of £2,000, which was paid by the Rugby Football League. The clubhouse and dressing rooms were officially opened before a match against Hull on 2 February 1935. During the Second World War the lower floor of the clubhouse was also used as an Air Raid Precautions centre, and one of the dressing rooms was the map room.

The pitch as Odsal has a distinctive concave contour, with the corners of the pitch behind the try-line noticeably sloping up towards the stands. This was due to the stadium being used to host speedway events and so the corners of the pitch we removable to allow full use of the track. With the end of speedway at Odsal, the upturned corners are no longer as pronounced as they once were.

The first floodlit rugby match in the North of England was held at Odsal in 1951.

The ground's clubhouse had to be re-furbished when it was condemned in the mid-1980s. The social facilities were also upgraded at the same time. Following the Valley Parade fire disaster of 1985, Odsal Stadium played host to Bradford City's Division Two home games until December 1986. Odsal Stadium also held a modern day attendance record for almost six years.

Like most British stadia, Odsal had its capacity substantially reduced by the safety measures introduced in the 1990s following the Hillsborough disaster and the findings of the Taylor Report.

Renovation

In the event £50,000 was spent on terracing the Rooley Avenue end in 1964, before the Wardley plan was officially dropped the following year. Arguably, the Wardley plan was the biggest missed opportunity of Bradford’s sporting history. After Valley Parade had been devastated by the terrible fire that caused the deaths of 56 fans, City played a handful of games at Leeds Road, Huddersfield and Elland Road, Leeds, even though Odsal was the obvious venue for the Bantams whilst the future of Valley Parade was decided. On 23 September 1985, a Football League delegation visited Odsal to view the stadium in order to pass it fit to host City’s home games. Segregation fences were erected on the old Main Stand side and 1,000 uncovered seats were bolted onto the terracing – it was planned to install 7,000 in the future. Meanwhile a further £1 million was spent to conform with new safety standards – bringing the total spent on Odsal to £3.5 million. New boundary walls, turnstiles, exit gates, a bus layby in Rooley Avenue and access road were added.