Is it time for City to leave Valley Parade? (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Is it time for City to leave Valley Parade?

9:08am Wednesday 21st February 2007

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Victorian poet Arthur Hugh Clough once asked himself a very serious question: "Would I lay down my life for the average British female?"

Recently I have had to ask myself an equally pertinent question: "Would I pay £138 to watch Bradford City's 23 league games next season?"

Clough's answer to his dubious proposition was that he probably wouldn't. My answer to the proposition to 'save City' is the same, for I think the time has come for the club to abandon history, pack up the kit basket and leave Valley Parade.

The last match I saw there before the Bradford & Bingley Stadium became the Intersonic Stadium was the 1-1 draw against Carlisle United in September.

The cavernous interior echoed to the manic chants of the Carlisle fans. The desultory vocal support for City was lost amid the empty tiers of the main stand and the old Midland Road stand.

Hero and villain Geoffrey Richmond devised the 'quid-a-kid' scheme to fill Valley Parade's empty spaces. One of the former chairman's greatest achievements was to increase the average gate from four figures to five - 15,000 or more. Then he over-reached himself and extended the ground's capacity to 25,000.

The problem of getting enough people through the turnstiles has become endemic. Football in the lower reaches of the Coca-Cola League Division One just isn't a crowd-puller - not at £20 a time. Knocking £6 off the admission price still leaves other match day expenses that aren't likely to decrease - parking, programmes, refreshments.

Then there's the team. Because of the financial mess bequeathed by Geoffrey Richmond the club has become a selling club once again. Good players come, they go, results are so-so, crowds stay away, the club makes a loss and so on. There are no quick fix solutions.

Valley Parade is too big for the average crowd the club can realistically expect every other week. Since the late 1970s the club's fan base has changed with more City fans moving away from the inner-city.

I left two-and-a-half years ago and have only been back to Valley Parade once. Asians who live in the inner-city just aren't turned on by lower league football, especially played by a team without a single Asian footballer.

In the circumstances City would be better off flogging Valley Parade to a developer in exchange for a purpose-built 15,000-seater stadium further up, or down, the Aire Valley, ideally not too far from the railway.
The current ticket saving scheme is all very well as a short-term gimmick; but as a long-term solution it is not financially viable.

Plenty of other clubs have moved on and have progressed in doing so. The time has come for Bradford City to do the same.

One objection is that the stadium marks the spot where 56 City fans died and many more were injured in the 1985 fire disaster. Valley Parade is not a cemetery, however. A suitable commemorative object could do the job equally as well; Valley Parade looks nothing like the homely cow shed it was in 1985.

Sentiment counts for everything among loyal supporters: if you don't feel the passion you cannot be what you claim: I accept that. The fact remains that the club has an endemic problem attracting sufficient paying support to accumulate the players who are going to make a real difference. As long as this situation remains City will continue to be a selling club, taking one step forward and two steps back. There is only one sure consequence of this pattern of direction: relegation.