- published: 20 Feb 2016
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Coordinates: 53°48′00″N 1°45′07″W / 53.8000°N 1.75206°W / 53.8000; -1.75206
Bradford (i/ˈbrædfəd/) lies at the heart of the City of Bradford, a metropolitan borough of West Yorkshire, in Northern England. It is situated in the foothills of the Pennines, 8.6 miles (13.8 km) west of Leeds, and 16 miles (25.7 km) northwest of Wakefield. Bradford became a municipal borough in 1847, and received its charter as a city in 1897. Following local government reform in 1974, city status was bestowed upon the wider metropolitan borough.
Bradford has a population of 293,717, making it the fourteenth-most populous settlement in the United Kingdom. Bradford forms part of the West Yorkshire Urban Area conurbation which in 2001 had a population of 1.5 million and is part of the Leeds-Bradford Larger Urban Zone (LUZ), the third largest in the UK after London and Manchester, with an estimated population in the 2004 Urban Audit of 2.4 million.
Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Bradford rose to prominence during the 19th century as an international centre of textile manufacture, particularly wool. It was a boomtown of the Industrial Revolution, and amongst the earliest industrialised settlements, rapidly becoming the "wool capital of the world". The area's access to a supply of coal, iron ore and soft water facilitated the growth of Bradford's manufacturing base, which, as textile manufacture grew, led to an explosion in population and was a stimulus to civic investment; Bradford has fine Victorian architecture including the grand Italianate City Hall.
Samuel Jacob Bradford (born November 8, 1987) is an American football quarterback for the St. Louis Rams of the National Football League (NFL). He was the first overall pick in the 2010 NFL Draft, after playing college football for the University of Oklahoma. In 2008, as a redshirt sophomore, Bradford became the second sophomore to win a Heisman Trophy. He also holds the NCAA record for most touchdown passes by a freshman quarterback, with 36.
In his first season in the NFL, Bradford set the record for most completions by a rookie in NFL history, which helped earn him the NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year award.
Bradford was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He attended Putnam City North High School in Oklahoma City, where he starred in football, basketball and golf. As a senior quarterback for his high school football team in 2006, he threw for 2,029 yards and 17 touchdowns in 12 games. His senior year in basketball, he averaged a double-double.
Bradford was a three-star recruit not that highly ranked among the high school class of 2006, with his highest ranking being No. 12 among only pro-style quarterbacks by recruiting source Rivals.com, behind Pat Devlin, Juice Williams, Josh Freeman, and being overshadowed by the likes of five-star recruits Mitch Mustain, Matthew Stafford and Tim Tebow.