manningham mills sports & community association
Manningham Mills Sports & Community Association is a charity based in Bradford.
For over 150 years, we’ve been bringing people together through sports at our
Scotchman Road location. We started our journey as Manningham Mills Cricket
Club, a branch of the Lister Mill Sports & Social Club. Originally built in
1838, Lister Mills was once the world’s largest silk mill. Over 7,000 workers
had access to our fields for football, cricket and tennis and the social club
for table tennis, snooker, bowls and ballroom dancing. After the Mill’s closure
in the 1990s, the site was sold to property developers. Members of the
Manningham Mills team (Andrew Shepherd, Michael Kaye, Jeff Slater and Delroy
Dacres) asked for support from local MP Marsha Singh. Following some
investigation, Marsha Singh discovered that a Lister Mills covenant meant the
fields could only be used for sports and recreation. Once the property
developers were notified, they agreed to sell the fields to Manningham Mills,
who secured government funding. The new trustees placed the fields in a trust,
protecting their use for sports and recreation for future generations – and
changed the name from Manningham Mills to Manningham Mills Sports Association.
In June 2006, following a £1.3ml investment, the club reopened with a modern and
accessible clubhouse, an electronic cricket scoreboard, IT suite, players’
lounge and multi-function events space. An official opening took place with
Gerry Sutcliffe MP, the Sports Minister at the time. In 2008, we became a
charity and updated our name to Manningham Mills Sports & Community Association.
The club’s legacy continues with a new generation of sports players, including
cricketer Adil Rashid, part of the England team that won the 2019 Cricket World
Cup.
