EARLIER this week, one prominent football social media account really did risk it all.
With his huge following on Facebook, the Oldham Groundhopper maybe should have chosen his words more carefully when speaking about Bradford (Park Avenue).
Referring to a humorous picture he took when attending a game at Horsfall in 2022, he ended his post on Tuesday by calling Avenue “historically the bigger club in the Yorkshire city”.
Chaos unsurprisingly broke out, with over 1,000 reactions to the post and more than 100 comments and shares.
Much of that was derision coming his way from Bantams fans, who made a number of fair points.
After all it was City who won the FA Cup in 1911, while Avenue have never gone beyond the quarter-final of the competition.
Avenue’s last game in the top-flight of English football came in 1921, while City were there as recently as 2001.
Avenue’s last Football League promotion came in 1961, whereas City’s was eight months ago today.
And according to the English Football Archive website, City’s average Football League attendance throughout history, up to and including last season, is higher than Avenue’s (10,851 to 10,248), and that in spite of Valley Parade becoming an all-seater venue at the turn of this century.
But let me be clear, dear reader, the Oldham Groundhopper was not as far off as many casual followers of football in Bradford might think.
The suggestion seems ridiculous in 2026, with City five divisions higher in the English football pyramid than Avenue.
But through the historical lens Mr Groundhopper was talking about, we had a footballing rivalry to be proud of in the city.
One such statistic reared its head again last week, with City’s crowd for their home win against Wigan their highest at Valley Parade on Boxing Day for 89 years.
But the 22,698 last Friday never got close to breaking the marker put down in 1936, when Avenue won a festive derby cracker 3-2 in front of 28,387 spectators.
Thanks to Bob Watson from Baildon for writing in to remind us of that remarkable Division Two attendance from back in the day.
As recently as the 1960s, Avenue were in the Third Division while City floundered in the Fourth.
On top of that, Avenue hotshots Len Shackleton and Kevin Hector can hold a candle to any player that has ever featured for the Bantams.
As a 31-year-old, it genuinely saddens me that I’m not half-a-century older, just so I could see a blood-and-thunder Wool City derby from the fifties or sixties in all its glory.
While any conversation about ‘bigger club’, ‘better club’ or ‘more historic club’ carries a degree of subjectivity about it, the statistics mentioned earlier make it hard to argue in Park Avenue’s favour.
But Bradford is poorer for being deprived of these two great city rivals in anything other than meaningless summer friendlies, where the Bantams normally put out a youth team anyway.
It is why, through the modern lens, I am rooting for Avenue more than ever this season.
While we can’t predict what will happen in 20 or 30 years, it is hard to envisage a scenario where the pair feature in a league derby against one another ever again.
But what we can hope for is continued improvement from Bradford.
Less than three years ago, they were playing in the National Leagues, like York and Halifax, at least giving them a degree of public profile.
Sadly, times have been tough of late, as they have slipped down to the eighth-tier of English football after successive relegations.
They only average around 330 fans for home games this season, but 564 spectators turned up for a clash against visiting Ossett in August, while 434 watched the Boxing Day humdinger with Pontefract at Horsfall.
Nothing spectacular, but a base to build from, especially if the improvements to the stadium owner Gareth Roberts talked about last week come to fruition.
Ultimately though, no facelift is going to persuade fans to attend games like winning matches does.
And Avenue have done a reasonable job of that, sitting in the play-off spots as it stands, looking to improve on their mid-table finish from last season.
It is not rocket science to theorise that the higher the division Bradford are in, the more their attendance numbers at Horsfall would rise.
And while a remarkable return to the Football League, which Avenue last graced way back in 1970 appears a long, long way off, if not impossible, it is not all doom and gloom.
Promotion this season, and Bradford would be just one division away from returning to the National Leagues, where they would potentially get matches shown on international broadcast giant DAZN.
Outside of Bradford, many football fans will have limited knowledge of Avenue, while plenty won’t even know they exist.
But if they can climb the first rung back up the ladder in May, who knows what that could lead to for this historic club?
