Image by Thomas Gadd (copyright Bradford City)
Mike Harrison, editor of The City Gent reflects a little bit on what a year 2018 has been and he has news on City Gent issue 218 which was due out on sale this coming Saturday but it has been unavoidably delayed due to technical issues.
2018 has been an interesting year for Bradford City fans to say the least. I’d go as far as to say that never has a year started so well with the comeback from behind victory at Fleetwood on New Year’s Day, for it to go so quickly downhill fast 5 days later. From that day at Yeovil onwards Bradford City as a team and also as a club never recovered, well perhaps until the announcement on December 4th that Edin Rahic had left Valley Parade.
Back in 1992 the Queen described the calendar year as her “annus horribilis” and for Bradford City football club and its supporters I think we can safely describe 2018 in exactly the same way. It was good to read Stefan Rupp’s statement saying that Bradford City fans deserve much, much better and that he will do his upmost to erase the memories of the past 12 months.
Sadly for us, the damage done during 2018 was all self- inflicted and at the behest of one man’s skewed vision of what he was capable of compared to his actual abilities which seemed poles apart. Not that anyone could tell him for from what I can gather, the former chairman didn’t take any advice from anyone. But enough about him, he’s gone now and it is extremely unlikely that he will ever to darken the doorstep of Valley Parade ever again. Hurrah!
But as we all know, there has been so much damage done to the club by just one man, but we are a resilient bunch and with Stefan Rupp’s eyes firmly wide open now and the skill, expertise of Julian Rhodes we can re-build Bradford City football club. The early signs are there and finally we have some real character shown by the players that manager David Hopkin is putting his faith into.
It has been an interesting year for The City Gent as well as we have tried to reflect what has happened both on and off the pitch during this most turbulent of years. Our year started as badly as the team with CG214 being ready for printing on the very day that Stuart McCall was dismissed. I had to take the unprecedented step of cancelling CG214 and start it all over again. And even when it did eventually go on sale, a series of match postponements really made it a miserable start for City Gent to 2018.
And whilst it was with a huge sigh of relief that the 2017/18 ended and we had the World Cup and 3 months of Bradford City not playing, I did have that sense of foreboding that 2018/19 would not be a season to look forward to, but to dread.
But we now end the year in good spirits in light of the recent departure of Rahic. However just when I thought things were improving, a technical failure to Phil’s computer last week has meant the year is bookended with another postponement of an issue of City Gent. (I edit the articles and Phil does the graphics and has done so for over 20 years). And in the unique way that City Gent is produced, that is I’m in Shipley at CG Towers and Phil is on a narrow boat on a canal somewhere in Cheshire, it has taken a week to solve the problem which has been done by former City Gent contributor John Holman and his wife Gill, who live in Hertfordshire!.
So, I’m very sorry to disappoint the City Gent readers about this unavoidable delay and nobody is more frustrated than I am. Our only saving grace, unlike what happened in February is that we have a home game seven days after the original due date for selling CG218 . All being well, the new and long awaiting issue of City Gent will be available on Saturday 22nd December when Stuart McCall’s Scunthorpe United come to Valley Parade. That is as long as we don’t have any adverse weather by then!
CG218 is shaping up to be an excellent issue and as ever, I’m excited to see it in print and on sale. There are some really good contributions regarding the departure of our former chairman in this issue. I will keep his front cover cartoon which features Julian Rhodes as a super hero as a surprise for next week. But believe me, it is well worth waiting for.
If anyone has any questions about CG218, I can be contacted on Twitter @thecitygent or there is a City Gent page on Facebook.
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widthofapost.com 
For me, City Gent is a must read, and I commend it to all supporters. Thank you,Mike and your team , for many years of excellent reading.
Changing the subject …. i came across a player in non lge that was head and shoulders better than the rest playing for tadcaster… Billy Whitehouse … he played for Doncaster and Leeds … he was something special… if I was DH I’d look to get the lad in for training at least
Hi Mike CG is always a good read and worth waiting for. Don’t fret we regulars will buy it. Keep up the good work. Best wishes for Xmas and all being well a happy new year
Oops forgot to sign off John Kermode
Sadly I think you cannot just ‘forget’ what has happened. We all need to learn the mistakes from 2018, the lessons must be learnt and steps taken to ensure that such a set of events will never happen again.