Valley Parade

Valley Parade

Interactive map of Valley Parade
Full name	Mbanq Valley Parade
Location	Valley Parade Bradford West Yorkshire BD8 7DY England
Coordinates	53°48′15″N 001°45′32″W / 53.80417°N 1.75889°W / 53.80417; -1.75889
Owner	Gordon Gibb pension fund
Capacity	24,840
Surface	Grass
Record attendance	39,146 (Bradford City–Burnley, 11 March 1911)

Valley Parade, currently known as Mbanq Valley Parade for sponsorship reasons, is an all-seater football stadium in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. The stadium was built in 1886 as the home of Manningham Rugby Football Club; it remained so until 1903, when the club changed code from rugby league to association football, and became Bradford City A.F.C. Valley Parade has since been Bradford City's home ground, and is now owned by the pension fund of the club's former chairman Gordon Gibb. The stadium has also hosted Bradford (Park Avenue) for one season and the rugby league side Bradford Bulls for two seasons, and has accommodated a number of England youth team fixtures. In 1908, the football architect Archibald Leitch was commissioned to redevelop the ground when Bradford City were promoted to the First Division.

Few changes were made until a fatal fire on 11 May 1985, when 56 supporters were killed and at least 265 were injured. The stand had been officially condemned and was due to be replaced with a steel structure after the season ended. Oliver Popplewell published his inquiry into the fire, which led to the introduction of new safety legislation for sports grounds across England. Following the fire, the stadium underwent a £2.6-million redevelopment and was re-opened in December 1986.

The stadium attendance record of 39,146 was set in 1911 at an FA Cup tie against Burnley, making it the oldest-surviving attendance record at a Football League ground in England. The ground underwent significant changes in the 1990s and the early 2000s, and now has a capacity of 24,840. The highest attendance at Valley Parade after this redevelopment stands at 24,343, set at a pre-season friendly against Liverpool in 2019. In 2026, the stadium's name was changed because of sponsorship from the Seattle-based financial company Mbanq.

History

Manningham Rugby Football Club, which was formed in 1876, played games at Cardigan Fields in the Carlisle Road area of Bradford. When their ground was sold to facilitate the construction of Drummond School, the club bought one-third of the Valley Parade site in Manningham, taking a short-term lease on the rest of the land in time to play there for the 1886–1887 season. The new ground and the road upon which it was built adopted the area's name Valley Parade, which was derived from the steep hillside below Manningham. The land was previously a quarry, and formed part of a larger site that was owned by Midland Railway Company.

The club spent £1,400 appointing designers to oversee the excavation and levelling of the land, and moved a one-year-old stand from Carlisle Road to the highest part of the new ground. The original ground comprised the relocated stand, a 2,000-capacity stepped enclosure with the players' changing rooms beneath the stand, the playing area, a cinder athletics track and fencing to limit the capacity to 18,000. The playing field was made of ballast, ashes, soil and sods. The ground was officially opened on 27 September 1886 for a game against Wakefield Trinity, which was watched by a capacity crowd, but construction work meant most of Manningham's early games were away fixtures.

On 25 December 1888, 12-year old Thomas Coyle was killed at the ground when the barrier under which he was sitting collapsed on him, breaking his neck. An inquest decided the death was an accident that happened due to the weight of spectators leaning on the barrier. The takings from the game, totalling £115, were distributed to Coyle's family and those of other boys who were injured in the incident.

Manningham RFC continued playing until 1903, when financial difficulties caused by relegation at the turn of the 20th century prompted club officials to change codes from rugby league to association football. The first association-football game to be played at Valley Parade on 6 April 1903 was a promotional fixture between a side of West-Yorkshire footballers and Sheffield United's 1903 FA Cup-winning side. The game was organised to stimulate interest in the sport in Bradford and attracted 8,000 fans. The new football club, Bradford City, were elected to The Football League's Division Two the following month. Bradford City's first game at Valley Parade came on 5 September 1903 against Gainsborough Trinity, drawing a crowd of 11,000. As a result of alterations first implemented in 1897, City players originally changed in a shed behind one end of the ground and visiting teams used the old rugby club's dressing rooms at the back of the nearby Belle Vue Hotel. After City's 5–1 defeat by Manchester United on 10 February 1906, United player Bob Bonthron was attacked as he left the ground. As a result, The Football Association (FA) closed the ground for 14 days, ordering City to switch its changing rooms to the nearby Artillery Barracks for the 1906–07 season. Several supporters faced criminal proceedings for the incident.

After Bradford City won the Division Two championship in 1907–08, the club hurriedly reconstructed the ground to prepare for the club's first season in Division One. Football architect Archibald Leitch was commissioned to design new terracing in the paddock—a standing area in front of the 5,300-seat main stand that was built in 1908—and build a Spion Kop at the north side of the ground and an 8,000-capacity stand at the Midland Road end opposite the main stand. Further work was done to lower the railings, erect barriers, move the pitch and add extra turnstiles. The changing rooms were moved and a tunnel leading from the rooms underneath the Kop along the main-stand side of the ground was built. The total project cost £9,958, and raised the capacity to 40,000. The work was completed midway through the 1908–09 season. Following the work, the first match took place on 25 December 1908, when 36,000 fans saw Bradford City host Bristol City. The improvements allowed Bradford City to set their attendance record of 39,146 on 11 March 1911 against Burnley during the club's FA-Cup-winning run. It is the longest-surviving attendance record at any league ground in England.

On 17 March 1932, Bradford City paid Midland Railway Company £3,750 for the remaining two-thirds of the site to become outright owners of the ground, which was now 45 years old. The stadium had remained almost unchanged since 1908, and did so until 1952, when its capacity was reduced after examinations of the foundations were ordered following the 1946 Burnden Park disaster. The investigation resulted in the closure of half of the Midland Road stand, whose steel frame was sold to Berwick Rangers for £450, and a smaller replacement stand was built at Valley Parade in 1954. Six years later, the stand was again demolished because of continuing foundation problems. Six years later, all four stands at Valley Parade were able to be opened for the first time. To enable construction of a new stand on the Midland Road side of the ground, the club directors had the pitch moved 3 yards (2.7 m) closer to the main stand. The new stand was then the narrowest in the league. Further improvements to the stand were made in 1969, ready for the club's FA Cup tie with Division One side Tottenham Hotspur on 3 January 1970, which ended in a 2–2 draw in front of 23,000 fans. The cost of the work forced the club to sell Valley Parade to Bradford Corporation for £35,000, but it was bought back in 1979 for the same price.

From 1908 to 1985, the club carried out other work on the rest of the ground. These works included the introduction of floodlights in English football. Valley Parade's first floodlights cost £3,000 and were mounted on telegraph poles running along each side of the ground, and were first used for a match against Hull City on 20 December 1954. The floodlights were replaced in 1960 and again used for the first time against Hull City; in 1962, one floodlight collapsed and an FA Cup match against Gateshead went ahead with only three pylons, prompting an FA inquiry. In 1985, the football-ground writer Simon Inglis described the view from the main stand, which was still the same as when it was in 1908, as "like watching football from the cockpit of a Sopwith Camel" because of its antiquated supports and struts.

On 11 May 1985, 56 people died and at least 265 were injured in the Bradford City stadium fire at Valley Parade's main stand; it was one of the UK's worst sporting disasters. The fire started 40 minutes into the club's final game of the 1984–85 season against Lincoln City. The main stand was destroyed in nine minutes. For the next season and the first five months of the 1986–87 season, Bradford City played home games at Leeds United's stadium at Elland Road, Huddersfield Town's ground at Leeds Road and Bradford Northern's Odsal Stadium, while Valley Parade was rebuilt. The Huddersfield-based firm J Wimpenny carried out the £2.6 million work, which included funding from insurance pay-outs, The Football League stadium grants, club funds, and a £1.46 million Government loan obtained by the Bradford MPs Geoffrey Lawler and Max Madden. A new, 5,000 all-seater main stand that was longer than the previous structure, was built. The Kop was covered for the first time and increased to a 7,000 capacity. Other minor work was carried out to the ground's other two stands. On 14 December 1986, 582 days after the fire, The Hon Sir Oliver Popplewell, who had conducted the inquiry into the fire, opened the new stadium before an exhibition match against an England international XI. The new stand was first used for a league game on 26 December when City lost 1–0 to Derby County

The two stands that were not altered after the fire were improved during the 1990s. In 1991, the Bradford end of the ground was made a double-decker, all-seater stand, with a new scoreboard. Following City's promotion to Division One in 1996, the club's chairman Geoffrey Richmond announced the construction of a 4,500-seat stand on the Midland Road side. The new stand was first used for a Yorkshire derby against Sheffield United on 26 December 1996 and was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 27 March 1997. Richmond continued his plans to redevelop the ground as the club continued to rise through the league. The roof of the Kop, which was the largest safe-standing terrace in England at the time, was removed and the capacity reduced during City's 1998–99 promotion season to prepare for a summer £6.5 million rebuilding programme. The Kop was converted into a two-tier, 7,500-seat stand. An additional 2,300-seat capacity corner section was built, filling the corner between the main stand and the Kop. The new section was opened in December 2000, taking the capacity of Valley Parade to more than 20,000 for the first time since 1970. A suite of offices and a shop were added at the same time. Once the work was completed, a second tier was added to the main stand at the cost of £6.5 million. It was opened in 2001, increasing the main stand's capacity to 11,000, and the ground's capacity to 25,000.

Richmond also planned to increase the main stand's capacity by a further 1,800 seats by building new changing rooms and office blocks, and adding a second tier to the Midland Road stand to increase the ground's capacity to more than 35,000. In May 2002, the club went into administration and Richmond was replaced by new co-owners Julian Rhodes and Gordon Gibb. The following year, Valley Parade was sold to Gibb's pension fund for £5 million, and the club's offices, shop and car park were sold to the London-based company Development Securities for £2.5 million. In 2011, Bradford City's annual rent bill to Gibb's pension fund was £370,000. The total budget for the year, including other rent payments, rates, maintenance and utility bills was £1.25 million.