Bradford Salem ready to celebrate centenary year

A millionaire alongside his brother Verney, having earned their fortunes in the textile industry (Bradford was the richest city in Europe in 1903 on the back of the wool trade, also it is believed having the most millionaires too), they both ran the Congregational Church and not, as many have since believed, the Methodist Church.

The duo formed the Salem Young Men's Class, which was also known as the Salem Brotherhood - an organisation that was open to men aged 16 and over.

Many sports featured, such as cricket, football, tennis, crown green bowling and water polo, but not initially rugby union.

However, that changed in the autumn of 1923 when a group of young men approached Dudley with an idea of forming a rugby team.

This immediately peaked Dudley’s interest, who said that his brother had a spare field in Heaton that they could use as a pitch.

His advice was: buy yourselves some boots and we will do the rest! Consequently a new pavilion with showers was built at Leylands Lane.

And while nearly all those other sports have fallen by the wayside, rugby union and cricket still survive, with Salem Athletic Cricket Club still using the rugby club’s old ground at Leylands Lane (behind the medical centre), where, ironically, yours truly umpired a match in the Bradford & District Evening Cricket League just a few months ago on what was my first visit to the ground.

Salem’s soccer team, by the way, lasted longer than most of those sports already mentioned, folding in the early 1980s.

It was a struggle initially to attract rugby players to a church side, but a team was eventually got together and played their first match against Bradford E away (at Idle), with Salem notching up their first win.

However, the pavilion hadn’t been completed by this stage for home matches so a local farmer offered the use of his cowshed, with six-inch nails being hammered into the large beams for clothes hooks and a large tub being used as a bath (which evokes childhood memories of being washed in a tin bath).

The water was boiled in a pig-swill container and, after the visitors had had first dibs, it was the Salem player’s turn to get themselves clean (don’t drink the water may have been good advice).

The players would then catch a tram into Bradford for pie and mushy peas at Pie Toms - an all-year round venue for young Bradfordians, as was Collinson’s Cafe.

Originally called Salem Rugby FC, the word Bradford was added for the 1926-27 season, although Heaton RFC and West Bradford RFC were name changes that were disregarded.

In 1974, construction of the current clubhouse began on Shay Lane and, chiefly through the efforts of Leo Brumfitt and club members who provided the labour, the new clubhouse was opened in October 1976.

Six years later, work started on the first XV pitch and that was officially opened on September 11, 1983 when a Salem XV played the mighty Harlequins, who won 12-3.

As for what Salem have achieved in these 100 years, it is fair to say that they have garnered more honours than most clubs in that time.

For example, they have played three times at Twickenham - the holy grail for club players.

Incredibly, they faced the same team - Bicester from Oxfordshire - in the finals of the Provincial Insurance Cup in 1991 and 1992, despite an entry of 528 clubs each time in what is the equivalent of football’s FA Vase at Wembley.

And Salem won both finals - 17-12 in 1991 and 12-6 in 1992. I covered both matches for the Telegraph & Argus and found the occasions rather overwhelming, trying to do justice to the Heaton club’s achievements.

Salem’s other appearance on the ‘cabbage patch’ was in 2006-07 in the EDF Senior Vase, which Northwich won 18-13.

Dudley Ackroyd’s club have also won the Yorkshire Challenge Shield (second-tier cup competition in the Broad Acres) a record five times - 1960, 1962, 2009, 2015 and 2024 - while also being runners-up five times (1974, 1991, 2006, 2008, 2023).

And as for league rugby, Salem shot through the divisions in 1990-92, winning Yorkshire divisions Four, Three and Two in successive seasons, and to that silverware they added the Yorkshire Division One title in 1998.

They have also been promoted from Yorkshire Division Two as runners-up in 2005 and champions in 2015, but their double that year has been overshadowed by their treble in 2023-24 under head coach Bob Hood and his assistant Andy Robinson, winning Counties One Yorkshire, the Yorkshire Challenge Shield and Papa John’s Community Cup Counties One North Plate.

Salem, who had surprisingly lost to Baildon the year before at Doncaster’s Castle Park, defeated another derby rival in Keighley, while the Saturday before they had picked up the Papa John’s trophy by defeating Aldwinians from Menchester at Darlington Mowden Park.

That Counties One Yorkshire promotion has not only put Salem into regional rugby for only the second time in their history, but has elevated them for the first time into direct entry into the Yorkshire Cup (T’owd Tin Pot), although they have played in it before via success in the Yorkshire Shield.

Salem have been drawn at home to Goole in the first round, which they will play on Saturday, August 31, with a curtain-raiser beforehand between Salem Vets and Bradford & Bingley for the inaugural Peter Rae Memorial Trophy, with Peter being the elder brother of Salem stalwart Paul.

Rae snr, who died earlier this year, was the definition of a character (his sense of humour did not have a filter).

He propped for Bradford, Bingley and Bradford & Bingley, but has guested for Salem in their long-running Boxing Day fixture against Baildon, which often attracts larger crowds than for each club’s league fixtures.

Going back to that Yorkshire Cup qualification via reaching the Shield semi-finals, Salem faced Roundhay at Shay Lane on Sunday, March 3 1991, and won 12-8 via, if Klenk’s memory serves him right, four Andy Gannon penalties to two Roundhay tries (it was four points for a try in those days) as Salem bridged a gap of seven divisions.

However, the Heaton club were forced to play their second-round tie at home to Halifax just three days before their inaugural Provincial Insurance Cup final at Twickenham, and therefore understandably opted to field a second XV, but only lost 15-10, with the win giving Halifax admission to the following season’s Pilkington Cup.

Going back to the club’s achievements, Salem’s second XV have also been runners-up in the Aire-Wharfe Cup three times - 1900, 1992 and 2000.

Ackroyd’s name cropped up in May when I interviewed Tim Lamb, who was a fresh-faced teenager playing hooker when Salem won their 1962 Shield final.

Lamb, now 82, whose son Craig lifted the Provincial Insurance Cup as skipper against Bicester, remembered that Shield final 62 years ago after watching Salem at Mowden Park: “The game was against York RI at Stacks Field, Ilkley, and an elderly gentleman came up to me - he was probably about 70 - when we were coming off the field and said ‘How do you feel?’

“My answer, and remember I was only 18, was ‘I am f*****g knackered’, which was fairly honest.

“One of my team-mates came up to me and said ‘Do you know what that was?’ I said ‘I haven’t a clue’. I didn’t know him from Adam, and my colleague said ‘That was Dudley Ackroyd’.

“The elderly gentleman asked me a question and I simply answered it.”

Ackroyd, who, Lamb remembers, hurriedly went away, possibly not liking the fruity language as a churchgoer.

As for Salem winning the treble in 2024 - which coach Bob Hood puts right at the top of his lengthy list of achievements - Lamb snr admitted: “This is beyond comprehension. I wouldn’t have thought that this was possible because of the strength in depth that you need, and we are as high up the ladder as we have been in donkey’s years.

“To have a season like this you don’t need to pick up many injuries, or maybe in a winning side players don’t own up to being injured. If you are on a losing side then maybe you’re not as keen.”

The last time that Salem were this high up the pecking order was in 1998-99 when they were in North Three East.

There is an irony about that as Salem, thinking that only two clubs would be relegated that season, thought that they were safe in third from bottom after defeating Sunderland 24-0 at Shay Lane.

However, they were subsequently told by local rugby union administrative icon Leslie ‘Legs’ Bentley that three were going to be relegated and Salem were demoted, rendering their last match irrelevant, which they lost 25-15 at home to third-placed South Shields Westoe.

Salem finished that campaign on 12 points, with Sunderland (10 points) and Thornensians (2) also taking the drop.

Lamb, who now lives in Thornton-le-Dale on the North York Moors, admitted: “I will watch Salem more next season as (despite going into a regional league their away travel is only minimally longer) they are nearly all Yorkshire clubs, and the away games are easier for me to get to than the home games.

“Malton & Norton are just down the road from me and I think that I will sponsor that match as I have a couple of friends there.”

If Ackroyd was the most prominent figure in the early days, in the latter years there have been two men who have featured largely - Richard Birkett and Neil Klenk.

Birkett, nicknamed ‘Bunkers’ and ‘Mr Salem’, was a Bradford Grammar School Old Boy who died aged 48 in August 1992, but fittingly saw Salem win those two Twickenham finals.

His widow, Marilyn Blunsom, often presented the Richard Birkett Memorial Trophy to the winners of the end-of-season game between a Salem XV and Bradford Grammar School Old Boys.

Of course, you only realise what a person does for a club once he has gone, but Salem are incredibly lucky to have had two servants like Birkett and their current chairman Klenk, who seems to have about 12 things on his mind pre-kick-off on home game days - a time when it isn’t wise to ask him in-depth questions or indeed any question - and I am sure that it was the same for Birkett in terms of what he did.

Although not all of the important dates have been earmarked for the 2024-25 centenary, there will be a players’ reunion on Saturday, December 7 at the home game against Rochdale - the first meeting between the clubs - while the centenary ball is scheduled to take place in a marquee on the first XV pitch in June 2025, which brought back memories for Klenk of a previous summer ball featuring The Merseybeats and Screaming Lord Sutch!