It’s an unusual hobby being a football fan. Tell someone who shares your passion that you love fly-fishing or macramé or wargaming and you have a friend for life. Tell a football fan who your team is and unless you strike the jackpot you will invariably encounter snobbery, disinterest or worse, open enmity, probably to some perceived crime committed in the late 60’s, or last weekend, or anywhere in between. “You stole our goalkeeper/manager/cleaner” and the like. It’s hard to engender genuine interest in a lower league club from Premier League followers, but for those of us who drive the motorway network or ride the rail system (if it’s working) to the away games we can share a common bond of excitement in the away fan experience. Well, at least at the other 90 grounds. Probably.

Assuming your idea of a good day out was not a punch up, in 1984 Bradford was not a great away day. My mate Mark (a Derby fan with a Derby accent) was up visiting for Christmas, so Klaas, Mark and I caught the short train ride from Bingley into Bradford for the Christmas game, Bradford vs Bolton. Accents were very important in the 80’s at football matches. Klaas being of Dutch forebears actually had a cracking Braford accent, certainly compared to the rest of us.

Mark as mentioned had a Derby accent, and though this was definitively not a Bolton accent, we were living in the era of “We hate Derby and we hate Derby” as they had recently stolen our manager. Therefore. Mark’s choice of accent was decidedly poor. Finally, there’s me. I have a non-descript, vaguely Northern (to Southerners), vaguely posh (to Bradfordians) accent, I think. I was once on a night out with Klaas in Bradford and we got talking to some girls, as you do. They were quite intrigued. You get the point.

Klaas, being an old hand at this, took the lead as we made the mile walk from Forster square along Manningham Lane to Valley Parade. I think we got asked the time 3 times by youths hanging out in doorways. Three times Klaas quickly responded. They were looking for a fight with Boltonians, but Derby would probably have done. I’m not sure what they would have made of me.

Into the ground and it was no better. For some unknown reason, some genius had decided that it was a good idea to split the kop in two; a large part for the home fans and a smaller part for the away fans with metal barriers and a small no-man’s land in between. Add to this the fact that the kop was visibly crumbling and you had a recipe for a good rubble throwing party. Ridiculous.

Anyhow, we survived, and the ground did not last much longer. I will not cover that here other than to say I was not there on the day of the fire so I have nothing to add other than my sadness. Rest in Peace the 56.

Then there was the man on the roof.

If you went to valley parade in the 80’s or early 90’s you would have seen the man on the roof. There are a lot of grounds around the country where it is easy to kick the ball clear over the stand. But valley parade is the only ground where I have seen a man standing on the roof of the offending small stand. The thing is, no one seems to know why he was there. He certainly wasn’t trying to stop the ball. Valley parade is built into a steep hillside so if he had fallen off attempting to stop the ball he would have had a very steep drop. He also didn’t seem to be directing the ball recovery operation.

I’m afraid to say I always cheered when the ball headed his way and he always got out of the way. I remember Steve Staunton kicking it his way with his first kick of the ball at valley parade. Steve got better. I have googled it but I can’t find any hard evidence of who the man on the roof was or why he was there. I have hearsay that he was a milkman named Derek from Shipley. That sounds right?

In its later years the stand roof was also used as a rather precarious looking TV gantry. Pity the guys who worked there on a cold Tuesday night. The stand was replaced and reopened in 1996. The steel from the old stand was sold to Barrow who intended to use it for their ground, but during their insolvency the steel apparently “disappeared”.

Today, I hope, the experience of the away fan is vastly improved. Apart from on the busiest of days or with fans from teams with a troublesome reputation the away fans are welcomed into the pubs and it’s all very jolly. Let me personally recommend The Corn Dolly, or the Exchange. If, however you support a “big” team or a “bad” team you may well have to make do with the Bradford Arms on Manningham Lane, half way from the station to the ground. I have never been in but it looks awful. I would say one thing in its defence. On a busy away day the away fans do seem to generate a cracking atmosphere in there.

Anyway, I hope I am not biased when I suggest that today, Bradford is in the top 10 for cracking away days, good pubs, good pies, easy to park. Just don’t get a time machine and go back to 1984.