Odsal Stadium
Odsal Stadium is a multipurpose stadium in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. The stadium is currently the home of Bradford Bulls rugby league football club and Yorstox Stock Cars, who host regular monthly meetings of BriSCA Formula 1 and Formula 2 Stock Cars. The stadium, originally owned by Bradford City Council, had its leasehold purchased by the Rugby Football League governing body in 2012 due to financial problems at the council. In 2025, the stadium was bought back from the RFL by the Bradford Bulls.
Previously, the stadium has also been used by the Bradford Dukes motorcycle speedway team, hosting the 1997 Speedway Grand Prix of Great Britain and the football team Bradford City for a temporary groundshare following the Valley Parade fire while their ground was rebuilt. Odsal Stadium has also historically hosted baseball, women's football, American football, basketball, kabaddi, show jumping, tennis, live music concerts, and international rugby league matches over the years.
The stadium's highest attendance was 102,569 in 1954 for the Warrington-Halifax Challenge Cup Final replay, and for a domestic, non-final, rugby league match, 69,429 at the third round Challenge Cup tie between Bradford Northern and Huddersfield in 1953.
History
1933–1935: Construction and opening
Formed in 1907, the Bradford Northern club had played at a number of venues, including the Greenfield Athletic Ground in Dudley Hill and Bowling Old Lane Cricket Club's ground in Birch Lane. By the early 1920s, however, Birch Lane's limitations were clear, and Northern began to seek another home. Precarious finances prevented the club form being able to take up an offer to develop land off Rooley Lane or to upgrade and move back to Greenfield, but in 1933, Bradford City Council gave them the opportunity to transform land at Odsal Top into their home ground. On 20 June 1933 the club therefore signed a ten-year deal on the site, which was to become the biggest stadium in England outside Wembley.The site was a former quarry that was then being used as a landfill tip. Ernest Call M.B.E., the Director of Cleansing for Bradford City Council, devised a system of controlled tipping that saw 140,000 cartloads of household waste deposited to form the characteristic banking at Odsal. The club was to be responsible for boundary fencing, dressing rooms, and seated accommodation.
To be able to turf the pitch and other areas, a turf fund was put into place that raised a total of £900 to cover the work. A stand was erected at the cost of £2,000, which was paid for by the RFL. It held 1,500 on a mixture of benches and tip-up seats.
The ground was officially opened by Sir Joseph Taylor, President of Huddersfield, on 1 September 1934. His club went on to beat the hosts 31–16, Australian winger Ray Markham scoring four tries in front of an estimated 20,000. The clubhouse and dressing rooms were officially opened before a match against Hull F.C. on 2 February 1935. Contemporary pictures show that as late as August 1935 the banking on the Rooley Avenue side was still being created.
1940–1979: Speedway and international rugby league
Under the instruction of Bradford Northern RFLC director Harry Hornby and local motorsport promoter Johnnie Hoskins, a sloping oval compacted dirt track was especially designed to surround the rugby pitch to allow professional speedway racing to take place at Odsal in 1945, the initial Bradford team known as the Odsal Boomerangs. In the post-Second World War years, speedway proved extremely popular with crowds of over 20,000 regularly attending meetings at Odsal, with the 1946 average for the first year of the National League after the war. The highest speedway attendance during this period came on 5 July 1947, when 47,050 fans saw the England national speedway team defeat Australia 65–43 in a Test match. This remains the largest-ever speedway crowd for Odsal Stadium.During the Second World War, the lower floor of the clubhouse was also used as an Air Raid Precautions centre, and one of the dressing rooms was the map room. On 20 December 1947, the largest-ever attendance for an international test at Odsal was set when 42,685 saw England national rugby league team defeat New Zealand 25–9. The first floodlit rugby match in the North of England was held at Odsal in 1951. In September 1951, Council Engineer Ernest Wardley drew up a plan for a 92,000-capacity 'European' style stadium at a cost of £250,000. Eventually, £50,000 was spent on terracing the Rooley Avenue end in 1964, before the Wardley plan was officially dropped the following year.
After a disastrous 1960 season, the Panthers left Odsal and in 1961 moved across town to the Greenfield Stadium, better known for greyhound racing. After the Panthers folded in 1962, motorcycle speedway would not return to Bradford for another ten years.
Speedway returned to Odsal when promoters Les Whaley, Mike Parker and Bill Bridgett moved the British League Division Two side Nelson Admirals to the stadium for the final eleven league meetings of the 1970 season, going on to adopt Bradford Northern as their name and red, black, and amber as their colors. Northern finished second in Division 2 in 1971, but from there results and attendances steadily declined, and the team folded after 1973.
The second test of the 1978 Ashes series was played at Odsal, with Great Britain defeating Australia before a crowd of 26,761. The Lions team that day featured what was called a "Dad's Army" front row with Jim Mills, Tony Fisher and Brian Lockwood all being over the age of 30.
1980–1996: Bradford City and the return of speedway
The ground's clubhouse had to be refurbished when it was condemned in the mid-1980s. The social facilities were also upgraded at the same time.Speedway returned to Odsal in 1985 after a ten-year absence when it was selected by the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme to host the 1985 World Final.
Following the Valley Parade fire of 1985, Bradford City A.F.C. played a handful of games at Leeds Road and Elland Road while Valley Parade was being rebuilt. On 23 September 1985, a Football League delegation visited Odsal to evaluate its fitness to host City's home games. Segregation fences were erected on the old Main Stand side and 1,000 uncovered seats were bolted onto the terracing; it was planned to install 7,000 in the future. A further £1 million was spent to conform with new safety standards, bringing the total spent on Odsal to £3.5 million; new boundary walls, turnstiles, exit gates, a bus layby in Rooley Avenue and access road were added. Odsal played host to Bradford City's Second Division home matches until December 1986.
Like most British stadia, Odsal had its capacity substantially reduced by the safety measures introduced in the 1990s following the Hillsborough disaster and the findings of the Taylor Report.
1996–2019: Super League and Championship eras
At the dawn of the Super League era in 1996, Bradford Northern, now renamed the Bradford Bulls, wanted to attract new sponsors but had poor and outdated hospitality suites. In 2000, the club announced plans to build hospitality suites at the South End of the stadium, which would mean building on the track around the pitch, effectively ending speedway's association with Bradford. Construction started in 2001 and was completed in 2002, with Bradford Bulls playing two seasons at Valley Parade.After London won the right to host the 2012 Summer Olympics, plans were put in place in 2008 for an Olympic Legacy Park at Odsal, which would mean redeveloping the stadium and the Richard Dunn Leisure Centre opposite; these plans never came to fruition and a Legacy Park was built in Sheffield instead.
In 2012, Bradford Bulls encountered severe financial difficulties, causing the to step in and purchase the leasehold to Odsal Stadium. Since being relegated to the RFL Championship in 2014, their problems intensified. In early 2017 the Bulls were formally liquidated and a new phoenix club was formed by Andrew Chalmers, who announced plans to redevelop Odsal into a venue fit for Super League and international rugby league, however, like previous plans, they were shelved.
Nearby association football club Bradford A.F.C., whose current home venue is the Bradford City Council-owned football ground Horsfall Stadium had on several occasions discussed relocating to Odsal, most recently in 2018, however they repeatedly decided against such a move, leaving Odsal as a single-rent, single-use stadium.
2019–2021: Bulls leave Odsal Stadium
Due to the club's ongoing precarious financial situation and increasing running costs at the stadium, including the £72,000 rent payable to the RFL, the Bradford Bulls made the decision to leave Odsal for a groundshare with Dewsbury Rams at Crown Flatt to ensure the club's survival. On 1 September 2019, the club played what was believed to be their last home match at Odsal after 85 years.2021–present: Return of stock cars and the Bulls
Talks with the RFL were ongoing during the club's absence from Odsal Stadium. Two years later in 2021, they agreed a return to the stadium as a co-tenant with stock car promoters YorStox. The shale motorsport racing track was restored for the return of regular professional BriSCA Formula 1 and Formula 2 stock car meetings, which resulted in the reintroduction of removable pitch corners and a narrowing of the rugby pitch. Despite the resultant changes to the pitch rendering it beneath minimum standards for professional rugby league, the sport's governing body allowed the Bulls to return to their former home.On 30 August 2025, following a Bradford Bulls Championship fixture against Toulouse Olympique, a small fire broke out in a hospitality area within the South Bank, causing the evacuation of the stadium and the callout of firefighters but resulting in no injuries.