Notts County up first for Bantams

By Width of a Post on June 14, 2012

Bradford City will kick off the 2012/13 campaign with a trip to Notts County in the League Cup, probably on Tuesday 14 August (two months from now). As a result of the 2012 Olympics, the Football League has scheduled for the opening round of league fixtures to be played later than usual, on the following Saturday. It is likely to mean greater interest in this first round tie than is usually the case, as we get our first proper look at Phil Parkinson’s revamped side.

Travelling to Meadow Lane on Day One of the season also brings back difficult memories of the 2009/10 campaign, where Stuart McCall’s Bradford City kicked off with a 5-0 loss to Notts County which set the tone for a difficult ten months that followed. With Sven Goran Eriksson in the stands and the mysterious Munto Finance group having recently bought the club, the heavy investment into the County side paid off with a rout of the Bantams and a League Two title victory the following May.

County’s resultant problems from accepting this ludicrous offer have been well documented, and there were strong fears they would go out of business at one stage. But they have managed to make a decent impression in League One and were close to the play offs last season. Notts will represent an interesting test for City this time around, on the eve of the bread and butter stuff kicking off that following weekend.

The League Two fixtures are due to be published next week.