County host Bradford Park Avenue on Friday in a 3pm kick off, and ahead of the match County Tweet-meister Gareth Evans has put-together five factoids on our opponents for you. TAKE FIVE…
1. Another away-trip across the Pennines – hopefully, with less wintry weather this time!
Indeed. Forecasters are now saying that we should avoid instalment three of the ‘Beast from the East’ over Easter – which is a blessing, after copping for the second one the last time County were on the road, en route back west from Gainsborough Trinity, just under a fortnight ago!
So – no repeat on the weather front, fingers crossed. But one link definitely shared by Good
Friday’s hosts Bradford Park Avenue with Gainsborough is former membership of the Football League (in Avenue’s case, from 1908 to 1970).
2. They themselves hark back to a bygone era, then. When was their year of birth?
Now, there is a question. And one that could lead to several different answers! Officially, Bradford Association Football Club (the ‘Park Avenue’ part – taken from the name of the then-ground – got added to avoid confusion with both footballing rivals Bradford City, born during 1903, and Rugby League outfit Bradford Northern) was formed in 1907. But it is argued by some that Avenue are ac-tually Bradford’s most senior club – given that, from 1895 to 1899, Bradford FC played in the West Yorkshire and Yorkshire Leagues, as well as entering the FA and FA Amateur Cups.
So, keep 1895 and 1907 in mind as possible birth-years. Then add 1974 and 1988, by way of
another two! During the former year, the club – by then a Northern Premier League outfit, which in 1973 had sold the ground on Horton Park Avenue in an attempt to remain afloat – suffered
liquidation, but was immediately re-started as a Sunday league team (and even got to host matches again at Park Avenue for 1987/88). And 14 years later, Avenue were fully reformed to play Satur-day football – beginning a long ascent back up the non-league pyramid to its second tier, at which they have now been plying their trade continuously since 2012.
3. Plenty of anniversaries to celebrate, then! How did they fare in the Football League?
The club itself enjoyed three seasons in the top flight – the only current National League North team to have done so – but possibly of even greater note are individual feats by its players.
Away from the playing field, and on the battlefield, Donald Simpson Bell – an Avenue right-back from 1912 – earned renown as the first English professional footballer to be awarded the Victoria Cross, after single-handedly attacking and destroying German front-line positions in the Somme with hand-grenades and a pistol on 5 July 1916. And, a decade or so later, there was Albert
Geldard, a tricky right-winger with magic as a hobby – that led him to be dubbed as ‘a wizard on and off the pitch’. Geldard’s appearance at Millwall on 16 September 1929 made him, at the
tender age of 15 years and 158 days, the youngest player to turn out in a Football League match (until the record was broken by Barnsley’s Reuben Noble-Lazarus in 2008). Among Avenue’s Foot-ball League players who later moved to County were goalkeeper Willis Walker (at County in 1926/27), who also played first-class cricket for Nottinghamshire, and striker Jim Fryatt (1967/68 and 1974), who, on 25 April 1964, scored at Bradford against Tranmere after just four seconds – which still stands as a League record for the fastest-ever goal.
4. A good many other players will have featured for both clubs more recently, I guess?
Well, there have been a dozen ex-Hatters – including Ben McKenna, who left us for Curzon
Ashton a couple of months ago – at Avenue in the last couple of seasons. And nearly half of them are still there – with Mark Ross, Luca Havern, Danny Boshell, Javan Vidal and Oli Johnson all
having started at current home, the Horsfall Stadium, against Telford on Monday night.
5. That would make Avenue the ‘new Brighton’, then?
I cannot possibly say! But the Horsfall Stadium, in south-west Bradford, does have a surrounding athletics track to evoke memories of The Albion’s former Withdean ground, where we ended up watching (from a distance) a few of our number from the old ‘Class of 2008’. Spooky…!
