BfB

The Blackpool Tower is a mile down the road but the Twin Towers beckon for City now.

Stuart McCall was not playing the night in 1996 when the Bantams bested Blackpool to write Chris Kamara’s name in City’s – and football’s – history as the first manager to take City to Wembley and win and the first black manager to win at the old, now gone, stadium.

The new Wembley – something akin to a shopping centre they say but an enticing thought – is the aim for McCall now with the City manager watching the fourth defeat on the bounce against Port Vale and deciding that the push for automatic promotion is off.

In following the path via Wembley of Kamara McCall presses the case for stability – Kamara was assistant manager to Lennie Lawrence before taking the job on and a member of his backroom staff who took over in Paul Jewell led City to the Premiership – but the two managers approach the end of season lottery from different perspectives.

Kamara’s City went on a winning run of around a third of a season going into the play-offs as the form side while McCall’s are badly out of sync with each other and needing a sea change in performances to not only reach the top seven but to win when there.

The current City boss has indicated that there is a chance for the players in the squad to reclaim starting shirts. I’ve always believed that too many loan players make for a tepid team and were Chris Brandon, Paul McLaren and Joe Colbeck back in the side for the trip to Chester City at the weekend then I would be happy and few would probably be surprised.

Famously opposing Kamara at Blackpool the night when City came back to win 3-0 to steal the play-offs was Sam Allardyce who following that game snuck off to Bolton and emerged some years later as a regular Premiership manager with the failure of May 1996 respected as a part of his learning process.

Man(ager) of the moment Rafa Benitez has a string of woefulness in his early career in Spain which is considered to be a part of the making of him. The two wins in twenty three games at Valladolid and the sack were followed by one win in nine at Osasuna and the local Archer came calling again.

All of which is to say that if the metaphorical twin towers elude McCall then perhaps it will form a part of that process of learning – the making of the man so to speak and something that someone will benefit from – but utterly regretful with the thought of 23 more clubs coming to Valley Parade to play like Port Vale did on Saturday.

The excitement of Blackpool never seemed so far away.