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OUR SPONSORS
Horsfall Stadium
When Chief Executive Bob Blackburn joined the Board of Bradford (Park Avenue) last March he pledged his Kelvic Group would sponsor ground improvements at the Horsfall Stadium.
Looking around the ground today they have certainly stuck to their promise and provided some of the best facilities for non-league football in the locality. Last season the ground was looking tired and in desperate need of refurbishment.
This has been transformed with new Director and Sponsors rooms, a meeting room for the players and management, a new medical room, kit room and toilets. There is also a new tea bar serving quality food, the social club has been refurbished and there is a new club shop displaying a range of excellent clothing as well as other interesting items. Not only that but the car park has been resurfaced, the ground has been repainted and the whole place has the look and feel of a proper stadium. There are new trainers boxes to Conference standard and even the changing rooms have been cleaned and repainted.
Many of the changes have been done to meet the new stringent ground grading requirements of the Football Association and the ground has been passed for the Unibond Division One level and should achieve grading for the Premier Division early next year. In addition, fully monitored CCTV has been installed to protect the facility and prevent the vandalism that has plagued the ground in previous seasons.
One of the projects that needed special attention was the replacement of the seats in the stand. The old seats were of a fixed type, they were in a poor state and needed to be replaced with tip-up ones to meet the grading requirements. The club was faced with a massive repair bill so with this in mind an advert was placed in the Non-League Weekly and to its surprise Lords Cricket Ground replied offering seats from their ground due to their own refurbishment plans. A group of nine men, ably led by Kevin Hainsworth, travelled to London to remove nearly 2000 seats and transport them back to Bradford. Five days of hard work later and the group were back in Bradford with the seats ready for installation into Horsfall Stadium.
Kevin and his team completed the removal of the old seats and the installation of nearly 1800 seats from Lord's and one of Avenue's long established sponsors, Jack Pennington Ltd, helped enormously by providing all the fixings and bolts. A marketing programme of 'Sponsor-A- Seat' was initiated and to date over 75 individuals, companies and organisations have contributed over £3500 in seating sponsorship.
Bob Blackburn, Dr. John Dean and all associated with the Club are rightly proud of this new dawning for the Club, and the hallowed seats of Lords now look out onto a new sport, in a new home, with hopefully, more happy memories to add to the rich heritage they already possess. The club are working hard to attract new supporters and have recently issued 20000 complimentary tickets for new supporters to use at the forthcoming home games. With the new facilities at Horsfall they won't be disappointed.
The new Directors and Sponsors Lounges with viewing gallery and below the new Players Meeting Room,Medical Room and Kit room
The refurbished Social Club on the left and the new tea bar in the centre.
The new club shop on the left.
Cricket to Football: Ex England and Yorkshire cricketer, Geoff Cope, with ex Bradford (Park Avenue) professional footballer Malcolm Lawton standing in front of the hallowed seats from Lord's cricket ground.
The stand in its entirety showing the 1750 seats installed from Lord's cricket ground.
View from the viewing gallery showing the pitch with the green and white nets and corner flags
