BfB

Stuart McCall gave an early indication about the type of team he will be building at Bradford City as he confirmed that Oldham Athletic’s Paul Warne was One of an absolutely numerous list of players as you can imagine that have been offered to us. But he is one of interest.

34 year old Warne is the kind of constant trouble player that City have let go in the form of Dean Windass – more on whom later – but who has been a hallmark of every successful team McCall played in at Valley Parade. He is the robust Bobby Campbell of the 1980s and the constant ball high ball winning of Lee Mills in he 1990s. He is a good player but as McCall says one of many who will be thrown at the Bantams in the coming months.

Mark Lawn’s investment which wiped out the not inconsiderable debts of the Bantams and McCall’s appointment has seen City in the news as a viable club to play for once more. McCall has been fending off calls from agents since the day he got the job and other names alongside Warne include Paul Bolland, Town man Chris Brandon, Wolves midfielder Rohan Ricketts, Orient’s former Dundee United midfielder Craig Easton and Ray Parlour. All rumours. All not outrageous as City’s sink leads the club to being the biggest fish in a small pond and the prospects of a rise return.

In the space of a month – and from more than just a perceptions point of view – City have gone from the team that no one wants to one of the brighter prospects in the lower leagues. Of the bottom 48 clubs in the English division a handful could be considered to have the scope for a Premiership club. Leeds United are obviously one but administration will haunt them as it has us for years to come. Nottingham Forest are filed under “should be higher” alongside Leeds. Swansea have potential, Carlisle have room for a club but perhaps lack people to draw a support from. Few other clubs can match the Bantams for scope. If that scope is realised by McCall and Lawn – and for that matter by Julian Rhodes, Wayne Jacobs, David Wetherall et al – then the Bantams are exactly the sort of club a player would want to join.

In Warne though McCall begins to look for a squad built of players prepared to do the hard work he epitomised as a player. A good beginning.

A strange ending comes to the ears of BfB regarding Dean Windass’s time at Bradford City with the left field rumour that with his move to Hull City all but sealed City got a call about Windass’s availability from Sam Alladyce at Newcastle United. Alladyce’s interest – were it ever to have existed and the sceptic is king here – was for the striker to come in for six months but ended with the signing of Mark Viduka.

Stuart McCall has been expanding on his appreciation of Sir Alex Ferguson who would have said of such talk “Football eh? Bloody Hell”.