A New Dawn?

2025-11-10T14:22:05+00:00

I had been watching Bradford Northern since I was a toddler. Although in those early years playing on the ash banks surrounding the pitch and in the tram that served as a scoreboard were more important than what happened on the field. Over the years, after I realised that what was happening on the field was actually interesting and exciting, Northern had unfortunately struggled. In the early 1960s Odsal Stadium was largely empty on match days. I remember getting excited at the prospect of a 1,000 spectators being present. It didn’t happen very often! Northern obviously still hoped to be successful again, but it seemed that the people running the club didn’t really have the necessary resources to make that happen.

Bradford Northern

The 1961/62 Season for Northern had been particularly depressing. Week after week I went along to watch, hoping for the best, but expecting the worst, results were very poor. In fact the 1961/62 season was probably going to turn out to be Northern’s worst for thirty years. With three games left the club had only achieved two wins and a draw. In September 1961 Castleford were beaten by 8-0 at home. We then had to wait until February 1962 for a 3-0 win over Dewsbury and then the 10 all draw with Keighley. So it came to Saturday the 28th of April 1962, when Northern were due to face Batley at Odsal. The Batley game was the first of the three home games that had to be played in the following seven days to complete the season.

The long season had moved towards its conclusion with Northern at the bottom of the League and with no prospect of an improved position, even with three matches to go. Liverpool City were next to the bottom, but had twelve points and so, even if Northern won their last three games, they couldn’t move from bottom place. The Rugby Football League had decided that the following year the competition would have two divisions, perhaps to help strugglers like Northern win a few more games.

I am sure the club and its long suffering supporters were resigned to three more defeats. Batley had beaten Northern at Mount Pleasant in the previous December. Hull KR, who we were to play in the second game, were in the top half of the League and had reached the Challenge Cup Semi Final. Barrow, hadn't had a brilliant season, but had managed fourteen wins and were in mid table. Northern’s three remaining games were crammed into a seven day period at the end of April and beginning of May, a test of stamina and endurance as well as skill.

I decided I would go to all three games and as the eternal optimist, a necessary requirement for a Northern supporter in those days, I hoped that we might win one of the games. Two months from the end of the season Northern had recruited a former Workington Town player called Jock McAvoy to coach and play for the team. However, to date he hadn’t really turned the club’s fortunes round. I assume that everybody at Odsal, including the supporters, was looking forward to the end of the season and probably regarded the last three games as an ordeal to be endured before they could have a rest and hope for better things the following season.

Jock McAvoy

Surprisingly, the game against Batley on the 28th of April saw a Northern victory by 18 points to 11. Jock McAvoy played at loose forward scored two tries and inspired the win. The crowd of 738 must have been made up of die hard enthusiasts who at least got a reward for their attendance as Northern recorded a rare victory. There were sixteen less spectators at Odsal on the following Monday evening probably expecting to see a big victory by Hull KR. What a surprise we got! With McAvoy again at loose forward Northern beat the Robins by 9 points to 3.

The game against Barrow on Friday the 4th of May, was going to bring the curtain down on the season. The two wins, or perhaps the early summer weather, brought an extra one hundred and twenty fans to Odsal to give a gate of 842 for what we expected was going to be the night the bubble burst. After seventy nine minutes it appeared that was exactly what was going to happen. Barrow had been the better team and had scored four tries to Northern’s one, but had only managed to kick one goal. Northern were still in the game because of the four penalties kicked by the club’s South African centre Goeli Abed. On the terraces we all knew there was very little time left when a speculative up and under from Northern full back Bill Seddon landed over the try line. The ball was immediately pounced on by prop forward Don Hatfield for the try that levelled the scores at 14 points all. That prompted a pitch invasion from the nearly hysterical Northern supporters who all sensed a remarkable treble. The referee had to clear the spectators from the pitch before Abed could step up to convert the try and win the game.

The scenes afterwards were reminiscent of a famous cup victory and everyone who was there went home happy, apart from perhaps the club Directors. They had promised the players a special bonus if they managed to achieve the remarkable treble. I am sure that after the club’s dismal season the Directors assumed this was a promise they wouldn’t have to keep. The 1961/62 season ended with great optimism on the terraces with, I am sure, many of the supporters thinking that Jock McAvoy was the new Odsal ‘messiah’. Then in the Bradford Telegraph and Argus on 7th June 1962, a little over a month after the final league game, there was a shock headline that said ‘ Jock McAvoy quits Odsal’.

Apparently, for the two months he was at Bradford McAvoy was an unpaid coach. He only received expenses and players pay when he played in a game. He said that he had taken the job on an unpaid basis with a view to getting an official appointment. Unfortunately, no official position was offered by the club. Perhaps the Directors decided McAvoy was too expensive to keep if that meant they had to pay winning money more often. Whatever the reason the following year Northern returned to their usual losing ways and finished the season at the bottom of the league again. Two wins and a draw in the newly formed second division was all they could manage.

That week in 1962 wasn’t the ‘New Dawn’ , but it was certainly memorable. Those three victories and the name Jock McAvoy have lived in my memory for over sixty years.