BfB

To the person who did not like Garry Thompson,

You and I share a football club and I am sure we share the same ambitions for that club. Probably, if we talked, we would quickly find common ground but that agreement would end on the subject of Garry Thompson.

I’m sure you clapped when Garry Thompson scored the winning goal at the end of a lackluster with Crawley Town that had seen both teams go in scoreless after a flat first half and Aaron McLean give City a lead after he finished a divine long pass by Nathan Doyle. We might have had the same reaction to Carl McHugh failing to follow a pass out of defence by Kyle McFadzean allowing Jamie Proctor to equalise.

I’m sure you clapped that just as you and I will have cheered Thompson’s goal against Arsenal, or the one against Burton Albion when all seemed lost, or his work in the goals against Northampton at Wembley and I’m sure that as I iterated through those goals you started to form an idea that those goals do not constituent a defence of a player who you believe is not good enough for League One.

Because that is what you have been saying about Garry Thompson this season: that he is not good enough; and while I’d hope your opinions did not effect Phil Parkinson’s decision to bring in the Kyle Bennett to take the right wing I am forced to wonder if you have been forced to consider your opinion of Thompson after seeing such an inadequate replacement.

When I watch Garry Thompson I wonder what you want from him other than what he shows? I watch him and see a player who puts everything into his performances and takes responsibility for those performances. I see a player with enough skill to take the ball past a player some of the time, good enough crosses to pick out a striker some of the time, who fires the ball in some of the time.

And I see a player who when he does get it wrong beats himself up about it.

When you watched Jon Stead being given a pass by Mark Yeates to leave him on his own in the Crawley half this afternoon and watched Stead fudge the chance and end up with nothing did you feel as I did that that failure should have hurt Stead more?

It can be hard to tell how players feel from the stands but having watched Thompson for long enough I like the fact that his mistakes are not shrugged off. I see a player who holds himself to a high standard.

I wonder what you see. I can probably understand how you are able to rationalise away the good things but I can not understand how you can see a player who embodies the effort that has seen the City team go from the arse end of League Two to secure in League One via a League Cup final in two years.

Perhaps you look at players like Paul McLaren or Tommy Doherty and thought they were better players because of abilities with a dead ball in the former case or the latter’s occasionally masterful displays but what those players were lacking was what to me is obvious from watching Thompson. Both lacked Thompson’s work ethic. Every time he has been asked Thompson has done everything he could for our team. The same could not be said of those other players mentioned.

And if you do not value that work ethic then you do not understand what is good in football, and it is wasted on you. You talk about Thompson as if his presence (and goals) in the key games of the last few years were an accident, and perhaps those games were wasted on you too.

All season you have mumbled and grumbled about Garry Thompson. Sometimes you went so far as to abuse him and I wonder how that will have impacted his confidence. He lost his place in the side and as he led the lap around Valley Parade at the end of the game probably having played his last game for City his contract is up and you are probably happy about that.

On that all I can say is that to replace Garry Thompson is about more than getting a better right foot in. It is about a player and a team ethic which was prepared to be held to a high standard and about understanding that it is that high standard which has driven the team in the last few years.

You do not put enough value on Garry Thompson, you never did, and because of that I feel sorry for you because I bloody loved watching him play.

Yours,
Michael

There is a debate at the moment between Bradford City supporters and a consensus seems to be forming from that debate that the woes that befall the club at the moment are because of the sentimental attachment to the players who achieved historic feats with the club at Wembley last season and that the club would be wise to move on from that.

And from move on we should extrapolate the word “players”. Move on those players from last season in order to achieve more next. If you are of a mind to believe that you can call achieving your stated aim as a woe – get up, stay up and so on – then you might buy into this idea. I cannot.

Watching Bradford City since the turn of the year has been alarming. The character which marked out last season’s team seemed to ebb away on a week by week basis culminating in Kyle Bennett’s alarming lack of commitment on Saturday which surrendered a goal.

In fact one could iterate though the players who put in spineless performances and they would make a damning list but foremost on that list would not be the team which is termed History Makers.

That list would not have Andrew Davies or Rory McArdle on it. It would not have Gary Jones on it and not have Garry Thompson either.

You can, dear reader, make another list if you want which suggests that any or all the players who were at the club last season are “not good enough” but to do so – in my estimation – is a wasted effort. At most time I will argue that “good enough” is a modern construct from the days of Championship Manager and the ability to look at players in an entirely statistical way but I need not do that here.

Simply put if a player will not put his heart, his whole heart, into a performance then his ability to bend a ball, play a pass or be accurate is irrelevant. If you’ve come to a different conclusion after watching City last year, or City under Paul Jewell, or City under Trevor Cherry then I’d have to question your grasp of the fundamentals of the game of football.

Application is genesis of success. Without it everything else is just effects.

If anyone were to tell me that Kyle Bennett could be a better player than Garry Thompson if Bennett applied himself I’d be forced to recall something that would make my Auntie my Uncle.

The Bradford City team are lacking application and this is obvious to everyone in the stadium especially Phil Parkinson who – if the talk of last year and what he does not say this is to be believed – thinks along similar lines. Is that application lacking in Jones? In McArdle? In the players from last season? It is not.

And be aware, dear reader, that I’m not talking about mistake making or misjudgements. I’m talking about the foundation of football teams. I’m talking about the willingness of a player to put himself into your performance. I’m talking about players taking responsbility for their own, and their team mate’s, performances.

I’m talking about what drives a goalkeeper to run sixty yards to punch Claude Davies because he has started on your mate and the unwillingness to put your body into a tackle with the Oldham Athletic number three.

Which is not to single out Bennett any more than Bennett singled himself out when he decided that he would acquiesce on a 75:25 ball that favoured him. One could look at how Matty Dolan decided not to track James Wesolowski when Wesolowski scored or Jon Stead’s modest return (although mostly Stead stands accused of underlining just how effective James Hanson is).

And this is not to suggest the problem is with loan players. One could look at Mark Yeates attitude all season which meant that even when a slot in the team opened up Yeates stays on the bench. Or wonder why Jason Kennedy is back at Rochdale. And the less said about Raffaele De Vita the better.

The problem is the players of last season, its the players of this. Its poor recruitment and bringing in players without character into a team which is all about character.

As Parkinson starts to rebuild the team he needs to shake out the last twelve months and build with the foundation stones of Jones, Davies, McArdle, Darby, McLaughlin, Hanson, and so on. Make a case for any or all of them “not being good enough” if you want, suggest they should be got rid of if you want, but do not assume that Parkinson will be able to find a half dozen similar characters and prepare for your better set piece delivery to come in the context of lifeless displays like the defeats to Walsall and Oldham Athletic.

Parkinson has to build a team for next season and he has to build it on what at the club was right this season and not what went wrong and what went wrong was the influx of weak character players that was presented starkly in Kyle Bennett’s meek surrender of the ball that ultimately was the difference between the two teams on Saturday.

Doing your business early

After about fifteen minutes of what would be a stolid, fruitless encounter with Walsall at Valley Parade the visitors gave up.

Adam Chambers – the number seven – had showed well pushing forward from the Saddler’s midfield but found Matthew Bates in front of him detailed to sit and stop him playing. Bates and Gary Jones were the midfield and perhaps it was Phil Parkinson’s homework that told him that Walsall would push Chambers forward and leave another back but Bates was deployed to nullify that threat.

And he did.

Such underweaned ambition defined Bradford City on the evening. One wonders what was in Phil Parkinson’s mind when he decided that against a team eight points off the play-offs the highest priority was to stop them playing. That this was achieved – Chambers simply dropped back on top of his back four creating two holding midfielders – caused further problems.

Problems for Kyle Bennett who if he has skills – and I struggle to verbalise what skills are that put him above Zavon Hines who was moved on in the summer – has skills which involve cutting into the middle of the pitch which drove him straight into that deep sitting middle two. It crowded an already crowded area which already had the static Andy Gray and the ineffectual Aaron McLean.

Its worth considering McLean, Bennett and the likes of Adam Reach on the left who looked more dangerous than Bennett on the right but considering the onus was on either to breakdown the visitors neither were able to. Throw in with them Parkinson’s other Winter recruits and recall that the reason City had to sell Nahki Wells at speed was because we needed to “do our business early”.

The results of this business? Reach looks promising, Bennett’s promise eludes me, Matthew Dolan is in and out of the team, Aaron McLean looks like he is involved in the longest pre-season in football history getting ready for next term. Why the rush? Three months after not being able to hold out on Wells the approach we are taking to an upper mid-table club coming to Valley Parade is to nullify?

Which is not to criticise Parkinson’s approach to the game over much. Every man, woman and teenager who shouted vehemently that we needed to replace (for example) Stuart McCall – who could have (and still could) learnt much about shutting down a game from Parkinson – is forced to accept that this dour pragmatism is very much what was wanted. We are not an enterprisingly, free flowing, attacking team and were not last season either. Walsall at home 2013/14 might be the ugly face of Parkinson’s approach to the game, but it is the approach which was lauded in the summer.

On the pitch City looked like a team who have forgotten what winning looks like. There is little confidence and that is obvious when players stand on their heels not expecting a teammate’s pass to reach them or perhaps not recalling what to do if it did. All that was in the subconscious is not strained and pained over. In short, and collectively, Bradford City have choked.

But it may not have been so. A free kick thirty minutes into the first half which Andrew Davies headed wide, the entry of James Hanson after an hour which seemed to inspire would have changed things against a Walsall side that would have been happy to go home having said they battle hard for a point.

A mistake on the front post by Jon McLaughlin though and the evening, and the game, were lost.

Gillingham boss Peter Taylor was kind enough to raise an arm to greet the Bradford City supporters who for a brief time watched him manage the side and for a time he must have wondered how the noise from the Bantams stands had changed.

Taylor once heard his own team booed off after winning a match, and his leader Tommy Doherty was booed on the field, to a point where the then City boss suggested that if the fans thought jeering was so beneficial he should work it into training.

When he watched Aaron McLean sprint into the box as a James Hanson header was fed out wide to Adam Reach and probably feared that the once feared hit man would dart past the defender and do what he had not done in eight weeks as a Bradford City player and score. He did.

McLean’s relief was obvious after his goal as was the affection for him from the Bradford City supporters. Such a drastic change since Doherty being booed, Taylor must of thought, and as City pressed on his Gillingham side in a tide which should have washed the Kent side away how right he was in his criticism of the booing supporters.

McLean has been nursed through every game by fans willing him to be all he could be. It warms the heart to watch.

But little else did as City squandered near total domination over Gillingham and ended up with a draw which it might be said both managers will be happy with but that Phil Parkinson should take no delight in at all.

Gillingham’s open midfield in the first half left an area between the back four and the midfield which City were able to exploit and did so. Adam Reach and Kyle Bennett started to show an understanding as if linked by sixty yards of elastic one showing one side when then other came in for the ball. Matthew Dolan moved forwards well and City had a chance to expand on the one goal lead but that chance – or those chances – were squander.

Amine Linganzi moved into the gap in the second half and Adebayo Akinfenwa came on and City would soon be looking at an equaliser by Cody McDonald and an afternoon where standards were lowered.

A word on Akinfenwa. He is often a joke of a player massive as he is but today Referee Michael Bull, and a good few of the City players, were taken in by that joke. Akinfenwa played by his own set of rules about the physical game and Bull allowed him to do so. It was like watching a kid at school who was rubbish so he was allowed to be offside to even things up.

But Akinfenwa is not rubbish, he is over weight, and he is allowed to throw that weight around with far less intervention from the Referee than other players on the field suffer. It is as tedious as it is disappointing and Andrew Davies must have wondered why Akinfenwa was allowed to spend fifteen minutes at the start of the second half jumping at him rather than with him (including in the build up to the goal) without a free kick being given.

But had Davies played with the spirit that saw him not even give Akinfenwa a kick at Wembley last May then City would have won and that leads us to the lowering of standards which was in evidence especially in the second half.

City have started to accept less than they should and this Parkinson should be worried about this.

First let me draw a distinction here between the idea that fans deserve more – a phrase I hate – or that players should always score with every shot or never make mistakes or other things which go under the idea of not accepting less and focus on this very specific issue of the lowering of standards.

Take Matthew Dolan on seventy minutes when the ball came to him thirty five yards out and when falling he lashed a ball which would not trouble the goalkeeper even slightly. Take Nathan Doyle putting in a half challenge in midfield and complaining that he has fouled. Take Kyle Bennett being challenged in his own half and unlike Adam Reach’s Elvis hips shimmy into the box in the first half falling and darting eyes to the Referee.

Parkinson needs to set a higher standard than this. He needs to underline to the players what playing well looks like and not accept that the players had a jolly good try at doing something else. Players need to play with their heads and with the trust in their teammates, and they need to play in a way that understands that they have teammates and that much of the time their jobs are to serve those teammates.

There was a moment in the game when Kyle Bennett, furthest forward, chased a ball and on catching it hooked it to the goalkeeper tamely. It was not understanding where your teammates are, it was not playing intelligently, and it was the sign of a standard slipped that Parkinson has to address.

Players are playing for contracts – they always are – and Parkinson will look at Adam Reach and feel that he has found a player who can raise the level of the team but many of the other players who may not be at Valley Parade next season are playing under a standard which they need to be to worth keeping at the club.

And again I underline the difference between holding a high standard and highlighting mistakes. It is not that players are pilloried for mistakes it is that some of the players will have left the field today feeling the did “alright” in a “decent result” and I believe that that is not the right attitude for a team looking to progress.

Today City needed to play to a higher standard and did not. Parkinson’s reaction to that – if he thinks that the way Matthew Dolan played today will replace Gary Jones (eventually) or the way Kyle Bennett played will be a substitute for how Kyel Reid played – will define next season.

If Phil Parkinson could have been in two places at once at Layer Road Colchester on Tuesday night he would have been.

He would have been in the Bradford City dug out watching a team win 2-0. He would have been happy to see James Hanson barge his way past two defenders to power a headed goal in in the first half, he would have been happy to see Kyle Bennett score in the second and at full time he will have reflected that after a hard Winter Spring is starting to come for his Bradford City side.

But he would have been in the Colchester dug out too, ten years ago.

He would have been that rookie manager starting out in the game just as Joe Dunne is now. He would have got the bit between his teeth and got his teeth into City in a way that Colchester failed to do.

One wonders what the one Parkinson would have shared with the other. What he would impart back through a decade of experience. Ten years ago no less than Bantams gaffer Colin Todd was calling Parkinson the enemy of football. Perhaps he would have shared a smile that Parkinson – for any validity in Todd’s statement – will always be better thought of at Valley Parade than the former England player was.

Parkinson took two seasons to get Colchester to the top of League One. After 99 games he had a third wins, a third draws, a third defeats but he stuck to his principals and promotion followed. The older Parkinson might underline that point.

He might say “Son,” as all of us would, “make sure you never let those principals slide. It’s what will matter in the end.”

Parkinson’s time at Charlton Athletic was the holding pattern of his career. A nothing of a time when he was not his own man nor was he surrounded by his own men. He has, he has said, promised Mrs Parkinson that he would assure he would never get into that situation again.

Hull City things were different. He stuck to principals about how he wanted senior players to behave and as a result they stuck the knife into him, between shoulder blade, and it seemed that his chance had gone when Phil Brown took what he had and took it to the Premier League.

One wonders what it would have been like to be Parkinson in 2007 watching Dean Windass send Hull to the top flight thinking that if only you had allowed Ian Ashbee to do what he wanted then you would have been leading that charge.

“Be calm,” the older Parkinson would have said, “you are making the right decision.”

And when Bradford City turned him down to appoint Peter Taylor Parkinson had to cool his heels and not jump at a job that would not have served him well. “Be calm.”

Its hard to imagine that any young, ambitious man would have listened to an echo from the future. “Make your own mistakes” might have been the right thing to say.

And then, thinking of the persistence it has taken to stand by his principals this season, he might have added “but don’t make them twice.”

The words we are looking for are “conformational bias”.

You know how when you look at your watch and it is always 11:11 except it is not always 11:11, it’s just that you only remember the times you look at your watch (well, phone) is when it reads 11:11 and you forget all the other times you look at your watch (well, phone). That is conformational bias. We remember the times that support our hypothesis and forget the ones which do not.

(By the way Uri Geller believes that it is always 11:11 and has lots of very curious ideas on the subject which prove nothing at all and are basically confirmations of conformational bias)

Being a Bradford City supporter at the moment is to be judging between (at least) two different conformational bias. Phil Parkinson’s team are not performing as well this season as they did last season and a 2-0 defeat at Brentford is seen as confirmation that Parkinson is not good enough or it is not because a team in City’s position would not expect to go to a promotion chaser and win is seen as contradicting that and is thus ignored.

Likewise the two wins in a week were confirmation that Parkinson was “the man for the job.”

A lifeless first half in which neither side threatened goal much was a confirmation of how canny Parkinson was to keep things tight and try steal a point from a team which ends the day third but the fact that City were unable to do that because of second half goals from the generally annoying Clayton Donaldson and George Saville shows how limited Parkinson’s plan is.

Without James Hanson up front and Andrew Davies at the back against a team in good form the afternoon always seemed beyond the visitors and again one is stuck between scenarios as to why. Parkinson gave up the game and rested his two players because even his full strength side would struggle on the one hand and that is the smart thing to do on the one hand. On the other Parkinson’s side’s failings are his failings and depth of squad is squarely amongst those failing.

It does seem like the team that finished seventh last season/the team that went to Wembley twice – pick your own description to continue the theme of this article – have reached a plateau. While Brentford trooped off at half time unimpressive it never looked like the area between Carl McHugh and Matthew Bates would not afford Donaldson a chance during the afternoon and so it did when Donaldson drove in low. Only his proficiency stopping him adding another later but Saville gave the scoreline a perhaps undeserved polish. The Londoners edged most things on the day – but not by much – although Will Grigg and Adam Forshaw provided everything a League One midfield needed to go twenty two games with only a single defeat or twenty three games with two, if you are that way inclined.

City’s midfield is the start of the limits that Parkinson faces by by no means the end of the. Gary Jones has made a virtue out of the level of dedication he puts into all things and he will know more than anyone that the number of games he has at League One level is limited but – in my never humble opinion – he remains value for his place on his performance and the energy he puts into it which one only wishes was matched by Nathan Doyle. Doyle displays last year were excellent but that has been the exception in a career which has seen him more often than not fall below the standards he reaches on his better days on too many of his days. Doyle can play better, and has often, and to be a reliable part of Parkinson’s team next season he has to.

Kyle Bennett remains a mystery to me, Adam Reach continues to let how impressive he is one moment stop him impressing the next. Aaron McLean works hard and for that he will remain in Parkinson’s side because Parkinson prizes that above all else.

And if one agrees with that philosophy then a defeat like today is just a part of the grind. The fact that the club will shake itself off and go to the more winnable game at Colchester with more fit players is confirmation that the manager knows what he is doing. Looking at the table City have twelve games left to play and need as many points to reach fifty three which would guarantee safety. That simply requires Parkinson’s side to score points at the same rate that it has all season.

If one does agree with the hard working philosophy (or perhaps does not agree with something else that sets one to suggest that Parkinson is doing something wrong) then it is unacceptable not because it is a defeat but because all defeats highlight problems because it offers confirmation that there is a problem.

So one is left to decide if retaining a place in League One for next season represents progress or a problem.

“Bring me lucky Generals.” Napoleon.
“People said I was a lucky golfer but I found the more I practiced the luckier I got.” Gary Player.

If there was the shimmering of a change in luck in Carl McHugh’s last minute winner on Tuesday night then James Hanson’s winner after seventy eight minutes was a shine through the clouds.

Hanson followed in a ball back to Milton Keynes Dons keeper David Martin expecting little but was rewarded as the custodian performed a pratfall leaving the City striker to put the ball into an unguarded goal.

It was lucky. A fluke. Good fortune.

And it came after nearly eighty minutes of football in which both sides committed little forward seemingly for fear of losing. City drove more of the match but not enough of it to apply pressure on the visitors goal.

Other than an enterprising effort from Hanson that came after the striker had got the ball from one of very few crosses and taken it under control well and apart from the visitors getting a great one handed save out of Jon McLaughlin there were few threats at goal. Stephen Darby – brilliant today – cleared a ball off the line which was City’s Martinian mistake.

It was difficult to see where a breakthrough would come for City – or for the Dons – until that error but Parkinson will take credit for the solid rearguard defence. His maxim that games are won by clean sheets and punishing mistakes was never truer.

City’s effort earned the reward but had that misfortune befallen rather than benefited the Bantams the visitors would be able to say the same. It was the shine of luck

Luck though Parkinson’s change to a 433 when Chris Atkinson joined a three in the midfield just before the goal allowed him to seize any initiative that was there. Its hard to know if that has the decisive impact but fortune favoured the brave.

Both Parkinson and opposite number Karl Robinson drilled in the need for application on the field and both will feel that they have got it. As a side note Robinson’s fulsome praise for City in the week is respectful enough to not be an application but does suggest that should they have won the game and Parkinson be “in trouble” then the club might look at the MK Dons boss as a replacement.

That was the case though and Parkinson strengthens his place at Valley Parade with two 1-0 wins going into a third home match on the bounce when struggling Stevenage visit next week.

In the last week Parkinson had returned to his original managerial philosophies of a solid team and a clean sheet above all else – Colin Todd called him “the enemy of football” for it – and today the attack suffered for it. Hanson and Aaron McLean showed signs of an understanding but mostly working from long punts and not often enough in the game.

Adam Reach needs to forget any good things he read about himself this week and start doing what he did to gain those reviews again. Kyle Bennett looks increasingly like a player which too much work needs doing with to make him useful. As soon as Garry Thompson arrived on the field City improved.

Both Bennett and Reach were problems today. Parkinson needed creativity from his wide players and neither offered it. Bennett came short when he should have been looking for passes from Gary Jones behind the full back and when he did get the ball his control let him down. Reach did not do enough right on the left and needs to get back to being harder to play against.

This is a problem and – without creativity from the flanks – Parkinson’s game plan is left looking for luck and misfortune.

Today he got both.

Carl HcHugh already has scored more important goals for Bradford City than his last minute looper from a corner over Port Vale which gave Phil Parkinson’s side a first home win in months but weight lifted off shoulders at Valley Parade has seldom been greater.

McHugh got his head to a corner put into the box by Gary Jones which seemed to have gone beyond the young Irishman but had not and then was describing an arc Chris Neal into the back of the Vale goal. It denoted similarly to the goal which was decisive against Aston Villa in the League Cup semi finals last season but connotations were massively different.

This was relief, it was all relief.

City had looked like being frustrated again. Frustrated by a team which played strongly but has only won once in twenty one fixtures. Frustrated by a by a Vale side who played for a draw save the odd enterprise forward that Jon McLaughlin can be pleased keeping at bay. Frustrated by a referee Mark Brown who seemed to have decided that he would keep bookings and controversy to a minimum by ignoring what deserved one and would have caused the other.

And that frustration came to an end when McHugh’s goal went into the goal which itself came some had been convinced that the Bantams did not look like scoring. They streamed away into the dark Bradford night frustrated at City’s inability to score.

And while those people were ultimately wrong it was not hard to see how the conclusion formed.

As strong as the back two of Rory McArdle and Andrew Davies looked and as well as Stephen Darby at right back and McHugh returning to the left after his cruel exposure at Sheffield United played the Bantams did not threaten goal enough.

James Hanson is Sir Bobby Robson‘s one in three man and does all he needs to but Aaron McLean is struggling to play off him.

McLean seems to need more room than is available when a solid defence close to a deep midfield is deployed as it did today with the risible Anthony Griffith playing a holding role for the visitors. Still McLean’s endeavour does not falter and that earns him his chance to play in a City side swelled by victory.

In midfield Nathan Doyle seems not to be as he was while Gary Jones retains a level of energy and application which one cannot help but be impressed by but Jones’ work rate would be impressive for an eighteen year old.

The two wide men offer contrast. Adam Reach asks a question of a defender almost every time he gets the ball and sometimes the answer is simple – you can’t go past me but you can have a throw in – other it is not and every time he makes the defender work. Kyle Bennett is too easy to defend against and while one feels that there will be occasions where things go right for him in a spectacular and impressive way those occasions will be fleeting. Reach does more than Bennett but one gets the feeling Bennett will one day do something Reach could never do.

Bennett is a frustrating figure – an un-Parkinson like player – but he has the benefit of being defensively disciplined. Reach is a much harder player to play against for defenders and Bennett still has to show that he can be useful to the team on a consistent basis.

Nevertheless Bennett was one of the last off the field at the end of the game after Jones had led the applause for the supporters who had not gone for the early bus. They make an impressive noise, these City fans, and they do it regardless of wins or goals.

And they seem linked by symbiosis to the Bradford City team who seem refuse to give up on games, or on the spirit in the club, or on the manager that must have come close to the sack.

The players must have known that had spirited defeats become meek surrenders then the manager Parkinson would have struggled to keep his job and its to their credit that they did not let that happen. One hope that they continue to not let it happen at home to Milton Keynes Dons on Saturday.

Its credit too the boardroom at Bradford City that they have watched three months or more of games with only a single win but did not flinch. No articles distancing themselves from Parkinson, no whispers that the boardroom might be unhappy, no suggestions that things “had to turn around soon”. Just support for Parkinson and what he carries on trying to do. Credit is due to Messrs Lawn and Rhodes for resisting baser urges.

Urges which would have said – correctly – that the way a chairman wins over support is to be seen to be doing something even though that the best course of action was to do nothing other than support Parkinson in what he continues to do.

And will continue to do on Saturday taking what he can from the last few months. I confess I’ve no idea what Parkinson did when McHugh scored – goal celebrations I do alone – but I imagine he allowed himself a moment of relief before looking soberly at the team, and where improvement is needed, and how to get that improvement from the players.

A year this week Parkinson was preparing his team for Wembley in the League Cup final. The team was beaten that day but that defeat became a tool of motivation for the rest of the season.

Having looked the end so squarely in the eye in the last months one waits breath bated to see what Parkinson will make of this opportunity.

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And if you, dear reader, want to know more about Port Vale then BfB points you to One Vale Fan which is a site older than this one.

When Gary Jones scored City’s equaliser with five minutes left of a blustery scrap at Valley Parade it seemed that the Bantams may be set to lay siege to the Crewe Alexandra goal for a winner in a game which the visitors never trailed it but ultimately went home happy.

Instead City seemed exhausted and the game ended with little more to report. Having refused to be beaten twice it looked very much like Phil Parkinson’s team could not muster much more. Bradford City – it seems – have reached a limit.

Looking down the teamsheet at the number of new or younger players in the side one might think that Parkinson has come to the same conclusion. He gave Carl McHugh a start to allow the young defender to show what he can do. McHugh misjudged controlling the ball with his head a dozen minutes into the game and Uche Ikpeazu steamed past him to lob home an opening goal.

McHugh floundered in tough conditions. Fingers were pointing at left back Matthew Bates in the murmuring of supporters but McHugh as central defender failed to command his part of the backline all afternoon and will have to step up his level of performance to turn potential into progress as a player.

Similar improvement is needed for Kyle Bennett who looked as lost a player on the right flank as one can recall. Bennett – as with a good few of his team mates – is ostensibly playing for a contract at Bradford City next season but proved very easy to defend against for the visitors and offered little for his teammates to find useful. He represented neither an outlet to pass to for the midfield or a danger when on the ball. The combination of these failings meant that much of the progress down the right in the first half resulted in long, raking balls to no one.

Bennett needs to do a single thing well to start being useful and I’d suggest that thing would be to improve possession when he gets it rather than cheaply giving it away either to an easy tackle or a wayward shot.

Better was Adam Reach who needs to get involved more but shows signs of attempting to do that. In the second half he combined well with fellow Middlesbrough loanee and debutant Matthew Dolan who had a better second half prompting play and able to say at the end of the game that the two Crewe goals and most of the attacking play came from going around his position rather than through it.

Ikpeazu’s second came after City had taken the game to Crewe but been caught with an extremely high line which Stephen Darby was outpaced to exploit. It sparked a revival that manifested itself as Aaron McLean turned back a ball across the box for James Hanson to thump in from eight yards.

A minute later and Hanson’s leap found McLean who used the strength he offers over Nahki Wells to tuck the ball back to Jones. A well hit shot and the power given by a fierce wind did the rest.

That Mathias Pogba scored for Crewe seemed to go against the spirit of proceedings as City launched a series of assaults. James Hanson spurned the best chance after he had taken and beaten the impressive Mark Ellis (different one, me thinks) only to fire over and it seemed that City lacked the ruthlessness that Crewe were showing.

Crewe, for what it is worth, seemed a surprisingly unsophisticated outfit firing balls forward to big, fast attacking players. After the years of Dario Gradi one got used to the idea of the Railwaymen playing good football. Nothing lasts forever.

Nothing at all.

To watch Gary Jones is to highlight City’s problems. I’m often mystified by modern football’s desire to make definitive judgements on events in progress. Jones – one is alternatively told – is either past it and needs to be replaced or he had fuel left for more and perish the thought he would ever not be in the midfield.

For me the joy of watching Jones is seeing how he valiantly pushes back the drawing of the night. There will come a day when Jones no longer should take his place in the City midfield but that day was not today.

He got to a flick back – the Hanson/McLean partnership starting to create goals – and lashed the ball low and long to nestle into the back of the goal.

Jones represent the state of the team at the moment. The limitations are obvious but the character is to push those limits as far as they can be. To play in the way Jones does that says that for all the sight of dark you will rage against the night.

The aforementioned Wells talked about crying the day he left City because he would miss the team which is already breaking up.

It’s impossible to know how many more vociferous moments Parkinson’s team of 2013 before it’s last hurrah but Jones’ arrowed strike was one of them.

Bradford City think that Kyle Bennett’s should not be banned for three games for hitting another footballer in the neck in Tuesday night’s game with Preston North End and the crazy thing is that the Football Association agree.

In the video of Bennett’s clash with Neil Kilkenny – the less said about his actions the better but nothing he doe impacts that Bennett has done – the Bradford City player very clearly strikes Kilkenny. If you can’t see it watch it again until you do and you will.

He does not strike him hard, he does not wound or injury him but he does strike him and that is the violent conduct that the player was dismissed for. This is as open and shut a case as you could expect to see in football and referee Stuart Attwell has rightly sent him off.

But the FA have decided that Bennett should serve only a one match and not a three match ban and the indication from the Bradford City website is that that is because he made “limited” contact or – if you will – he hit him that hard.

Consider that again for a moment.

Bennett hit Kilkenny (again, I’m not talking about Kilkenny’s antics) which was judged and rejudged as violent conduct and no one contests that yet the FA have decided that it is not the absolute of violent conduct that he is punished for but rather the effectiveness of it.

In April this year the same FA banned Liverpool striker Luis Suarez for 10 games for biting Chelsea defender Branislav Ivanovic. Ivanovic suffered no lasting effects from the nibble and I have deeper cuts on my arm from my kitten Leo but nevertheless that was judged on the violence of the action not the result.

Which is not to say I’m not glad that Bennett has only got a one game and not a three game ban but I would be incensed if this ruling went the other way and someone were allowed to get a lesser ban for hitting a City player softly.

In fact I recall Etienne Verveer playing for City at Huddersfield Town and taking a dive after Tom Cowan swung a fist at at him. The referee saw the dive but sent Cowan off because you are not allowed to throw punches even if they miss.

Both John Finnigan of Cheltenham and Ívar Ingimarsson of Reading were left complaining that Dean Windass had done something unspeakable to them that provoked red cards they got for hitting the City player but provocation is not a defence against a charge of violent conduct either.

Those were good decisions based on the clear statement in football that for all the wrongs you may perceive the game is a game and it is not for players to hand out justice with violence. We are not talking about questionable elbows or hard tackles. We are talking arms and hands striking above the shoulder. We are talking hitting someone else.

If – in football – you have to resort to throwing fists during a game then you get sent off and you get punished with severity. The action is punitive – not something I always like – and is their to tell the player not to start fighting while playing a game.

The FA have undermined what should be a clear statement but the FA’s approach to discipline is to underline strange and unusual punishments.

I’m glad Bennett will be back sooner but I cannot agree with the idea that obvious violent conduct can be downgraded for how poor it was carried out or how little damage was done.

Kyle Bennett’s Bradford City debut lasted 24 minutes and for a few of them he looked interesting coming in off the right flank, getting involved in play behind the two forwards, but it was a tackle he put in on Neil Kilkenny which saw Kilkenny kick back at him and Bennett slap Kilkenny that he will be remembered for.

The red cards – both players were sent off – were deserved but the result was a game left without a pattern.

Addition:
The footage of this incident suggests that the red cards were harsh and certainly Kilkenny has some questions to answer about his reactions but Bennett is clearly not going for the ball with his hands and is – in that way – the architect of his own sending off.

Promotion hopefuls and powerful defensive unit Preston North End started better but by first half ended had been pushed back to defending. Playing an hour with ten men Preston were happy to try sneak a win by feeding forward Joe Garner. City struggled to set a pattern of play when Preston sat back.

The Lillywhites were as well drilled a side as any who have come to Valley Parade this season. Both teams saw the benefits of a draw. A draw seemed inevitable even when victories for Phil Parkinson are scarce. The onus was on not losing.

Parkinson’s side’s posture was aided by the return of Andrew Davies who stepped back into the team and immediately impressed with a controlled performance in a calm defence.

Davies arrived on loan at Bradford City two and a half years ago with the club in the bottom two of League Two and ended up staying. He was the best defender in League Two and certainly is amongst the best in League One. That is what happened to Andrew Davies when he came to Bradford City on loan.

Davies was calm and so were Rory McArdle and Jon McLaughlin alongside him despite both making mistakes. McLaughlin pushed a ball wide he could have taken but did not sulk. McArdle put mistake upon mistake giving the ball away sloppily twice but his was not composure lost. Both can mark that as personal and collective progress.

City struggled to press the game. Without Bennett the width in midfield was lost. Also on his debut Adam Reach ended up drifting from position to position occasionally looking useful but often looking lost for a place to settle in. Within an hour of his first game at Valley Parade he found every eye in the stadium looking to him to provide inspiration which was lacking all evening.

City lacked confidence going forward and have for some time.

James Hanson toils but is now targeted by big defenders who make it their business to stop him doing his. Aaron McLean looks to have the strength to hold up the ball and bring other players in but again without Bennett or width he lacked targets to do that. Oli McBurnie did well when he came on but as with Wells before him in the last three months without Parkinson committing more men forward to attack players with pace end up running into defensive bodies.

The goalless draw was threatened on occasion when McLaughlin’s post was rattled and when McLean forced Declan Rudd into a push away and both teams were content to take a point. Rudd was an assured pair of gloves all evening.

One wonders though what – in private – those managers will think of Bennett and Kilkenny. Parkinson’s run without winning goes uncommented upon at Valley Parade and there is a justified belief he is in the process of getting things right but Bennett’s actions will not have hastened that process.

One wonders though how much today will shape the things that happen with the players on loan at Bradford City. Adam Reach won admiration for his attacking play and willingness to take players on.

Kyle Bennett, on the other hand, has a lot to do.