Bradford City's Valley Parade

I'll be honest in saying that I was never overly keen on visiting Valley Parade because it looked like a right shithole on pictures on the internet, infact, it looks a bit like a stadium version of a pack of Revels, so you can imagine my delight when they were relegated to the same division as City.

Getting to Bradford is relatively easy as it's not that far down the A1 and M62 for Imps fans, however, it's not until you get into Bradford that you start having difficulties as sat navs, even the most up to date ones, aren't equipped properly for these streets. The road signs aren't exactly handy either as they say streets exist....but they don't.

We finally arrived to find a lack of parking facilities, with only several cars being parked on the actual path giving us any indications of where to try. Not the best starts and that continued when they let away fans queue outside a set of turnstiles but not actually tell them that they wouldn't be opening them...great....cheers.

Once I got into the ground I was mildly surprised to be honest. Having thought it was going to be rubbish I found myself thinking it was quite decent, the pitch was strangely small for a stadium that size, meaning that the view of the action was excellent.

The away end at the time was a two-tiered effort, similar to that at Brentford but both tiers were seated and you could see the line from the top tier, however, if you had a large following like City did that day then it will become increasingly difficult to see the goalline.. The view of the action was excellent with the small exception of the 2 poles in the way. 

After the 2007/8 season the away end moved to the Midland Road East Stand and this is when the stewards proved to be a bit arseholisitic. Basically they were insistent that they would put fans who came in first at the bottom and then work up, meaning that there was a large build up of fans in the under area of the stand whilst waiting for the less aware to take the lower down seats. The stewards refused to listen to reason, so despite getting in the ground at 2 I didn't sit down until at least 2:55.

The view from this stand was decent. It offered an excellent view of the goal in front of the old away end, whereas the view of the other end wasn't too bad considering the distance.

THE MIDLAND ROAD EAST STAND 

The stand behind the far goal is a large two tiered effort where the seemingly impatient Bradford fans are amassed. If you watch Bradford highlights then the fans in that stand get extremely upset if they concede.

The final stand is another two tiered effort that covers just over half of the pitch and connects to the aforementioned behind the goal stand. The top tier of this stand never appears to be open except for massive games against bigger teams, and it is strange that such a big stand doesn't completely cover the length of the pitch.

Unfortunately there was virtually not atmosphere from the home fans at the game, only singing in the few minutes after each of the goals they scored and this ruined it as an occasion. On later visits when the home fans had been moved into the stand that used to be the away end, the atmosphere did slightly improve, but not to the extent where you would calling it deafening, more a slight whispering on the wind.

THE SUNWIN STAND

One thing I noticed about Valley Parade though, having heard stories about their fans I was pleasently surprised that they were quite friendly. I didn't hear one snide comment during the day and that came as a big surprise. However, this could be down to the relationship that the clubs share due to past events. I had heard stories of their fans antagonising disabled supporters of opposition clubs, which had sort of put me off in the past.

Overall I quite enjoyed my trip to Valley Parade and would highly consider coming here for a random game, especially as it took sod all time to get there and back. I would recommend this trip to most people and I hope I get a chance to go again. However, if you're looking to go to find something to do as well as going to the game, the town centre didn't seem to be overly close and other than walk around the stadium, there doesn't actually appear to be a lot to do at all within a reasonable distance.

Whilst not the greatest stand around, there are certainly more positives than negatives.

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