The club did not own the Park Avenue ground until 1947, when the directors finally purchased it after years of paying an annual rent of about £600. The sale of Len Shackleton for £13,000 in 1946 had helped to finance the purchase.
When the ground was sold in 1973 for approximately £95,000 the club was left with £37,000, but owed £47,000 to various investors and the Inland Revenue, who in those days were classed as preferential creditors. The £37,000 included loans from the late chairman, Herbert Metcalfe, and other former directors. Avenue had no assets to sell after moving to Valley Parade. And Bradford City were charging rent which amounted to more than twice the gate income. So, to avoid running up further losses the club went into voluntary liquidation in 1974. The Revenue got what they were owed in full, all other creditors getting 75p for every £1. However, the holders of the 48,000 shares (mostly in the hands of Metcalfe's executors) got nothing.

B.F.C. History 1880-1928

The original club was formed in 1863 as the Bradford Football Club and played rugby football, but our story starts almost 20 years later. The grounds at Park Avenue were acquired by trustees on behalf of the Bradford club in 1879, and construction of the football ground, etc, took place during 1879 and 1880. The football club, which had come from grounds at Apperley Bridge, eventually amalgamated with the cricket club, which had previously played near where Bradford University it situated. The Park Avenue ground was officially opened in July 1880. And Arcibald Leitch's beautifully tiled stand at Park Avenue proudly displayed the letters BFC not BPA.

Powell Avenue, which ran down the back of the Horton Park end, was named after Mr F S Powell who owned the field on which the ground was built. He agreed to transfer the field to the club on a 999-year lease at nominal ground rent, for a reasonable sum as long as he could be assured that the field would be used for cricket, football and athletics. On 16 September 1882 the venue held its the first-ever football match, an exhibition game between Blackburn Rovers and Blackburn and District. Although the experiment was a moderate success, it was to be 13 long years before the round-ball game was seen again at the ground.

When Bradford FC started its association section in 1895, it recruited most of its squad from Buckstone Park FC:  I believe they were based at Apperley Bridge; I have yet to trace any of their results. According to reports, a Bradford side beat a team from Moss Side (Manchester) 4 -1 in front of 3,000 spectators. Interestingly, Avenue's first incarnation was called simply Bradford and not Bradford (Park Avenue). Bradford played four full seasons from 1895-1899, taking part in various league competitions, the FA Cup, the FA Amateur Cup, etc. as well as playing a soccer game at Valley Parade before Bradford City ever did. We were joint winners of the West Yorkshire league in 1895/96, and also won the Leeds Workpeople's Hospital Cup.
As far as I know, neither Kilnhurst nor Parkgate played in leagues. So our defeats would have been considered giantkilling acts as we were a Yorkshire League side at the time.

In 1896, Bradford beat struggling 10-man Rothwell 13-0 at Park Avenue in the West Yorkshire League. Reginald Thorne scored six and David Menzies scored four. The  League had a higher status than the NPL as it predated the Third Division and there were few, if any, regional leagues covering this area at the time.

Our one and only entry in the FA Amateur Cup was in 1896/97, one of the most bizarre seasons in Bradford football history. The West Riding FA, formed in the early months of 1896, decided that no league competition would be run, leaving just an amorphous mixture of cup ties and friendlies.

Bradford were drawn at home to Derby Amateurs in the first qualifying round of the Amateur Cup on 10 October 1896. However the game had to be switched from Park Avenue to Lidget Green as Bradford's Northern Union fifteen were at home to Bramley in the Yorkshire Senior Competition that day. The location was described as "the grounds of the Bradford club at Lidget Green", but it is unclear whether this was the old Bradford RUFC ground at Scholemoor, the former Lidget Green cricket ground, or somewhere else. As the local press tended to announce the teams before matches but not afterwards, we can only surmise that our line up may have been Lemoine; Wells, Smith; N. Thorne, R. Thorne, Henderson; Eckford, Menzies, Collinson, Ingham, Matthews. Even that is ambiguous as the Thornes were just one of several pairs of brothers at the club at the time.

A large crowd saw Collinson open the scoring after 10 minutes with Menzies and an Eckford brace giving Bradford a 4-0 lead at the interval. The rout continued after the break with further goals by Ingham, Menzies, Ingham again and two more from Collinson. Bradford thus emerged with a 9-0 victory.

The second qualifying round saw Bradford drawn away to Sheffield on 7th November. On a very wet Ecclesall Road pitch, Thompson gave Bradford the lead with a header. Menzies then doubled the advantage when his free kick was deflected in by Benson, the home right back. The homesters reduced the lead after the interval with a goal by Blake, but Bradford held on for victory. In fact this was the second of three victories in 5 weeks over the Sheffielders. The clubs met again in 1898/99 in the Yorkshire League (other teams included Sheffield United reserves and Wednesday reserves), but did not cross swords again at first team level until October 2007 when the South Yorkshiremen got their revenge at Horsfall in the FA Trophy. Is there any other case of 108 years elapsing between fixtures between teams from the same county?

The third qualifying round saw Bradford drawn against Hunslet on 28th November. This match had a special edge as the clubs had shared the West Yorkshire League title the previous year. The game again had to be switched to Lidget Green due to a clash with the rugby. Bradford started the game with 10 men as Thorne was late. A brace of goals from Taylor gave the Twinklers a 2-0 lead which they held until the end.

Bradford entered two other cup competitions in 1896/97. Our forebears defeated Altofts 2-0 and Fryston 5-2 at home in the 2nd and 3rd rounds of the West Yorkshire Cup before losing 2-1 to Hunslet in the semi-final at Huddersfield (it is unclear whether this was at Milnsbridge, Fartown or elsewhere). As holders, Bradford were expected to do well in the Leeds Workpeople's Hospital Cup. Altofts were duly dispatched 5-0 at home, but the semi-final at Headingley was a disaster as Bradford were stuffed 4-0 by Halifax. The curtailed season thus ended with 18 wins, 2 draws and 7 defeats from 27 games.

The following season, we entered the FA Cup for the first time, losing 3-1 away to Kilnhurst in 1qr in 1897 and in 1898 we lost 8-4 away to Parkgate United in 2qr (not sure if extra time was played) after a 2-2 draw at home. This game had to be switched from Park Avenue to Birch Lane as the Northern Union side was at home that day. In 1898/99, we went out in a second qualifying round replay to Parkgate United.  We  played in the Yorkshire League, teams included Sheffield FC. Sadly however Bradford FC closed down its association section in 1899 due to poor gates.

SEASON   LEAGUE     P    W    D    L    F     A    Pts      POS

1897-98   YORKS       18    3    3    12   26   72    9        9/10
1898-99   YORKS       18    4    1    13   16   80    9        9/10

Bradford Rugby Club had achieved their first major success in 1884 by winning the Yorkshire Cup. Having been a member of the Rugby Football Union, it became a founder member of the Northern Rugby Football Union following a dispute between northern clubs and the Rugby Football Union over the payment of expenses for broken work time. The club enjoyed great success as a "Rugby League" club. They won the Championship in 1903-04 and defeated Salford in 1906 to win the Northern Union Cup.

In spite of this success at the "handling game" there was also a demand for Association Football, and Park Avenue played host to both sports. It is because of this common heritage that Bradford R.U.F.C. (since merged to become Bradford & Bingley R.U.F.C.), Bradford (Northern) R.L.F.C. (now the Bradford Bulls), and Bradford (Park Avenue) A.F.C. share the traditional colours of red, amber & black, still used today by the latter as their second strip. 

With soccer successful already at Manningham (Bradford City) a meeting was called of the club members on 15th April 1907 to decide the course for the future. A vote appeared to favour continuing in the Northern Union then opinion shifted towards the amateur rugby game but the Chairman, Mr Briggs, used his influence to swing the committee behind his favoured Association game and so Bradford Association Football Club was formed.   The minority faction decided to leave the original club and form a new Northern Union club appropriately called Bradford Northern, replacing Bradford FC.

In 1902, struggling Northern Union club Manningham swiched from rugby to association and presumptiously rebranded itself as Bradford City (our town got city status in 1897; now, humiliatingly, it is part of the so-called Leeds "city region"). When Bradford followed suit in 1907, the authorities virtually forced us to add the name of our ground (Park Avenue) to distinguish itself from Bradford City AFC and Bradford (Northern) FC.

But we were always Bradford on Sports Report and on the football pools.

On 31 May 1907 the club applied for membership of the Football League but were unsuccessful. Undaunted they then applied for the vacancy created in the Southern League by Fulham's elevation into the League and having been accepted, set about creating a worthy ground. A suggested merger with City came to nothing but the renowned Glasgow architect Archibald Leitch who had been responsible for Hampden Park and other major grounds was employed. His finished work would be capable of holding 37,000.

The club also entered a team in the North Eastern League and the first game played at the new Park Avenue was on 2 September 1907 when the first team beat Newcastle United Reserves with around 6,000 watching. The first Southern League fixture was at Elm Park, Reading and saw a 3-1 winning start. Another win at Watford followed and on 14 September 15,000 turned up to watch them complete a quick double over Watford with a 3-2 win. Results then tapered off.

In February Tottenham announced they were quitting the league at the end of the season and Queens Park Rangers and Bradford followed. The result was a bitter battle between the clubs and the league. The AGMs of the Football League and the Southern League were the same day, 27th May. Bradford resigned from the Southern League and the other two clubs were expelled. Fortunately the Football League accepted Bradford into the Second Division while QPR withdrew at the last minute and were accepted back into the Southern set-up but made to play most of their games midweek. Spurs were rejected by the Football League and remained in limbo until mid June when Stoke had second thoughts about Division Two and resigned.

Spurs then tied with Lincoln City on a ballot before gaining their place by 5 management committee votes to 3.

The Park Avenue club was then reformed into a limited company and played its first Football League game at home to Hull City, winning 1-0. The club's record victory was set up in an FA Cup-tie in October 1908, when they won 11-0 at Denby Dale in the second qualifying round. In 1909 the ground staged an international match between England and Ireland and it was an Irishman, Sam Burnison signed from Distillery in May 1910, who became the club's first player to win an international cap whilst with the club.

The current club colours of green & white were adopted first of all in 1911 and continued throughout the club's stay in the First Division of the Football League 1914-1921.

1912-13 saw the club beat Barrow, Wolverhampton and Wednesday in the FA Cup to meet Aston Villa in the Quarter-Final. The following season they finished runners-up to Notts County to beat Arsenal on Goal Average for the second promotion place. Their first game among the nation's elite couldn't have been much harder with the return of champions Blackburn Rovers to Park Avenue and 25,000 saw them go down 1-2. Just under 30,000 saw the meeting of the two Bradford sides at Valley Parade and over 21,000 the return fixture which completed the season which saw them finish in a best ever position of 9th.

After the war Avenue saw off Nottingham Forest, Castleford Town and Notts County to again reach the FA Cup Quarter-Final against Chelsea in 1919-20 but were relegated at the end of the next season.  Worse was to follow with immediate relegation to the 3rd Division (North). They attempted to bounce straight back but were beaten into second place by Nelson. Avenue's greatest FA Cup triumph was against Everton in 1922/23. The green and whites drew 1-1 at Goodison Park in Round One, with a goal by Harold Peel. We then beat the Toffees 1-0 at Park Avenue with a goal from George McLean, although going out to PA (Plymouth Argyle) in Round 2. We were in D3(N) and Everton were in D1. 1924-25 saw them finish as highest scorers with 84 goals including seven at Ashington.

The club's record league victory of 8-0 was set up in September 1925, when Avenue beat Walsall at Park Avenue in a Third Division (North) match and ended as runners-up #. A first-round FA Cup tie against Lincoln City went to a second replay and lost to Boston in the next round. They scored a total of 101 goals in consecutive seasons in 1925-26, 1926-27 and 1927-28. In the meantime, only six league matches were lost at Park Avenue in seven seasons from 1922-3 to 1928-9, a record unequalled in modern times.

1928 saw them promoted again as champions and it was in Division 2  that Albert Geldard became the youngest player at 15 years and 158 days to play in the Football League when he turned out for the club at Millwall on 16 September 1929. He left the club on 14 November 1932 to join Everton for a then club record fee of £4,000.

One player the club was determined to try to keep was Jack Crayston the first professional player from Grange-over-Sands who started his career with Ulverston Town. He finally went in 1934 to Arsenal and in little over a year earned his first England cap. After injury cut short his playing career he returned to Highbury as manager.

Thanks to Tim Clapham, Rob Grillo and Pete Zemroch for additional info.

# In April 2006, Avenue equalled that record against Runcorn in an NPL Premier Division match at Horsfall Stadium.  But this was surpassed by the 9-0 against Rossendale United in the NPL Division 1 North, September 2007.  However...this just in from PZ: Avenue beat City 10-0 at Valley Parade on 19th Dec 1942 in the Wartime League North (1st competition). Our scorers were McGarry (2), Johnson (3), Shack (2), Flatley, Walker and Green.