The earliest records have the our club playing at Little Horton Cricket Club’s ground just off All Saint’s Road near to St. Lukes’s Hospital and then having what can only be called a peripatetic existence until moving to Park Avenue in 1880. In 1885 Bradford Rugby Club is listed as one of the inaugural clubs in the Northern Union which was the precursor of the Rugby League.
This all leads to a debate about just what constitutes a ‘club’ and as to how certain aspects of it can fall by the way side, whilst the ‘club’ itself seems carry on ad infinitum and to the question of exactly how do we define ‘ a club’.
It’s perhaps easier to say what it isn’t. It isn’t, for instance, the players because they change constantly nor is it the directors for similar reasons. It isn’t just the supporters either because eventually we die or lose interest, it isn’t the ground or any set of buildings either since they can be changed too. It isn’t any commercial aspect either since we still regard any new company formed to run the club as still being ‘the club’. It isn’t even a combination of any or all of the above.
It seems that the ‘club’ is some kind of spiritual link, in which the baton is passed through the generations but which has no logical link to earthly considerations like businesses going bust or changes in circumstance. Since this is so, can we disregard the 1907 decision to play soccer and the 1963 playing and financial disaster and indeed our most recent brushes with demise, which killed a few companies but which clearly didn’t end the ‘club’ and we can stick to the Bulls/Northern being born in 1863?
For those who made it to the end, I thank you for your patience!
