Park Avenue
Bradford, West Yorkshire, England
Park Avenue, Bradford, England — opened 1880, 227 rugby league games hosted, home of Bradford (Northern Union club, 1895-1907; converted to association football as Bradford (Park Avenue) A.F.C. in 1907).
Ground facts
| Opened | 1880 (The ground itself dates to 1880 (first recorded sporting use); Bradford's rugby football club began playing there in the 1880 and joined the Northern Union (rugby league) in 1895, per bradfordfc.org.uk and Wikipedia.) |
| Home club | Bradford (Northern Union club, 1895-1907; converted to association football as Bradford (Park Avenue) A.F.C. in 1907) |
| Closed | 1970 (football club left the Football League); ground demolished 1980 |
| Demolished | 1980 |
| Site today | The adjoining Park Avenue cricket ground survives and is run by the Park Avenue Bradford Charity; the former football/rugby pitch site has a gym and cricket nets, and sections of the old perimeter wall and bricked-up terrace entrances are still visible. |
| Games hosted (rugby league, on record) | 227 |
| Top recorded crowd | 18,500 |
| Years used | 1895–1908 |
| Location | Bradford, West Yorkshire |
Name history
- Park Avenue — 1880-1980 (base name, still used generically for the site)
Rugby league history
Park Avenue was primarily a cricket and football ground, but for rugby league it was the home of the original Bradford club from the code's earliest Northern Union days: Bradford reached the 1897-98 Challenge Cup Final (losing 7-0 to Batley) and won the Yorkshire Senior Competition in 1899-1900 and 1900-01. The club's form and finances collapsed after rule changes in 1906, and in May 1907 members voted to abandon rugby altogether and convert to association football, becoming Bradford (Park Avenue) A.F.C. A separate club, Bradford Northern, was formed shortly afterwards to keep rugby league alive in the city, but it did not inherit Park Avenue — it started out at the Greenfield Athletic ground at Dudley Hill from September 1907 before eventually settling at Odsal. Park Avenue itself hosted no further first-class rugby league after 1907.
Park Avenue is much better known as a football and cricket venue: Bradford (Park Avenue) A.F.C. played League football there until 1973 (a 32,810 crowd saw Stanley Matthews there in a 1944 War Cup tie), and the cricket ground beside it hosted first-class and Test-adjacent cricket, including a Players of the North v Australians match in 1880.
Sources
Data last verified: 11 August 2026.
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