A Bradford church has a new weathervane celebrating its links to the city’s football club thanks to the generosity of a prominent local Muslim businessman.
Zulfi Karim, who founded the World Curry Festival and is Secretary of the Bradford Council of Mosques, joined parishioners at the top of St. Pauls, Manningham last week for the placing of the weathervane on top of the recently repaired church spire.
Many churches have a cockerel topping off their spire. St Paul’s now has a Bantam, the emblem of Bradford City Football club, nicknamed ‘the Bantams’, in honour of the church’s strong links to the club and the club’s rise to near the top of League 1. 
Major repair works on the spire of around £250.000, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, has been going on since the summer. With the work complete a group of parishioners climbed to the top of the spire and fixed the Bantam which was adorned with claret and amber ribbons.
The Reverend Alistair Helm, the Incumbent said, “I have drunk champagne is some interesting places before but never at the top of a church spire!
"It was a wonderful and fitting occasion to mark the conclusion of work on the spire. Zulfi is a great personal friend and a good friend to our church. It is so typical of his generosity that he offered to pay for this new weather vane and then even came up to fit it!"
The scaffolding will now start to come down from the spire at St Paul’s – but the work continues with repairs to the chancel roof.