Sootbag City - a trip down memory lane

Saturday will be my first away game this season. A trip across the Pennines beckons, but for me it won’t be a trip down Manningham Lane, but memory lane.

Bradford was the city where I did my degree. It wasn’t a city of dreaming spires so much as a city of dreaming mills. The University was not an ivory tower but one with its firmly planted into the Yorkshire soil around it. Going back on Saturday will be a double edged expedition. First and foremost to see the Super Whites, but also to visit the past. 

I stayed on for a few years after my degree and don’t regret it. In many ways the metropolitan area isn’t dissimilar to our own. You have the industrial heartland of the area around the city centre, and then the posh bits as they spread up the Aire Valley to Bingley, Baildon and around to Haworth. They are the Heswall’s and West Kirby’s of the Wirral.

There was only one game I recall going to as a student. It was a bit later in the year in April , and I think we drew. It must have been around about 1981, if my memory serves me correctly. There is nothing I can recall about the game other than walking to and from the match. This was a novelty in itself. Plus, the ground was pre development, so the wooden stand that burnt down at the end of the 84/85 season was very much present. I vividly recall that Saturday afternoon when the fire happened. I was in London by then, buying a HiFi system in Comet, I recall looking at a bank of televisions showing pictures from the ground and being horrified. 

Saturday, aside to the football, will be about checking out whether the places I frequented still exist. When I was student the best place for a pint of Timmy Taylor’s was the Oakleigh, about a 10 minute walk from the ground. As for curries, Shimla was always the best place to head for. In your first year you used up the 3 chapatis that came with your curry, by your final year you were a wus if you used more than one. I suspect these days they,give you a knife and fork. 

I’m sure most other Rovers fans will travel to the match hoping for a win. Me too. Yet it’s always nice to return to a city that held you to its bosom, stuffed you with curry, and left you equipped for your life ahead. 

‘Sootbag City’ is how people from Leeds used to refer to Bradford. Nostalgia  will count for nothing. Saturday is about three points and survival. Oh, and maybe, just maybe, a cracking curry.