Bradford used to have professional wrestling, greyhound racing, world class speedway, county cricket and occasionally Test Match cricket at Bradford Park Avenue, two professional football clubs and, of course, rugby league at Odsal.

In the past 42 years, all but professional football at Valley Parade and rugby league have passed into folk memory.

Yorkshire no longer play cricket here, and Bradford Dukes, the 1997 Elite speedway champions, were ousted from Odsal pending a ground redevelopment by Tesco that didn’t happen. And in that time, Bradford City (1908) was wound up and Bradford City (1983) was nearly destroyed by the fire disaster of 1985.

Now, unless something drastic is done, rugby league too has a good chance of becoming a subject for the T&A’s Remember When? pages.

Without the Brownlee brothers, Alistair and Jonny, world champion triathlon athletes, poor old Bradford wouldn’t have much to feel positive about on the field of sport.

Bradford City’s two years in the Premier League was followed by ten years in the lower depths including two periods in administration in 2002 and 2004.

Bradford Bulls won three Super League titles between 2001 and 2005. They had Challenge Cup victories in 2000 and 2003, and three World Club Cup victories in 2002, 2004 and 2006.

Yet this year, the club put out an appeal to fans for £1m to save the club, reminiscent of the Save Our Club appeal in 2004 when Bradford City supporters, helped by the T&A and Jack Tordoff’s JCT600 company, raised more than £250,000 to keep the Bantams going.

Some contend the Bulls financial difficulties derive from the transfer of Iestyn Harris in 2005 and the subsequent legal costs and out-of-court settlement to Leeds Rhinos, a total cost of about £3m. Chris Caisley, former chairman of the Bulls, in a letter to the T&A last year placed the blame elsewhere.

He said the club had sufficient monies from a TV deal with Sky and from the sale of players. He cited “...poor player recruitment policy, the overpayment of a number of players of inadequate ability, a significant decline in turnover (including sponsorship and hospitality revenues) and a serious departure from the strategy that underpinned...what became known as the ‘Bulls phenomenon’ over the first decade of Super League.”

The club also benefited financially from Bradford Council – £1.2m a year for ground-sharing at Valley Parade between 2001-2003 pending the £60m redevelopment that did not happen.

In addition the Council spent £660,000 on stadium improvements at Odsal when the deal fell through and paid Bulls £4.6m over two years to keep the club in the city.

In contrast, said Professor David Rhodes, who put £5m into Bradford City to help the club into the Premier League, City did not get a “penny piece” from the Council. The club was regarded as a commercial enterprise that ought to stand on its own feet.

Struggling professional clubs is not a peculiar to Bradford. Liquidated Glasgow Rangers face being voted out of the Scottish Premier League into the Scottish Third Division. Portsmouth, 2008 FA Cup Cup winners, are struggling to survive. Closer to home, Leeds United’s ambitions for European Champions League glory all-but bankrupted the club.

“For me it comes down to money,” said Tony Blair’s former Sports Minister Gerry Sutcliffe, Labour MP for Bradford South. “Unlike Blackburn and Wigan, we don’t have a multi-millionaire benefactor – with all respect to Jack Tordoff and the Rhodes family at Bradford City.”

But the Bulls have had plenty of money, more than £8m from the public, including the £500,000 raised by fans over recent months.

Gerry Sutcliffe said: “We can’t sit back and watch Bradford’s professional clubs go to the wall; it’s not just about football and rugby league: it’s about the rest of the city and the image of Bradford.

“The fans are there. Bulls can pull in 20,000 and City regularly get 10,000. Fans have put their money in, in terms of season tickets and support; but it’s down to the management of the clubs.”

Prof Rhodes believes the way forward for both rugby league and professional football is ground-sharing at Valley Parade.

“We have a 26,000-seater stadium at Valley Parade that could be used by both clubs. We wanted to do it ten years ago, but Bulls wanted a new stadium at Odsal. It’s stupid they are still there,” he said.