By Jason McKeown

The big difference this season is that the beaming smile was no longer plastered all over his face. Harry Lewis’ first year at Bradford City had been a huge success, with 19 League Two clean sheets, an ever-present record in league and cup, culminating in the Bantams’ first play off finish in six years.

Lewis lapped it all up. Played with the largest of grins. He embraced the ethos of the club and quickly became one of its leading characters. A season of remarkable performances in goal, as time and time again he produced match-winning saves. “Up the f**king Chickens” became his much-loved post-match rally cry, loved by supporters who quickly took Lewis to their hearts. His personality was infectious.  

But this year, that loud and warm personality has retreated into a more introverted, frowning Bradford City number one. The club’s struggles, in comparison to the year before, have perhaps demanded players like Lewis become more sullen and serious-looking, but that giddy exuberance he exhibited has been missed. In typically honest fashion, Lewis has been public about his mental health struggles. They are not to be taken lightly. And it’s added to a feeling that, compared to the brilliant heights he soared to in 2022/23, Lewis just hasn’t seemed quite the same person – and, perhaps linked in some way, not quite the same player.

Nevertheless, Lewis’ January departure to League One strugglers Carlisle United is a shock and really sad to see. As he heads to Cumbria under the typical cloud of “undisclosed fee”, there is understandable sadness amongst supporters at one of the most popular players in modern times exiting the door. He will be difficult to replace, especially midway through the season. His exit leaves City a weaker football club, after a six-month period where they’ve been absorbing blows and struggling to push against a post-play off season decline.

Another supporter backlash is inevitable and Stefan Rupp and Ryan Sparks will do well to put back on the tin hats they had to wear for most of the autumn. The spotlight is undeniably shifting back onto them – especially regarding Rupp’s long-term ownership intentions. There are suggestions that accepting Carlisle’s offer is motivated by a need to rebalance the books from a transfer overspend last summer. And that the club is financially weaker right now. Despite Sparks’ May 2023 comments that City would be leaner and meaner this season, they ended the August window bloated and over-stocked. Quantity over quality. They’ve also, you would assume, had to pay off another sacked manager in Mark Hughes. Perhaps Lewis’ departure will increase the chances of City keeping their other crown jewel, Jake Young, but don’t bet on it.

Selling players to fix deficits in January screams of writing off the season, and with City floundering in the bottom half of League Two right now, there might be some logic to letting the last 20 games run their course with an eye of properly rebuilding in the summer. You can make the comparison with the 1997/98 season when a mid-table City sold the likes of Eddie Youds and Chris Wilder on transfer deadline day and waited until the summer to go on spending spree. The following year, they were promoted to the Premier League.

The problem, in the here and now, is just how patient an increasingly disillusioned fanbase will prove to be if good players leave and aren’t adequately replaced, and the reminder of the season drifts. Good luck with next year’s season ticket marketing campaign.

Getting replacement for Lewis is obviously key and – if we are to believe in the club’s transfer strategy – it shouldn’t be a problem. Back in September 2022, Stephen Gent told the T&A he was already planning for the day Lewis would need to be replaced, “If Harry Lewis, for example, has a fantastic season for us, which hopefully he will, he’s going to have interest. Don’t get me wrong I wouldn’t want to lose him but it’s part of the game. If a club come in with an offer that financially we can’t refuse, then we wish him all the best. But then I’ve got to find a replacement and that’s what I’m doing now. It’s not a case of thinking he’s not good enough but of who the next goalkeeper will be should Harry Lewis go.”

Let’s see if that’s true. Meanwhile there are other, credible noises of some potentially exciting incomings that may well lift the mood. So we should probably avoid rushing in to making judgements right now.

In the cold light of day, there is a logic to cashing in on Lewis, with 18 months on his contract left to run. The reality is that he has not performed at the same level this campaign, and that his strong reputation and sizeable transfer value will be based more on last season’s heroics than this year.

City have conceded 35 goals in 26 games this season – for context, in 2022/23, Lewis only conceded 43 goals over the entire 46-game season. This year, Bradford City have the second worst % of shots on target saved in the entire division at 58.4% – only bottom of the table Sutton United (56.4%) have a worse record. Lewis has under-performed his xG by five goals. And compared to his 19 clean sheets last year, has only eight so far.

It’s some drop off in form. And to be unfairly cruel on Lewis for a moment, had he signed last summer and delivered the performances he has this season, there’d be some reasonable question marks over whether he is good enough to be Bradford City’s number one. He certainly wouldn’t be commanding interest from higher divisions. Time will tell of course – he may go onto Carlisle and be amazing, I hope he is – but maybe, just maybe, this might be right moment to sell.

But whatever the recent dimming of his form, we will never forget just how wonderful Lewis was for Bradford City.

Signed in the summer of 2022 on the recommendation of Gent, a then-24-year-old Lewis came to Valley Parade having not played senior football for over four seasons. He’d been stuck in Southampton reserves, forever overlooked when chances came along to play. A season-long loan at Dundee United in 2017/18 was a distant memory. Lewis considered quitting the game and trying something else. That was until he was spotted by incoming City head of recruitment Gent in an under 23 game at St James Park, Newcastle, leading to a recommendation to Hughes, who remembered him from his days managing the Saints.

There were understandable concerns over whether Lewis could make the leap from the St Mary’s sidelines to number one week in week out at Valley Parade, but for the most part Lewis confounded those doubts. Agile, quick and good on the ball in a team who were coached to play it out from the back, Lewis was a huge success and become a cult hero for his cheeky social media appearances and all round positive character.

It just felt like he got it. What it means to us. Because it meant as much to him.

Lewis embraced the culture of Bradford City, standing broad shouldered in front of a crowd who in recent years have become grimly used to seeing their players hiding. It’s going to feel very odd to be in the Kop at the next home game, applauding a different goalkeeper to Lewis before kick off.

Lewis’ performances in 2022/23 were terrific. So good in fact, that back up goalkeeper Colin Doyle never got a look in. Lewis was even determined to play in all the EFL Trophy games, when normally the number one stopper might be rested up. He explained he’d waited so long for first team football that he didn’t want to pass up any opportunity to play.

In hindsight, that might have been a mistake.

In the run-in to promotion last season, City were in such a good position but faltered over the final five games. They stumbled, winning just once. Big hopes of automatic promotion faded to final day sweating over actually making the play offs. Hughes largely stuck with the same players for most of the season, and in that final stretch many of his key performers started to flag.

If there a turning point for Lewis at least, it was a bad day at the office at home to Gillingham in April. City realistically had to win, but conceded late on to draw 2-2. Lewis might have done better keeping out the 97th minute Gills equaliser, and all afternoon had looked unusually nervous and hesitant – the crowd on his back over passing it out instead of going long, as Gillingham kept pressing him and forcing mistakes. At the time I wrote of the first half, “I think it’s fair to say those first 45 minutes were the toughest Lewis has experienced in a City shirt so far.”

He’s never since looked as infallible as he did up until that day. Lewis didn’t have the greatest of games in a crucial 3-2 loss at Crewe that ended their auto hopes, and his performance at Carlisle in the play off second leg led to some questions over whether he should have kept out each of United’s tie-clinching goals. That slight dip in form at the end, perhaps caused by some level of mental fatigue from having gone from four years in the wilderness to playing week in week out with no rest, was telling.

In the summer, Barnsley submitted an offer for Lewis. City said no, but Lewis made little secret of the fact he was mentally affected by the saga. He never said he wanted to leave, but he didn’t offer up the most convincing of statements that he was happy to stay. And as this season has gone on, Lewis has delivered a mixture of excellent and poor performances. An inconsistency that just wasn’t there before.

The dip reached its nadir at Tranmere in October where Lewis made an awful mistake in the defeat that cost Hughes his job. There have been ups and downs since, but Lewis has slowly regained better form. Still, as City conceded four goals on Saturday for the third time in the league this season – having never conceded more than three goals in a game the year before – the incredible high standards Lewis can reach have not been evidenced so much this time around. All goalkeepers go through moments like this in their career. If Lewis continues to emerge from this difficult spell a better goalkeeper for it, the frustration for City is they won’t get to reap the benefits.

The debate will no doubt swirl on. Are City right to cash in on their asset? Could they stand in the way of a player who wanted to play at a higher level? Is this a sign of a lack of ambition at Valley Parade? Or is this proof in the value of the recruitment strategy Gent has spearheaded, where City have picked up a goalkeeper for free and made a six-figure profit 18 months later? I think there is an element of truth in every side of the argument. But if – as seems inevitable – Young is also sold, City will have a lot of convincing to do to their supporters.

It’s a sad day. It really is. Lewis was a wonderful a human being. A terrific ambassador for the club. A talented keeper who will be very difficult to replace. Whatever the rights and wrongs of his departure, Bradford City will be a greyer place without their smiley goalkeeper.

Post script – since this article went live, City have confirmed the arrival of Sam Walker from Charlton on an 18-month deal.

Categories: Opinion

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