By Jason McKeown

The problem with retelling history is that it’s all too easy to make it boring. We were all taught history at school, and many of us struggled to engage with it. We visit museums and read plaques that barely register. Too often, history feels like a memory test, a stream of dates and facts presented without much insight into why they mattered.

But when history is told well, it can be powerful and absorbing. Stories leap off the page, offering fresh perspectives and deepening your understanding of the world around you. Good history doesn’t just explain the past. It can help you understand the present and even glimpse the future.

That is exactly where John Dewhirst’s new book on the history of Bradford City lands. And what a read it is.

The Bantams of Valley Parade is not a blow-by-blow account of every season, every player and every twist in the club’s fortunes. And that’s a good thing. Instead, Dewhirst focuses on the key moments that shaped Bradford City, from its creation, through periods of success and, more often, decline. Rather than presenting a simple chronology of facts and figures, he analyses the forces and decisions that drove events, adding context and genuine insight.

It is the best book about the history of Bradford City I have ever read.

There have been a few decent efforts over the years, most notably the 2006 Pain and the Glory effort from David Markham and Lindsay Sutton. But Dewhirst surpasses those efforts. He creates a vivid picture of Bradford City’s past, telling the club’s story in a well-paced, relevant way that avoids getting bogged down into minor details and makes every word count.

I learned plenty about the club’s backstory that I didn’t know, or at least didn’t fully appreciate before. Like the story behind City’s election to the Football League, without kicking a ball, effectively becoming the sport’s West Yorkshire franchise. City’s initial glory days as one of the best clubs in the country feel a world away from what we’ve known during our lives, but Dewhirst brings it to life and outlines why it was fleeting, by explaining the baggage retained after converting from rugby to football, and the fact the committee at the time had no real plan of how to make it work.

There are great stories about how the changing room facilities were at Belle Vue on Manningham Lane, meaning players had to walk down to the stadium in full kit for the match (which was great fun for fans, who could barrack visiting players as they walked down). And how back then team selection was controlled by a committee instead of the manager. It sounds like an Edin Rahic dream.

City famously won the FA Cup in 1911, and Dewhirst vividly captures both the triumph itself and its impact on Bradford. In future years of struggle, it’s interesting just how much the club harks back to this triumph to try and maintain goodwill and relevance. In recent times some fans felt Bradford City went on about the 2015 FA Cup triumph over Chelsea a little too much. Dewhirst’s account of the club spending decades wheeling back out 1911 shows it’s not a new thing.

The Bantams struggle after the First World War, bowing out of the top flight in the 1920s and falling into the depths of the Third Division by the end of the decade. Dewhirst explains that the seeds were sown even before the glory days, with evidence of financial problems and poor governance as far back as 1906.

Another really interesting feature of the early Bradford City is the identity the club forms, that carries through to this day. Dewhirst is at pains to point out City were not a “working class club”, but that the club’s rebirth and early years were fuelled by an underdog mentality, harboured by its “down-to-earth, no-nonsense character and its reliance on honest graft rather than a silver spoon”.

It’s a thesis well backed by the way Bradford City’s story unfolds. By the 1930s the club has declined badly, with the devastating impact of falling into the regionalised Third Division (North) leaving them trapped. It was a league of 24 northern clubs, with just one promotion place and shared gate receipts. City’s relatively high attendances counted for little and they found themselves unable to escape the pit they had fallen into.

Stagnation continues in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. 1911 becomes a distant memory. The restructuring of the Football League, with the creation of the Fourth Division, soon sees City fall to the basement, having to fight for re-election on three occasions. Throughout the book, Dewhirst compares City’s ups and (mainly) downs with neighbours Bradford (Park Avenue), explaining how having two professional football clubs in Bradford hinders both, and likening their ultimate struggles competing at the bottom to “two bald men fighting over a comb”.

In the end Avenue are voted out of the Football League but it could easily have been City. It’s only after the city of Bradford loses one of its professional football clubs that the surviving one starts to fare better. The 1970s, 80s and 90s feature brighter days for the Bantams, as they climb back up the leagues. The last 50 years have been incredibly eventful and this book captures those adventures without over-explaining memories that (depending on your age) we hold firsthand ourselves.

Dewhirst tells these stories at a welcome speed. This isn’t exhaustive season by season, player by player detail – and all the better for it. He weaves the narratives of different campaigns together to tell the story of the time. Prominent players and managers are covered but not in minute detail. There are already Bradford City books out there that go deep into player legends, the history of Valley Parade, 1911 and the fire disaster. This book doesn’t try to compete with them.

If any individuals do dominate the book, it’s the people who have a turn owning the club. Dewhirst’s account of Stafford Heginbotham’s two spells as owner is particularly enlightening, revealing an impact on Bradford City that I had never fully appreciated. Equally, the tales of Bob Martin – a name I’d heard but knew nothing about – are really compelling. Martin unsuccessfully tries to change City’s colours, nickname and even the very name of the football club. Had supporters of the time not fought back to stop him, we might very well call ourselves Bradford Metro FC fans. Up the Metro Bantams!

Bringing things forward, Dewhirst has a deep dive analysis of the Geoffrey Richmond era. It’s a brilliant read, with the great things Richmond did given equal prominence to the damaging decisions he later made. Dewhirst paints a clear portrait of Richmond’s leadership style and assesses the major decisions he made with balance and rational thought. It’s the best examination of the Richmond era I’ve ever read, with Dewhirst freeing himself of the biases that many of us who witnessed this unforgettable chapter in Bradford City history hold onto.

It might not change your mind on how you view Richmond, but it’s a fair-minded recording of his contribution to Bradford City, and the legacy it left that we’re still living through. Edin Rahic receives similar scrutiny, although the conclusions are considerably less flattering. Rahic’s place in Bradford City’s story may be less welcome, but is impossible to ignore.

The sharper focus on those at the top helps reveal a recurring pattern in Bradford City’s history: periods of glory and failure have often been driven by influential figures. As Dewhirst sums up brilliantly at one point, “Success at Bradford City has been rare and, where it has occurred it has depended on individual agency overriding the constraints.”

Dewhirst takes us from City’s first Football League match, a 2-0 defeat to Grimsby in 1903, right through to the present day and the disappointment of last season’s play-off semi-final defeat to Bolton. Along the way, he uncovers recurring themes that still shape the club today: the influence of ownership, the struggle for financial stability and the enduring underdog spirit that has defined Bradford City since its earliest days.

And that’s what makes this book so compelling.

Dewhirst doesn’t simply recount Bradford City’s history. He helps us understand it. Rather than overwhelming readers with names, dates and statistics, he reveals the scars, strengths and contradictions that have shaped the club over 123 years.

If you want to learn not just what happened to Bradford City, but why, this book is essential reading. It offers the clearest and most insightful account of the club’s story that I’ve ever encountered and, in doing so, deepens your appreciation of what makes Bradford City uniquely Bradford City.

The Bantams of Valley Parade is released on Tuesday 15 September but is now available to pre-order.

Categories: Opinion

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