{"id":315719,"date":"2026-10-28T00:41:30","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T00:41:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/315719\/"},"modified":"2026-10-28T00:41:30","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T00:41:30","slug":"bradford-city-blow-reading-game-on-this-day-54-years-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/315719\/","title":{"rendered":"Bradford City blow Reading game on this day 54 years ago"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n But the game with Reading on this day 54 years ago is not one he will look back on with great fondness.\n<\/p>\n

\n The Bantams were on top all afternoon at Valley Parade, but a late blunder from the 20-year-old cost his side victory.\n<\/p>\n

\n Fretwell tried to pass the ball back to his goalkeeper John Ritchie inside the 18-yard box, but he simply did not spot the lurking Barry Wagstaff, who gleefully accepted the gift.\n<\/p>\n

\n That meant the game finished 1-1, Wagstaff, in the Reading side alongside his brother Tony, cancelling out John Hall’s earlier strike for City.\n<\/p>\n

\n John Napier, a new signing from Brighton, probably should have scored on debut with a couple of close-range headers.\n<\/p>\n

\n David Bairstow, Yorkshire wicket-keeper and City star, also went close, while Graham Oates nearly volleyed home a late winner.\n<\/p>\n

\n It was a miserable first season back in Division Four for the Bantams in general, as they only managed to finish 16th off the back of relegation.\n<\/p>\n

\n But for Fretwell, the villain of the piece that day, happier times were ahead.\n<\/p>\n

\n A ball-playing defender, who team-mate Ian Cooper once likened to Bobby Moore<\/a>, Fretwell was part of the side that reached the 1976 FA Cup quarter-final and in the 1976-77 promotion squad.\n<\/p>\n

\n What eventually tempted Fretwell away was a move to America, as he left City to join California Sunshine in 1978, before a spell with Chicago Sting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"But the game with Reading on this day 54 years ago is not one he will look back…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315720,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[128,130,129],"class_list":["post-315719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}