This one ended up on the cutting room floor pre-production of the current Trumpit. So ruthless is this media game, not even my old Mum is safe.
A few weeks ago the old folks featured in the local press on successive days, fame at such a late stage in life? Well, not quite.
My Dad was sat proudly with his RAF colleagues in a picture taken in the mid 1950s. This confused me as, for many years, my brother and I were told he had single-handedly defeated the Luftwaffe, causing Hitler’s downfall.
That he was barely a teenager by the end of WW2 had caused us some doubt here.
My Mum’s claim to “fame” lay in a picture of Bradford’s Odsal Stadium, filled to the rafters, back in 1951 for a rugby league Challenge Cup semi-final between Leeds and Barrow. She pointed at the old covered stand.
“That’s where we were! Me, your Gran and Aunty Lilly.” I looked at this wonderful old photo, the thousands of spectators resembling dots on a screen. “There…just there!” she said as if she could pick out each of the three of them.
“Why were you there? Don’t tell me you were supporting Leeds?” It should be said that supporting Leeds at anything is a crime in my little book.
I should have known better as Grandma Ada’s roots lay firmly in the shipyard town of Barrow.
“Your Uncle Dick’s still there…ninety-four years of age…never married…liked his beer too much!” She gave me a knowing look, one I have yet to find a counter to after so many years.
The picture was published recently in the local T&A to accompany a heartfelt letter by reader Arthur Deacon who attended the very first game at Odsal in 1934; sadly, it looks as if Arthur also attended the last a few months ago.
Growing up Odsal always seemed to represent one of the things Bradford excelled at – hopeless pipedreams. Not a decade went by without the T&A blazing some excited headline claiming this much neglected venue the new Wembley of the North.
Generally a picture would show Cllr Numpty Shoes looking as if they were about to build this temple. But, perhaps we should not be too disappointed; there is no such thing as a Wembley of the North not in Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester nor anywhere.
Talk is cheap, especially when it comes from the empty pockets of impotent councillors. The most recent past is so clouded in murky dealings there has to be a book in the offing somewhere.
Even now, Bradford South MP Judith Cummins, cannot resist getting on the bandwagon claiming to do all she can here but with what resources and for what end? It is nothing more than cheap posturing.
That said, nobody could deny what potential this site once had, if only the ruinous self-interests and stupid pride of numerous custodians of the two main professional clubs in the city could have seen some common goal. But it was not to be.
Odsal, according to Arthur, has staged numerous sports from rugby to the Harlem Globetrotters. As noted in a House of Commons Motion in 2004:
a then-world record Rugby League crowd of 102,569 gathered at Odsal Stadium, Bradford, on 5th May, 1954 to watch the replay of the Challenge Cup Final between Halifax and Warrington…the actual crowd was estimated by police to be at least 120,000…thousands more never reached the match because of severe traffic congestion…
That it has ended so bitterly is a shared blame from successive owners to local politicians; as is often the case the only people to come out of this with any credit are the fans who still follow the club. As ever with Bradford, we are left wondering just what could have been.
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