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A different Friday preview

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The Width of a Post’s usual match preview is briefly on hiatus as we consider whether there is a more interesting regular article we can produce on Fridays, for your enjoyment.

If you, treasured reader, have views on what you would like to read Bradford City-wise on a Friday, please feedback back to us by either leaving a comment below, sending a tweet or emailing widthofapost@gmail.com.

First of all, here’s a look at the scale of the challenge City face against Crawley Town tomorrow:

  • After defeating Championship Hull City 1-0 away in the FA Cup 4th Round last Saturday, manager Steve Evans revealed that several key figures at Hull had told him Crawley were the best away team to play at the KC Stadium all season.
  • To make it to that stage, Crawley had defeated another Championship side – Bristol City – in the previous round, and also knocked out League One Bury on their own turf back in Round One. Now the Chief Executive believes Crawley “could win the FA Cup”.
  • The 3-1 victory over Bradford City that Crawley recorded last September had followed back-to-back thrashings at Morecambe (0-6) and at home to Swindon (0-3). Yet since that day, they have lost just ONE game in all competitions. That’s a run of one defeat in 22 games.
  • Crawley’s big spending over recent years has attracted a lot of attention. Some £600k was apparently spent on signing players in delivering their Blue Square Premier title success last season. Last summer they spent £150,000 on further strengthening their squad.
  • The summer activity included signing Cheltenham’s 18-goal striker Wes Thomas, which prompted a frustrated Robins’ chairman Paul Baker to declare: “I’ve heard the package he’s on and he wouldn’t get that at a lot of clubs in League One, it’s staggering. It shows the money someone is putting in at Crawley to sustain the wage bill. They’re not doing it on gates.” Thomas scored only one goal in eight games – so Crawley simply loaned him to League One Bournemouth.
  • It’s not a one-off either. A year earlier Crawley signed York’s Richard Brodie for a fee thought to be around £300k – a record transfer deal between two non-league clubs. After apparently complaining of homesickness, Brodie was loaned to Fleetwood Town for the season. How many League Two clubs would swap their current forwards for a strike force of Thomas and Brodie?
  • This week, the prolific Matt Tubbs was sold to Bournemouth for a fee believed to be £800k. But while this might be a sign of weakness, on deadline day Crawley were able to reject a huge offer of almost £2 million from Peterborough for striker Tyrone Barnett and midfielder Kyle McFadzean. As for missing Tubbs, Crawley have quickly replaced him by signing Karl Hawley and Billy Clarke on loan.
  • Crawley may come into this game just outside the top three, but remain the League Two title favourites.
  • (Oh but on the positive side, they’ve only won one of their last six league games.)

All of which underlines the tough task City face tomorrow. All of the bookies price Crawley ODDS ON to triumph at Valley Parade, and you could make an argument that the Bantams have not been such obvious underdogs in a home game since Division One Champions Portsmouth romped to a 5-0 victory on the final day of the 2002/03 season.

A good afternoon to get behind the players then…

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Finally, here are some links to things you may have missed this week.

Width of a Post

Books

Looking for some reading? Try my new book Paying on the Gate which is getting great feedback (honest!), more information on it here.

I’m also in the middle of reading the Paraders: The 125 year history of Valley Parade which is hugely enjoyable and highly recommended.

Video

Bradford City kitman Graham Duckworth was the subject of an interesting feature on BBC’s Late Kick Off last Monday.

Elsewhere on the web

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