CITY today promised that Valley Parade will have a new state-of-the-art scoreboard for next season.

The “Upgrade the Parade” fan-funding campaign has another six days to run.

The club set an initial target of £250,000 and have raised just over half so far.

But they have decided to commit to providing a new video scoreboard to replace the antiquated one in the corner of the Bradford End.

Chief operating officer James Mason said: “It will definitely go ahead but we are still some way off securing the complete funding so any more contributions will only help.

“However there is a genuine business case for it so we are going to invest and make it work.

“The club have seen the fans’ appetite for the scoreboard.

“It will be a huge investment, scoreboards can be anywhere between £120,000-150,000 because of the building work around it. But we believe it will be worth it.

“We hope to have a big push before the Upgrade the Parade campaign finishes at midnight on Friday. But it’s been well worthwhile and a huge success.”

The money raised will also fund improvements of the dressing rooms to bring them up to Football League standard.

But it is the scoreboard that will most benefit the fans, allowing videos of pre-match interviews, highlights and birthday requests as well as advertising.

Mason revealed that City’s coffers have been swelled by two large donations which have allowed them to commit to the new project. He is hoping that other businesses can be persuaded to come on board.

He said: “In the last week we’ve had two significant contributions from two Bradford-based businessmen, who want to make this work for the city.

“While that’s not going through the campaign, they are deals struck directly with the club and will mean we achieve our objective.

“It would be great if other big Bradford businesses could help support the campaign such as successful other national brands like Morrisons and Seabrook, to name just two.

“We want to all shout from the rooftops about how well the club are performing on and off the field.

“The city has a feel-good factor about it at the moment.

“I'd like to engage with all businesses to explain how a new big screen will transform our commercial offering going forward.

“I'd imagine business owners would find the lure of 18,000-plus captivated spectators all looking at their business logo or message an attractive proposition.”

But Mason laughed off the suggestion that he had been behind a £1,000 donation from a mystery donor recently.

“Anyone who knows me will realise I’m too tight to contribute £1,000,” he said.

“But I have contributed and a lot of club staff have, including directors.

“The big spike we’ve seen recently has been because we’ve passed the first target set by the supporters’ board.

“We’ve had some really big contributions by benevolent fans that want to stay anonymous and also sent out direct mail to explain what we are trying to do and had a positive response from that.”

Fans can contribute to Upgrade the Parade at https://www.tifosy.com/en/campaigns/upgrade-valley-parade-for-the-players-and-fans