BfB

Bradford City vs Peterborough United at Valley Parade

At Lincoln – and perhaps fittingly so – Bradford City seemed to come to a realisation.

When Bradford City sat at the top table of English football we were poor relations – described as the unacceptable face of the Premiership by a Daily newspaper one recalls – and spent a season and a half waiting for a supposedly deserved comeuppance which eventually come but seems only curiously merited. Yes, Geoffrey Richmond but history points us down the road East of Pudsey for the bigger crimes and how we remember the plaudits that the same press that damned us offered them.

For the years in between there seemed to be a facet of City that suggested that while we were shunned at the top we were too good for below. Jim Jefferies and Nicky Law shared a season where the Bantams strolled through a season which could have been promotion but ended up in nervous final days and even Law’s more meat and gravy approach to the game could not stop the general feeling that so close to facing Manchester United the Bantams would only have to turn up to beat Stockport County.

Move forward to now and heads have been knocked together. Over at Lincoln Bradford City dug in – perhaps out of respect – and earned a win which had been suggested all season. The first day draw with Macclesfield, the defeat at Barnet, all games where the Bantams with luck – which is to say luck as defined by Gary Player as getting more of it the more you practice and put in application – would have taken three points.

Effort – typified by Emile Heskey and Gareth Barry brings about reward and City – too long holding onto ideas above their station and finally showing a grounding at ground level – seem to have realised that.

We play a Peterborough United managed by Darren Ferguson – no jokes please – who are impressing early season but would be overhauled by the Bantams should City win at Valley Parade. Peterborough have spent freely for this division but Ferguson worries about the lapses his two central defenders are prone to. Peter Thorne is due to start his first home game for City leading the line alongside GNN with Barry Conlon eventually paying the price for his lack of goals – worryingly Emile Heskey is remembered once more.

Paul Evans – headless two weeks ago – hopes to return to the fight in the midfield with Eddie Johnson grafting alongside him. Joe Colbeck returns to the bench with Omar Daley taking the right hand role and Kyle Nix on the left. Most games are won and lost by the battles of midfield graft and this one will be no different.

Darren Williams returns at right back following injury and slots into the David Wetherall, Mark Bower and Paul Heckingbottom sitting in front of Donovan Ricketts set up of City.