By Andrew Smith
There has been a major makeover at League One play-off contenders Bradford City, with a new scoreboard and a refurbished dressing room.
Nearly 2,000 fans raised a total of £152,631 in order to give Valley Parade an upgrade.
James Mason, Bradford City chief operating officer, said: “We’ve seen the scoreboard at its best in the first few weeks of operation after one of our former players, Bobby Campbell, died. We played a two and a half minute montage of his famous goals, with pictures of him as a player with fans and with family.”
Mason added: “I think the players really welcome the new changing rooms. They’re clean, modern and functional, and that’s a massive improvement and what they were before.”
Carl Smith, vice chair of the Bradford City Supporters’ Board, came up with the idea to start a crowdfunding campaign. Smith said: “The Supporters’ Board have a meeting with the club once a month and the club was really interested in using the funding website ‘Tifosy’ to raise finances.”
Smith said: “The club needed to update the changing rooms in order to meet Football League regulations. The work on those was completed before the start of the current season.”
Bradford had hoped to debut the new screen at the start of the season, but delays pushed the installation back.
Mason said: “There are a number of suites that we would like to upgrade. We’ve got a number of seats that are now decaying. These are things we’ve got to look at doing in the summer, but we have to prioritise what are the most important things. If you gave me a hundred million pounds, I’d spend it.”