BfB

Destiny is a story about Joe Carmody, a Boxer who becomes a Private Investigator. It opens American writer Ethan Coen‘s collection Gates of Eden and sets the tone of noir with a comic twist

Carmody, an intellectual too smart for pugilism, is pulled into an engagement spying on one Promoter as he indulges in a proxy affair with another Promoter’s wife. It is about smart people playing dumb and dumb people playing smart, and involves Joe taking a lot of beatings.

After his final pummelling, during which he has never landed a blow on an opponent, Joe wonders aloud what it would have been like to be a little bit better. “Always a beating, I don’t understand it.”

“I may be a little slower than the other guy, but not that much. I may be a little less strong, but I don’t get beat by a little, I get the crap pounded outta me. Why is that?”

Review

When thinking about Bradford City in the 2022/2023 three stories in Coen’s Gates of Eden came to mind. The season was the club’s first under manager Mark Hughes and concluded with a sixth placed finish. In Andy Cook City had League Two’s top scorer, and in Harry Lewis they had the best goalkeeper since Jordan Pickford learned to shout between the sticks.

To iterate through results, but more so to recall, there was improvement. The mid-season arrival of Adam Clayton and Sam Stubbs saw Hughes able to be flexible in the shape he set his players with and increased competition for places.

From 62 miles up Hughes is contesting with a mental frailty in League Two players which his career in the Premier League has not prepared him for. It feels unfair to draw a line and suggest that the players on one side of it are bad mentality, and the others good, but Lee Angol’s exit for Matt Derbyshire illustrated this point. They both enjoy being footballers, but probably Derbyshire enjoys it for the reasons Hughes finds useful.

Minnesota

Costa Minapolidan feels like an abandoned idea from Fargo oozing as it does with Minnesota Nice. It tells the story of a group of Gangsters who move to the snowy cold from Chicago’s South Side, competition having become a little fierce, and decide to bring this thing we do with them.

On arriving in the 1960s Joe de Louis, the head of the small crime family, “don’t care about your problems” but over the decades as he attempts to make the environment a product of his will, the environment shapes him back. “Nudsun” is murdered, but the locals assume it was a terrible mistake, and one by one the Gang begin to assimilate into the community.

Joe de Louis opens a barber shop, he dies an old man, found by one of his customers and buried in a pauper’s grave.

Bratfud

Hughes does not seem to be especially interested in leaving Bradford City. Hughes standards taller than most and things develop well alongside him after a long career, he has found a place where football is more malleable, and he can be more the author of his destiny.

Slowly his squad begins to tend towards interesting shapes. He uses players in interesting ways, and pushes those players to their edges. Alex Gilliead, who Hughes has played in a few positions, has been taking on roles within those positions which the manager asks him to do.

One game Gilliead is moving into any pocket of space he can find to be given a pass to feet, the next he is pressing forward and taking the ball on a half turn to get away from a midfielder, while the next he is tucking in to defend a lead. The latter often ineffectively, but given Gilliead was the inefficient winger, we should recall Dr Johnson in these matters.

Without wanting to be critical of him, Gilliead shows the heart of Hughes’ problem and the 2022/23 season. A limited player played to his limits, the regnant assumption is that there was a possibility that City could have been better, perhaps should have been, and that this season represents a missed opportunity.

Free

Opportunity, as a concept, relies on the assumption that there is a better outcome that one could have had in some situation and that outcome was forsaken, and looking at 2022/23 I struggle to see that. Of course, one can look at moments in games and spot mistakes and wish that those mistakes had not happened, but that does not seem to capture the idea of a missed opportunity.

Was it a missed opportunity that Jamie Walker was out for four months? Was Emmanuel Osadebe’s sixth minute leg break on the first day of the season a missed opportunity? What opportunity does losing two significant players afford for a club? What opportunity did Alex Gilliead pass up in playing as well as Alex Gilliead has ever played? Was there an opportunity to get more goals out of a 32-year-old journeyman Andy Cook?

Lest this be seen as a needling of superficial language, I use the phrase as synecdoche for an attitude ill fits the season played. Bradford City were not the default success of 2022/23, there was no opportunity other than that which represented the peak of City’s performance.

City, Hughes, We, did as well as we were ever going to do, and it is fine to regret not being lucky, but I may be a little less strong, but I don’t get beat by a little, I get the crap pounded outta me.

Spanish

In The Boys a Father takes Davey and Bart, his two young sons, camping, trying to navigate the road and the whims of the children he sometimes sees. One will not be separated from a Sesame Street catalogue but shows no interest in the Sesame Street characters, the other repeats his phrases in a way which Father is obviously more irritated than flattered by.

Spanish Rice, a dish that Davey claims to like, leads Father to take his son to a restaurant to try an interesting meal, but Davey casts the dish aside. Spanish Rice, it turns out, is just a name for White Rice with Ketchup mixed into it. Bart wants an omelet. “Can’t they make Bart an omelet, huh Dad?” repeats Davey.

The last line is contraception: “What did they want with him? Who were they?”

“Donde termina el arco iris, en tu alma o en el horizonte?” – Pablo Neruda

Chile

The Soul, Pablo Neruda writes, is earned through suffering and thought and prayer, and perhaps it is the lack of those things which made Manchester City’s title celebrations such an unwatchable affair.

There is suffering of course – Amnesty International have views on Manchester City’s owners – but not in the Nerudian sense of the word. Manchester City’s success feels like casual background lore written for a forgotten Science Fiction, or what success would look like if it were filmed as background scenes for a movie.

Football’s search for a soul has been documented best by David Conn, himself a Manchester City supporter of sorts, but in the two decades since his seminal The Beautiful Game this search seems to have failed, and failed again, leading us here.

Carlisle

Bradford City’s attempt to be promoted from League Two wilted in the heat of Carlisle. A single goal advantage earned at Valley Parade was turned around by Paul Simpson’s Cumbrians who were able to counter and nullify Mark Hughes’ side’s play.

Simpson reflected after the first leg that his side had performed well in the second half of the first leg and the learnings from that rolled into the Saturday afternoon second leg encounter. Jamie Walker was kept away from the ball with a defender dedicated to cutting off passing lanes to the playmaker. Fellow Scot Scott Banks was pushed wider and wider by a capable backline and going wider saw him further from Andy Cook. Simpson’s success – a success which has eluded many a manager this season – was knowing that to keep Cook quiet, one isolates him from his teammates.

Callum Guy, a bit part player in the recent decline of Bradford City, found positions between City’s midfielders breaking up the play in that area while the two wing backs came inside to create a structure that broke the lines between City’s players. Good football is making the other team play badly.

Scunthorpe

In contrast, Hughes’ City struggled to play in the second of the two styles adopted this season. That style, which saw Adam Clayton shielding a back four and moving the ball to two Mezzala midfielders, represented an alternative to the Double Pivot which had marked out much of the rest of the season. Neither worked, and the shortcomings of the team were exposed.

Hughes has created a squad largely from the scraps left over from previous managers. Players like Cook, and Alex Gilliead, and Liam Ridehaigh have been a part of a team which on the whole performed better than could be expected given their careers. Gilliead’s time as captain of a pathetic and moribund Scunthorpe United side did not suggest he would be a leading midfielder for a team pushing for promotion, but he was.

Simpson’s Carlisle were made of more flexible materials and that difference showed as City were exhausted of ideas but maintained a position in the game that might have given a win on penalties. It was a small return on a season, but it was better than the conclusion of most seasons.

Ultimately, the message was clear. City had lost to a better team, and nobody needed to tell Mark Hughes that. Hughes’ regime is one of competency, and in that spirit he was able to create a team which of metronomic point gathering rather than smashing opponents in single games.

London

A day later, and West Ham United seemed to all but end Leeds United’s hope of Premier League survival with a 3-1 victory at Not Upton Park. There was humour in the Leeds United support dressing as Sam Allardyce, but it was largely for others. The rivals from West Yorkshire made another desperate lunge for a manager, and that lunge obviously failed.

As retrospect dawns East of Pudsey, that failure is obvious. Leeds United were seduced into sacking Marcelo Bielsa with the temptation of extending their time in the Premier League. The mistake was made at that point, not with Large Sam, and the Faustian bargain is in the process of being paid.

There is little sympathy afforded to Leeds United from BD8, but Bielsa was an iconoclast and a far better manager than most, and to have him and lose him feels like an era defining mistake. The cost, for seven wins from thirty-seven, seems too high.

Queens

American film director Martin Scorsese describes the last scenes of his 1990 release Goodfellas as being of a man who has sold his soul and is left with the regret that there is no more soul left to sell. Football seems to be a succession of this type of auction.

Which is to say that Leeds United, in whatever way one defines that entity, sold their soul in the same way which Manchester City did albeit for a smaller price, and the same way that most clubs do and will.

Where does football earn a soul? On the Horizon, as Neruda would suggest, or in the moments when success is denied? Manchester City’s vacuous celebrations suggest that there is no soul at that horizon. That success is not a goal so much as an end of goals.

The landmarks of football are found on the roads that pass hills too low to name. The Wasteland. Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.

Manningham

Bradford City 2023/2024 feels exciting to me, but I have long since realised that what I like and what normal football supporters seem to enjoy often do not overlap. I’m eager to see the continued development of the set of ideas which animate the club, and confident in those developing it.

Freely, I will admit that I don’t understand the agitation of many of my peers. I read that City “did not turn up”, or that “optimism is gone”, or that have spent the season in the time-honoured tradition of being a grown man bellowing at young footballers.

I have no way of relating to those thoughts. They feel like missives from people so long fighting a battle that everything resembles an enemy. They feel like the soullessness that would consume us all.

The price of next year’s season ticket might be an odd place to start a review of a season, but how much we pay for next year seems germane to the situation which Bradford City have found themselves following a season in which every home game was played behind closed doors.

The perennial discussion of Season Ticket Pricing at Valley Parade seems especially pernicious this year following fifteen months of debilitating of the economic conditions. The impact of COVID and Brexit are creeping through a part of the country which does not have prosperity to spare.

Nevertheless, at the start of May 2021, following a year in which Bradford City fitted to a middle of League Two finish, the club saw fit to ask me what I thought about increasing the price to watch next season’s football.

McCall

There seems to be a certainty at Bradford City that at some point the club will get itself into a level of trouble that will require someone to ask Stuart McCall to help.

McCall’s return as manager for a third time – entirely contained within 2020 – is another case in point and saw the Definitive Bradford City Stalwart rolled up his sleeves and get involved again.

McCall’s exit less than a year after arriving again and a month after signing a new contract offered by nascent CEO Ryan Sparks may be the last time he is involved with the club – or may be the last time he sits in the manager’s chair – but it would take the faith of Matthew 8:5-13 to not believe that the club will at some point be navigating Shit Creek and asking McCall for a paddle.

And one is tempted to suggest that the less said about McCall’s time as manager the better, other than to note that something has to be said about it.

Plague

There is a subtext to discussions of McCall’s 2020 spell as manager of Bradford City that is wilfully ambivalent to the homoousian problems that face the club.

McCall took on a team – inherited from a manager who inherited it from a manager and so on – which lacked character. He recruited players over a summer following a truncated season for a season that many would not finish and tried – and failed – to build those players into a winning squad in a context where players were not even allowed to go to the pub together.

When one recall’s McCall’s exit under Edin Rahic one remembers a photograph of a half a dozen players around the manager. The rule of six, the one meter, the social distance.

That McCall was unable to turn the team who retain the core of the side that bombed out of League One so badly into something useful is presented as a criticism of him – which may be fair – but is also a synecdoche of the issues he inherited and which were passed onto the next man, or men.

Blue

The chief component of McCall’s timely exit was newly appointed Ryan Sparks who seems to not be the first person running the club to find an abrasion in McCall’s ways. His decision to replace McCall so quickly after having him sign a new deal would have destroyed any credibility Sparks had built up but, as it was, Sparks had yet to build any.

Following that early decision to remove one of the most popular characters in the club’s history Sparks cast himself as a kind of Popularist in charge making a series of decisions which were generally well-received by the constituency he seems to be most interested in appeasing, who are, briefly the people who are most vocal on Twitter.

Few missed Ben Richards-Everton or Kurtis Guthrie after they headed a list of players who were sent away as Sparks crafted the appearance of a man who was taking care of business. The signings made following the appointment of Lee Turnbull as a Head of Recruitment were well-received and rightly so.

But reception and action are not the same and Sparks needs to balance the whims of the people he appeases with the demands of creating a fertile environment for success at the club. The history of this club – or most clubs – draws the correlations of good times on the field and the times when CEOs and Chairmen are most quiet.

lersTruemanSel

The decision Sparks did not have to make was appointing Mark Trueman and Conor Sellars to the role(s) of joint manager(s) after the pair suggested themselves with a long run of very good results. Those results through the Autumn and Winter moved the club into upper mid-table before an abortive play off push in the Spring.

The improvement shown, and the subsequent failure to maintain that improvement, represented a reversion to the mean for the club and illustrated much about the group of players who until May 2021 represented Bradford City in that – on the whole – they are technically excellent but lack commitment.

Many or the players – and here I would talk about Anthony O’Connor, Paudie O’Connor, Richard O’Donnell, Gareth Evans, and others – are technically capable but do not show the consistent application which – perhaps – if they were to show or be able to show they would mean they were not be League Two players.

Within this group of players there are those who are not in the middle of League Two because they are without skill but rather that because they are not often enough willing to be responsible for the results. Mistakes are someone else’s fault, problems are other people’s to solve, and notions of collective responsibility are far away.

This culture runs deep at the club and is difficult to address. Trueman and Sellars did not create this problem any more than McCall, or Gary Bowyer before him, or David Hopkin before him did, but they are charged with addressing it, or at least seem to be.

Yet this need to defend Trueman and Sellers is reflexive. It is the result of many years talking about the need for stability and for retaining institutional knowledge but – given how little knowledge there is and how little there is to risk upsetting then why should the manager’s be protected?

The pair represent the end of a path in which options have been tried and readily thrown away. They are the default setting for a League Two club who have run out of ideas.

Press

However that Trueman and Sellars should be able to use the full range of tools at their disposal to do effect any changes should be unquestioned. The idea that a football club prefers a formation – that Bradford City is a 442 club – is inherently ludicrous and hampers it.

The pair brought a few of the trappings of a more modern approach to managing space on the field is not something which should be denied to them for the sake of flaccid traditionalism.

Their use of a higher press during the good period between Autumn and Winter caused problems which – once again – one would be wilfully ambivalent to ignore. With this football season compressed to fit into fewer months, and with the requirements of a more physically demanding way of playing obvious, that City tailed off in the last month seems unsurprising.

Having been asked to put in a great effort to move the club up the league away from the spectre of relegation the players felt legs getting heavier after March. When the going got tough those players absolutely failed to get going.

Outside

This is not a criticism of those players so much as an understanding of the assets they present. No one in the squad is a Gus Branston playing on the edge to make up for his technical inadequacies. They are playing comfortably within themselves and achieving moderate results because of that.

There are a number of prospects around the squad: Elliot Watt, Callum Cooke and Levi Sutton represent potential as a midfield and I have a fondness for Charles Vernam; but all football teams are as good as the senior professionals in them and so these players are more clay to be shaped.

Niall Canavan – a player I look forward to seeing in the flesh – seems to represent a positive seniority within the club well whereas striker Danny Rowe – who exited as quickly as he arrived – did not.

However

All this discussion comes with a massive, and honest, apology to the O’Connors and Richard O’Donnell and all the other players criticised here because – frankly – were I one of those players I might feel like I did a decent job this year and not care much about anything else.

There is nothing about being a footballer which means you are not subject to the world created by the onset of COVID-19. There is no reason why a man who pulls on a football shirt should worry less about his family, or about not being able to visit the urban sprawl we increasingly shuttle past but do not engage with.

There is nothing about a footballer than means they feel less isolated by the inability to socialise, by the rising death toll and lowering of the standard of life. There is nothing about a footballer which means that they – like you and I – are not just getting through this.

Berkeley

Some days have been Hell.

If you are a footballer who has done a job only to have some Berk like me pass judgement on that work, and you feel you have a right to tell me to Go Fuck Myself, then I would not object if you did so.

Because ultimately the problem of assessing 2020/2021 as a Football Season is that to do so robs it of the context. The darkest days in football history – at this club, at other clubs – are measured in numbers of dead which became the day to day ticking of the clock.

Some days have been Hell.

Ambition

There is a need for society to return to normality following the COVID-19 pandemic and part of that return is a reflexive dismissal of the conditions around the pandemic. Which is to say that in order to go back to normal we have to create a collective belief that we are within a state of normality which is as unchanged as it can be.

When the cinemas will open, and we will watch the same movies, the pubs will reopen, and we will meet the same people and go to the same bars.

A part of life returning to normal will be the retroactive installation of a narrative of normality onto events that insists that those events were something that was always to be overcome. The spirit is summed up in the phrase “Keep Buggering On”.

But discussions about the future of football that happened in 2020 talked about a future in the English game with fewer clubs. We already live in a post-Bury FC world before the financial crisis brought on by lockdown.

When Bury went from the Football League there was widespread discussion about how the seventy-two professional club format was unsustainable. In August 2020 the idea of August 2021 coming around with enough teams still intact to have a League Two with Bradford City was not a lack of ambition.

It was ambition.

None of which is to tell you, Dear Reader, that you should be happy to just have a Bradford City to follow just to acknowledge the way that in so many ways last season was an aberration and that the outcome of attempts to navigate it were probably more hostage to fortune than we would like to admit.

The financial costs, the loans taken by clubs, the impact on the game caused by a reshaping of people’s activities will be felt for years to come. We are, in no way, out of this yet.

RPI

The Retail Price Index maps inflation and tells us that given the launch price of Bradford City season tickets in 2007 a comparative price in 2021 would be around £200. If you want a question to how much should a Bradford City Season Ticket cost then that is probably it.

Bradford City have a massive amount of supply of a product – seats at a football match – and a low demand. As a result there is a point in which revenue is maximised but that is ignored because football is not about maximising revenue.

The arguments against the proposed European Super League were that football was not about amassing money it was about the fans and that insight scales downwards.

Manchester United and Real Madrid are acting against fans when they put up barriers to competitive progress, Bradford City are acting against fans when they price people out in the interests of maximising revenue as the country recovers from the economic effects of atrocious Government and global pandemic.

Argument

So much of football is about arguing on the Internet.

One of the rules I have for this website is that commenting on commenting on football is inherently boring and not something worth doing – the T&A “Fans Think” reaction pieces of Tweets republished are the dead of journalism – but occasionally it borders on being necessary and the Season Ticket cost debate is one of those times.

Any discussion on Season Ticket increases that does not include a component of the club offering a mechanism to acknowledge supporters who have lost jobs over the last year should be treated with contempt.

When Bradford City smashed hard against the wall of running out of money in 2002 and 2004 the people of Bradford gave £500,000 to fund the club and were made a promise that the reborn Bradford City would have those supporters at its heart. Raising ticket prices and not looking after the people left behind makes a mockery of that promise, and the people who put their hands in their pockets.

A

Suggestions for fixing the prices of Season Tickets are more common – in the discussion of the club – that the names of new signings and implicit in those suggestions is a direct correlation between revenue in and performance on the field.

That correlation is accurate – although it better aligns with turnover – but raising revenue demands economic conditions which may not be the case.

One might suggest that one put the price up to £300 and let anyone who checks the box to say they lose their job in the Pandemic, or they have no wage coming in, pay £100 and conclude that the problem is fixed.

Bigger

Perhaps though we might do well to dwell on the cost of seasons ticket when they are presented as a problem. If it is the case that prices have to go up to fund improvements in performance it is also thought that if those increases are be compelled then they will have no effect.

Which is to say that the common belief is that if people do not have to pay more they will not pay more. In itself this is a damning indictment of the broken relationship between football and the supporters of it, and of the prism of neo-liberal economics that the game is viewed through.

Football Clubs dance on the line of talking as businesses one moment and community assets the next always on the side which protects their interests against the supporters.

The season ticket debate is another reminder – if it were needed – that we are all in it together until we are not.

Exception

The economics of football are failing.

Without a new economic vision it is impossible to see the game at League Two level carrying on as it does. Many clubs will shrink while others grow and at some point de facto breakaways will force actual breakaways.

This has – to some extent – already happened. The European Super League need not happen for the dominance of the clubs in it to be cemented. The gap between The Championship and League One creates a group of teams like Hull City who will always go back up and teams like Wycombe who will always go down.

This is the inevitable result of inflationary pressures within the economics of football. Exceptions are celebrated precisely because they are exceptions.

Bradford City are hostage to that world and probably cannot step outside it. There is no funding model, no magical number on a Season Ticket application form, which will fix the inequality built into the system.

Rainbows

Some people want to pay more to go see Bradford City, some people cannot afford to pay more, some people need to pay less.

Ultimately if there is a connection between how much is paid in season tickets and how good the experience is then let people pay what they want for a season ticket.

Let the supporter set the price.

How much is watching Bradford City worth to you? Pay £1,000 for your Season Ticket if you want, or pay £500, or pay £100, or pay £1.

Sky Sports costs around £400 a year. Cancel that subscription and pay that for your season ticket.

Or don’t.

The club will be as good as the supporters want it to be and – assuming that link between revenue and performance – if people who are currently paying £150 decide they can pay £1 now when they could afford more then that is a decision they have made.

Then the club would die because the only people who care about it cared more about keeping their money for something else.

End

Which is the season in review.

Twelve months of watching the most irrelevant football being played in front of empty stadiums for no reason other than habit listening to people talking about how other people should pay more to improve a situation which very obviously is not going to improve.

You can care, or you can not, but either way you’ll wish you hadn’t.

David Syers has impressed his team mates, the T&A, Peter Taylor, Peter Jackson, scouts from Leeds United and Huddersfield Town (reportedly) and now BfB as he scoops our player of the season.

BfB Player of the Season 2010/2011

1. David Syers
   No surprises here. The hard working midfielder plucked from non league football has made a real impression in his first season as a pro. His full blooded performances, willingness to put his foot in, and knack of popping up in the box at the right time yielded a decent goalscoring return from midfield. His position as City’s top scorer this season says it all about what type of campaign that the team have had.
2. Luke O’Brien
   Versatile players are often under appreciated and O’Brien’s ability to play anywhere on the left hand side of the pitch that the two managers have employed him has impressed. O’Brien’s time at left back saw him drive forward well getting the ball into dangerous areas. His time on the left wing saw him provide a sureness for the full back. He played left midfield for Taylor and got stuck in. Sometimes one worries that the idea that the Bantams fans respect a player who gives his all is all but gone but O’Brien’s recognition suggests that City’s supporters appreciate a bit of skill and a lot of hard work.
3. Omar Daley
   If Omar’s time at City is up we can at least look back at his time here with fond memories. When he came back from his loan with Rotherham he gave the whole place a massive boost in the bid of survival. His stunning strike against Aldershot at home helped City win their biggest match in some decades and other highlights include his deadly brace against Oxford at home and tripping over his own shoelaces during a dance down the wing on his return match against Burton at home. Omar Daley – we salute you as the only flare player we have had since Beni Carbone! The only player that has you on the edge of your seat with his blistering pace. The only player that opposing defences fear. The only player that you can love and hate within 30 seconds of play as he drifts past defender after defender before flying a horrendous shot into row Z of the Kop or make the most blindingly obvious terrible choice of a final ball.
4. Luke Oliver
   Big Luke is nobody’s favourite player. He makes mistakes. He is not the best with the ball at his feet. He makes Lee Bullock look fast. However, his performances in the second half of the season were much improved compared to what we are used to from him – and nobody made more starting appearances this season than Oliver. The fact that even Jackson selected him every time after the removal of his biggest promoter – Peter Taylor- perhaps proved that he is one of the two best defenders that we can call on at centre back these days.
5. Steve Williams
   Young Williams progress has somewhat stood still this campaign – however he remains only player in the squad capable of one day playing in the Championship. He has occasionally shown glimpses this season of why Sven Goran Erickson is said to be checking his progress with an eye catching two games in the Carling Cup and he popped up with a vital last minute winner in the home game against Gillingham, as well as a brace against Stockport at home that helped the team to victory on that occasion and ultimately, survival in the football league.

And an honourable mention for…

The Lost Solider

For the first four months it was Michael Flynn/Simon Ramsden, then we’d score more goals is we recalled Jake Speight from Port Vale, Hanson out for a while, Tommy Doherty gets injured and we realise how good he was, Daley goes to Rotherham and suddenly becomes our best/most loyal player, Duff aka “the best centre half in the league” – not that any City fan had ever heard of him before he signed.

Syers ‘wasted’ at right back by Peter Jackson, Luke O’Brien dropped and suddenly becomes popular, “we need Bully in their to calm it all down”, shouldn’t got rid of Leon Price, “Steve Williams is class”, “that Chib Chilaka scored a hatrick for Harrogate, get him in”, and so on and so on.

The truth is every one of these players disappointed when in the team, but the one that wasn’t there on any given day was always our best player when you listen to the VP faithful/management/chairmen.

Sweetest wins of the season

1. Bradford City 3 Stockport County 2
2. Barnet 0 Bradford City 2
3. Bradford City 2 Rotherham United 1
4. Bradford City 2 Aldershot Town 1
5. Bradford City 3 Cheltenham Town 1

Top 5 loan players

1. Jason Price
   The big man came in, seemed to fit in, and then wandered off disinterested.
2. Tom Adeyemi
   A nice starter season from the tidy man from Norwich City.
3. Kevin Ellison
   Not everyone’s cup of tea but the winger from Rotherham scored a vital goal and raised some Hell.
4. Richard Eckersley
   The right back from Burnley let no one down.
5. Oliver Gill
   Sent back to Manchester United injured Gill did put in a good display or two.

Five moments we thought we might go up…

1. The eight minutes that City led Shrewsbury through Tom Adeyemi’s goal on the opening day of the season.
2. Beating a strong Nottingham Forest side 2-1 in the League Cup in August. Jake Speight was quality, Shane Duff a revelation at the back, and who is this young lad named David Syers?
3. Defeating a Bury side – which had won seven and drawn one of their last eight games – in their own backyard. “Peter Taylor’s Bradford Army!”
4. Another 1-0 victory over Bury in early January, which placed us on the brink of the play offs. The second half of the season is set to be exciting. Erm…
5. Two wins from three under Peter Jackson in March, and maybe, just maybe, we can go on a late run. That was the sentiment widely expressed in the pub before kick off against Northampton. “Remember ’96?”

Five moments we thought we might go down…

1. A truly pathetic 1-0 home loss to Morecambe in early October leaves the Bantams second bottom of the entire Football League. That it was still early days was the only crumb of comfort.
2. 2-1 down to bottom of the table, nine-men Stockport midway through the second half at Valley Parade in February.
3. Four defeats from five in April that culminated in a 4-0 Friday night thrashing at Southend. The end is nigh.
4. A 3-0 thumping at Accrington on Easter Saturday. Can’t see us getting another point this season.
5. The second half against Aldershot, two days later, where the Valley Parade scoreboard kept displaying goal updates from around the country which were pushing City close and closer to the bottom two. Thank goodness for this young lad named David Syers.

It wasn’t all bad, honest – five things to look back on the 2010/11 with fondness

1. A decent cup run on the centenary season of the club’s finest hour. The performances from the players and the atmospheres generated by supporters made the League Cup games with Notts Forest and Preston memorable nights. More of the same next season, please.
2. The celebrations at Barnet in October. Four-and-a-half games without a goal, then in the space of four minutes Leon Osborne and Tom Adeyemi spark unbridled jubilation on the terraces.
3. Those fleeting glimpses of flair from Omar Daley, Tommy Doherty and Lee Hendrie. Players of great skill, who on their day looked a cut above this level.
4. The incredible backing from the travelling fans at Chesterfield in January. A 20-minute rendition of ‘Bradford Army’ leading up to and during half time was City fans at their best all season.
5. Getting Ronnie Moore the sack. No way did Tom Adeyemi’s long-range belter cross the line against Rotherham in March; but the linesman’s given it, and less than two weeks after this ‘defeat’ Moore was given the boot.

A club appoints an experienced promotion specialist who is not known for his attractive football, who comes from the wrong half of the country and the club expect them to lead them in to promotion.

And he does.

On the surface there does not seem to be much similarity between Lasmir Mittel and his friends at QPR who number some of the richest men in the World and the man who used to own a van hire company at Valley Parade but when Rangers appoint Neil Warnock to their job half way through last season they hoped he would do for them what we hoped Peter Taylor would do for us.

QPR are owned by rich people for sure, but they are funded within the same scale as the rest of The Championship. They gave Warnock a bit of extra to bring in the players he wanted, but those players were largely the rank and file of Championship clubs. Similarly Peter Taylor got given the cash to bring in his men. The results though were different. As City struggled all season QPR went top early and stayed there.

BfB talked to QPR fan (and old Uni mate) Dom Smith about the way that two seasons that started the same ended so differently. Smith talks about QPR as a team of entertainers but is quick to point out “Warnock’s appointment was less to do with the style of football it was more about getting someone with experience who would be able to take control of the the squad.”

Warnock made a massive success at QPR while previous managers – who have had the same finances – have failed? Strength of personality seemed to be the key to this – Dom said – saying “When Warnock was appointed it was on the proviso that he got to pick the team and was allowed to pick the players he signed as well. Warnock took control of the squad and was given more control. That wasn’t totally him those as the Mittel Family (and they are the real money in the club) took more of a stake in the club at the same time and took over as chairman as well. Then we just got lucky.”

That luck seems to have been somewhat self made. Players like Helgerson and Shaun Derry went from average to excellent under Warnock’s instruction while Adel Taarabt – the maverick – had the team built around him. “A dangerous thing to do, but this year it has worked.”

One struggles to think of any of the players who were at the club when Taylor arrived who improved during his tenure. The players seemed squashed at the end of his time, the enjoyment seemingly sapped from football. Robbie Threlfall arrived for Taylor’s second game looking great, at the end he looked poor.

Read a few message boards and Taylor is described as “the worst manager in City’s history” which is a little harsh – the kids don’t remember John Napier – but but when trying to come up with a defence of the former City boss one sticks on the point that he failed to improve the members of the squad he inherited. Taylor would probably say that he needed the facilities he was promised in order to do that – a point addressed by the club after he has left – and he might be right in that.

Problems with the style of play – Warnock is a famed long ball man – were unfounded. Dom enthused “We are playing some great football. Kyle Walker, the kid on loan from Tottenham, now at Aston Villa and with the England team is a great wing back and ball winner. Alejandro Faulin is the best passer of the ball in the league.”

One struggles to recall any performance under Taylor’s charge that one would enthuse over. The odd good display by Omar Daley, Lee Hendrie or David Syers were exceptional because they were exceptions. Taylor had taken Stuart McCall’s team and rather than playing to a strength he found, tried to bring in a strength in Tommy Doherty.

Doherty was – to borrow Dom’s phrase – “the best passer of the ball in the league (two)” but when Doherty did not settle into the team (for whatever reason) then Taylor seemed to have no other option. One wonders what would have happened had Taarabt done a Doherty or if Doherty has been a Taarabt.

In so many ways Doherty was the personification of Taylor’s on the field. He put stock in the idea of the ball passing midfielder able to make the killer pass that unlocks defences which – coupled with a tight back four – would have seen City win matches. When Taylor exited City had a mean defence but little going forward. If Doherty was not pinging a single killer pass to unlock a back four to give the Bantams a 1-0 then no one was, and a team that cannot score does not win.

While QPR are well off – and City are not – the difference between Ranger’s season this year and last was not to do with throwing cash on the field as the City board seem determined to do. Smith says “The biggest difference we have had is Warnock’s connection, when we lost both right backs in the same game, he rang Redknapp up and got Kyle Walker in 24 hours, When he wanted Taarabt he went to Morocco to convince him to sign.”

Taylor’s connections brought Lewis Hunt, Luke Oliver and Doherty and while the last name on the list was the marquee player but the other two were squad men. Jon Worthington was signed and not used. Shane Duff never impressed. Lee Hendrie arrived paying tribute to Taylor but did not stay for the former England u21 manager. The loanees who signed – Oliver Gill and Reece Brown spring to mind – hardly excelled. For a man with so many years in the game Taylor was not able to bring in much ready usable talent. While Taylor was joking on Football Focus about David Beckham joining if he wanted to the strings he pulled brought us the likes of Ryan Kendall.

One would not seek to damn Taylor though on the strength of this comparison – this is not saying that he was a bad manager – just to illustrate the different path that could have been taken. Perhaps Taylor got unlucky when Hendrie upsticks, he certainly did with Doherty, and that his best endeavours did not come off this time but might have next, with the same randomness which saw Rangers adopt a similar policy with Warnock and have that reap rewards.

Dom wants to see QPR aim for 17th next season in the Premier League – 17th was very pleasant as I recall – and in Warnock will hope that his luck is different to his last stay in the Premiership.

The comparison is a rough one though, no two clubs are the same, but in Warnock there is a might have been for the Bantams.

If there was one chant that must have been music to the ears of Bradford City chairmen Mark Lawn and Julian Rhodes it will have been the chimes at Southend that rang “Love the club, hate the team.”

The team which failed on the field were cast as no hopers who could not care less and the manager who brought them to the club maligned. Regardless of your feelings about both players and manager(s) those in the boardroom must have thought it was just a matter of time until the Valley Parade ire would be turned in their direction.

And, dear reader, you will have your own thoughts on how justified that ire would be.

The season started off with Bradford City’s directors proudly backing Peter Taylor as the new manager although later Mark Lawn would tell us that he had reservations about the appointment having watched Taylor’s style of play. Nevertheless City – according to the directors one of whom had reportedly fallen out with former boss Stuart McCall – had the right manager in place and promotion was on the way.

Mike Harrison of The City Gent disagreed and felt the wrath of Valley Parade being unceremoniously called into the club to explain his prediction of eighth. Come the end of the season the “ludicrously optimistic” jokes wrote themselves but one could share a worry for the Bantams directors had they not handled the situation so poorly. Feedback loops at football clubs and Bradford City have been in a negative loop all season. Taylor’s arrival was an attempt to change that with the hope that positive thinking off the field would be manifest on it. That change of culture – from negative to positive – is important but the way to achieve it is more a matter of winning hearts and minds than applying the strong arm.

The club’s confidence stemmed from Peter Taylor’s appointment and from the traits which Taylor brought which were lacking in the previous manager. One could argue past the return of bovinity about the merits and methods of both but Taylor had been involved in success and knew what that success looked like. When he told the club that the team needed overnight stays, new suits and Tommy Doherty then the directors put hands into pockets and found the money for them, or so it was said.

Doing, and having to do

Savings were made at Valley Parade: A burst pipe fixed here, a new lighting system there; but most impressively Mark Lawn announced that – with some sadness – City were relocating to training facilities in Leeds with Apperley Bridge no longer considered suitable. The day before pre-season and suddenly Apperley Bridge was fine, the training facilities Taylor demanded to join the club were not forthcoming and the mood for the season was set. After the cameo of Lee Hendrie he and his uncle John were at a supporters evening chaired by Lawn who made it clear that despite the urgent need of the summer to replace the facilities they must now be considered good enough. He told BfB that they had to be, because there was no money to change them.

Taylor, in the meantime, had started using the relaid Valley Parade pitch to train on and credit to all that it withstood a bad winter better than many other surfaces. The trapping of success include a good surface and on that City have progressed this year. The supporters – underwhelmed probably – respected it enough to stay off it after the final game of the season.

The winter of bad weather also saw a season ticket promotion which prompted calls of amateurism from the club on the one hand and on the other asked questions about the strategic direction of the club. There is a worry that the club create direction and policy on the hoof and looking at a “cheap and cheerful” promotion which prompted a response of being “cheap and nasty” those thoughts seemed to be confirmed. It was not just the cackhandedness of the advertisement but its inability to communicate the message that City’s season tickets were superb value, a message which was lost in the infamous Santa Dave advert.

All of which led to a comment in The City Gent and threats passing from club to fanzine. Legal action was mentioned and once again the club was at loggerheads with supporters. One has to wonder if – on reflection over the season – these fall outs between the directors and the supporters which increasingly crop up should be approached differently. Mark Lawn’s car is vandalised and he talks about winding the club up. Mike Harrison talks out of turn and there are threats. The City Gent’s John Armitage criticises and there is talk of legal action.

Perhaps it is time to look at a new approach?

2004, and all that

Administration looms large over the summer and it will be said that this is not the time to talk about anything except securing the future of the club but those who battled to put the club in the hands of Julian Rhodes in 2004 for Mark Lawn to join him in 2007 will recall only too well the talk of how supporter would be at the heart of the new Bradford City. The club saved by the fans would not forget the fans. If 2010/2011 tells us anything it is that the supporters of Bradford City are to toe the line.

I speak as someone who has sat with Mark Lawn this season. He is not an unreasonable man and in talking to him one cannot help but be sympathetic to a man who clearly loves the club, clearly is trying his best, and clearly is crying out for assistance. Jason and I heard him talk about how the supporters interact with the club. How the OMB is used in anonymity and how a “Friends of Bradford City” scheme could be used to raise much needed funds and while these things are true the tone of the conversation stands as a stark contrast to 2004’s rhetoric. The club that was saved by the fans putting in a six figure sum is now telling them what to think, or so it might seem.

Lawn cuts an isolated figure at times. He admits to his blustering style but one wonders if it belays a worry that his aims for the club will never be realised. He is at great pains to paint out that his door is always open but one wonders if an open door is enough. Bradford City as a club pledged itself in 2004 to be more about the supporters. Perhaps Lawn and his fellow directors need to engage with supporters in a more active way. Show me a hundred Bradford City fan and I’ll show you a hundred skilled people across many fields. The only time these people ever get asked for help is when there is snow to be cleared from the field on a winter afternoon.

Indications from the club are that there are developments on this and it will be interesting how much the club are prepared to let go in the interests of supporter involvement. The benefits of supporter involvement are all in engagement. At the moment Bradford City is a product consumed by supporters – and in that context the customer complaints procedure is pretty bad – and how long any club should carry on in that way is debatable. In 2004 this was going to be our Bradford City. That spirit needs revisiting especially as we once again skirt the waters of administration if only because the loss of it has contributed to rendering the club in the position it now finds itself in.

Should this not all wait until after Administration?

There seems little doubt that Bradford City are in for a torrid summer and one might think that talk about learning the lessons form 2010/2011 off the field can wait until we know for sure that there will be a 2011/2012. Were you to think that, dear reader, you may be correct.

However our experience after 2004 tells us that things said in the heat of a troubled summer fade in the winters of a season and many of the problems the club finds itself in can be put down to the distance that emerged between supporters and City in the last ten years.

The atmosphere at Valley Parade is atrocious but with supporters set firmly is customers rather than invested parties there is little invitation to do much more than pay up and turn up, little reason for many to treat professional football as a thing they are invested in.

In addition the boardroom is out of touch with supporters. For sure there is a note of websites such as this one, of the Official Message Board, of The T&A comments section, of The City Gent but these are the publication of enthusiasts not the word of the man on the Clayton Omnibus. Small samples taken as representative have informed decisions made with the club.

Geoffrey Richmond would not take a meeting with any supporter’s organisation which numbered fewer than 4,000 members but – in a very real way – handfuls of people on the Internet are setting an agenda which the club respond to and those people are not necessarily representative of the general view of supporters and it is that general view of the people who tossed tenners into buckets in 2004 which the club losing sight of.

Moreover though as the club struggles to survive once more the need for vigilance in the boardroom could not be more clear. Supporters are a constant for the club which is under threat from a boom or bust policy which targets promotion. The spirit of 2004 suggested that involvement from supporters would create guardians for the club within the boardroom to prevent us from reaching this situation again.

Yet here we are.

The lesson of 2010/2011 off the field is a correlation between the deterioration of the relationship between Bradford City’s boardroom and Bradford City’s supporters

There is always one game in every season, one moment in that game, that one moment in that one game in the season when everything can change, when things can either come together or fall apart for the rest of the season.”

The Damned Utd, David Peace

Saturday 8 January 2011, and Bradford City are leading second bottom Barnet 1-0 at Valley Parade. The home side have been dominant since the half time break, twice hitting the woodwork, but a second goal hasn’t materialised. Yet they are well on track for an eighth win in 13 league games; and as it stands only goal difference will keep them out of the play offs. After a bad start to the season, it all seems to be coming together for City under Taylor – who during the week had turned down the Newcastle United assistant manager’s job – and hopes of promotion are high.

But during the second half, standards begin to slip. The players stop working hard for each other, stop getting the little things right, stop pressing the visitors. It’s as if the game had become too easy for them, that they believe that can coast it. It was to prove costly.

That one moment in that one game in the season when everything can change occurs when on-loan defender Rob Kiernan needlessly heads a Barnet cross into his own net. It is a truly shocking moment, and as the home side go onto collapse in the game – eventually losing 3-1 – it leads to a shocking second half to the season. This moment triggers the start of a run that sees the Bantams win just six of their remaining 24 games. Soon we wouldn’t be looking upwards, but nervously over our shoulders.

It would be a ridiculous assumption to make that, without Kiernan’s game-changing own goal that afternoon, the Bantams would have fulfilled those pre-season expectations of at least a top seven finish, but it certainly killed growing momentum and spurred the subsequent nosedive in form. A moment of madness, that instigated a maddening end to the season. That it could have ended much worse than it did is a consolation of sorts, but can’t disguise the scale of under-achievement.

Four months on from that dismal January afternoon, it’s hard to believe we were once able to harbour hopes of promotion. Yet although the season begin woefully, a more acceptable autumn had seemingly set City up for an exhilarating second half to the campaign. Along the way, there’d been some brilliant moments – the apparent season-turning win in the London sunshine at Barnet, the thrilling come-from-behind 3-1 victory over Cheltenham, the crazy second half 5-0 crushing of Oxford, and the jubilant 1-0 success on a rain-soaked Tuesday night at Bury. “We are going up” we sung with growing conviction. “Peter Taylor’s Bradford Army” we chanted with feeling.

Comparisons were made with the last successful Bantams promotion bid in 1999, where the players and management recovered from a nightmare start to climb into the top two and hold their nerve. Certainly the early season results bore strong similarity, as City began with four defeats from their five opening league matches. Occasional signs of improvement – a fortuitous last minute win over Gillingham and credible 0-0 draw at Rotherham – were quickly forgotten as poor results continued. In truth, only the commendable League Cup showings against Championship clubs Notts Forest and Preston provided us any hope that the players could turn it round.

Morecambe at home in early October was arguably the worst performance of the entire campaign, the 1-0 loss failing to do justice to how badly City performed. Having defended so well at Rotherham days earlier, the decision by Taylor to drop strong performers Zesh Rehman and Luke O’Brien for two young kids signed on loan from Manchester United seemed to deflate players and fans. Meanwhile lanky defender Luke Oliver was still playing up front, which made for largely ugly viewing. Taylor was subject to a torrent of abuse at full time. National media speculation grew that he was one game from the sack.

Then came that huge win at Barnet, and much improved form. Taylor, it seemed, had evolved team selection to finding the right players, and the best football of the season came during October. Omar Daley was deployed in a free role, partnering either James Hanson or Jason Price up front. Lee Hendrie was displaying his Premier League pedigree wide left, while David Syers was proving a revelation in the centre of midfield alongside an in-form Tommy Doherty. At the back, Steve Williams was outstanding while summer signing Shane Duff was, for a spell, able to shake off injuries and impress.

Form slowed a little, but victories – such as over Hereford in December – still occurred regularly enough to keep City in the position of play off dark horses. There were a number of injured players due to return in the New Year, and Taylor confidently talked up the prospects of truly kicking on.

Of course that never happened, and seven weeks after turning down Newcastle Taylor departed the club having seen his popularity sink drastically. We knew before he arrived in February a year earlier that City would be more dour under his management, but not this dire. Lack of entertainment might have been tolerated if the Bantams were winning each week – though that early season win over Stevenage put doubts to that – but losing and playing negative defensive football was a miserable combination. So Taylor left – the b*****ds having ground him down.

His final match in charge – a 3-2 victory over nine-man Stockport, where Gareth Evans netted in stoppage time to send us into raptures – had seemingly eased the threat of relegation. But despite interim manager Peter Jackson winning two of his first three matches in charge, fears kept returning that our league status could be surrendered. Jackson at least had City playing more attractive, attacking football – but results failed to improve. Heavy defeats in April to Torquay, Southend and Accrington left the Bantams too close to the relegation zone for comfort. Jackson – not able to make any signings – was having to make do without key defenders, as the injury problems continued and the club’s financial issues began to come to light.

In the end enough was done to preserve league football, but it remains an enduring mystery how City under-performed to such an extent this season. Taylor blamed it all upon the injury list, and this probably explained how a promotion push never ultimately materialised. But it does not fully justify finishing seventh bottom of the entire Football League, as the lowest scorers in the three divisions.

Taylor had a strong budget, certainly strong enough to do better. The rotten luck with injuries suggests he was right to bring in quantity over quality during the summer, but City were too badly lacking in certain positions. Daley and Leon Osborne were the only natural wingers at the club after Taylor sold Scott Neilson a fortnight into the season. On the eve of the campaign Taylor admitted he feared he was lacking a quality goalscorer and he was to be proven right. There was so much inconsistency to team selection. A curiously high number of players made captain.

Too many chiefs. Not nearly enough leaders.

And not for the first season, we were left to question the number of loan players brought in and lack of longer-term thinking. While club captain Rehman should have handled the situation of being continually left out for inexperienced loanees better, he deserved fairer treatment from Taylor. When Tom Adeyemi scored a consolation at Port Vale in February, there was something unsettling about how pleased he looked about it. Although Richard Eckersley caught the eye at times, on other occasions he seemed more interested in looking good than taking the right option when in possession. For whatever reason, it just didn’t look as though everyone was pulling in the same direction; desperate to achieve the same things.

Ultimately, only Syers and O’Brien can look back on the season with their head held high. Others contributed positively at times, but more should be expected and demanded. Yet still – no matter how awful the league table looks and how much misery we’ve had to endure over the past 10 months – were it not for the one moment in that one game, this season might have turned out oh so differently.

BfB Player of the Season 2008/2009

1. Dean Furman
   It is said that a manager knows his own position best and in – eventually – picking the Rangers kid Furman to be in the position – if not the shirt – of Bradford City’s number four Stuart McCall found an heir apparent. After breaking into the starting eleven later in the season Furman started to regularly feature in everyone’s “my midfield would be” harrying, unsettling and getting at opposition players when the senior players he displaced seemed unwilling to. Add to that his use of the ball which was superb then one can see a bright future for the young South African at Ranger – where he is expected to feature in the first team squad next year – and beyond.
2. Omar Daley
   Where did it all go wrong? Tuesday night against a Darlington team all too ready to kick who had six nibbles at Omar before taking him out until 2010 with a rustic tackle that ended City as an attacking force for the season. It seems a million years ago that there was even a debate on Daley – who had turned in his fair share of gutless displays in previous years – who constantly and effectively providing an attacking option for the Bantams all season. The true measure of Omar – and the thing that finally silenced his critics – was just how much he was missed when he was gone.
3. Luke O’Brien
   Emerging from the shadows with little more than the half remembrance of Gareth Grant skinning him in pre-season Luke O’Brien is one of those young players who’s progress is measured by how quickly one gets used to him. He had filled in at left back to a point where no hole was remembered – Paul Heckingbottom is hardly even talked off – and even raised to the hallowed level for a Valley Parade young player where the shrink wrap is taken off and he is as open to criticism as the rest of the squad. What joy. A fine first season.
4. Rhys Evans
   The one time Chelsea and England u21 goalkeeper arrived at Valley Parade as something of a second choice after the club’s pursuit of Rob Burch but went on to make the gloves his own with intelligent goalkeeping based on smart positioning in the Gary Walsh stylee.
5. Peter Thorne
   Another season in Peter? One hopes so. Thorne is the finisher that every clubs needs to gobble up chances when created. If we do offer the 35 year old another year then let us make sure that we provide him the ammo he needs.

Five best loan signings

1. Dean Furman
2. Nicky Law Jnr
3. Zesh Rehman
4. Steve Jones
5. Paul Mullin

Five “get in” moments – The times we lost our heads in wild celebrations

1. Accrington 2 City 3
   An awful performance and an awful result on the cards. Then with two minutes to go Barry Conlon heads home an equaliser to bring some relief and then 30 seconds later Joe Colbeck plays Peter Thorne through to improbably win the game. Don’t ask us what happened in the next 30 seconds, we rather lost the plot celebrating.
2. Luton 3 City 3
   A game that had everything including a superb second half City display, coming from 2-0 down to 2-2. After the Bantams miss so many chances to win it, Luton scored in injury time, but then the referee blows for a penalty and Conlon scores the coolest spot kick you’ll ever see to send us wild.
3. City 3 Chesterfield 2
   Another tense moment, another Conlon penalty to spark scenes of jubilation. City looked dead and buried after 20 minutes but came from 2-0 behind to win what felt like a crucial game.
4. Rotherham 0 City 2
   How cold was the Don Valley stadium in November? We shivered our way through 70 minutes of tediously dull football, then Luke O’Brien charged forward from his own half and fired the ball into the net, enabling some of us to warm up by dancing on the running track.
5. City 1 Macclesfield 0
   A must-win game and Macclesfield are time wasting and keeping every player behind the ball. Then Dean Furman wipes away an hour of frustration by firing the ball into the bottom corner. Promotion dream back on?

Five “oh dear” moments – The times we buried our heads in despair

1. Huddersfield 4 City 0
   The fourth goal of an utterly humiliating evening, made worse for one of the BfB crew by his efforts to leave early being foiled by getting a flat tyre in his car, yards after starting to drive home, and getting stuck in the heavy rain, in Huddersfield, until almost midnight due to his spare tyre not working. Pre-season optimism disappeared that night.
2. The Entire City 1 Dagenham 1
   We’re getting absolutely battered at home by a team playing the crudest form of long ball football imaginable. Just blow for full time referee and let’s never speak of this afternoon again.
3. Stuart McCall at Dagenham
   The season is basically over and an-almost tearful Stuart runs over to deliver what feels like his resignation speech. How did it come to this?
4. Omar Daley stretched off at home to Darlington
   We thought it looked bad, though no one could have realised just how bad…
5. City 0 Port Vale 1 – Richards booting the ball away
   Yet another visiting team playing all out defence and getting away with non-stop time wasting. While the referee isn’t looking, Richards runs up and stops Rhys Evans taking a goal kick by booting the ball away. You’d laugh if it wasn’t so serious.

FiveSix biggest player disappointments

1. Omar getting injured: I loved watching him run at people
2. Barry leaving: I know the booze and all but even so.
3. Michael Boulding: Top scorer from last season ran channels brilliantly and… well… not much else.
4. Paul McLaren’s ways: Which are great for corners but get involved man!
5. Chris Brandon: Cause everything will be alright when he is fit
6. Willy Topp: I mean! What the Hell!

Five things seen through rose tinted spectacles

1. Two defeats from 23 means teams won’t relish coming here next season.
2. Another Bradford youngster makes a first team spot his own. Well played Luke O’Brien.
3. Until we lost Daley and referees took a dislike to us, we competed with the best in this league.
4. We’ve seen some great games and performances: Exeter (H), Accrington (A), Grimsby (A), Chesterfield (H), Morecambe (H), Luton (A), Gillingham (A), Aldershot (H), Rotherham (H).
5. It looks like Stuart is staying to give it another crack.

Five things seen by the grumpy old sod…

1. Winning less than half of our home games isn’t that impressive…and don’t get me started on the away form.
2. We only had one home grown youngster playing regularly and most of the rest of the players are old and lazy.
3. Daley was inconsistent and we were only near the top because no other team actually seemed to want to go up.
4. We’ve seen some bad games and performances: Huddersfield (A), Bournemouth (H), Shrewsbury (A), Chester (H), Bury (A), Barnet (A), Notts County (A), Rochdale (A), Exeter (A), Bournemouth (A), Chester (A) Dagenham (A)
5. It looks like Stuart is staying to give it another crack.

League Two team of the season – The players who have impressed against us

• In goal: Andy Warrington of Rotherham United
  Produced a series of breathtaking saves to stop City running riot during the last home game of the season. Warrington just edges out impressive goalkeeping performances from Chester’s Jon Danby and Grimsby’s Phil Barnes at Valley Parade – especially as he didn’t resort to time wasting like the other two.
• Right Back: Darren Moss of Shrewsbury Town
  The Shrews defender had a ding-dong of a battle with Omar Daley in January and just about ran out the winner. Strong, speedy and determined.
• Left Back: Thomas Kennedy of Rochdale
  The Rochdale left back impressed in his sides 3-0 win over City at Spotland with his marauding bursts forward. Also made the League Two team of the season.
• Centre Back: Steve Foster of Darlington
  Dave Penny’s Darlington lacked flair and finesse, their dogged approach best exemplified by the impressive Foster at the back.
• Centre Back: Jim Bentley of Morecambe
  Okay he was a bit of an idiot in how he over-celebrated Morecambe’s 2-1 win over City on Good Friday, but Bentley was full of heart and gives everything to the Shrimpers cause. Courage that was not replicated by City on the day.
• Right Wing: Dany N’Guessan of Lincoln City
  The French winger did his best to rip City apart on Boxing Day and looked impressive at Valley Parade too before Peter Jackson curiously took him off early. Destined to play at a higher level soon.
• Left Wing: Miles Weston of Notts County
  Tore Paul Arnison apart on the opening day of the season, resulting in the City debutant having to be subbed. In the return game at Meadow Lane, tore Zesh Rehman apart.
• Central Midfield: Darren Anderton of AFC Bournemouth
  One-time England winger played the holding midfield role in Bournemouth’s surprise win at Valley Parade in September, where he looked a class act whipping balls across the park. Anderton retired early allegedly due to then-manager Jimmy Quinn forcing him to train to intensively.
• Central Midfield: Tommy Docherty of Wycombe Wanderers
  Another midfielder with an eye for a good pass, Docherty was hugely impressive when Wycombe came to Valley Parade and his manager Peter Taylor thinks he should be playing at a higher level. Looks like he will be next season.
• Forward: Ben Strevens of Dagenham and Redbridge
  Strong, quick and clever with his feet – Strevens and his striker partner Benson were no match for City’s feeble defence at Victoria Road in April. Probably would cost a few quid, ruling City out of looking at him, but can’t see him at Dagenham much longer.
• Forward: Chris Martin of Luton Town
  Poor guy, having a name like that; poor guy, playing for a club like that. Martin was a real handful when City played Luton at Kneilworth Road and should not be playing non-league football next season.

In many primitive cultures any type of bad fortune, from earthquake to stomach ache, was explained by saying that “the gods are angry”. This was due to a lack of knowledge and understanding that, in many cases, science and reason now fills.

But the past doesn’t quite go away. The language of primitive belief is still with us in many aspects of popular culture and none more so than football.

The news that Stuart McCall is staying at Bradford City will be welcomed by many (not all) as a victory for reasoned thought over primitive belief.

When Stuart arrived in the manager’s office he brought with him the level of adoration often afforded to a deity based on his reputation as a player and his well-known love for the club. Such was the level of expectation from so many that the status of “messiah” was, unfairly, thrust upon him and we all know the pressures that kind of responsibility can bring.

Hopes started off high and remained so for most of the two seasons he has been in the job. Support both, vocal and financial, was there so all he had to do was “achieve”.

The signs and omens were so good for so long but then came the crisis of confidence that saw the dreams of so many destroyed. Some turned against him as the team and therefore, by association, the manager “failed.” The automatic promotion dream was replaced by the self-imposed target of the play-offs .But that too faded quickly as the promise of the Aldershot victory was followed by a series of results that was devastatingly unpredictable and, more worrying to the City faithful, unexplainable.

The adoration that Stuart carried with him seemed all but lost only to be rekindled in the final home game when the realism of “nothing to play for” became a show of belief in the manager that looked set to leave us.

Whatever the reasons, Stuart changed his mind and remains with us. Science and logic may provide some explanation but, for many fans, Saturday’s show on and off the field appeased their deity. With this came celebration and joy but there was a much greater realisation – the gods were not angry, they were human!

Whatever his status among fans now, Stuart the manager (and by the way how many clubs sing their manager’s praises using his first name?) is now with us in the real world, a world that deals with the contracts and budgets of a 4th. Division football club. Reality has definitely bitten and the expectations for the future should now also be real. Yes we will still be among the favourites for promotion next season but whatever is achieved it will be in a climate of constraint that exists in so many clubs.

Many fans will still choose to live in the world of unconditional belief but reality is no bad thing. I for one still have “idols” but I prefer my idols to be on the pitch.
The Gemini-like twin partnership of Lee Mills and Robbie Blake is gone and the like of it not seen since at V.P.. The former faded fast from view, the latter forced to spend time in the “Underworld” – Ellandworld? – before re-emergence in claret if not amber. Add to these the legendary Bobby Campbell, the iconic Dean Windass, even the totemic Barry Conlon, they are the ones that have been out there on the pitch expected to perform the miracles we have all craved.

Stuart as a player will always be revered. But Stuart the manager has chosen to stay and live among us in the world of men (and women).For that I am thankful. He may have arrived in a blaze of glory but I feared that his loss and the inevitable period of chaos that would follow would have been epitomised in his departure in a big yellow taxi. (Forgive the mixed metaphor.)

The legend on the pitch remains but surely we all now see the man in the manager – not a superior being. I am glad we still have Stuart McCall as manager, even if he has now lost his divinity!

The news that the wage bill will be cut considerably at Bradford City next season doesn’t all spell doom and gloom. Stuart McCall met with the players on Wednesday to discuss futures and see just where he will be starting with his squad for next season.

Lengthy chats with Paul McLaren, Graeme Lee and Michael Boulding will surely have occurred as Mark Lawn makes sure a repeat of last season’s outgoings doesn’t repeat itself next time around.

So why all the negativity? Hopefully this will now signal the chance for Bradford’s youngsters to come through and prove they have what it takes to wear the Claret and Amber on a weekly basis. Luke O’Brien, recently crowned Player of the Season, made a real break through last season, with Joe Colbeck the only other notable player to come through and play on a consistent basis for the first team.

Now it’s time for Leon Osbourne, Sean Taylforth, Adrian Bellamy, Rory Boulding, Jonathan McLaughlin, Louis Horne, Rory Carson, Luke Dean and anyone else that is ready to give 100% to the cause and grow as a player to make the step forward. These players are on a small fraction compared to what some are earning on a weekly basis.

Other teams in the division have signed young players either released from higher clubs or making a name for themselves in lower divisions. This is the route Stuart McCall now needs to be taking as the realisation that Bradford are no different to any other team in the league finally sinks in with some.

Barnet for example have mixed experience with youth well and players like Albert Adomah and Jay Devera are capable of making the step up to the next level. Similarly, Dagenham & Redbridge and Exeter have shown what can be achieved with smaller playing budgets and a settled squad.

City fans were informed that 18 players are now out of contract at the club, leaving only a handful remaining. If stability is what fans want when it comes to the manager, the same must apply to the players.

Who do we as fans of the club have to associate with when players leave after one or two seasons. Next term we can only hope that there is less of the loan signings and more in the way of giving youth a chance.

www.boyfrombrazil.co.uk Player of the Season

1. Peter Thorne
   The If Only… Had Peter Thorne been fit all season and the Bantams been scoring and winning then who knows what the result of Stuart McCall’s first season would have been? He is the predatory poacher we missed without Dean Windass and as soon as he returned to full fitness with his intelligent play and able striking abilities City started to win. More please.
2. Kyle Nix
   Plucked from the season string at Sheffield United Nix has everything that a young player should have. He plays with equal measures of heart and skill and is a joy to watch with his vivacious and effective style. The finish on the end of Willy Topp’s turn aganist Shrewsbury lives long in the memory.
3. Joe Colbeck
   To say opinion was divided on Colbeck last season is an understatement with blows almost being exchanged over the winger who after returning from a loan Darlington ripped up League Two. Getting that form out of Joe Colbeck again next season is key to City’s promotion push. Keeping him long term may prove difficult.
4. Barry Conlon
   How many players turn around the Valley Parade crowd from the angry mob to the appreciative whole who may have debated his abilities but saluted his commitment and effort. If anyone has ever deserved a contract extension it is Barry Conlon.
5. David Wetherall
   The sentimental vote? Perhaps but David Wetherall organised a back four as well as he ever has done. The legs might have struggled but the brain was in full effect and it is that brain that will be behind the Bantams next year.

BfB poled eight contributors to get these results. The follow top fives are written by (one of) Jason, Roland, Michael, Omar and Paul.

The five best results and performances of the season

1. City 3 Rotherham 2
   Oh what a Tuesday night. We proved in this game that we can actually play well against a very decent side.
2. Darlington 1 City 3
   Stunning away victory against a promotion chasing team
3. City 3 Notts County 0
   One of the most comprehensive victories we have seen in some years.
4. City 4 Shrewsbury 2
   Another excellent Tuesday night, with Mr Willy Topp annoucing his arrival in Bradford with his first start, and setting up Nixy for the first goal.
5. Dagenham and Redbridge 1 City 4
   Superb away victory – what a reward for those of us who made the trip down to London down. Nicky Law Jnr made sure of the points with an excellent late brace

Five moments when we thought we might be going up…

1. Beating high-flying Peterborough at Valley Parade in September to go seventh.
2. Stoppage time at Bury in January, City are 2-1 up and they have a harmless looking throw in…
3. Luckily beating Macclesfield when they dominated second half. “Sign of a good team playing rubbish and winning,” we thought. If only…
4. Billy Topp beautifully setting up Kyle Nix to score, six minutes into his full debut.
5. When Joe Colbeck broke through to net the third goal at Darlington.

…and five moments when we knew we weren’t.

1. Watching Accrington play us off the park at Valley Parade in October.
2. Being the better side at home to Brentford but watching the Bees have two shots and score two goals.
3. Half time at home to Rochdale, somehow it was 1-1 but the opposition were on another level.
4. Barry Conlon’s penalty miss against Dagenham.
5. Must-win game at Rochdale in April, 1-0 down inside 24 seconds.

Top five that the gaffer got in – McCall’s best signings

1. Barry Conlon
   The example for everyone. Put in effort, get rewarded.
2. Kyle Nix
   Skillful, talented, young. Fingers crossed we keep hold of him.
3. Peter Thorne
   Showed class.
4. Ben Starosta
   Looks like the sort of full back who can defend well and then add to the attack.
5. Scott Loach
   They say that he will be England keeper one day. A way to go but impressive so far.

No Thanks – Five disappointing signings McCall made

1. Paul Evans
   What gives Evo?
2. Alex Rhodes
   Caught in the act of making Omar Daley look like a winger who tracks back.
3. Willy Topp
   So much fanfare, so much wait ’til next season.
4. Darren Williams
   Good, but like having Darren Holloway back.
5. Nathan Joynes
   Barnsley said he was great, he was not.

We will miss you – Five players who impressed but have gone

1. David Wetherall
   A legend.
2. Donovan Ricketts
   Capable of making blinding saves.
3. Tom Penford
   A favourite of this parish
4. Nicky Law Jnr
   Who looked like a very good player. Better than his Dad for sure.
5. Eddie Johnson
   Because the lad deserves credit for effort.

That went well – Five great things about 2007/2008

1. The atmosphere, and home performances, at Valley Parade improved thanks to proper priced tickets.
2. Stuart McCall back is great. Having him answer critics in the second half of the season is better.
3. Barry Conlon turned around the fans with some gutsy displays proving that it is possible to turn around the fans with gutsy displays…
4. …and nowhere was this better seen than Joe Colbeck who tore down the right wing brilliantly for four months.
5. We broke even for the first time since the Premiership. Now that is progress.

Next year – Five things to get excited about

1. Stuart McCall is up to speed.
2. 20,000 supporters in Valley Parade? Would be great if it came off.
3. Willy Topp is resting in Chile as we speak and raring to go at League Two next season.
4. Should Joe Colbeck continue his form from the end of this term then expect dewy eyed thirty somethings to compare him to John Hendrie with every other breath.
5. Promotion. You know its gonna happen someday.