Bradford (Park Avenue) Development Fund will be hosting their annual programme and badge fair on Sunday 8th December 2019.
Entry will be £1 for adults and free for children, with the fair open from 10am until 1pm in the Clubhouse and refreshments will be available.
Fan favourite Nicky Clee has put pen to paper to return to the club following his release from Ashton United.
The tricky winger, who can also operate in central midfield or at left-back, initially joined from Altrincham in May 2017 and became a favourite amongst Avenue supporters due to his technical ability and work ethic.
Clee who worked his way up through the non-league pyramid featuring for Ossett Albion, Ashton and Hyde United before joining Altrincham in 2009. After seven years at Altrincham he left to join Guiseley and also had a spell at Harrogate Town before re-joining Altrincham.
Nicky is available to go straight in to the team for tomorrows home game against his former club Altrincham.
The event will commence at 7.30pm with the bar open from 7 till 10pm.
While enabling subscribers to collect their copy of the book, there will also be extra copies available to purchase as Christmas approaches.
With a number of former players expected, this promises to be an evening to remember and is open to all supporters and well-wishers to attend.
Copies of the book, which chronicles the last four years of the club in the Football League to coincide with the 50th anniversary of their failure to be re-elected in May next year, will also be available from the Supporters’ Club shop at Horsfall stadium and Waterstones.
The club has held a number of collections over the years to support our local food bank at Wyke and has a permanent collection point in the clubhouse where supporters can make donations.
All donations from both home and away supporters will be gratefully received and are to be placed in the collection bin next to the supporters information desk in the clubhouse.
Please see below a list of items most needed:
Bradford went ahead through Billy Priestley in the 15th minute as a low swung corner fizzed across the goal mouth, with the centre back turning the ball into the net off the outside of his foot.
Chester then enjoyed the lions share of possession through out the half as they looked to bring the game back to a level footing, and began to find openings as the half went on. Joel Taylor took advantage of space down the left side a number of times and the home side had a chance just before the break as Taylor crossed the ball to Dudley in the area, but his header flew over the bar.
The home side came out for the second half determined to find the back of the net and earned a corner within minutes of kick off. Joel Taylor’s corner made it’s way to Simon Grand at the back post but he couldn’t keep his shot down.
The equaliser did come though as a ball forward was deflected into the path of Anthony Dudley who had the better of the one on one with Green.
It didn’t take Chester long to capitalise again on their attacking form as Asante found the top corner just minutes later.
With the blues in the lead, Bradford settled back into the game and both sides continued to create opportunities but the back line of both squads kept chances to a minimum.
Just a minute before the end of regular time, Isaac Marriot was given his marching orders, receiving a second yellow for a dangerous foul on Stopforth, thus ending any chance of Bradford earning a point.
Chester: Griffiths, Morgan, Taylor, Stopforth, Livesey, Grand (c), Jackson, Glendon, Asante (Waring 84), Ngwatala (Elliott 76), Dudley (Hughes 84).
Substitutes: Waters, Burton.
Bradford (Park Avenue): Green, Bazeley (Royle 46), Staunton, Lowe (c), Nowakowski (Hughes 70), Priestley, Knight, Toulson, O Johnson (Clare 76), Hurst, Marriot.
Substitutes: Dickinson, Hughes, Clare, A Johnson.
Goal Scorers: Chester: Dudley (49), Asante (53). Bradford: Priestley (15).
Yellow Cards: Bradford: Hurst, Priestley.
Red Cards: Bradford: Marriot
Attendance: 1,875
Referee: Adam Herczeg.
Assistant Referees: Declan Brown & James Welsh.
Having defeated Gloucester with a depleted squad on Sunday, Bower has bolstered his side this week with the signing of former Bradford City and Boston United striker, Tom Clare.
The squad is further strengthened by the return of two players who were unavailable last weekend. Jonathan Royle, who was unavailable for the FA Trophy tie, will be available for selection this weekend alongside Liam Hughes who has completed his suspension following an early red card against Leamington.
Chester, who sit third in the table, bolstered their midfield this week with the signing of Elton Ngwatala who had a spell with Dundee in the Scottish Premiership and will be hoping to close the five point gap between them and second placed York City today.
Towering striker Tom Clare has today put pen to paper to join the Avenue.
Clare joins the Avenue after he mutually departed Boston United yesterday and is raring to get going and put on the Avenue shirt.
Tom is no stranger to Bradford having joined Boston from neighbours Bradford City. Initially joining Boston on loan in March 2019 then signing permanently when he was released by Bradford City in July 2019.
Clare came through the youth ranks at Barnsley and has also had loan spells at Frickley Athletic and Ossett United.
The club can also confirm that following Jon Morans short term loan deal to Stafford he has now opted to join Stafford on a permanent basis. The club would like to thank Jon for all his efforts in an Avenue shirt and wish him all the best for the future.
The proposals have been in the pipeline for months, but now the paperwork has finally been completed and the lease will be effective once it is approved by Fields in Trust which has already indicated that it should be a formality. Roberts and The Horsfall Community Trust, which he helped found two years ago, have ambitious plans and are looking to install a 3G pitch, improve lighting, fencing, roadways and parking, and some building work – with help from funding partners.
The improvements would provide a space to extend and improve existing uses, provide a better experience, and allow more opportunity for the public, especially children, to play a range of sporting activities at the ground every day, something the owner feels is vital for the Bradford community.
Roberts, who is from Bradford but now lives in Texas, flew over from America at the end of last week to help finalise the deal.
Gareth said:
“We’ve been working hard on the lease for a long time, and we are grateful to the Bradford Council and to Fields In Trust for showing this level of confidence in us to take the site forwards at last. Together with the Horsfall Trust we have created the conditions for the community to come together and invest in what I believe can be a fantastic sports hub and a whole set of varied facilities for decades to come. In anticipation of the signing of the lease, we have appointed Colin Wilson as our Consultant Director of Development to add to our existing team and help pull everything together. He’ll be around quite a lot. We now invite potential partners and users of The Horsfall Community Sports Hub Project to come forwards with their ideas and discuss possibilities with us. We are very excited to hear from you”.
Gareth also said,
“We’ve got plenty of pictures of what the ground should look like in future. Many people have already put in a lot of work planning this development. In the works are security fencing around the site, a 3G pitch and get some proper lights fitted around the ground, as the current lights are pointing all over the place! We couldn’t apply for financial help from the FA Stadium Improvement Fund until the lease was signed.
The project is close to Gareth Roberts’ heart. His family is originally from Wibsey and feels that there is not enough on offer for youngsters in the city, despite the best efforts of the council, and he wants to go some way towards changing that. He said:
“My goal is to help kids in Bradford. So many of the local grass pitches are in poor shape. Our proposed 3G pitch could be used every day and the new, modern lights cost less to run too. You can dim them, put them on and off whenever you want – they are very flexible these days.”
Gareth has also refused to completely rule out the idea of creating a new professional rugby team to play there either.
“We need to get the 3G pitch laid, with a crash pad underneath, so it suits both rugby and football, before we can have rugby played there. The project is primarily for the benefit of the community and there will be play on the 3G pitch during the week and on weekends. We could stage amateur rugby league games if teams want to use it, and we could potentially look at enabling or creating another rugby league team to play there, up to Rugby League Championship standard. To come up to those standards we would need a few things doing, but not too much. And our official capacity is about 3,500 but with a few changes, we could quickly expand that to 5,000.”
“These improvements will not come cheap and unfortunately the 3G pitch is not eligible to get any funding from the football powers that be. That means that we will need to find partners to help with its funding.”
“This project will deliver much needed facilities for sport in Bradford . Please contact Colin on 03335660031 and discuss ideas and possibilities with us. These things need to be financially viable, but there are many ways to partner up together. We are excited to hear from you in the next few weeks.
The trails are open to 16-19 year olds as the club looks to find the next generation of footballers to join the Academy, as well as candidates to join our Under 19’s squad this season.
The trials for the Academy and Under 19’s side will take place at the University of Bradford training facility, behind the Laisteridge Lane Student Village.
The trials will take place from 3-5pm on Friday the 29th of November 2019.
Address:
Laisteridge Lane Student Village Bradford
Laisteridge Lane,
Bradford,
BD5 0NH
Email: info@AvenueAcademy.co.uk
The tie was announced live on talkSPORT on Monday, following Bradford’s 2-0 victory away at Gloucester City in the third qualifying round.
The first round will feature all the 24 current National League teams.
Halesowen currently sit 6th in the Southern Central of Non-League Division 1 after collecting a tally of 24 points with 8 wins and 2 losses in 10 games, although they do have several games in hand over the teams above them.
The game will take place on Saturday the 14th of December at 3:00pm at the Horsfall.
The winning clubs from this round will take home a prize of £4500 while the losing teams will collect £1500.
Bradford were originally scheduled to have the week off, so this fixture will have no bearing or impact on any future league games.
Please note that as this is not a league game season tickets will not be valid for this fixture and it will be pay at the gate.
