Tag Archives: Mark Lawn

Parkinson signs up until 2016 as City find stability

22 May

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“Three years was the minimum we wanted. We’re aiming to go back up the divisions and we want Phil to be the man leading us.” Julian Rhodes

By Jason McKeown

Phil Parkinson has finally ended months of speculation by today pledging his future to Bradford City, with the signing of a three-year contract. Along with his assistant, Steve Parkin, and fitness guru, Nick Allamby, Parkinson is being tasked with completing City’s climb back to the Championship.

Even before Saturday, Parkinson had more than proved himself as the man to take City forwards. The job he has performed, since taking charge in September 2011, is nothing short of spectacular. Not only evidenced by the league table and remarkable cup run, but the way that he has transformed attitudes and standards on and off the field.

Parkinson is huge on character and told me that he ranks this quality even above a player’s ability. He has successfully blended together a talented squad of hungry and motivated players, who have delivered incredible results over a marathon season. Mark Lawn’s comments in the T&A that Parkinson turned down the chance to sign a striker mid-season, because of his potential to disrupt the dressing room, tells you everything about the man and his ethics. This group of players, to a man, have given everything to this club. Parkinson has instilled that culture and environment.

The contract negotiations have taken a while to conclude, with numerous rumours of clubs interested in Parkinson’s services. Width of a Post understands that the sticking points were the way in which the contract was originally drafted, and Parkinson’s insistence Parkin and Allamby’s contracts were sorted out at exactly the same time. In addition, the health issues with Parkinson’s agent and Julian Rhodes’ selling of his business have slowed progress. Yet what has been clear, since Parkinson arrived, is that the chairmen and City manager have a strong bond. Whatever doubts and fears us supporters, and even players, have carried over the last few weeks, crucially this was not the case between those at the sharp end of the negotiations.

That Parkinson has signed for three years is also notable. It is the longest managerial contract City have given out since Colin Todd signed for five years in 2005. It represents a clear statement of intent by the club – that they recognise the importance of the stability Parkinson has delivered. After Todd almost completed three years in the hotseat, his sacking, and replacement of David Wetherall as caretaker, saw mid-table City slump to relegation. Stability returned under Stuart McCall, before the Bantams quickly went through two managers and on the field went backwards. There’s a repeated lesson, which has thankfully being taken on board.

Parkinson has reversed City’s 12-year slump and delivered impressive success. He is the club’s biggest asset, and so tying him down for so long provides us with the best possible chance of continuing our upwards curve.

Undoubtedly the goal will be for Parkinson’s new deal to run out with City a Championship club. There is talk of back-to-back promotions, but that is a big ask. More realistically, Parkinson has three seasons to get us promoted out of League One or at least ensure that we are challenging at the top end of the table. There will inevitably be bumps in the road, but the Chairmen need to back their judgement and stay the course with him.

Today’s news suggests that they have every intention of doing so.

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Parkinson’s new deal is a rare victory for long-term thinking

15 May

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By Jason McKeown

I will be honest with you, I feared the worst when it came to this season – and the chief reason for that was Julian Rhodes and Mark Lawn.

The Joint Chairmen’s five-year dual stewardship of Bradford City can be characterised by the hurried implementation and quick demolition of structures and strategies; whilst quickly distancing themselves from any responsibility. Take Rhodes’ blaming of the 2011/12 underperformance on Peter Jackson, at the end of last season. Jackson may not have been up to it as manager, but the 14-game interim period he was employed for, after Peter Taylor quit in February 2011, offered the Chairmen plenty of time to make a considered decision on appointing him permanently.

Then there was the asking of Archie Christie to devise and implement a plan to improve the club, which was seemingly abandoned in the wake of the Scot’s departure. And it all left City going into this season with the pair going back to their Plan A of throwing all available resources at the first team in the hope of a promotion-winning side being instantly assembled – a Plan A that did not work when tried under Stuart McCall or Peter Taylor.

So I looked at this season, not so much fearing that the plan of overspending on the budget wouldn’t work – but worrying what the consequences of failure would be if it didn’t. More cut backs, another manager change – and then what? This season was Rhodes and Lawn’s last chance to prove to me that they do know what is required to produce a successful football club.

And so the news that Phil Parkinson has agreed a new contract to remain in charge of City – which will be formally signed next week – has me on my feet applauding Rhodes and Lawn. And I’m really excited about what this decision to stick rather than twist means for the club, and the position it leaves us going into next season.

Regardless of what happens on Saturday, we approach the summer in a position that we have yet to achieve under Rhodes and Lawn – having a consistently strong playing budget. McCall was afforded a contract beyond failing to take City into League One, after spending big in 2008/09; but rather than build on the positives, he had no choice but to rip it all down and start again due to huge cutbacks from overspending. Get rid of four high earners was the mission; but when two could not be pushed out the door, the resources left over, after paying the remaining pair, were too thinly spread for rebuilding a team. McCall could not make more from less.

This time around – and thanks largely to that cup run – Parkinson does not need to bulldozer his squad. He does not need to release half of the players who are out of contract. He does not need to make 10+ summer signings. Whatever the failings of this season’s team, they are relatively small compared to the sides of the three previous seasons. There is certainly nothing to suggest that this group of players would not be good enough for League One. Strengthen rather than rebuild.

The huge improvement Parkinson has delivered this time around, in relation to last year, offers encouragement that he can continue the upwards momentum.

To the joint Chairmen’s credit, talks did not stall even during that relatively rocky patch of form after Wembley, where a mid-table finished looked inevitable. Width of a Post was fortunate to have a close ear to the situation via a couple of well-placed sources, who continued to assure us that things would be okay and the deal would be agreed. Last week, I was invited to the Player of the Year awards by the Bradford City Supporters Trust, where I was privileged to spend the evening on Parkinson’s table and quizzed the manager on anything and everything. It would be unfair to make public the details of what was in essence a private chat, but Phil assured me the contract was close to being formalised and of his strong desire to stay.

Today’s confirmation that a two-year deal will be signed represents an all-too-rare victory for us long-term advocates. For years now – and beyond the full blame of Rhodes and Lawn – the latest form guide has been allowed to dictate major decisions. As I shake my head in despair at Manchester City and Chelsea, I feel a sense of pride that the owners of my football club have seen the bigger picture and were arranging a deal with Parkinson even before this late promotion surge – looking to retain him regardless of which division we are in. There may have been an air of uncertainty for us supporters over the last few weeks – but, importantly, that was not the case behind the scenes. This can only have helped during the run-in. 

Whatever happens at Wembley, the positives of this season outweigh any potential Northampton disappointment by a long, long way. Parkinson has built a team we can proud of and identify with. It isn’t perfect, and some of us might swap a player or two; but it is a heck of a lot more enjoyable to support these players than the dismal side built by Taylor in 2010/11, or even the one McCall constructed 2008/09. I still remember, with bitterness, travelling to Dagenham in 2009, with three games to go, and seeing our play offs hopes end with a tame 3-0 defeat – and then only Peter Thorne and McCall bothering to acknowledge us supporters at full time.

Once Parkinson formally signs up next week, the focus will move on to those players he wishes to retain. I personally don’t think we’ll have any problems keeping hold of anyone, other than perhaps Nahki Wells (he will not want to be a League Two player next season and who can blame him, so promotion is surely a must). And for those who do leave, it will be our choice to let them go. Let go not because we couldn’t afford them (the cup run means we can), not because they let us down (not a single player can be accused of that), but because we are a club finally moving in the right direction – and sometimes that means leaving good people behind.

Rhodes and Lawn went back to Plan A and it has worked well enough to be continued. More crucially, they have acted before waiting to see if the ultimate aim of promotion would be achieved. Retaining Parkinson might have been the only decision to make; but given the recent history of the club, they still deserve a well done for actually making it.

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Why won’t anyone invest in Bradford City?

27 Mar

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By Ian Hemmens

Events of the last couple of months have shown a worldwide audience what sort of potential the club has. Two sell out crowds for home cup ties, followed by a mass-exodus from the City to a cup final of a national competition where everyone associated with the club did it proud.

Worldwide publicity that marketing men die for. In the present climate, people of all colours and creeds together as one; the only common denominator being the colours Claret and Amber. Truly a marketing man’s dream; never mind social commentators and politicians.

All this, despite the club being in the fourth tier of English football, shows a potential ripe for someone to come in and arouse the giant from its slumbers. It can be done, it has been done. Former Chairman Geoffrey Richmond showed what can happen when some momentum is gained with this club.

For a club whose glory days were 70 years and two World Wars before, it was a remarkable achievement only halted not only Richmond’s “six weeks of madness”, but the ITV digital collapse. There was no reason why Bradford City couldn’t have been the Stoke City of the 1990s; an established Premier League club.

I’m not sure now if we could? Possibly, but a place in the ultra competitive Championship is where we should be aiming, at least, in my opinion.

So where are the investors and speculators willing to take a chance on a club that has proved its huge potential on a national stage? I understand the world’s economic situation isn’t conducive to speculators and their like, but there’s always someone with an ego wanting to take a punt on something.

Which brings me to another quandary. It’s called better the devil you know. After watching with sincere sadness the pantomime that has become Blackburn Rovers FC, a grand old club with huge traditions, since the Venky family took over, I’m left thinking we are better with the present Joint Chairmen who are, for all their faults, at the end of the day, City fans at heart. The whole Blackburn situation has made a proud club the laughing stock of English football, and I can only sympathise with their genuine fans.

Surely there is someone out there willing, if not to buy the club, at least help out the present owners and share in the reflected glory if the club can maintain the progress hopefully being made this season?

In the mid to long-term, we surely have to get ourselves moving upwards, whilst seriously looking at buying our home back from the Gibb Pension Trust. I know that not having these assets is probably the main stumbling block to someone investing, but this can be an ongoing project, whilst building the rest of the club to where it can be.

Anyone out there reading this who feels they can contribute to this great club – you’ve seen what can be achieved in the last few months. A simple enquiry to the club could be all it takes to give this club the future it deserves.

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RIASA tie-up could prove a Mega deal for Bradford City

4 Feb

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By Jason McKeown

Mark ‘Mega’ Ellis spent almost all of the 1980s playing on the left wing for Bradford City. 20 years on and long-since retired, the Bradfordian continues to supply important assists for his hometown club.

Ellis’ influence on the present day Bantams can be found on and off the pitch. He played a pivotal role in David Baldwin joining the club in 2007 (Baldwin was an apprentice at Valley Parade when Ellis was playing, though Mark admits he can’t remember him) and neither of City’s current first choice strike partnership, James Hanson and Nahki Wells, would have signed for the club without Ellis’ contribution. The latter joined City 18 months ago after impressing on a football educational scheme Ellis and Baldwin set up and now jointly manage – an initiative that it’s hoped the club will benefit further from over the coming years.

Known as the Richmond International Academic & Soccer Academy – RIASA – the Bantams are in talks about formalising an agreement that will see Ellis’ set-up take on the role of the Bradford City Development Squad. This includes the club having first option over the best players that RIASA brings through.

“Bradford City now have access to a worldwide network of youth talent,” explained Mark when I met him for a drink in the Narrow Boat pub in Skipton on Sunday evening. “We have already got a hardcore of eight who are about to start training at the Bradford City facilities at Woodhouse Grove, and there’s also a couple of lads in the squad for Bradford City’s reserve game against Rotherham on Tuesday.”

The birth of RIASA

While many footballers of the 1980s might have run a pub or gone into management after retirement, Ellis has enjoyed something of a jet-set lifestyle since hanging up the boots, running football coaching camps in America for the last 25 years. Spotting that there were a number of young Americans who could potentially make it as professional soccer players, but were lacking opportunities, Ellis began to shape an idea that would eventually lead to the creation of RIASA, albeit via one false start.

“There are so many good players over in America, who wanted the opportunity to come and play in England,” explained Ellis. “It’s not straightforward to get these players over to the UK, because they need Visas and such. But then we went to a conference in Philadelphia and someone said ‘there’s a guy called Paul Topping and I want you to go and meet him, because he has a football club in Belgium and I think you could work with him’.

“Mark Lawn, before he bought into Bradford City, would also come over to America to help run these football camps, and after becoming joint Chairmen we both went to meet Paul in Toronto. We spoke about setting up a partnership with his Belgium club, Royal Racing Football Club Montegnée.

“It helped that they had a player, Billy Topp, ready to go, he had a German passport. Paul said to me ‘I’ve got this really good player’ who I had never seen before, and basically brought him over to City for a trial. But there were so many problems and they were so unprofessional in terms of arranging international clearance and even arranging clearance from Billy Topp’s club in Chile. And so eventually Bradford paid something like £35k to get the clearance for him to play. They also paid for him to have an operation. They invested quite a bit of money on him.

“So I put them all together, but then Paul Topping decided that he didn’t need me anymore and started working directly himself with Bradford City. And so I thought ‘fair enough, you go for it’. They sent another three or four players over for Bradford City to look at, who were probably North East Counties standard at best. And I realised that they didn’t know what they were doing and so let them get on with it, knowing that it was all going to go pear-shaped.”

At this point Mark linked up with David Baldwin – by now a good friend after they first met at a charity match held for PC Sharon Beshenivsky, and who Ellis had put in contract with Mark Lawn, paving the way for Baldwin joining the Bantams – to set up RIASA. “Me, David and another Bradford lad who lives in Ohio set RIASA up,” revealed Ellis. “We investigated how we could set the structure up properly so that young footballers in America could come over to England and train, and then see if we could attract suitable interest for them.

“We approached Richmond University in London, which is the only American university in England where the boys can obtain suitable Visas. They came up to Bradford to meet us, and it went on from there. RIASA’s going from strength to strength.”

Showcasing talent

Based at Leeds Metropolitan University, RIASA is a football education scheme which provides international students, primarily from the States, with the opportunity to develop their skills and play in England; with the aim of building their experience and, for many, showcasing their talents to professional clubs in Europe.

RIASA fields teams in different leagues, so students have the opportunity to play competitive football. A long-standing partnership with Eccleshill United, thanks to Ellis’ contacts, means RIASA provide their reserve and U19 teams. RIASA did have a team in West Yorkshire Football League, but are withdrawing it in favour of playing Development Squad fixtures. The coaching team includes John Hendrie and Bobby Davison.

How are students found? “We’ve got a really good scouting network in the States,” answered Ellis. “We’ve got one overall head scout who is on a full time wage, and we’ve got five other head scouts on part time salaries who work throughout the United States, scouting the best players.

“Now I suppose the competition we are up against is the big Universities in America who can offer the best players up to $30-40k scholarships to go to their school. But even then, that’s a limited number of such scholarships available, because these Universities are also recruiting students who play American Football, Basketball, etc – these sports get all the major money over there.

“We’ve had a couple of lads who have paid themselves to come to RIASA and turned scholarship money down, in order to have an opportunity to come to England and be showcased in Europe. Richmond University get all the Visas for them and then they come up to Leeds.”

Currently RIASA had 50 students on the books. Next year Ellis expects them to have between 70 and 80, “Predominately it’s still United States boys at the moment, but we also have some Canadians, a couple from Egypt, a couple from Hong Kong, and Dubai – it’s becoming worldwide.”

As if to demonstrate this international flavour, one of the RIASA players in the Bradford City reserve game tomorrow was born in Spain and grew up in South Korea. “I think that we are getting better and better players, and I expect that, next year, we will have better players then what we have at the moment,” commented Ellis. “We have a strong pool of at least 12-14 players who we believe could play at some level in Europe, like Bradford City.

“Last season our squad had a behind closed doors friendly at Valley Parade with Archie Christie’s Development Squad. We were a bunch of college kids, while their side featured trialist players released from Premier League and Championship clubs. We lost 5-3, but we did so well and I was so proud of them. Going out there against a really experienced team and losing narrowly.”

The Boy from Bermuda

Undoubtedly RIASA’s most celebrated alumni is Bradford City striker Nahki Wells, who burst onto the Valley Parade last season and is now being talked up as the best forward in League Two. Ellis shared the story of his emergence, “Nahki was playing in West Yorkshire League games for us and had something about him, but unless you give him a chance you’ll never know.

“So I called Greg Abbott at Carlisle up and asked him about giving him a trial. And the reason I went to Carlisle first was because I was still a bit miffed off with what had happened with Paul Topping. Nahki was up there for a couple of weeks, Greg called me up and said ‘yeah we’ll take him on until the end of the year, we really like him’. Then I had to get David Baldwin involved to sort out the financial side of things.

“But then, surprisingly, Greg let Nahki go. So I went back to David and said ‘I think you should take him to Bradford City’. We then spoke to Mark Lawn about it, and that’s how we got him to Bradford. It was due to David’s position as Head of Operations.”

Yet Wells is not the only success story, with Ellis quick to highlight two other graduates who have made a success of playing professionally in Finland. One is called Christian Eissele, who last season was the top scorer of the Finland league for PS Kemi Kings. The 20-year-old is currently back in his home country of USA, training with FC Orlando City, who play in the division below the MLS and are showing a strong interest. Six weeks ago Eissele played in Orlando’s friendly against Italian Champions AS Roma.

However, Christian’s story does reveal a downside of RIASA from a Bradford City perspective: not all students have the necessary paperwork to play professionally in England. Ellis revealed of Eissele, “Probably no one knows this, but Christian played for Bradford City in behind closed doors friendlies against Stockport and Barrow, and he did absolutely brilliant. And if he had the right passport, I’m sure he would be in Bradford City’s first team squad now.

“John Hendrie is looking after him now. He might go to a big club in Norway or go back and play for FC Orlando, who should be an MLS club within the next two years. Someone like Christian could eventually play for the US national team, and all of a sudden they become eligible to play over here.”

Ellis estimates that approximately 30-35% of RIASA’s current players have the right passport to enable them to play professionally in England, if they are good enough.

The new-look Development Squad

Last November, David Baldwin told Width of a Post that the RIASA programme would act as Bradford City’s Development Squad. Although Ellis explained to me that this arrangement has yet to be finalised (“Mark Lawn approached me to say Bradford City are interested in linking up, I am waiting to speak to him again, probably after the cup final”) this tie-up will enable City to have first dibs over RIASA’s best players.

“Bradford City get to look at the best players who are eligible” confirmed Ellis. “And if someone is exceptional like Christian was, they can look at them for the future. That’s how we see it working. I’ve told all my scouts in America that the perfect player to find is someone who is excellent, and someone who has the right passport to play in England. That’s the cream on the cake.

“The idea is to get them into Bradford City. They’re all very technical in America, they get good technical coaching. They can play. Other clubs are recognising this market too. Manchester City have been over there for the last two years, Brian Marwood, their Football Administration Officer, is desperate to get into America, because he realises that there is a lot of talent there.”

With the Archie Christie Development Squad disbanded because of concerns over cost, what about the financial obligations of RIASA? “There is no cost at all to Bradford City,” stated Ellis. “For me it’s great running RIASA and to be linked with a professional club. Bradford City is not just ideal because of my connections and great memories there; but being at Leeds Met, we are based five miles away from Bradford City’s training facilities. So it takes 15 minutes to transport the boys over.

“My job now, as I see it, is to get the next player into the first team at Bradford. I would love to do that.”

The James Hanson story

Away from RIASA, Ellis admits that the rise and rise of James Hanson has left him feeling equally proud, after he played a pivotal role in the former shelf stacker getting through the door at Valley Parade, as Ellis was coaching him at Eccleshill United. “With James, first of all he was at Eccleshill and I took him into Stanley College from Shipley College,” explained Ellis. “Then I got a first team coach job at Guiseley on a part-time basis, which fitted in brilliantly for me, and straight away I said to Terry Dolan (then-Guiseley manager) let’s get James in.

“James did really well for Guiseley, so I was really battling for Bradford City to take a look at him. Because lots of other clubs were also looking at him, but no one would take a chance. In the end I got into Stuart’s ear and urged him to bring James in on trial.

“I eventually turned round to James and said ‘I’m so fed up of this, do you want to try Carlisle?’ and James, who was desperate to get into professional football, said ‘I’ll be honest with you, I’ve just bought a house in Bradford, so I’d rather not’. So it was back to urging Stuart to take him on trial, which he did. I was in America at the time of the trial, but I remember he scored in a friendly at Bradford Park Avenue and he was doing well, eventually getting a contract. I went to watch him make his full debut at Notts Forest in the cup, and it kicked on from there.

“James is a really nice lad. I know his dad as well. So I feel pretty good that both he and Nahki are doing so well.”

And when Bradford City march out at Wembley for the League Cup Final, with Hanson and Wells up front, plus Baldwin in the directors’ box, Ellis, who will be present in the stands with his dad, admits he will be an extremely proud man. So what does the much-celebrated former City winger make of the 2013 crop? “They’ve got a really good team spirit there and are really organised. You need a spirit. I always say to my lads that it’s not about you it’s about the team.

“I’m really pleased, and like everyone else I can’t believe they’ve made the League Cup Final.”

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The here and now: City travel to Morecambe. The long-term: an 18-month plan needed

31 Dec

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Morecambe vs Bradford City preview

@The Globe Arena on Tuesday 1 January, 2013

By Jason McKeown

Back when the National Lottery was launched in the mid-90s, it quickly became something of an on-running joke. Jackpot winners, who overnight were being transformed into millionaires, would appear in front of the nation’s media and fool no-one by claiming their new-found wealth “won’t change us”. People would queue up to mock such laughable attempts of sounding humble, with an air of bitterness when comparing the dream of a lottery win with their own challenges in life. As Jarvis Cocker once sang about rich types, “you’ll never watch your life slide out of view”.

After Bradford City won their own lottery jackpot – £1 million is set to be earned from their amazing achievement of reaching the League Cup semi finals – there is a similar sense of confused identity. After, all this is a football club which only 18 months earlier was talking of leaving its Valley Parade home because it couldn’t afford the rent; and which twice over the past decade has endured the hardship of administration, on the second occasion largely surviving because of supporters rushing out with the collection buckets. Relatively speaking, we have not been this well off since Geoffrey Richmond agreed to pay a wayward Italian striker £2 million a year.

Yet it sits uneasy, this new-found wealth; because if we don’t make the most of the opportunities it presents, we could miss the biggest of open goals in reviving Bradford City. But what is the best way to use this windfall? How can the club continue this upwards momentum? How should this money be spent?

For me it’s a matter of choosing an outlook – short or long-term. Both approaches have their merit, and as City move into 2013 in a fantastic position in the league, the temptation to focus on the short-term is obvious. This is the best chance Bradford City have had to be promoted since Stuart McCall’s 2008/09 charges, four years ago. Dare we fail because we scrimped on the pennies?

There are two famous examples from Bradford City’s history when it comes to the dilemma of strengthening a promotion-challenging side. In 1987/88, the Board refused to push the boat out and City were defeated in the play offs when they could have earned automatic promotion. Then in 1998/99, Richmond allowed Paul Jewell to strengthen, with the arrivals of Dean Windass and Lee Sharpe playing some part in winning promotion.

This time around, Phil Parkinson was very quick to make a claim for at least some of the League Cup windfall. He was on radio minutes after the final whistle of the Arsenal game, talking of the need to strengthen the squad in January. It’s not a question of the manager particularly lacking anything in his squad, just depth. The appointment of Russ Richardson is a statement of intent: January is not going to be a quiet month on the transfer front. Yet you can’t see Parkinson wanting or believe he needs to spend big – stellar signings could even risk disrupting the morale of his close-knit squad. After all, is it right that the players who have performed so well over the first half of the campaign be rewarded by the loss of their place?

The short-term outlook would favour going for it this January and emerging from the window with a stronger squad to get through this 60+ game season, so that nothing is left to chance in this promotion battle. And should we be celebrating achieving a place in League One come the end of April or, if play offs are needed, May, the momentum that has been built and the financial rewards of moving up a division would mean spending most of the League Cup windfall now could be looked back upon as justified.

That is, of course, assuming the happy ending is achieved. But what four years ago should have taught everyone at the club are the consequences of failure (that is, having to get rid of high-earning players and forcing non-playing staff to take pay cuts). The League Cup windfall has meant that the Board’s gamble on over-spending, last summer, has paid off. What’s more, to make up the £600k budget deficit, there was no requirement to resort to what David Baldwin described as variants three and four – negotiating settlements with the clubs we sold promising youth players to for sell on clauses, or selling players.

A fantastic result, but it does not change the fact that City have spent more money this season than their typical revenue streams covered (and League Cup runs as amazing as this one do not occur very often). Should City fail to go up, we need to be making sure we can still keep hold of this forwards momentum, rather than have to break the squad up and start again.

So far this season, the squad has cost £1.7 million – largely made up of player wages (the Daily Mail claims Andrew Davies is earning £4k a week). But the playing budget, after operation costs are deducted from overall income, was £1.1 million at break-even point. Assuming it’s a similar amount next season, then that £1.7 million squad would either have to be trimmed or another £600k overspend gamble be attempted again (only next time, we really might have to resort to variants three and four).

Or, the club could save some, or the majority, of the League Cup windfall for the budgets next season. And that way, maybe the likes of Davies, Gary Jones and Nathan Doyle – out of contract in the summer – can be retained no matter what division we play in 2013/14. It would seem from Parkinson’s comments in the T&A last Friday that he sees this as a priority too. Quite simply, the club cannot risk offering high-earning players new contracts now, if failure to go up leads to another round of belt-tightening.

Parkinson is clearly key to all the plans, and hopefully his own contract talks will commence sooner rather than later. You get the feeling that the one lesson really taken on board by Mark Lawn and Julian Rhodes four years ago was agreeing a contract with McCall mid-season (in February 2009), only for matters to start going wrong on the field just a few days later. Had they waited until the summer to address McCall’s contract, the failure to earn promotion would surely have seen any talks collapse. As popular as Parkinson is now, if the Board view this as a promotion or bust season they may not retain their confidence in the manager’s ability should he fail this time.

For me, Parkinson should be offered a contract and be told that promotion is not a pre-requisite for keeping his job. I think we have a fantastic chance to go up this season and I wouldn’t want to talk that down in anyway; but whatever happens between now and April, we have made great strides under Parkinson. That should not be jeopardised by allowing him to leave.

Let’s not re-sign Parkinson, Davies, Doyle, Gary Jones et all because we may or may not go up under them this season. Let’s re-sign them all to build our football club around and to continue a strategy that can guide this club for the next 5-10 years. The League Cup windfall allows us the opportunity to build those concrete blocks. I personally want to see it taken.

On to Morecambe

Back in the here and now, City travel to Morecambe on New Year’s Day for the first time since Parkinson’s first match in charge, at the start of September 2011. Only three from the starting XI that day started on Saturday (and two of those three, Matt Duke and Kyel Reid, were making their debuts against Morecambe after Parkinson quickly signed them). Eight of the 14 players used in the 1-1 draw that rainy afternoon have departed the club.

Following Saturday’s disappointing 4-2 defeat to Rochdale and ahead of a long trip to Barnet at the weekend, expect some changes as Parkinson seeks to bounce back. Will Atkinson’s ability to provide both width on the ball and tuck inside when City need to win it back will surely see him recalled, following the midfield problems against Dale. Doyle is likely to sit it out as he struggles to recover from a virus, paving the way for Ritchie Jones to start. Ricky Ravenhill is also an option, but if Parkinson elects to keep a fatigued-looking Gary Jones in the starting line up, the greater energy that Ritchie offers would provide the required balance.

In defence Curtis Good – if fit – could be brought in instead of Tom Naylor. There is a theory that Rory McArdle had such an out-of-character bad game on Saturday because he was asked to play on the left side of the two centre backs, due to Naylor. Certainly Carl McHugh gives the back four greater balance, and hopefully the Irish defender will return soon.

Going by the way Parkinson has managed his goalkeepers all season, the mistake Duke made in the Dale match will result in him being dropped for Jon McLaughlin. Of the two I personally prefer Jon, but it would be harsh on Duke if he were left out, as has played well in recent weeks. Nahki Wells is likely to start from the bench – it would be difficult to drop Alan Connell given his goal scoring form of late – and Reid will probably be rested with Blair Turgott or Zavon Hines brought in.

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City 1 Arsenal 1 (3-2 pens): I was(n’t) there

13 Dec

By Tom Warden

When the subject comes up years down the line, there will be many more than the 23,971 who were in the stadium for City’s defeat of Arsenal who will claim that they were actually there, I may be one of them. With a 6:30am start the following day and no possibility of a day off, there was no chance I could have made this match, so I was forced to watch it in enemy territory (North London). Accompanied by a fellow City fan and a friendly Gooner, we marvelled at Arsene’s team selection and settled in to a pub where we had to get them to change the channel as they had been showing an Ibrahimovic inspired PSG cruising to victory on ESPN.

Pre Match:

We had expected a classic cup tie broadcast, the kind where they show Ronnie Radford scoring for Hereford as part of the opening montage, but refreshingly, what we were provided with was a little different. The programme opened with a respectful montage which covered City’s recent history. Narrated by Mark Lawn (who made a brief appearance in the dressing room sporting a Dickensian beard/sideburn combination), it touched on the fire and the Premier League days, whilst projecting an image of City as a ‘friendly, family club.’  So far, so good.

The step into the studio got even better, the pundits provided were two ex-City heroes in Peter Beagrie and Don Goodman, who were led by Ben Shephard. Both ex-players seemed genuinely fond of the club, but Beagrie in particular spoke with a particular warmth about how the team and the fans ‘deserved’ this calibre of game after the last decade. Shephard however, seemed to be under a remit to sell the game as a David v Goliath battle, putting particular emphasis on the cold and the state of the pitch, wondering wether this would adversely affect the Premiership players. Talk turned quickly to Arsenal putting out such a strong side and wether this was a statement of intent to show that they wanted to end the seven year trophy drought. There was no real mention of a possible upset and (rightly so), all involved seemed to think an Arsenal victory was, barring something extraordinary, a formality.

It was after this that things started to go a bit ITV. Both Parkinson and Wenger were asked loaded questions about whether the pitch would be a problem for the away side; and even after Wenger dismissed it quite amusingly, this was Sky’s chosen focus. Going into the ads, Pictures of Arsenal’s stars were shown in slow-mo looking uneasy warming up, wrapped up in hats and seemingly struggling with the cold. Wether this was a sign of things to come or Sky trying to big up the ‘don’t like it up ‘em’ nature of this kind of cup tie I’m not sure. I mean, surely it gets this cold in Newcastle? Or Wigan? There was also a misleading shot of Bacary Sagna covering his mouth whilst whispering pre-match prayers which was made to look like he was warming his hands, but the scene was set, big v small, the freezing north v the pampered, cultured south, a classic cup tie.

Match Commentary:

It didn’t continue as I thought it might though, Bill Leslie and David Pivon are not a commentary partnership I can say I’m familiar with and there were a couple of little slips, Nahki was pronounced as ‘Necky’ (thankfully only once) and there was a moment when Gary Jones was referred to as ‘the old warhorse Hughes’ but credit where credit is due, they provided a knowledgable and balanced outlook on the game. Imagine the hysterics had this been on ITV. Andy Townsend would have been going apoplectic about the magic of the cup and plucky little Bradford which would have, for me, spoilt the viewing experience a little.  Yes, there were mentions of James Hanson being a former shelf stacker, but there were very few of those clichés uttered and Pivon in particular offered good tactical insight into how City played, their stats from the season so far and the strengths and weaknesses of City’s style of play.

There were references to the pitch intermittently, making me think that Sky had chosen to focus on this as a talking point, which it just wasn’t. As an aside, I have seen comment from people who were at the game saying that Arsenal’s fans were fairly quiet, whereas the coverage made them seem to be outsinging their City counterparts quite often, perhaps the Sky microphones had been placed near to them to make it seem that way? Who knows, but they seemed in mighty good voice for a set of fans whose team were on the end of a serious embarrassment. At no point was there any lack of respect for Bradford City evident in the commentary, and the research was evidently done thoroughly. Any excitement and surprise was at moment when there genuinely should have been some and the commentators at no point spoilt the viewing.

Post Match:

The post match analysis was full of disbelief and smiles, the widest being on the face of Peter Beagrie, yet there was no condescension, only praise for a fantastic performance and a deserved victory, which topped off a broadcast that I was more than pleasantly surprised with, although the use of KISS’s ‘Crazy Nights’ over replays of the goal was not something I enjoyed.

I went into watching this game expecting my football club to be slightly belittled, meaning that the recording of it I have would remain unwatched, instead, what I, and many other City fans have, is a fantastic memory of one of the best nights in my clubs recent history; and I really have to hand it to Sky for that.

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Speaking to David Baldwin – part one

27 Nov

By Jason McKeown

Since David Baldwin joined Bradford City in 2007, he has been instrumental in driving significant change around Valley Parade. Having become something of the public face of the club in recent months, David very kindly agreed to meet me in his Cullingworth local on Monday night to discuss a wide range of topics.

We enjoyed a fantastic two-hour chat, the results of which will appear on Width of a Post this week in a three-part series.

So here we go…

How did you come to join Bradford City?

My background is that I sold a company in 2001 and moved to Spain full time to retire. It had been a stressful few years before that.

I’ve been a City fan all of my life, and I was on the books as a schoolboy. I’d made associations with the club through players. One of my friends is Mark Ellis, and while I was in Spain I did a charity fundraiser for some boys from one of the inner city colleges in Leeds, where they came out to Malaga and trained on the pitches there. We did a bit of fundraising for that, and they opened up the synthetic pitch at the Thomas Danby College, where I played in a charity match against the college team with Mark Ellis, John Hendrie, Stuart McCall, Terry Dolan and Mark Lawn.

And it came about that Mark Lawn was a mutual friend of Mark Ellis, and they had known each other for many years. I got chatting to Mark Lawn and said to him ‘I’m in a position where I’ve got time on my hands in Spain, if the club ever needed assistance I’m always happy to help because I’m from Bradford’. And basically Mark Lawn flew out to Spain, prior to taking up the reins at Bradford City, and we went for a coffee. He told that he was looking to buy into Bradford, he knew a bit about my background and felt that I could apply my skill set at the club. He asked me to come over for six weeks in order to provide a fresh overview of the commercial side of things.

So then he arrived virtually the same day Stuart (McCall) arrived and I also arrived. My brief initially was just to take a look at how we could generate more commercial income for the club. Because with the best will in the world, that is what pushes the club forward. The more income we can get, the more we can put into the manager’s budget. This revenue is not used to reimburse anybody, we have very few full time staff members at the club. We operate on the lowest budget that we can off the field, so as much money as possible can go on the playing side.

How did that develop into joining the club full time?

After six weeks, I completed my review and made some recommendations. I spent some time speaking to previous corporate customers, either people who used to have a box or who have sampled the match day hospitality before, and just started a dialogue with them about returning.

The season ticket campaign was running for the first time around this time as well, so I spent time communicating this to the wider fanbase and to the public, to tell them how this was such a good deal and that they should get involved. And we saw a lot of lapsed fans return to the club. So that was good.

At the end of the six weeks they said to me ‘what can we offer you to keep hold of you?’ I turned round and said ‘nothing’. I mean I couldn’t work for free indefinitely, but I guaranteed my services free for another 12 months. There would come a time where, for my own sustainability, I could not afford to do it for free. So then in January 2008, both the owners sat me down and asked what it would take to keep me, and from the middle of 2008 I started receiving a remuneration.

I’m a qualified commercial pilot, so when people ask how much I am being paid at City I always say that ‘if I flew for four hours per week, I would make more money than I do working for the club’. And I do 60 hour plus weeks at Bradford City! I just wanted to make sure that I was in a position where it wasn’t costing me money to go to work and also that I’m not a financial burden on the club. I have had other offers to be Chief Executives at other clubs, Championship clubs, where the remuneration package was five or six times more than what I’m currently on, but it doesn’t interest me.

What interests me is to support the club I care about and to endeavour to deliver as much funds as possible to the manager so they can build the best team possible, to give everyone the feel good factor of trying to get out of this division.

What’s it like working with the Board?

The one thing about everyone working for the club is we are pulling in the same direction. We all have very different personalities. The two chairmen, Julian (Rhodes) and Mark are chalk and cheese. But the one thing that unites everybody is that we want what’s best for the football club. No one is wanting what’s best for themselves. The club comes first and we come second, as individuals. The club is there for the fans. We are fans, and our reward is to deliver success and enjoy it as fans.

And most of the time the job is enjoyable! Sometimes it’s not enjoyable and very stressful. But it doesn’t mean you’d change it.

How has your role evolved over the years? It seems this season you’ve become the public face of Bradford City?

It’s not a conscious decision to do that. It’s not as if someone has said ‘let David be the person who blows the horn’. In my second year my role was to look at the infrastructure that sits behind the commercial stuff. So things like how can we streamline the operations of the club? How can we make the running of the building more efficient? How can we reduce our operating costs? And then other projects like moving the office block along – it’s taken us over two years to get to this stage with that. I was also looking at other commercial aspects of the club, such as the shirt deal with Nike.

So the pendulum of my priorities swung from creating a commercial and greater supporter interest in the product, then creating a sustainable situation where, because the fanbase is there, commercial companies (like Nike) want to come on board because they see that their brand is going to be seen by a multitude of people. And then it was to get the club into a situation where we can look to reduce some of the operational running costs, without being sacrificial to the quality of the service you are giving to your customers.

And then my role moved into an additional support network for the footballing structure. That’s where the project like the Woodhouse Grove training set up came in; I tasked myself with getting a partnership up and running there so we could get a new training ground. Then I looked at links with the likes of the Development Squad aspect that Archie (Christie) set up through to the partnership with RIASA – the theme of which is the same, but you morph it into something that works for you.

More recently, I’ve built a close working relationship with the manager (Phil Parkinson) in terms of the signing and also the releasing of players. This really came to a fore during the summer, where I was involved with the new signings. In the previous year, I had mainly dealt with the exit contracts for the likes of Michael Boulding and Chris Brandon.

I remember during the summer that you played a key role in the signing of Alan Connell, for example…

Yeah that’s right. At the time a few people were saying on Twitter and Facebook ‘what’s David Baldwin doing signing players? Who does he think he is, the manager?’ We conducted the signing about an hour away from Swindon’s training ground and I was the only person nearby from the club. So we sorted out a picture, for the club website, of me shaking his hand.

I am simply the person who orchestrates the deal. The manager identifies a player and gets into the mindset that the player is right for him. So he has a discussion with the player to bring them in. Then there are a lot of legal and financial hurdles to overcome to complete the deal, which is where I come in.

With Alan Connell, for example, he had to agree an exit clause with his Swindon contract. There was a discussion between the two clubs over whether there was to be a transfer fee involved and that negotiation went on for a while. Then based on that, we could look at what we could offer the player financially.

When looking in from the outside, people often wrongly think there is a budget for wages, a budget for transfer fees and a budget for loan signings. It’s not. From a manager’s perspective, there is one pot of money that equates to the whole package. How that pot is spent by the manager is very much dependent on what his ethos is. If he decided to spend 50% of his playing budget on a marque signing, what goes on behind that is that the wages available for other players is reduced. It’s one lump sum. And when it’s gone it’s gone.

But when it comes to signings Phil made a very valid point – if a signing is easy, it’s probably because it’s not worth having! With signings that are worth having, you’re probably fighting with other clubs for the player’s signature, you need to get a deal that the player is happy with, that the club is happy with and where the deal is sustainable.

With Connell that was the case, it wasn’t easy. Swindon wanted a fee, and this is where I kick in. The manager doesn’t want the hassle of having to negotiate a transfer fee. He just wants to know how much he has left of his budget, if and when he has completed that deal. In the end we got a situation where we had to pay no fee for the player, and he (Connell) agreed a salary with us comparable to what he was on at Swindon.

When you are signing a player, is it a case of Phil saying to you ‘this is the most I’m prepared to pay him’ or do you have to say to Phil ‘this is the maximum we can pay him’?

It’s a two-way discussion. For example if you look at a signing halfway through the process of recruitment last summer, Stephen Darby. At the point he came to sign Darby, Phil had a clear idea of what other types of players he wants to sign and how many. So my responsibility is to look through with him the parameters of where we will be budget wise for signing Darby, and talk that through with Phil. An agent will always give you an indication of what the wage demands are, and my job is to say to Phil ‘if you do that, at that level, it will leave you with this much left to spend’. And then he’s got to think it over and consider whether he wants to sign two more players of a similar standard, or whether signing x will mean he can’t afford y, and decide what he wants to do.

It’s a balancing act. What was the key to the relationship between us this summer, was that we had a full picture of everything that we wanted, targets of who he wanted and back up targets that were a bit cheaper. And it was like a domino effect. As each player deal was agreed, each domino fell, you knew what the effect would be down the line on the overall budget. If we got them all right, we knew that we were within the package of the budget, having signed everyone required.

The real satisfaction was that, pretty much, we achieved 100% of targets, within the budget that had been set. Phil was able to bring in the quality of players he wanted and the volume of players he wanted.

How has the injury situation affected that budget?

The only permutation beyond that spending of the budget is obviously the injuries. And that’s where you make progressive decisions. No one turns around to the manager and says ‘no you’re not signing a centre half on loan because you’ve spent your budget’. You have to say ‘okay, you’ve lost a player who is out injured for a while. Do we want to compromise what we have achieved so far, or do we push the boat out a little bit extra?’ And that’s the chairmen’s decision whether to do that, upon the recommendation of the manager.

But that’s the good thing with Phil. He’s a very good thinker, and he will weigh up both sides of the coin. He will only ask for extra budget when he really thinks it is needed.

Phil has gone out and made a number of loan signings because of the injury situation. Is this money you had budgeted to use later in the season that has been brought forward?

It’s no secret that we have overspent the budget this year, based on our break-even point. The break-even point is a tangible item, which basically means if we spent x amount, bring in y income and the operation costs are z, what’s left over is the playing budget. Well what’s leftover this season for the playing budget, taking us to the break-even point, is far less than when what we consider to be a competitive playing budget. So we as a Board, and the owners, discussed what would happen if we were to go over our break-even point and have a higher playing budget, what things do we have left over in our locker this year, where we can claw the budget deficit back?

We identified four variants for what we could do. We can sell the building (office block building) which we could gain some income from. There is the onward contracts of some of our former youth players who are in the Premier League, where we could perhaps either look at buying out those contracts or whether there will be situations occurring where various triggers occur as part of those contracts, which you evaluate as a moving stick.

Then there was the situation of a cup run, which isn’t fundamentally factored in as part of our original break-even budget forecasts. The further we get in the cups, the more it will offset our over-spend.  And the final one is sale of player. There’s a reason I have put that as the final, because that is the last thing you want to do. But you have to look at all your permutations and say ‘have I covered all eventualities?’

It’s all about getting to July, the end of the year for spending, and making sure we have protected the club and not over-spent the budget, so that we are not going into the following season with a deficit to make up. Generally we set ourselves the objective of breaking even every year, and if we don’t break-even, it’s usually because we know there is a certain piece of income coming into the club shortly.

This is a plan that’s worked before?

The perfect example of that is the budget that Stuart had to spend in 2008/09. We knew that at some point Fabian Delph was going to move on from Leeds. Now it didn’t happen before July 2009 (end of the year), but it did happen fairly soon after July. So if you look at the accounts for 2008/09, we show a trading loss, but the next season we show a trading profit.

I think that this is where people have to trust the owners of this club and look at the track record. The track record since 2007 is one of not being overly cautious, with decisions made to try and go for it, but at the same time not making decisions that put the club at risk for future generations. It’s always a calculated risk, with a planned exit strategy that allows us to recover back.

Now the exit strategy from 2008/09 to 2009/10 was to reduce the playing budget from £1.9 million to £1.3 million – which was the budget we had in 2007/08. So you can see that we had a sensible budget in 2007/08, we then had a go and had a £1.9 million budget, and then we brought it back down again. 2008/09 didn’t work out the way we hoped it would do, but we didn’t risk the future of the club by running up debt.

It strikes me, from what you’ve been saying, that Phil is very intelligent at managing his budget accordingly. Without naming names, has this not been the case with previous managers?

I wouldn’t have any criticism of any previous managers in how they managed their budget. Each manager’s point of view in how a team should be shaped differed.

I think that one thing Phil does very well is he keeps us all very informed. He vocalises exactly what he wants, and when a problem occurs he is very clear about what he sees as being the solution. And he is prepared to share that information with the Board. I’m not saying the others weren’t, but the natural culture of football managers can be ‘I’m the manager, I make the decisions, therefore leave me with it’.

Phil makes a point of telling you his plans and is very transparent. He will be open to the Board about what team he is planning to pick, or why he might not be playing certain players because they have an injury or need a rest, and I think that’s a positive.

With each of the past three managers it was strongly hinted that relations with the Board were difficult, at least by the end of their tenures…

I think in any situation where things aren’t going right for someone, relationships are going to seem more strained then maybe they are. There unfortunately had to be a transitional period of time when things are not going well, to that person no longer being in a job. And that period – whether it be for a week, a month or six months – when it’s looked back on retrospectively is always going to look a difficult time.

Phil’s contract due to expire at the end of the season. Is this something the Board plan to look at soon?

I think you have ascertain how comfortable a person feels about when they want to have this discussion. Generally if the relationship of communication is good between the Board and the manager, you know when the right time to discuss it is. And if you consider that, part of it, is that you will be negotiating a salary, and it’s a bit like with a player’s contract negotiations such as the one we recently completed with Nahki (Wells). The reality is that, as part of the negotiations, the player or manager wants to demonstrate their skill set to you.

So would Phil be in a stronger position negotiating a contract as the manager of a promoted team who have gone up automatically, then he would if he wanted to have talks in February saying ‘I want to tie myself up for security’? I think that’s the fairest way to describe it. He’s not uncomfortable about it. We are not uncomfortable about it. He’s delivering results, and it’s going well so far. Results are always rewarded and maybe Phil also knows that it’s better to deliver and then have your negotiations.

The door is open both ways. And both parties feel comfortable with it. It’s nice that supporters are talking about renewing his contract, because it shows that things are going well.

In part two David talks about the club’s financial health, Nahki Wells and the evolution of the Development Squad.

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Where will Bradford City finish this season? – Results are in

14 Sep

By Jason McKeown

Writing about Bradford City has, traditionally, proven to be tricky at the start of a new season. The temptation to make conclusive judgements on new signings has to be resisted (I once likened Ben Muirhead and Bobby Petta to having Peter Beagrie and Jamie Lawrence out-wide, cringe), and evaluating whether team performances are good or bad are that more difficult without the sufficient context of previous displays.

This season is proving just as difficult to analyse. Getting criticised for my writing and views is an accepted and welcome part of the job (especially when it is balanced against the praise you also receive), but so far I’ve found that – whether writing positively or negatively on City matters – someone has disagreed. And it got me thinking about what exactly we are expecting, as a support base, from the 2012/13 campaign? And, therefore, how should subsequent performances and results be measured against that expectation level?

As a result, earlier this week The Width of a Post asked for readers’ views on two very key questions: where do you think City will finish, and your minimum City finish for you to be satisfied. Thank you to everyone who shared their views; from which we calculated an average league position in answer to each question.

I’m sure you’re keen to know, so let’s dive straight into it…

1) What league position do you predict Bradford City will finish this season?

(Average score: 6.28)

A 6th place for City next May would, of course, mean a shot at the play offs.

This survey attracted a wide spectrum of opinion. A couple of you were confident enough to predict a 1st place position for the Bantams, a handful of others went down as low as 14th. That already is a telling statistic to take from this survey: everyone believes we are going to finish in a higher league position than last season’s 18th.

2) What is the minimum final City league position that you would be satisfied with this season?

(Average score: 9.23)

Minimum finishes that respondents would be satisfied with ranged from 2nd down to 22nd (as such avoiding relegation). The average score of a 9th place finish suggests the majority of us would be satisfied with a top 10 placing, even if this means the Bantams are not promoted.

I would agree this is a realistic and laudable objective. Ending the season better off than 12 months earlier is a rare occurrence at Valley Parade over the past decade. It has only happened once – 2008/09 – and even then it was overshadowed by disappointment and the reality of playing staff cutbacks.

Nevertheless it’s worth noting that the 2008/09 finish was also 9th. Meaning that, if this year City do not at least match what Stuart McCall’s Bantams achieved that season (our best League Two finish), the results of this survey would suggest we’d consider it a dissatisfactory campaign.

The expectation problem that has yet to be answered by the club

When last season came to an end with City 18th and avoiding relegation, I personally looked ahead to the 2012/13 campaign and hoped we’d see the progress of a top half finish – promotion seemed far too ambitious a target, given we’d finished 22 points short of the play offs.

However, events over the summer saw everyone’s expectations grow considerably. Julian Rhodes declared Phil Parkinson would have the largest City budget in four years, and quality arrivals such as Andrew Davies and Gary Jones drew acclaim, despite the obvious suspicion they would not be here on cheap wages.

Which brings us to the elephant in the room: the Valley Parade free school which has been postponed for at least a year (if not indefinitely). With the club having on numerous occasions over the summer confirmed the increased budget was the result of expected proceeds from the sale of the land, for the deal to fall through – even if it’s just for 12 months – throws up questions that have yet to be answered by Rhodes and Mark Lawn. A small comment in the T&A from David Baldwin, and a couple of tweets from the City Head of Operations about not yet knowing the impact, are not sufficient in the long-run.

To be clear: the club spent the summer making stella signings and attributing them to the school sale proceeds, but then that school deal was not completed. At present there is a big gap in public knowledge over how City might be affected. We should be concerned.

Because if City cannot afford this team, or we can only afford this team for a season…well…we’d better be demanding that it does the business, to justify what appears to be a considerable gamble.

I guess this is where I personally feel conflicted. I would love for City to achieve the survey’s minimum expectation of 9th. That would represent improvement and progress. But if finishing 9th – as such failing to be promoted – leads to players being released, cut backs, a managerial change and a revamp, that improvement and progress is likely to be quickly reversed.

Fulfilling the average league prediction

Judging the last five League Two seasons (ie since City dropped down), the average points haul to achieve the sixth-place finish we predict is 73.2. That’s a points average of 1.59. Or in real terms, going through a season winning at home and losing away, with the occasional draw here and there.

6th in League Two records 2007/08-2011/12
W D L F A GD PTS AVG PTS
Darlington (07/08) 22 12 12 67 40 27 78 1.7
Rochdale (08/09) 19 13 14 70 59 11 70 1.52
Aldershot (09/10) 20 12 14 69 56 13 72 1.57
Stevenage (10/11) 18 15 13 62 45 17 69 1.5
Cheltenham (11/12) 23 8 15 79 66 50 77 1.67
Average 20.4 12 13.6 69.4 53.2 23.6 73.2 1.59

City’s points average start to the season of 1.40 would suggest that we are just below target after five games, which have featured two of the most difficult away trips of the season. Win these back-to-back home games against Barnet and Morecambe, and the average will be up to 1.9. In other words we will be performing better than we ourselves expect (which might be worth bearing in mind if, shock horror, we don’t end up winning both matches).

Is it fair to demand top seven form from our new-look team? Even though the early signs are promising, it’s difficult to judge at this stage. For sure, Parkinson has built a better side than the one he inherited (largely because of the greater financial backing), but what has alluded City managers for years is gelling individual parts into a powerfully performing sum.

This is clearly a pivotal season in Bradford City’s modern history. The bar has been raised by the club itself, and as supporters we have (justifiably) increased our expectation levels too. If things don’t go to plan there may be worrying ramifications for the very future of the club (and that’s not hyperbole), but to have the best possible chance of succeeding we have to back the management and players to a level that we haven’t consistently done for some time.

Feel disappointed to get thrashed by Rotherham and only draw at Accrington? Of course. But there are plenty of positive signs to suggest the new-look Bantams side is capable of achieving this survey’s average predicted league position of 6th, thereby meeting the expectations of a traditionally demanding Bradford public.

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Valley Parade school falls through, for now?

27 Aug

By Jason McKeown

After the optimism of Saturday’s five-star Bantams show, news has broken today – via education message boards and then Twitter – that the planned Valley Parade primary school within the old club shop has fallen through. The Financial Times has since reported that the school’s opening will be delayed by a year (link here but you need to register for FT.com to read it).  The Department for Education (DfE) has apparently refused to provide the funding needed, due to a lack of student uptake (only 60% of places filled, parents of these students will now have to find another school). The school was due to be opened next week.

The significance for Bradford City? Potentially huge. Potentially very damaging. The club had agreed a deal reportedly worth £2 million to sell the office blocks to the charity One in a Million, who were opening the school. Without the shortfall in funding that DfE were expected to provide, it would appear – those it is unconfirmed at the time of writing – that the sale may not be completed, at least for the time being.

In case you’d forgotten the back story. One year ago, the two families who own Bradford City – the Lawns and the Rhodeses – agreed a deal with Prupim, who owned the office blocks, to buy back the property the club had sold along with Valley Parade itself back in 2003. City had been forced to rent these premises for around £370k a year as a result. This, along with a similar amount paid to the Gibb Pension Fund to rent Valley Parade, was hindering the club’s ability to progress on and off the field.

Last summer, Mark Lawn and Julian Rhodes attempted to renegotiate the rent on Valley Parade, only to find Gordon Gibb unwilling to budge on the 25-year lease commitment. But they managed to agree a deal with Prupim, and bought the office blocks for a price that Land Registry records show to be around £1.3 million. Lawn even took out a second mortgage on one of his properties to help fund the deal. The two families formed a new company, BC Bantams Limited, rather than the club itself taking ownership of these premises. Other local businesses were invited to rent small offices within the building, which BC Bantams Limited could benefit from. A small – but very fair – return for a considerable outlay. Meanwhile City no longer had to pay £370k a year for these premises.

The subsequent deal with One in a Million to sell these premises looked to be a masterful stroke of business acumen by the two chairmen – making a considerable profit just 12 months after the initial outlay, while removing this rental burden from the club forever. That it has been delayed or fallen through is in some ways not the end of the world; though it’s likely those small businesses contributing rent will have moved on already and so – if the school deal is dead or not completed for a year – BC Bantams Limited are left with an empty building. It should not be impossible to sell the property to another party, though perhaps not for as good a deal as the One in a Million school initiative was set to provide.

But it gets worse. On numerous occasions this summer, the two chairmen have gone on record stating that the close season spending by Phil Parkinson was largely being funded by the expected proceeds of this sale. The biggest playing budget in four years, which has been used by Parkinson to bring in a host of talented players. If this deal is dead or delayed, there could suddenly be a huge shortfall in City’s forecasted financials.

From where it looks right now – and hopefully the next few days we will find out otherwise – it appears City might have built a team that we cannot afford.

Whether this leads to immediate cut backs and player sells is unclear. The chairmen have committed to this spending before the office/school deal was completed, and you would hope that they did so knowing there was a chance it might fall through or be delayed. You’d hope there is a plan B, and that either the two chairmen were, and are, prepared to fund this revamped squad from their own back pocket. Pinning all plans on a school deal that was not signed and sealed would be naive. We do not want to believe the chairmen have been naive.

Nevertheless, at this moment in time, there is a worry that we have some unexpected early season problems. And everyone will be keeping a close eye on the club’s reaction to these developments. Before a ball was kicked this season, it seemed clear that Bradford City were gambling on promotion and that this could lead to problems if things don’t work out come May. We can only hope that the level of gamble is not too great, and that we don’t come to regret it so soon.

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2012/13 season preview pt 1: Can City afford this team?

6 Aug

By Jason McKeown

A two-year cycle has shaped Bradford City ever since relegation from League One in 2007. On even numbered years, the club has spent the close season talking up promotion chances and spending relatively big. But after such hopes are dashed, the following summer becomes low-key and features half-hearted talk of building for the future, while budgets are cut back.

We are back to an even numbered year, and we are back to talking up our promotion chances. Perhaps we’re not as expectant as we were in 2008 and 2010 – scars still healing from year-on-year failure – but the mood is buoyant and confidence is high. There’s a feeling that, this time around, it finally will come together. For sure, it can’t be as bad a season as the last two.

Fuelling that optimism has been the sizeable level of spending which has taken place. There is no doubting that signings such as Andrew Davies, Rory McArdle, Gary Jones, Garry Thompson, Nathan Doyle and Alan Connell will not have proved cheap. The joint Chairmen, Julian Rhodes and Mark Lawn, made some big noises about handing Phil Parkinson a large budget in order to shape a strong promotion push – the highest in four years.

Despite an encouraging season ticket take up, the Flexi-card initiative means the club have received less upfront capital from supporters compared to previous years. The promotion warchest is instead largely being funded by the sale of the club’s offices and shop block in a deal reputed to be worth £2 million. A year earlier, Lawn, Julian and his dad had bought this property from Prupim, with the club having previously been tied into a long-standing rental agreement that – alongside the Valley Parade rent – was a considerable headache. Profit from the sale, with a new school set to open up, is over £1 million. And the club have saved a further £370,000 in annual rent.

So good news, for Phil Parkinson in particular. Yet there are fears that throwing all or the majority of the profit from this deal into signing new footballers may not prove to be the greatest of long-term legacies. This ongoing two-year cycle has clearly proven difficult for the manager of the time to manage, as wage bills are increased and then cut back. It is a volatile way of building and developing a squad, and as good as things might look now there would have to be some serious questions asked if we end the 2012/13 season talking about another reduced budget, should another promotion bid fail.

Of further concern are the mixed messages from Rhodes and Lawn, over whether the increased budget can be sustained for the entire season. On 1 June 2012, Rhodes was quoted in the Yorkshire Post saying, “We have done the cashflows and the plan is that we set off with this budget and, hopefully, do well. If when we get to January, things haven’t gone to plan then we will have to look to generate from within.” Lawn expanded on this point a few days later, via BBC Radio Leeds, stating that part of the budget is based on the premise of the next chunk of George Green money coming in, or on Liverpool selling Andre Wisdom (for which City would receive a sell-on fee). The latter looks very unlikely.

What this means is the cutting back might start earlier this time around, and it may not matter if City are in a good position promotion-wise. We have been presented with a glimpse of a strategy which appears to be partially funded by events beyond the club’s control. It’s not to suggest a financial crisis such as the one afflicting Bradford Bulls is going to happen at Valley Parade anytime soon, but it does seem as though there is an awful lot riding on Parkinson’s judgement of footballers.

On the part of the club, there is an obvious confidence in this season’s strategy and that – financially – they are doing the right things. Width of a Post has heard from sources close to the Board of a very interesting – radical, even – plan to become much more transparent and engaging with us supporters. Without wishing to steal anyone’s thunder, it would appear that the club is keen for fans to have a stronger say in how it will be run, and a greater access to certain information to ensure that say is based on more informed opinion.

This season is shaping up to be the most pivotal since falling into League Two six years ago. The money has been made available for Parkinson to produce a promotion-challenging side and, compared to last year, the strategy has changed to investing almost solely in the here and now. As Rhodes said in that same interview with the Yorkshire Post, “All the income that comes in will go towards the first team as we want to go up. We have always believed that if we can get out of this division then we can finally get Bradford City moving again.”

For the sake of everyone who loves claret and amber, it’s to be hoped this does lead to progress; and that 12 months from now we are reflecting on how we are much better off. But only four of the 24 teams who compete in League Two this season can secure a place in League One, and the worry for me and many others is that getting much closer to this goal, but not quite succeeding, will lead to another round of cut backs and/or a change of manager.

The biggest budget in four years. And yet we have spent the past four years paying for the decision to set such an unsustainable budget four years ago. You just hope that the club has learned from its past mistakes, rather than be set to repeat them all over again.

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