John: In 1895, a number of clubs in the north of England, seceded from what, what was then the Rugby Union, because they wanted to pay players for playing on a Saturday afternoons. And this is because at that time most working men, worked Monday through to Saturday with only Sunday off and so if they came, if they turned out to play a game of Rugby on a Saturday afternoon which was the traditional time to play, they actually lost money from work.  And so the Rugby Clubs in the north of England wanted to pay people for losing time because predominantly the clubs in the north of England the players were working men. They weren’t public school boys, you know they weren’t business men, they were working men and so they couldn’t afford to lose money.

 

The Rugby Union refused, they said no, we’re an amateur organisation we don’t pay; we don’t pay people to play rugby.

Martin: It was a class battle they even came out with sayings as "you can’t afford to play, don’t".

John: Don’t play, yeah. So there was lots of animosity in the north of England, so what happened was that in 1895 a number of clubs in the north of England, predominantly Lancashire and Yorkshire, seceded from the Rugby Union and formed what they called the Northern Union, and we still continued to play as Bradford without any suffix on our title until 1907.

John: And then in 1907 to differentiate us from any other Bradford rugby club who,
Martin: Or football club,
John: Or Bradford football club, cause by this time Association Football was starting to come to the fore; we attached the word 'Northern' to the end of our name to show that we were part of the Northern Union. Nothing to do with our geographic location in the city cause we’re actually located in the south of Bradford, and this has caused confusion over the years, “Why are you called Bradford Northern when you play in the south of the city?!"