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Dynamoes Were Not Go
Jul 3rd, 2008 | By admin | Category: Latest, The Game, non-league
In West Yorkshire, a name from the past is stirring, and it isn’t doing it in a terribly dignified manner. Bradford Park Avenue, the subjects of a fond article on here before, have starting flexing their financial muscles and have already managed get themselves instated as the favourites for this season’s Unibond League Premier Division championship, and now their millionaire chairman has announced plans to build a 20,000 seater stadium for them. Never mind the fact that Bradford’s average crowds haven’t yet risen above 500 people for home matches. Never mind the fact that their considerably bigger rivals, Bradford City, only required a capacity of a shade over 20,000 when they were in the Premier League. Never mind that the original Bradford Park Avenue collapsed in the early 1970s thanks to a lack of local interest with crowds in their final season in the Northern Premier League in 1973/74 seldom reaching more than 600. Their millionaire chairman, Bob Blackburn, has decided that they deserve a 20,000 capacity stadium, so they will have it - and he’s a millionaire, so he must be right, mustn’t he? Well, Bradford supporters are getting very excited about the possibility of their team challenging for the place in the Football League that the original club lost in 1970, but a cautionary tale from just the other side of the Pennines might just persuade their supporters to approach the future with a somewhat less devil may care attitude than they are currently exhibiting. That example is Colne Dynamoes - probably the most famous boom and bust club of all.

Colne’s story probably couldn’t be more cautionary, and it is a story that mirrors what could yet go wrong for the green and white half of Bradford. Dynamoes were founded in 1963 in the small Lancashire town near Burnley, and for more than twenty of their twenty-seven year long existence, they led a fairly meagre existence, making steady progress through the amateur leagues of Lancashire and into the Lancashire Combination in 1975. Expansion of the North West Counties League in 1982 allowed them to progress in a more senior level of the game, and by the middle of the 1980s they were starting to spend money. The money belonged to manager/chairman Graham White, who had made a fortune from timber and property, and it all went on the team. In 1988 they won the FA Vase, beating Yorkshire club Emley 1-0 at Wembley, and it was at this point that the spending went out of control. Promoted into the First Division of the Northern Premier League, they started spending more than many lower division Football League clubs could afford on players (former Liverpool and England international Alan Kennedy was the most stellar member of a new, full-time team) and won promotion to the Premier Division at the first attempt, suffering just one league defeat all season.

The following season, in spite of more outstanding appearances on the pitch (they reached the semi-final of the FA Trophy and won the NPL Premier Division championship and a place in the Conference, losing just four league matches all season and finishing twenty-six points clear of second placed Gateshead), the cracks were beginning to show. Unbeknownst to anyone at Holt House, White had recently unsuccessfully attempted to buy Burnley but, whilst crowds had swollen to an average of over 1,000, all of the money was going into spending wages (effectively money down the drain) and none of it was going into the infrastructure of the club itself. Colne’s promotion into the Conference was a classic case of too much too soon, but White seemed practically paralysed by the sudden jump up. Holt House, with only a couple of hundred seats and a capacity of just 2,500, was never going to be up to Conference standard, and the club was barred from promotion.

What happened next is open to speculation. We know that White offered Burnley £500,000 to ground-share at Turf Moor, a ridiculous amount of money, and that he then unveiled plan to build a new stadium for the club in the nearby town of Nelson (ironically, the club’s commercial manager during this period, the former Burnley player Paul Fletcher, went on to become one of this country’s leading stadium project managers, overseeing the construction of Huddersfield Town’s Galpharm Stadium and Coventry City’s Ricoh Arena). After this, though, it’s something of a mystery. What we know for sure is that the money seems to have very suddenly run out. The team played a pre-season friendly against Newcastle Blue Star, and after this White called the players in and told them that there was, simply, no more money and that the club was folding - they didn’t even start the competitive 1990/91 season. Holt House survived. It was used by Colne Royal British Legion FC until they in turn folded and a new club, Colne FC, was founded. Colne FC have risen to the First Division of the North West Counties League and made the semi-final of the FA Vase in 2004.

So, Bradford Park Avenue’s supporters will be looking forward to this coming season with extraordinary optimism. However, the question of why Bradford Park Avenue of the Unibond League Premier Division need a 20,000 capacity stadium has not, to my eyes, been satisfactorily answered (short of some vague marketing guff about containing the word “ambition” repeated several times over), and the twin pressures of trying to fund this and spending a lot of money on players (which they have also been doing - you don’t find yourselves installed as favourites to win a league that you have only just been promoted into for no reason, you know) could well, no matter how good or bad the intentions of Bob Blackburn are, turn out to be a castle built on sand.

One comment
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Chris Taylor July 4th, 2008 11:26 pm :

The BPA fans I’ve chatted to don’t seem to care at all that Bob Blackburn is putting the future of their club in danger. Their opinion seems to be that if the club goers bust they’ll just rebuild it from the bottom again, but the memories of buying promotion after promotion can never be taken away fro them. Which is thick, but up to them of course.

Blackburn, a man who I have very little time for both as a representative of BPA and as a person, seems to be counting on this ‘league football in five years’ pledge he made. Certainly there’s no way they can support their current spending in the non league. But you’ll excuse me for not losing any sleep over it either way.

By the way, it’s a 20,000 *minimum* capacity stadium. As pointed out in the rather excellent Boston United fanzine, impsTALK, that’s about 100 seats per fan.

i'm sure bob might actually say that there are so many inaccuracies in both the original article, the subsequent comment and the impstalk "article" that there isn't really much point in taking it seriously.

ah well. football eh?

Total bollocks

Who cares! without BB the long term future was in the league we just got out of.

Where was the original article from?

I didn't see any one complaining about spending money when we were in Conference North and were being outgunned by big spenders when we didn't have two pennies to rub together. I hope we stick it right up these whingers and do it again this season. Up the Avenue!

As a neutral I found that article very interesting reading. The responses of people here are very alarming simply for the fact that they didn't address any of the issues that the article brought up. I feel BPA supporters are burying their heads in the sands. How can BPA maintain the rise up the leagues with the paltry amount of support they are going to be getting from the local community ? BB,s pockets are only so long, and even he won't be able subsidise BPA for too long. When the well dries up the club will sink.

Oi Bluenose, If we end up in the Football League great! If we end up in Unibond First Div again well what have we lost? I will still follow them home and away but while things are on the up i will enjoy myself and all the moaning minnies who are seething with envy at other clubs can go and do one. I am not interested in what they think. I am sure that all these other Unibond League Supporters would tell a millionaire who wanted to invest in their club to get lost. I think not. Bob Blackburn has been the best thing to happen to this club for years, we were going nowhere before he came here. We have had more exposure in the Press and local community in the last 12 months than since god knows when. So to whoever it may concern, mind your own business leave us alone and let us enjoy the ride!

The facts in the article about Colne Dynamoes are basically accurate. I was present at Colne Town Hall when the successful Vase-winning team came up the packed main street on top of a bus for a civic reception, and was involved with mcuh of the discussion between the club and the Council.

One of the real mistakes that was made was not to make sure that there was a ground that the Conference would accept before getting promotion. By the time of the rather panicky effort to build a new ground there simply was not the time to do it. There was no acceptable site in Colne at the time and there was not the time to build a new ground on the Nelson site even if Pendle Council would give permission to use the land (it's Council playing fields) and if planning permission could be obtained. Both were possible but not certain - there was local opposition in the neighbouring estate.

There is no secret about the collapse of the club. Graham White's money was largely in property and it was the time of the collapse in property prices. He simply could not afford to continue to bankroll the club. The Holt House "stadium" was handed over to the Council for local use and, as the article points out, is now being used by Colne FC who have been making modest progress.

I would say that the important thing for the Park Avenue club is to get facilities built in advance of further progress, which seems to be planned.

No-one can guarantee against the bankroller of a project not going on with it for whatever reason. But if I were closely involved with the Park Avenue club I would want to suggest some guarantees about future use of the ground and facilities in the longer term. I would hope that the present-day boss and benefactor would be looking to providing a legacy for the future: something that clearly did not happen here in Colne.

Tony Greaves

Spot on there Christian, i couldn't agree more.

There isn't too many seasons of progress left in Horsfall? Two at the most? Then what? Surely Phoenix Park will be nowhere near ready in two years time. Any money spent upgrading Horsfall in the mean time is all dead money.

Not a dig just valid questions. I hope your move to Phoenix park comes off and I certainly hope that one day Bradford can boast two league teams once again. Progress on the pitch for you lot suggests that it could become reality and soon. Ground issues on the other hand could hinder that

But Graham White got into trouble with Colne because his money was in property and the market collapsed, and Bob's money is in building and we are facing a recession, particularly in building so there could be a similarity there.

QUOTE (theprisoner @ Jul 10 2008, 04:36 PM)

But Graham White got into trouble with Colne because his money was in property and the market collapsed, and Bob's money is in building and we are facing a recession, particularly in building so there could be a similarity there.