Metadata
WORK ID: YFA 5289 (Master Record)
| Title | Year | Date |
| BRADFORD FC, BOXING, AND WALKING RACE | c.1946 | 1943-01-01 |
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Details
Original Format: 16mm Colour: Black & White / Colour Sound: Silent Duration: 14 mins 31 secs Credits: Sgt. Fred Dewhirst Subject: Sport |
| Summary This is a film of various sporting events taking place in Bradford in the immediate post-war period, including football with Bradford City AFC, boxing and a walking race. |
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Description
This is a film of various sporting events taking place in Bradford in the immediate post-war period, including football with Bradford City AFC, boxing and a walking race.
(B&W) The film begins with three men and a boy in standing on the balcony of a house overlooking Valley Parade Stadium. A workman is fixing the corner flags on the pitch below. There are several other men in army uniform. Down on the pitch a Boys Brigade band are marching and playing. Elsewhere another marching...
This is a film of various sporting events taking place in Bradford in the immediate post-war period, including football with Bradford City AFC, boxing and a walking race.
(B&W) The film begins with three men and a boy in standing on the balcony of a house overlooking Valley Parade Stadium. A workman is fixing the corner flags on the pitch below. There are several other men in army uniform. Down on the pitch a Boys Brigade band are marching and playing. Elsewhere another marching band leads a procession of various uniformed groups through the streets of Bradford, and there are advertising hoardings in the background. A group of younger boy’s brigade walk along a street with lorries passing by. On the wall across the street there is a sign stating ‘Stanclffe's tobacco’. The boy seen at the beginning is now standing in the doorway of a large house with a man and a woman, presumably, his mother and father. The film switches back to a football stadium where a football match is underway, with a team in white shirts scoring against a team in horizontal striped shirts.
(Col.) The film moves on to show several other football matches, all being played at Valley Parade. These are followed by groups of men on the pitch tossing coins. Then there is another match with a team in white shirts coming onto the pitch, followed by Bradford City. Some of the action is shown, from both halves, including Bradford scoring a penalty. A man is carried from the stands onto the side of the pitch on a stretcher, and a Bradford City player is injured.
(B&W) The film switches to a boxing match taking place at Valley Parade. About half a dozen fights are shown, of various weight groups. Then there is a walking race taking place in the city centre on a rainy day, with a large billboard behind advertising the film ‘Cloak and Dagger’, with Gary Cooper and Lilli Palmer. A large group of walkers pass by, followed by a car with ‘Judge’ written on it. A walker in the lead is escorted by two police horses in the pouring rain. The other walkers follow, along with some traffic. The Whitsunday walk proceeds past the Guiseley UDC boundary sign up Hollings Hill. A number 63 bus for Ilkley passes by and another car with ‘Referee’ on it. A couple of runners get urged on by a man waving his flat cap at them. The Malt Shovel Hotel is in Burley in Wharfedale with walkers preceding around the bend in Burley. The film ends with the walkers in Lower Brook Street in Ilkley. The old iron railway bridge can be seen in the background.
Context
This collection of films was taken by Sgt. Fred Dewhirst of City of Bradford Constabulary, commissioned by Robert Sharp, a councillor with Bradford City Corporation and supporter and director of Bradford City FC. It is part of a much bigger collection of film made of Bradford City FC, of the players, supporters and many matches played between 1943 and 1947. These films have been collected together and made into a fascinating documentary, Paraders Past, Bradford City AFC 1943-49 by John...
This collection of films was taken by Sgt. Fred Dewhirst of City of Bradford Constabulary, commissioned by Robert Sharp, a councillor with Bradford City Corporation and supporter and director of Bradford City FC. It is part of a much bigger collection of film made of Bradford City FC, of the players, supporters and many matches played between 1943 and 1947. These films have been collected together and made into a fascinating documentary, Paraders Past, Bradford City AFC 1943-49 by John Dewhirst and Dave Pendleton (members of the City Gent Team), with the help of David Wood of Bradford based C.H. Wood As well filming other films for Robert Sharp and many for C.H. Wood, Dewhirst also filmed for Bradford City Police and the Bradford City Corporation. He also filmed what is believed to be the first police surveillance that was used in court, Street Betting (1937). For more on Fred Dewhirst and C.H. Wood see the Context for The Magnet Cup 1960, and for more on Robert Sharp see the Context for Street Cleaning (1946). The title of “Bradford FC” is somewhat confusing as Bradford City’s rivals, Bradford Park Avenue, are more commonly known as just Bradford FC – Bradford City often have AFC after their name (thanks to John Dewhirst for pointing this out).
It isn’t clear what all the football matches are that are seen in the film, although some have been identified in Paraders Past. Some of them are wartime games when the official football league was suspended – reinstated for the season 1946-47 – including the game featuring the team in a white top and black shorts (this may have Bradford City not playing in their usual colours). The shots of those matches noticeable without any crowd are training games during the war. Bradford City continued to play in a Northern League that was established during the war. However, Valley Parade was requisitioned by the army and used by them for training during the week –hence also the outdoor boxing at Valley Parade seen in the film – and so games could only be played on a Saturday. Most of the Bradford team were in the armed forces, and so were unavailable to play. In effect it was a second team that played, including just one professional. This meant that they were at a disadvantage compared to their local rivals Bradford Park Avenue, whose players were mostly miners, a reserved occupation. Local legend Len Shackleton, “the Clown Prince of Soccer”, played for both Bradford teams on the same day. In these games the rival supporters would all simply swap ends at half times so that they were at the end their team was attacking – either the Bradford end or the Spion Kop end. But apparently, when going to buy the local paper, the supporters of the rival Bradford teams would form separate queues. The rivalry is discussed in a forthcoming book by John Dewhirst, Room at the top, to be published by Bantampast in November 2015. In Paraders Past, one of the players of the time being interviewed recounts a game at York City. Teams were allowed to commandeer any players that were in the local army squads, and because York had quite a few near them, they had the pick if many of the best players in the country. Bradford lost 9 -0. The players got changed in terrace houses, numbers 49 and 51 Burlington Crescent; and because the army used to parade up and down on the pitch, as seen in the film, it was in pretty ropey condition. The ground itself was unchanged since 1908, but after a report into the terrible disaster at Burnden Park (home of Bolton Wanderers) in March 1946, which resulted in 33 deaths, half the Midland Road stand was deemed unsafe and was closed, reducing the capacity by 75% to just 2,000. The 1940s were already a difficult financial decade for Bradford City, having to apply for re-election to the League in 1949 when they finished bottom of Division Three (North). They managed to survive with the considerable help of Robert (Bob) Sharp (who is desrcibed on the Bantampast website as also being “chief scout and bottle washer”). A rather smaller replacement stand wasn’t completed until 1954, with money raised from an appeal to supporters. Later, of course, came the terrible fire disaster of 1985 which claimed 56 lives. The rare of the historic Whitsuntide Walk shows the walkers in the first post-war race, making their very distinctive way around Bradford in the rain. The walk (shortened) continued during the war and was won in 1946 by C Mengin of Highgate in 4 hours 53 minutes. The Bradford Whitsuntide Walk is the oldest amateur walking race in the world. It started on Whit Monday 1st June 1903, when 92 competitors set off on a 39 mile walk to York, watched by a huge crowd. The walk came to an end in 2011 due to the low level of entries. Notice that they walk past billboards advertising the Fritz Lang film ‘Cloak and Dagger’, starring Gary Cooper and Lilli Palmer. This was later to contribute to the screen writers for the film, Ring Lardner Jr. and Albert Maltz, being brought before the House Un-American Activities Committee, becoming part of the “Hollywood Ten”, and then being jailed and blacklisted, for suggesting in the script that the US was unable to keep secrets from the USSR. (with special thanks to John Dewhirst) References John Dewhirst, A History Of Bradford City In Objects, Bantamspast, 2014. The City Gent Team Bantampast The Bradford Whitsuntide Walk |
