On Sunday, Bradford City FC catches up with the future by holding its first community open day.

This is not the same as the open day for fans and supporters, which is scheduled for July; Sunday's event is for all the people who live in the vicinity of Valley Parade - parents, youngsters, teenagers and anyone else interested in the wellbeing of a community football club, which is what professional clubs outside the exclusive millionaires' circle of the Premiership have got to be if they are to thrive.

So, between 2pm and 6pm events are planned for on and off the pitch. In the executive suite, from 2pm, there will be hair-braiding, arts and crafts, dance performances, face painting, nail art, a clown, food, refreshments and a lot more.

On the pitch mini-tournaments are planned for under-nines, under-11s, under-13s. The main event will be a 90-minute match between a Bradford City Select under-16s team and Manningham All Stars, a team chosen from hundreds of boys under 16.

"More than 300 boys have had trials for the Manningham team. They're convinced they are going to beat the Bradford City team, " said David Ward, principal lecturer at Leeds Metropolitan University, who for the past two years has been the driving force in the creation of community partnerships.

Some 18 initiatives have attracted up to £450,000 in cash and in kind, things such as the Positive Lifestyle Centre, which has classes on healthy eating, anti-bullying and selfesteem, and the Learning Centre, which was planned for a space adjacent to the club's museum.

Another of these initiatives started last week at Carlton Bolling College and continues over the next seven Fridays for selected boy footballers of primary school age in the Bradford 3 area.

The Bantams B-Active Community Football Scheme is the result of partnerships involving the football club, Bradford Council, Leeds Metropolitan University and Carlton Bolling College.

Mr Ward said: "The principle objective is to identify and develop talented footballers in the Bradford 3 area, especially Asians. The aim is to provide quality coaching to youngsters in the hope of finding an Asian Theo Walcott or Wayne Rooney for the future.

"If this scheme is successful the plan is to extend it to other areas of the metropolitan district."

He added: "The criterion for success will be whether we identify ethnic minority footballers who are capable of going into one of Bradford City's three development centres and take part in a sixweek programme.

"There isn't the infrastructure for selecting and training youngsters in the inner city for junior football; there isn't the opportunity for young Asian talent to be identified for the club."

We know that for years past City's neighbouring Super League club Bradford Bulls has operated a highly successful policy of community development, especially in the area of drugs awareness and sport as a healthy alternative lifestyle.

Involving the community in the future of a professional sports club, instead of holding them off as occasional customers, is the way sport is going to go between now and the 2012 when the Olympic Games comes to London.

Our Olympic bid was successful primarily because it was centred on the philosophy of encouraging sport in the community. Over the next few years the Government is likely to target community sports development as the essential qualification for public funding.

This is starting to happen in education. Last month Tong School's application for specialist status in the fields of sport and theatricals was renewed by the Department for Education and Skills.

Tong is one of three Bradford schools to be demolished as part of a £400m project to rebuild or improve all 28 schools across the metropolitan district over the next ten years.

The new Tong buildings will include a swimming pool, sports hall, gym and floodlit sports pitches alongside new drama and dance studios.

The community ethic is already apparent in grass roots cricket at Bradford League level, according to Reg Nelson, former Saltaire cricketer and now the club's league delegate.

"Money from Test cricket that goes to the English Cricket Board filters through to the grass roots especially if you prove you are a Cricket Focus Club, a developer of youth cricket.

"Saltaire has seven junior teams involving 77 youngsters. Teams like Pudsey St Lawrence and Pudsey Congs also have a lot of youth teams. Most of the 30 clubs in the league have two or three.

"I would say that the number of under-21s in the Bradford League is about 750-plus. There are other leagues too with clubs that have youth teams, so you're talking about a considerable number of youngsters, among them a lot of Asian cricketers.

"There is a hell of a lot of talent coming through. Friendships out of cricket are starting to develop, which is a good thing. Having mixed with the lads in Saltaire's first XI (all but the wicket-keeper have a British-South Asian background) I am less suspicious when I meet Asian guys or gangs in the street.

"The Asians coming through are filling the gap left by young indigenous cricketers who no longer play the game in the street, " he added.

In other sports too there is a growing awareness of how taking part in a game, either for pleasure or competition, may give a new impetus to someone's hopes and expectations.

Bradford property developer Jasbir Athwal has demonstrated that with his annual Asian golf tournament and the golf programmes that he has taken into local schools over the past six years.

The comment Jasbir made in the T&A last August, in the form of a joke, is worth re-telling as a measure of the progress that has been made.

"Fifty years ago 40 men chasing a black man was known as the Ku Klux Klan. Today it is known as the US Open Championship. Tiger Woods is number one in the world and Vijay Singh is number two. Who would have thought that possible a few years ago?"