Marking anniversary of Valley Parade's debut 135 years ago

Saturday, September 25, 1886 saw Manningham Rugby Football Club host Wakefield Trinity in their new home that had been hacked out of a hillside over a few months.

Seventeen years later, Bradford City would join the Football League without having played a match. They kicked off officially against Gainsborough in September 1903.

But it was rugby union that had christened the ground after Manningham switched from their original home at Carlisle Road, known as Cardigan Fields.

That was sold as part of the construction of Drummond School, so the club bought one-third of the Valley Parade site in Manningham on an initial short-term lease for the 1886-1887 season.

The land was previously a quarry and got its name from the steep hillside.

A newspaper report from the time set the scene ahead of that first game.

“The ground is situated between Manningham Lane and Midland Road, just below the Valley Parade skating rink, and has accommodation for between 15,000 and 20,000 spectators.

“This number will be able to get a good view of the game, as the space allotted to onlookers has been sloped all round the playing area.

“The field of battle is 97 yards by 70 yards, with 10 yards behind each goal post and five yards behind each touchline.

“A cinder path, three yards wide, runs round the field. It is intended to provide accommodation for training purposes.

“The stand and enclosure are estimated to hold about 2,500 persons. The cost of the alterations has been about £1,300.

“The ground is easy of access either from Manningham or Bradford and, when absolutely completed, will be one of the best in Yorkshire.

“Most of the county committee will be present and, after the match, together with the players of both teams, will be entertained at dinner at the Belle Vue Hotel.

“The Manningham Club have removed their dressing rooms from the Carlisle Hotel to the Belle Vue Hotel.

“The club estimate that by today they will have sold 1,000 members’ tickets and as most of the old players are available this season, they are anticipating a year of great prosperity.”

They spent £1,400 appointing designers to oversee the excavation and levelling of the land and moved a one-year-old stand – an open viewing platform - from Carlisle Road to the highest part of the new ground where it was reassembled.

According to club author John Dewhirst, in his book Room at the Top, the site was originally intended to be a warehouse for the Midland Railway who had bought the land 14 years earlier.

A plan of Valley Parade drawn up by Manningham Football Club in 1886

They intended to build a bridge from the bottom of Cornwall Road to the railway yard in the valley below. A warehouse at Valley Parade would have provide goods storage to and from the sidings.

But the development never went ahead after a property crash and the site remained undeveloped and used to deposit building and household waste. It was even reported to have staged a circus four months before Manningham moved in.

The match itself saw Wakefield triumph by two goals and two minor points to one and one.

A newspaper match report from the Leeds Mercury said they were two evenly-matched teams but Manningham did not take their chances. That sounds familiar, eh?

The second half was a particularly scrappy affair which “consisted chiefly of a series of accidents, with now and then a little football.

“It was not that the play was rough but probably may be more easily explained by the supposition that the men, being out of training, felt injuries seriously which later on in the season they will regard as trifling.”

Latham’s decisive try for Wakefield was described as “dubious” and the home side “had very hard lines” after losing the ball when set to score.

Nine years later, Manningham would be instrumental in the breakaway formation of the Rugby League – and would be the Northern League’s first-ever championship winners in 1896. But they abandoned rugby in 1903.

Scotsman James Whyte, a sub-editor of the Bradford Observer newspaper met Football Association official John Brunt at Valley Parade on January 30 that year to discussing establishing a league club in the city.

Eight months later, City would host Gainsborough at the ground on their Division Two debut – and lose 3-1.

MANNINGHAM: W Robinson, Newton, F Robinson, Richmond, Halfyard, Birmingham, Noble, Knowles, Clarkson, Holmes, Rowlands, Jowett, Lorimer, Toothill, Wilson.

WAKEFIELD: Hanshaw, Fallas, Wheeldon, Ash, Hutchinson, H Dawson, Booth, Lowrie, Latham, D Dawson, Alderson, Ross, J Dawson, Steel, Thompson.

* Thanks to John Dewhirst for his extensive research with this article.