IF you were around in the 1950s, you may recall the occasional headline referring to "Teddy Boy trouble".

Such trouble was commonplace in British towns and cities in the Fifties, and Bradford was no exception.

Rivalries ran high between gangs of young men and youths from different districts who adopted a distinctive type of outfit. Dressed in their Edwardian-inspired attire of drainpipe trousers, fingertip-length jackets and bootlace ties, and often armed with knives, razors and knuckle-dusters, the Teddy Boys would raid each others' territories and challenge each other to gang fights.

The most spectacular of these in Bradford was the 'Battle of Bankfoot' which took place on the night of Saturday, November 26, 1955. When it finally ended, after a police baton charge, three teenage girls had suffered knife wounds, 17 Teddy Boys were arrested, and several policemen's helmets had been badly damaged.

At the height of what was in effect a riot, a crowd of more than 200 people were milling about outside the Ideal Ballroom and the road was blocked to traffic. Eye-witnesses described it as "just like a rugby football match out of control".

The trouble began inside the dance hall and was part of a feud between Bradford and Keighley Teddy Boys. Police were called when about a dozen youths began fighting on the balcony and it was in the aftermath of this initial trouble that the three girls, who had the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, received knife wounds - one in the wrist, one in the arm and the third in the back.

The dance hall was cleared and police reinforcements were summoned, but by the time they had arrived the trouble had escalated in the street.

A large crowd gathered and clearly didn't appreciate the police presence.

Soon it was not only Teddy Boy against Teddy Boy, but Teddy Boys against the 20 officers who had been sent along to deal with the disturbance and were hopelessly outnumbered.

The fight that followed was so fierce that helmets were knocked in, uniforms were damaged and staffs had to be drawn before order could be restored and the road re-opened to traffic.

At one point several arrests were made and youths were put into a police van. A roar went up from the crowd and other youths charged the van in an unsuccessful bid to release them.

"As the result of an incident inside, the management promptly called the police and certain youths were told to leave the premises," reported the Telegraph & Argus at the time. "They did so, but one of them was taken into custody on a charge of being in possession of an offensive weapon.

"Later trouble broke out outside the hall and the road was quickly blocked by groups of youths engaged in fighting and altercation. The three girls, who were leaving the dance hall, received their injuries in the melee, which at one time threatened to assume the ugliest proportions.

"Two of the injured girls were taken to Bradford Royal Infirmary and later discharged. The third girl went to St Luke's Hospital for treatment."

When the 17 arrested youths appeared in court the following Monday, three were given short prison sentences for offences including being drunk and disorderly and behaviour likely to cause a breach of the peace, with one of them also being convicted of "possession without reasonable excuse" of a knuckle-duster. A further 14 were fined and bound over.

The proprietor of the dance hall, Mr Bert Shutt. told the T&A afterwards that he had been warned in an anonymous phone call that there was trouble brewing among the Teddy Boys and had taken steps to avoid "what might have been a very serious situation".

The editor's comment in the T&A the following week - on Tuesday, November 29, 1955 - said: "The vast majority of the citizens of Bradford are not prepared to regard these 'Teddy Boy' gangs, or the melees to which their existence inevitably leads, as a mere outbreak of animal high spirits. Gang warfare conducted with fists and non-lethal weapons differs only in degree from the shooting war that has for so long terrorised some areas of the United States.

"There must be disappointment that the opportunity was not taken by the Bradford magistrates to indicate in the most unequivocal terms that a repetition of the Bankfoot affair will not be tolerated. Physical violence,whatever its form, is one of the gravest crimes against the community."