Trouble on the streets of central Bradford has been comparatively sporadic.

There have been the disturbances of 2001 and 1995. In October 1988 an estimated 3,000 people gathered outside City Hall to demonstrate their opposition to public spending cuts proposed by the Conservative Group of Eric Pickles.

From the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, there were meetings of National Front supporters in the city accompanied by counter-demonstations organised by Labour Party affiliates, students or the Anti-Nazi League.

Probably the most notorious of these clashes occurred on Saturday, April 24, 1976, the day after St George’s Day, when the Front had an afternoon march planned through Lumb Lane concluding with a meeting at Manningham Middle School.

The Front had put up 22 prospective candidates for the forthcoming district council elections.

They were meeting at the school because, said Andrew Brons, head of the Yorkshire NF, they had been unable to book St George’s Hall. The key speaker at the two-hour meeting was NF chairman John Tyndall.

A counter-march headed by Labour MPs, Bradford Trades Council representatives and at least one West Yorkshire county councillor was planned for another part of town, cutting down Manningham Lane and ending with a rally at the Tyrls.

The T&A reported that up to 3,000 people attended this march. The 600 NF supporters gathered at Westgate. Between both sets of marchers were the police.

As the NF gathered behind their banners and a pipe band hired for the occasion, counter-demonstrators tried to block the route and had to be broken up by mounted police.

The T&A reported: “Both sides hurled abuse – the marchers shouting “Red Scum” and the counter-demonstrators “Nazi Scum”. Then, in John Street and Kirkgate, stone-throwing started. Along Manningham Lane towards Valley Parade, the worst trouble kicked off.

“From the traffic lights to Manningham Middle School the battle of Bradford raged in a chaos of shouts and yells, stones, bricks, bottles, eggs, paint-bombs and splintered banner poles...

“As the march ground slowly up to Manningham school, counter-demonstrators seized crowd control barriers from the police and flung them cross the road...

“Scores of police then charged the disorganised ranks of the protesters while a police car, headlights blazing, zig-zagged through the chaos and debris with a constable, his face covered in blood, lying across the back seat.

“He was PC Raymond Hammond, of Keighley, who was on his way to the Bradford Royal Infirmary after being kicked...

“Hot weather, large numbers of police and crowds of people drawn to the area by the fuss but with apparently little do, proved a disastrous mix.

“For nearly an hour, groups of West Indian youths sporadically stoned police. A police van was turned on its side and a squad car overturned. Attempts were made to fire the vehicles with lighted newspapers. Shop windows were smashed and toys and sweets were stolen from Green Lane post office.”

Among the people who saw what was going on that day was Conservative councillor Dale Smith – Bradford’s current Lord Mayor. In an article which appeared in the T&A the following Tuesday, he lamented what had happened. If the NF had been left alone “their march would have dissolved into a meaningless charade,” he wrote.

But these were the times when pro-Nazi sympathisers and their opponents were not going to agree to differ and politely go their separate ways. It wouldn’t happen now either.