Our sport is in a terrible state

Their comments come in the light of a highly-critical report to the Council of the district's sports facilities.

In the report, the Council's head of recreation Jim Mackay describes the changing facilities as performing 'abysmally' against national standards.

He said that the majority of Bradford sports pitches are "no more than areas of grass marked out for sport and provided with posts to meet demand at the lowest possible cost."

However, members of the Leisure Services Committee backed a massive review of services in a bid to attract millions of pounds of lottery funding and help sports stars of the future.

This year's amateur football season began three weeks early in a bid to prevent a repeat of last season when a third of the games were postponed because pitches were out of action.

Brian Goodall, president of Bradford and District Football Association, said the thousands of young footballers deserved better facilities to develop their talents.

"The next David Beckham or Michael Owen will come through the junior ranks, they all come that way and we have to have the facilities for the stars of the future," he said.

There are more than 200 amateur and three times as many enthusiastic junior teams.

But few pitches combined with a heavy usage and sometimes poor weather mean many fixtures are postponed.

"In the last two years, Bradford Sunday Alliance had to play a third of their matches in April because they had been cancelled earlier in the season."

City swimmers also welcomed the news. Chris Bland, the chairman of Bradford Dolphins Swimming Club, said there was a shortage of pools where competitions could be staged. Only Shipley Pool in the entire district is equipped for competition.

"Adrian Moorhouse is a Bradford lad but when he was 12 he trained in Leeds because Bradford didn't have facilities."

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