Ernest Call M.B.E., the Director of Cleansing for Bradford City Council, devised a system of controlled tipping that saw 140,000 cartloads of household waste deposited to form the characteristic banking at Odsal.

[9] Under the instruction of Bradford Northern RFLC director Harry Hornby and local motorsport promoter Johnnie Hoskins, a sloping oval compacted dirt track was especially designed to surround the rugby pitch to allow professional speedway racing to take place at Odsal in 1945,[11] the initial Bradford team known as the Odsal Boomerangs.

The Lions team that day featured what was called a "Dad's Army" front row with Jim Mills, Tony Fisher and Brian Lockwood all being over the age of 30.

On 23 September 1985, a Football League delegation visited Odsal to view the stadium to pass it fit to host City's home games.

Segregation fences were erected on the old Main Stand side and 1,000 uncovered seats were bolted onto the terracing – it was planned to install 7,000 in the future.

Like most British stadia, Odsal had its capacity substantially reduced by the safety measures introduced in the 1990s following the Hillsborough disaster and the findings of the Taylor Report.

At the dawn of the Super League era in 1996, Bradford Bulls wanted to attract new sponsors but had poor and outdated hospitality suites.

[15] Due to the club's ongoing precarious financial situation and increasing running costs at the stadium, including the £72,000 rent payable to the Rugby Football League, the Bradford Bulls made the decision to leave Odsal for a financially prudent ground share with Dewsbury to ensure the club's survival.

Despite the resultant changes to the pitch rendering it beneath minimum standards for professional rugby league, the sport's governing body allowed the Bulls to return to their former home.

[19][20] The Bulls’ acting chief executive, Mark Sawyer, told Rugby League Live: “Staging motorsport events is the first piece in the jigsaw puzzle towards how we’re going to balance the books at Odsal".

Besides club rugby, Odsal has hosted various international fixtures including test matches, tour games and Rugby League World / European Cup fixtures, some of which involved Bradford teams facing international opposition, the results of which are as follows: – [22] Odsal Stadium has hosted professional stock cars events since the sport arrived in England.

[23] As worded in the Telegraph & Argus newspaper, [24]"The survival of the home of Bradford Northern was dependent on attracting other sports to share the stadium with rugby league", a situation similar to 2021 when the Bradford Bulls (Northern later becoming known as the Bulls) relocated back to Odsal following the return of BriSCA stock car events.

In the Seventies, stock car meetings happened on Saturdays, sometimes taking place 24 hours before a rugby league match on the following Sunday, which meant ground conversions had to be carried out expediently.

following the Bradford City stadium fire resulted in a pause of stock car racing at Odsal in 1986, however the sport returned the following year.

Odsal, along with Belle Vue in Manchester, Coventry, Long Eaton and Northampton were at the time the main national BriSCA tracks.

[27] Promoter Steve Rees took over the management of the sport at the stadium in 1996, aiming to boost its status, however a year later in 1997, the RFL chose to cancel the venue's multi-use at the start of Super League, a decision which meant the abandonment of both stock cars and speedway at Odsal, the speedway pits area becoming an executive box block, until the shale track's eventual return in 2021 when Steve Rees successfully renegotiated the return of regular motorsports with the RFL and Bradford Council.

In 1948, a pioneering three feet in width concrete starting gate platform was also constructed at Odsal which was believed to have been the first of its kind used in United Kingdom speedway events.

In the three years after the 1981 World Final at Wembley, international speedway's home in Great Britain had been the White City Stadium in London.

In March 1986, Odsal opened its doors to British League action for the first time since the 1950s after the Halifax Dukes were offered a new home track.

Swedish rider Per Jonsson won his only World Championship when he defeated Shawn Moran in a runoff after both had finished the meeting on 13 points.

Danish rider Brian Andersen won the Grand Prix from America's reigning World Champion Billy Hamill, with Swede Jimmy Nilsen finishing third in the Final.

Several American Football games were played at Odsal in 1988 when the Leeds Cougars home ground, McLaren Field in Bramley was being reseeded.

Despite this, showjumping returned the following year, before being permanently cancelled by Bradford Northern's directors as unprofitable, the event replaced by a series of miniature car races in 1959.

[46] In 1939, Odsal Stadium played host to the British Isles and Western Europe tour of the leading men's tennis players of the day: Donald Budge, Big Bill Tilden, H. Ellsworth Vines, and Lester Stoefen.

[48] The stadium is unusual for UK stadia – a sunken bowl featuring a grass pitch surrounded by an oval shale motorsports track.

[49] Over the decades, the shape of the track has remained the same, although the surface has alternated between dirt, shale and tarmac, dependent upon the stadium's usage at the time.

The track remained shale until motorsports were forced to leave in Odsal in 1997, during which time the Bradford Dukes were crowned Elite Speedway Champions, ending the stadium's long association with car and motorbike racing.

[53] 7000 fans attended the F1 World Final in August 2021, however a rain-drenched end of term ‘firework spectacular’ later that year exposed critical drainage problems which required urgent attention.

[54] Taking over the reigns from Startrax, the new promotions company assuming management of motorsports at Odsal, YorStox, discovered the drains were not properly connected.

“We are putting down a different type of shale, but the main problem was the drainage,” YorStox promoter Russell Andrew told the Telegraph and Argus Newspaper.