Part one – the state of the (Bantams) nation

By Jason McKeown

This season, the claret and amber stripes are horizontal. It comes a year they were vertical, and two years after the kit was white, with claret and amber on the shoulders. Go back further and there have been diagonal stripes. Thin stripes. Fat stripes. Checkerboards. All claret. All amber. Amber with a claret trim. And of course, the abomination that was the 2018/19 Edin Rahic kit.

There are not many football clubs who play so fast and loose with their core identity. But in so many ways, the constant change in our look is a fitting reflection of Bradford City’s jumbled personality. We are a club that often appears confused about its DNA. Are we a big club? Or are we small? Is our occupation in League Two a glitch, or a position that our history shows is a mainstay habit?

City are wearing horizontal stripes this time to replicate what they wore in their first ever season as a football club in 1903/04. It’s all to mark the Bantams’ 120th anniversary. 120 years of ups and downs – big successes but also big failures. We’ve hit heights that many clubs have come nowhere near, but also had periods of stagnation that others have never slumped to.

Right now in League Two, we are a big fish in a small pond. Our attendances last season more than double 21 of our 23 divisional rivals. And yet time after time, the club’s size and stature counts for little when the promotion prizes are dished out in May.

In many ways, it feels like we are a big club off the pitch. And a little club on it.

***

Whatever lies in store for Bradford City over the next nine months, the story of the 2023/24 season does not start at Crawley Town on Saturday. It’s already begun.

The May 2023 play off semi final defeat to Carlisle casts a shadow over this season that ensures it will rarely stray far from our immediate thoughts. If City are successful this time, the painful memories of Brunton Park will be looked back on as a guiding inspiration. If the Bantams fail to escape League Two, the margins that went against City in Cumbria will be reflected on even more as missed opportunities that haunt the club. See Tony McMahon, Wembley 2017. A moment that grew in significance with each passing year.  

It is Carlisle, not City, who kick off the season on Saturday in League One. It’s said a big part of their successful play off campaign was the employment of a performance psychologist, who worked with the players to help them mentally prepare to take on City and Stockport.

Carlisle – and manager Paul Simpson – were able to instil an underdog mindset into the club that gave them a motivational edge. They deliberately saw themselves as inferior to the other three play off opponents – City, Stockport and Salford. They went into both the semi final and Wembley final tie with a positive belief that they were the outsiders everyone had written off and who were expected to lose. And by believing this, they removed the burden of expectation.

Whatever edge could be instilled into each player, Simpson and the Carlisle psychologist found it. It also helped that Carlisle were backed wholly by a passionate fanbase who also understood their underdog status and so gave their team unwavering support.

Contrast the above-expectation performances with those of the City players. A good first half in the Valley Parade first leg aside, they were plagued by doubt, fear and worry. They froze. Unable to play to their capabilities. The burden of pressure and expectation causing them to wilt.

Not like Carlisle. Who proved that being the underdog can be a great place to be.

***

The claret and amber horizonal stripes are making their first appearance since the 2012/13 season, where Bradford City were very much able to adopt the underdog mindset.

We don’t need to recap here the stories of beating Watford, Wigan, Arsenal and Aston Villa – save for pointing you in the direction of the excellent new documentary about that famous season. What made those achievements so special was the powerful feelings that arose within us all from knowing City were the small club slaying the giants. It brought everyone together in fierce support of our team, enhancing occasions that will never be forgotten.

Of course, such an outlook is impossible to manufacture when your fixture list reads Crawley Town, Colchester United, Stockport County, Morecambe and Crewe. For the last four seasons in League Two, we’ve been pretty much everyone’s cup final. The big scalp. The feather to add to your cap.

We’ve looked down on our rivals, as they have looked up at us. Our superiority complex fuelling the inferiority chip on their shoulder. Giving them motivation to rise up. There’s a reason a lot of opposition club fanbases view us as arrogant.    

It mattered little that Carlisle United’s budget was probably not vastly inferior to Bradford City’s. The perception of little club vs big club was there for Simpson to create and manipulate, so he could give his players the underdog mindset.

As supporters, we are so often used as the weapon against our team. Every visiting manager to Valley Parade will mention us in their team talk. “Quieten them down in the first 20 minutes.” “Get them to turn on their own team.” And so often it works. As fans we have high expectations to win every game at Valley Parade. And when that doesn’t happen, the groans and boos emerge.

Our strength in numbers can also prove to be a weakness.   

***

This season, something is different. There’s another big fish in the pond. Not, size-wise, quite as large. But certainly louder. Much, much louder.

Welcome to Wrexham. Back in the Football League after a 15-year absence. High profile owners. A smash hit docu-series, giving them an overnight global fanbase. They’ve just toured America, where they have been greeted like rock stars. Attracting 4,000 attendances just to watch them train. All eyes are on what happens next.

It all presents a really interesting dynamic for Bradford City. Suddenly, someone else is hogging the stage and the attention. Someone else is the big scalp that everyone wants to claim. League Two has never been as high profile as it will be this season. But for City, the spotlight has moved away from pointing in their direction. They are no longer the big draw. No longer the big show in town.

What will that do for their mindset?

***

It would be stretching credibility to argue that City can become underdogs, but in some ways the usual level of pressure is off. They’re priced joint sixth-favourites to win League Two. Behind Wrexham (of course), but also Stockport, Notts County, Gillingham and Mansfield Town.

These odds show that, as much Wrexham dominate the conversation, there are others to worry about. Notts County come back up with teeth. Gillingham now have vast financial backing. Stockport and Salford will be strong again. MK Dons might wake up for the slumber that has seen them fall from League One promotion contenders to relegated to League Two in the space of a year. In the typically excellent Not The Top 20 podcast’s League Two season preview, they predict the Bantams will finish seventh, summarising, “When you look at their squad and manager Mark Hughes, it’s basically impossible not to have them in the top seven, but it’s very hard to get overly enthused and have them right towards the top end.”

This is a higher quality league, compared to before. In episode one of the excellent new podcast series – A Season With Bradford City – CEO Ryan Sparks declares it is “the toughest League Two in the history of the fourth division”. It’s some claim, but difficult to dispute right now.

Perhaps more importantly, City are less fancied by their own public. In 2019/20 (under Gary Bowyer), 2021/22 (under Derek Adams) and last season (under Mark Hughes) City supporter expectations were sky high. Automatic promotion. 100 points. Smash all before us. We’re Bradford City and we’re going up.

That optimism just isn’t there this time around. Talk to most fans and there is fear, there is apprehension. The hangover effects of that play off semi final defeat, a slight lack of excitement from a relatively quiet summer of transfer activity. A dint in confidence in Hughes’ managerial acumen. And of course, all that bloody noise emanating from North Wales.

It remains to be seen how this mood is translated onto matchdays at Valley Parade. Patience feels in short supply, and it’s easy to envisage things quickly turning ugly. But if we are expecting less, we may head home from Valley Parade on Saturday evenings feeling pleasantly surprised by what we see, rather than the recent sense of entitlement that we should win every League Two game.

We might actually enjoy what’s ahead.

***

The noises from pre-season strongly suggest Hughes will move to a three at the back formation. You could see signs he wanted to go in this direction at the back end of last season, but he perhaps lacked the overall personnel to make it work.

So far, wide players have been out. Wing backs in. And midfield reinforced. There was so much imbalance to last season. The over-reliance on Andy Cook to score the goals. The lack of forward players in the final third. The defence was probably overprotected, with a desire to control possession meaning the team was overloaded with ball winners and not enough players with the freedom to take risks and make things happen.

Carlisle manager Simpson knew this only too well. Isolate Cook, and take away City’s goal threat. Crowd out Jamie Walker and Scott Banks, and you cut off City’s supply. Alex Gilliead, Adam Clayton and Richie Smallwood could have as much of the ball as they wanted. But with those ahead of them given no room to operate, it was hard for them to pick anyone out. City’s goal threat was sporadic at best.

With 3-5-2/3-4-3, the hope has to be that the full backs can have more licence to get up and down the pitch. The wide centre backs can break out and bring the ball into midfield. One holding midfielder instead of two or even three last season. More attack-minded bodies to support Walker and Cook.

Time will naturally tell, but the tweaks to approach (including high press) could help City to improve on last season’s patchy performances. And finally begin to dominate full games rather than mere spells.

The concern is that good old phrase – Plan B. Another key part of Simpson’s success in Carlisle defeating City were learnings he’d picked up when managing England Under 20s. During this period of his career, Simpson was given insights into the importance of planning for all scenarios. Of getting players to understand better what opposition sides might do mid-game. What substitutions they would be likely to make in different situations. That way, if the opposition manager made a tactical switch mid-game, you would know what to do.

Carlisle went into those play off games not just thinking about Hughes’ starting XI and how to counter a 4-3-3. But what was likely to change during the contest, depending on how the game was unfolding. Okay, maybe even they didn’t see Matty Platt on for Banks, but the Carlisle side would have known full well Hughes liked to end games in a 3-5-2 – and the opportunities that particular tactical switch might offer them.

Hughes began last season with ideals of a diamond and so recruited few wide players. But after losing key player Jamie Walker to injury after one game, he ended up going into the loan market to recruit Banks, Tyreik Wright and Dion Pereira, so he could play with wingers.

If three at the back is going to be the weapon of choice, the hope has to be that Hughes already has a plan in case it doesn’t work.

***

For 2023/24, City have sold a record amount of season tickets for a fourth tier campaign. After pulling in an average crowd of 17,767 last season, they might be able to achieve a higher average attendance this year than both of their Premier League seasons.

This is season 17 of offering affordable season tickets. It continues to be a hugely commendable strategy that has helped to grow the club. And in these cost of living crisis times, it is even more to the club’s credit that it has maintained an ethos of being accessible to a public that resides in a city full of economic deprivation.

Unfortunately, this era of affordable pricing has not led to success on the pitch. Just one promotion in those 17 years, and the club is currently stuck back in the same league where they were when they first started offering cheap season tickets.

When City were promoted from the fourth division in 1982, they had average crowds of 5,391. The year before that, they were averaging just 2,858. These type of low league attendances are completely alien to the club in the modern day.

Take out the Covid season, and City have averaged 14,458 a season since 2007. In their entire history up to 2007 – which includes spells of notable top flight success – the club had averaged 10,305 a season. (Between 1961 and 1984, City averaged 5,069 a season.)

Affordable season tickets has transformed the club and given it generations of new supporters, just at a period where it has been largely in the doldrums, and where attendances could easily have reverted to under 5,000.

That is all clearly a good thing, but it also adds to the club’s confused and often contradictory identity.

On matchdays now, we have older supporters turning up who followed City in the 1960s and 1970s, where City spent 17 out of 21 years in the fourth division. Against this backdrop, City’s current League Two ranking is very much the status quo.

Then there’s another generation who grew up following City in the 1980s and 1990s, where the club was scaling the heights to the top, achieving several promotions and reaching the top flight. When in 2007 City fell into League Two, it was a shock to this generation – who had not known such depths. The club’s continual struggle to escape the basement league swamp is a long way removed from the giddy times of playing in the top two divisions.

Then there’s the more recent generations of supporting City since the 2000s and 2010s. A time of financial hardship, underachievement and struggle. It’s now 19 years since the Bantams were last in the second division, and 22 years since they were part of the Premier League. League One and League Two has not just been the norm, but the only thing the more recent generations have ever known.

Which is the real Bradford City? The under-supported, downtrodden fourth tier regulars of the 60s and 70s? The progressive, plucky underdogs of the 80s and 90s? Or the well-supported, underachievers of the 00s and 10s?

The answer, like the changing of the stripes and kit design year on year, is all of those things and more. All adding to the confusion and fragmented mood that exists amongst the fanbase.

***

However long you’ve supported Bradford City, you’ve known failure. And that gives us all a very clear picture of what 2023/24 could easily look like. Dashed hopes, underwhelming performances, a failure to compete with clubs a fraction of our size, a change of manager, and general disgruntlement. It’s what we do so often.

I think it’s why a lot of us feel so worried about this season, rather than excited. The bruises received at Brunton Park are what we know. Add it to the collection of bumps we’ve all picked up along the way over the years.

There’s a weariness that leaves you cynical about the future.  

But maybe that apprehension, doubt and reduced expectations will serve us well. Maybe at a point of expecting less, we actually end up getting more than before. Maybe the noise around Wrexham becomes a story not of unstoppable Hollywood success, but of an arrogant over-hyped football club falling flat on its face. A story that we can watch on with laughter, as we sprint away to promotion.

Right now at the start of this season, the choice of horizontal stripes feels apt. It’s hard right now to look at City’s close season activity as a huge leap forwards, more an indication of a sideways continuation of what went on before. But with our confused, jumbled character – who truly knows?

Going into our fifth straight season at this level, the League Two environment – and our place within it – seems more uncertain than ever before.   

The WOAP new season preview continues this week with an in-depth look at the manager, the squad’s prospects and the expected tactics.    

Categories: Season Preview

Tags: BCAFC