Bradford Football Club – History

Click here to read about the unusual origins on the Bradford club and how it progressed from Rugby Union to Rugby League and finally to association football.

Bradford FC's pioneering association section was created in 1895 by the wholesale incorporation of Buckstone Park AFC and lasted for just four seasons. Click on the links below to see how the team got on.

1895/96 - Success in the West Yorkshire League and the Leeds Workpeople's Hospital Cup

1896/97 - Bradford's first and last foray into the FA Amateur Cup

1897/98 - Club enters the new Yorkshire League and plays in the FA Cup for the first time

1898/98 - A final season of Yorkshire League struggle after the side is banished to Birch Lane

Rebirth   - After eight years of deliberation, Bradford abandons rugby and returns to association as Bradford (Park Avenue)

This badge is one of the very few surviving pieces of memorabilia from Bradford's first football club, the association section of Bradford FC.  The piece was made by the jewellers Fattorini of Bradford and has the name W.J. Byard and the dates 1897/98 engraved on the back. The badge is so rare that it raised £658 when sold on ebay shortly after the launch of this site in 2011.