Sports Personalities
The Bantams
There are three Jewish footballers, all of whom have played for Bradford City Football Club, Bookman, Rosenthal and Furman.
Louis Bookman
Louis Bookman 1890-1943
The first was as far back as 1911, when Louis Bookman (born Louis James Arthur Oscar Buckhalter, 1890 Žagarė,Lithuania).
When his career in sports had eventually come to an end, he found work on Ireland’s railways, having previously played cricket for the Railway Union Cricket Club early in his cricketing career. In addition to the railway jobs, he found himself working in the very Jewish jewellery trade.
His father had been a Rabbi in his native Lithuania, but the pogroms of 1895 would have forced the family to flee, from there they came to the port of Belfast when Louis was just a child. It is likely he would have picked up a Belfast accent within a few years, especially if he was at school in the city. This would later be apparent when Anthony Clavane author ‘Promised Land’ and now Jews and football biography ‘Does Your Rabbi Know You’re Here’ describes Bookman quite succinctly as ‘the Lithuanian Jewish Irishman’.
Bookman hung up his ‘footie boots’ at some point in the early 1920′s, but turned his sporting attentions to his cricketing career which had began in 1919 at the Railway Union, based in Dublin. His last match was in July 1930. A trail blazer for Jewish sports players in the U.K., Louis Bookman died in Dublin at the unquestionably young age of 52 in 10th June 1943.
Read more at
http://nifootball.blogspot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Abe Rosenthal
Abe Rosenthal 1921-1986
The second player for our records, Abe Rosenthal entered the world around the time that Bookman was hanging up his football boots. Born on in Liverpool on October 12th 1921, Striker Rosenthal played professionally for local side Tranmere Rovers in 1938. Prior to playing at paid level, he was on the pitch for Liverpool as an amateur. He joined the Bantams (Bradford City’s nickname) in 1946 and ‘yo-yo-ed’ between them and Tranmere three times over the next decade until 1956, finishing his career at City. He made 225 appearances and hit the back of the net 78 times.
Once he had taken retirement from the game, he launched a successful Ice-cream business in Bradford. This eventually became the Carmine Ice Cream Company which stands adjacent to the football ground at Valley Parade on Midland Road.
Abe Rosenthal died at the age of 64 in October 1986. It is yet to be determined where he died or where he is buried.
Read more at:
http://www.thefullwiki.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Dean Furman
A far more recent wearer of the Claret and Amber strip is South African born Dean ‘Deano’ Furman. He arrived from Cape Town in spring 2006 to play for Chelsea under the ownership of Roman Abramovich. He then played Glasgow Rangers before swiching to Bradford in August 2008 and staying for just under one season, before transferring in July 2009.
Born in 1988 and raised in Cape Town, Furman currently captains Oldham Athletic.
Dean Furman
Read more at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
http://www.thejc.com/sport/
Follow Furman on Twtter at https://twitter.com/de4no22
Geoffrey Richmond
Although never a player on the pitch, former Ronson Lighters supremo Geoffrey Richmond was an astounding player in the boardroom. As club chairman he led the Bantams to their short lived but glorious promotion to the Premier League in May 1997, a time of national euphoria (or disappointment too when The Labour Party to won their own promotion to the political Premiership.
Born and raised in Leeds, Richmond came on board at City in January 1994. The club later ran into problems in 2001 after relegation, over spending on players and the souring of a deal over television rights of broadcast when ITV digital collapsed.
Geoffrey Richmond lives in Leeds with his family, and is chairman of the New Rover cricket Club in Adel. he was awarded an Honourary Doctorate of Letters from the University of Bradford in July 2000.
Geoffrey Richmond
Read more at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
http://footballurls.com/tag/
Louis Bookman, Abe Rosenthal, Dean Furman, & Geoffrey Richmond