Grattan Stadium

Grattan Stadium Profile

The Grattan Stadium, Odsal is a stadium situated in Bradford in the northern English county of Yorkshire. The venue is used for Rugby league and is currently the home ground of the Bradford Bulls and has been ever since 1934.

The official name of the stadium was changed from Odsal to Grattan Stadium on 20 June 2006, by selling the naming rights to Grattan they would recive £500,000 in a four year deal. This ended rumours regarding a permanent return to Bradford City’s Valley Parade.

History:

The club signed a 10 year deal on 20 June 1933 with Bradford Council to make it their home ground. At the time it was just a tipping site: but with some hard work, a pitch was laid and a stand was erected at the cost of £2,000, which was paid by the Rugby Football League. Odsal is famous for at one time holding the world record for the largest rugby league crowd of 102,569 in a Rugby League Challenge Cup Final replay between Warrington and Halifax on 5 May 1954. However it is thought that many more than this attended the game, as this doesn’t include thousands who watched the game from outside the stadium. The official record attendance of 102,569 for a rugby league fixture stood for roughly 45 years before being broken in 1999 following the opening of Stadium Australia.

Odsal Stadium also held a modern day attendance record for almost 6 years. On 3 September 1999, a then Super League record crowd of 24,020 saw Bradford Bulls defeat Leeds Rhinos by 19 points to 18. On 25 March 2005, Wigan Warriors set a new Super League record crowd when 25,004 supporters packed into the JJB Stadium for the huge local derby against St Helens RFC.

Although Odsal is best known as a Rugby League ground, it has also hosted many other sports, including speedway, stock car racing, basketball featuring the World famous Harlem Globetrotters, wrestling, show jumping and the Asian sport of Kabaddi.

2002-2003 Redevelopments:

With the return to Odsal Stadium for 2003 the Bulls highlighted the requirement to create hospitality, conference and banqueting facilities to enable the stadium, and Club, to compete with the likes of Wigan Warriors JJB Stadium, Leeds Rhinos Headingley Stadium and Huddersfield Giants McAlpine Stadium.

It was therefore decided that the existing ‘Pits’ area of the stadium, used previously for the now defunct speedway club, would be developed into a two-tier structure housing the Club’s corporate operations. The construction of the Corporate Facility began in November 2002 and was completed in time for the Bulls biggest game of Super League VIII against Leeds Rhinos on 26 April 2003. The facility includes Executive Boxes, A restaurant, Bar, Players Lounge, Media Facility, Directors Lounge and Scoreboard, and the imposing structure completes the unique natural bowl of the stadium.

In December 2003 Bradford Bulls announced an agreement with regional Window and Conservatory Company Coral, which saw the facility renamed as the Coral Stand.

Future Redevelopments:

Bradford Bulls lodged a planning application to further improve Odsal Stadium and turn the Stadium and the adjacent land into a sporting village. the plans include

* The Stadium-covered accommodation and additional hospitality facilities for spectators on the side opposite what is the present main stand. This will provide additional seating but will also retain the current amount of standing accommodation on that side of the ground. New Club offices and Club shop will be built at the Rooley Avenue end within a complex that will also include a small hotel and gymnasium. The construction at this end of the ground will be really eye-catching and attractive. It will make a big impact and suitable entrance which will be so befitting for what is a very special, world-renowned stadium.

* The creation of 3 state of the art all-weather pitches, a cricket field with new pavilion, a floodlit soccer pitch with covered stand and an athletics track plus additional car parking for over 1,500 vehicles on the landfill site adjacent to and to the south of the stadium.

* The removal of the Richard Dunn Leisure Centre and its replacement by a new, state of the art indoor sports and leisure facility on the adjacent NHS land will also provide a new access road from Rooley Avenue to this facility and to the car parking and other sporting facilities to the south.

* The construction of a 3,500 person indoor arena

(source .. wikipedia) reproduced under GFDL

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