If you think today was poor

I lived at the back of the Bradford end from 54 to 68 so saw the area and the ground develop.

They only trained on the car park, adjacent to the drill hall (later post office sorting) when the car park had an orange brick wall built , approx. 8’ high built on two sides thus enclosing it. Before then their only training area was Clock House playing fields because the used to jog there from VP. We used to run with them for autographs .
The route was down Holywell Ash Lane, along Midland Rd, crossing Queens Rd , past the Carlton Hotel along the road entering Clock House at the bottom entrance adjacent to the railway.

Prior to the walls around the car park the surface was black powered cinders and ash ( probably a bye product of steam engines) . I recall getting Stanley Matthews autograph before a game against Port Vale, after he climbed out of a Roller.!

That surface was horrendous and tore your knees to shreds. When the built the enclosure they placed a white/ cream crushed stone over the top thus allowing training to take place safely. Shortly after they installed single floodlights on poles to provide lighting for parking during night matches and off course winter afternoon training.
Us local lads even knew where the switchgear was for these floodlights, hence we could play football on there morning noon and night,!!

I recall the tall terraced houses which originally stood on the car park so must have been demolished around 1960 at a guess

@Bronco @Park bantam @wetherbywhaler

 

That's a cracking photo Bronco. I remember the countless times I entered the ground through the turnstiles at the bottom of Burlington Street to stand on the crumbling kop. As a teenager I also identified the worst house in Bradford to live in. Behind the mill in the top left corner of the photo there are some back to back houses that face directly onto the mill wall. The farthest one was the house I thought was the worst. Amazingly it's still there and I showed it to my daughter a few years ago. Some poor sods must live there, but judging by the amount of drug paraphernalia outside they probably don't know much about it.