Bradford Bulls’ Odsal Stadium comes under scrutiny over state of pitch

Odsal Stadium is responsible for the largest ever crowd in rugby league history.

Over 120,000 fans once flocked to the iconic venue to witness Warrington Wolves take on Halifax in a Challenge Cup Final replay back in 1952.

Since then, Odsal has been renowned for generating a great atmosphere on match days – particularly when the advent of Super League came along in 1996 and the Bullmania days.

However, following Bradford’s on-field and off-field demise, Odsal seemingly declined with it, though recent work by the club has attempted to get it back up to standards in terms of pitch size requirement.

YorStox, the stock car racing developer at the Odsal stadium, have also installed concrete ‘mats’ around the edge of the venue in order to preserve the track.

Unfortunately, the surface doesn’t appear to be the safest if a rugby league player for some reason makes their way off the pitch and onto the track.

That being said, those concrete mats were removed for Bradford’s home game against Batley Bulldogs yesterday afternoon – and what was replaced looked like this:

The Bulls eventually ran out 21-20 winners over Batley, but the photo above does really leave a lot to be desired as John Kear attempts to inspire his Bradford side to promotion in 2022.