By Paul Askham
In 25 years as a season-ticket holder at Valley Parade, the only period in which I’ve missed consecutive home games by choice was when we swapped Omar Daley for Kevin Ellison. I spat my dummy out big-time and pretty much stopped going for the remainder of the 2010/11 season. I’m not quite at that level of indignance yet, but it feels that time is getting close again.
Last Tuesday night, as we were drawing 1-1 with Salford, I was sat looking at the empty seats around the ground wishing I was one of those who’d stayed home. Other than seeing my mates once a fortnight, going to City isn’t fun at the moment. It is pure muscle-memory getting the lads I sit with to the games, which I expect is something echoed around the fanbase.
At home I normally try and maintain a sunny disposition post-match, so that my future attendance isn’t questioned. On Tuesday night though I couldn’t even bring myself to do that. I got home and told my wife how awful an experience it was, inviting the obvious (and of course 100% rational and correct) response of “Nobody makes you go”.
The last thing I want pointing out is what a waste of time going to Valley Parade can be, especially at times like this…
I try my best to remain positive, or at least balanced in my views of goings-on at Valley Parade. I do after all ultimately want to take some enjoyment out of my support of the club. I definitely want to be a supporter of the club rather than a fan, as I see fanaticism is a dangerous thing, whether that be in football or any other subject.
There’s just not much to support at the moment though is there? From Stefan Rupp down to Billy Bantam, the only people I think excelling themselves and showing pride are Brad Halliday, Alex Gilliead and Bobby Pointon when he’s allowed on the pitch.
The football’s been really poor to watch since Christmas. The intensity shown by the team in the wake of the Notts County game was really refreshing for a month-or-so. Something you could really get behind. We appear however to have reverted to type, with a set of toiling individuals rather than a team unit backing each other up.
Richie Smallwood looked a different player under Kevin McDonald, and the fact he’s reverted to treating the ball like a live grenade in the last few weeks suggests he’s doing so under instruction from the management. I’m not against the old Alan Hansen mantra of “If in doubt, launch it”, but we’re launching it even when there isn’t any doubt.
The Jake Young saga has been an irritance in the last few weeks, but I could see some logic if we were going to sell him. He sat out three-and-a-half league games since his return at the start of the month. Two draws, one defeat, and the first half against Swindon. Bringing him on at half time at 2-0 down was symbolic of the season. Even if he’d rescued the Swindon game, it would surely still have been too late to rescue the season. three-and-a-half games earlier however, that might not have been the case.
I would suggest that half-time against Swindon, was the first time since the start of the month that it categorically made no sense to put Jake Young on the pitch. We may as well have ridden out the remainder of the window and seen if we got an inflated panic-bid at the last minute. It just smells of a PR-exercise to placate us.
Despite my misgivings on the pitch, the over-arching problems must be coming from the top, as we have had five years of solid dross with multiple managers and a hundred-or-so players. The toil has only been tempered by the occasional relaxing spell of mediocrity. The Owner and his Chief Executive are the common-denominators in that.
I have no doubt that Stefan Rupp and Ryan Sparks want Bradford City to do well. Rupp wants to sell his asset at a premium, and I’m sure Sparks wants us to do well in order to better the club and his own career, be it here or elsewhere. I don’t begrudge him that.
Who exactly at the top is responsible for the nonsense we’re having to put up with, realistically can’t be known by anybody who isn’t sat in on meetings at the top level of the club. Rupp might be expecting Sparks to do three jobs, meaning he can’t perform any to the best of his ability. Rupp may be a fantastic owner and Sparks could be plain useless. They could both be as bad as each other.
All we do know for an absolute fact, is that it’s dysfunctional, as the product on the pitch attests to that season after season. I’m not giving Sparks a free pass as I’m sure there are things which he could do better, but personally I think any finger-pointing at him is a waste of energy.
In my opinion the change needs to come from the absolute top, and the only way that can happen is that Rupp accepts he doesn’t own a £10m asset. He had the wool pulled over his eyes by Edin Rahic, and I actually feel sorry for him on that front as he’s been left as a reluctant owner. He fell victim to a con-artist, which is unfortunate for him, but we’re all paying the price as he sits waiting for the miracle of recouping his losses.
In essence he’s bought a car, smashed it into a wall, then stuck it back on Auto Trader wanting the same amount of money as he originally spent.
He needs to take his medicine, sell for a realistic price, and view his shortfall as an idiot tax. If I get a speeding fine, I have a little sulk, think it isn’t fair, then concede that by the letter of the law it was a careless thing to do, swallow the fine, then get on with it.
He has wealth behind him and bought City as a bit of a play-thing. I’d be far more sympathetic if he was a local businessman like Julian Rhodes who was remortgaging houses to keep us going. He isn’t though. His negative-equity in this venture can be measured in monetary terms, but more pressingly I think pride is taking too much of a front seat.
This £10m asset he thinks he has, is on the brink of being with a tenth of that, if not less.
My Dad used to have an Ian Dury CD in his car, and as a kid I remember questioning the meaning of a line about “being the catalyst that sparks a revolution”. In positive terms, he explained to me the concept of one thing or act, setting about a chain of events larger than itself. Quite aptly in City’s case, the line was from a song entitled “What a Waste”.
We need a catalyst to spark a revolution, and quickly, or else Valley Parade will be back down to pre-2007 attendances next year. It will be even less fun than it currently is, somehow.
Two years ago Derek Adams was sacked and Mark Hughes came in, miraculously rescuing what was likely to be a dismal season ticket campaign. Last year our league position (if not performances) retained those season ticket holders.
The only viable catalyst I can see this year is a change of ownership. If that’s going to happen, Mr Rupp needs to set a realistic price to hopefully encourage multiple-bidders, so our “proud-custodian” can then pick the best option for the club and we can go our separate ways.
Categories: Opinion
widthofapost.com 
Great article Paul.
As a poster said on the previous article (apologies, I forgot your name) it’s time for GA to call it a day and for Kev to take over until the end of the season. I whole heartedly agree with this.
GA is not a Bradford City manager. I wish him all the best in his future endeavours.
However, I do believe though that Herr Rupp has acted honourably. He was sold a pup by Rahic and never wanted to be in this situation. He has paid all the bills and kept us afloat during Covid.
The biggest thing to consider is that John Dewhirst flew at his own expense to see Rupp in Germany to explain what Rahic was doing to City.
Not only did Rupp see John but then took action after to get rid of Rahic. Rup isn’t the villain he is sometimes painted out to be.
No doubt if he could turn back the clock knowing what he knows today he would never have signed onto this.
I’d rather have Rupp as an owner that keeps us afloat than someone who is all fur coat and no knickers.
The main problem Rupp had with Rahic was there was only one channel of information I.e. everything went through Rahic. As far as I’m aware he was an extreme micromanager in terms of signing off any information going out extenrally, and anything going to Rupp had to go through him. Which is why he seemingly played down what he was doing and got caught out.
I could be wrong, but at face value it looks very similar still.
There is no board, just Rupp and Sparks, and the secretary I think. While I don’t think Sparks is decieveing Rupp like Rahic did, it does look that with no other board members Rupp is only aware of information coming from Sparks. And like others say, as long as he’s showing the finances of the club are ‘sustainable’ , Rupp may not want to know anything else.
Paul’s piece, and particularly the opening paragraphs, really chimed with me. I’ve been a Bantam since my first visit to VP in 59/60 and since 1965 I’ve never missed a game when I’ve been within 100 miles of where we are playing. I left Bradford in 1973 so this means I’ve mainly seen away games in the South in the past 50 years. But the despair I felt coming home from Swindon very much echoed Paul last Tuesday. If I shared my emotions at home on Saturday evening I’d also be told, quite reasonably, ” You’re nearly 70. No-one’s forcing you to go to watch Bradford City play”
It wasn’t the result – after all I’ve seen us lose by 5 goals or more on multiple occasions – but the apparent attitude pervading the whole team (Halliday excepted) from the first minute. We were totally outplayed in every department by a very ordinary team low on confidence themselves. Even by this season’s standards Saturday was dire. I acknowledge that in only my 5th away game this season (after Newport, MK, Gillingham, Colchester – unlike previous seasons I’ve been away for Crawley, Sutton and Wimbledon this term) I’m hardly best placed to comment but I do find WOAP’s reports, from the games I’ve missed, honest enough over the years to know that this isn’t just my view of the state of our team and indeed our club.
As for ridding ourselves of Stefan Rupp, is there really anyone out there who would buy the club from him? And at what price? I haven’t studied the Club’s accounts for a while but I don’t think Rupp is draining funds from BCFC. I’m sure John Dewhurst would alert us to it if that were the case.
Since this is my first ever WAOP comment, can I thank Jason and all contributors for this valuable resource. It’s much appreciated.
I have a season ticket but have only been to two games and haven’t been for months. I won’t go again until Rupp and Sparks have no involvement with the club. The only way Rupp will cut his losses is if it hits him where it hurts…his wallet. I hate to say it but fans need to vote with their feet
By buying a season ticket and not attending games the club doesn’t really suffer financially. i.e. it not hitting Rupp in the pocket. So shouldn’t we not renew season tickets to really force home the point. The counter argument is that Rupp will say cut your cloth accordingly so we end up with smaller player budget. It’s a tricky one.
My point was people shouldn’t renew until these clowns are out of the club. I’ve had enough of the same mistakes being made year after year and I’ve lost interest truth be told. There are better things to do at a weekend then watch the utter dross we are served up. But if people want to keep supporting the clubs slow painful demise into oblivion, that’s their perogative. But that is exactly where we are heading
I agree with much of the article the part where I disagree shows an issue.
We as Bradford fans/supporters can’t be sure where things are going wrong and we all have differing opinions. From my point of view there is a competitive budget put on the pitch year in year out so Rupp, while not being perfect, doesn’t have to be an issue.
The CEO is the person who decides how that budget is proportioned. Ryan Sparks is not qualified to make footballing decisions. Did he even have a football interest before Bradford City? Critical fans are regularly given the retort ‘stick to football manager’ well I am unaware of what gives Sparks more understanding of football matters than your average fan.
He does have the authority to spend a player’s wage on a Sporting Director or equivalent to come up with and be accountable for that strategy.
During Sparks time even is we look past the flip-flopping from Stuart’s attempt to play flowing football with players not capable, to the direct style of Adams (via rigid but solid Trueman), back to slow and patient possession based Hughes before recently installing an even more direct than Adams, Alexander. He has also hired a Director of Recruitment only to seemingly realise a matter of months later Adams didn’t want to be involved with one, before quickly sacking Adams and then hiring a Head of Recruitment.
Obviously Sparks wants the club to be successful but personally my view is his decisions and inability to rectify them by bringing in the right expertise around him has been his and our downfall.
My view, which may be right or wrong, the best money Rupp could spend is on a consultant as a minimum to come in a review the operations of a football club. This needs to be an expert not fans with pitchforks, although I think it is understandable why the pitchforks are out. I’m relatively supportive of the fan action dependent on the output. Emotion needs to be taken out of it. Rupp has listened before and may listen again but personal abuse and direct messaging on social media unfortunately will only push him away.
Of course that could be wrong and Rupp’s lack of interest may be the root of the problem but in any of his other business ventures I assume he would take action and review what has gone so badly wrong.
Next season if there is a huge shortfall in ST sales there will also be an issue that follows with partners not wanting to extend commercial agreements. Players on longer expensive contracts like Smallwood and Cook are going to impact the budget and it is highly concerning the state our football club could then be in.
Good point. I went from saying nobody knows what goes on in the boardroom, straight into supposition giving the owner a chasing. I stand by what I’ve said, but I’m happy to admit I know zero facts.
Agree that the current straight-line hierarchy is probably too threadbare and an addition of a consultant (or similar) could be the solution.
The issue in my view with Rupp is his complete lack of interest. This has left us with an inexperienced CEO who has pretty much been left to his own devices. The least I expect from him is to recognise the issues we currently have at a senior management level and act on them.
Over a hundred players… I bet I can only name a third as well!!
What strikes me most is that the majority of the changes, which will have come at some cost (increased wages, paying up contracts) to our owner, have basically been like-for-like. Does Ash Taylor represent an upgrade on Ben Richards Everton for example? 100+ changes in personnel without any real change. And I think it is simply because we have no stable strategy.
More than anything, we just need some sort of medium term plan.
Another heartfelt head-scratching piece about how it could it all be have gone so wrong. Football is full of failures. For every success you have a league of failure but few clubs belonging to big cities are so firmly mired in the lower nether regions as ours. Who knows what might be ‘the catalyst for change’! Normally, in the short term, it’s the manager. Over the years successful ones like Don Revie, Alec Stock, Brian Clough, Dave Basset, John Beck and Neil Warnock, to name a disparate few, have by sheer force of personality coupled with a good football brain achieved remarkable results with unfancied players they inherited or initially managed to sign. It can be done. In all cases they were allowed to get on with it. These days most managers are in effect coaches. Alexander has as much as admitted he has nothing to do with the financial negotiations; we have Gent overseeing, it is generally understood, transfer business; and an army of analysts determining who’s hot and who’s not. I’ve thundered enough recently about our woeful transfer activity so will just say: imagine where we might be if instead of signing dross we managed to unearth the odd diamond. If Barry Fry can make a career out of doing it, there are players out there. I agree it made little sense to play Jake Young for half a match in a losing cause. Having come so close to the deadline, it would have made more sense to let it play out to the end and then take stock. It is one of scores of decisions we’ve seen that seem to suggest the supreme decision maker doesn’t really have what it takes – that priceless blend of experience and informed intuition that knows what it’s doing.
“In essence he’s bought a car, smashed it into a wall, then stuck it back on Auto Trader wanting the same amount of money as he originally spent”
A great analogy! An indulging but thoroughly depressing read! Thank you I think?!?
I really fear for the club
We are in zombie mode marching slowly to relegation and bankruptcy
Rupp will end up owning nothing
And we will have lost our club
We need to protest now before it is too late
ST holder, 28 years. There’s just nothing to get excited about, on or off the pitch.
I’ve been all over the country. Missed other events and occasions. Done midweek away trips to places like Plymouth… I can’t make those commitments any more, and like others, I’m becoming emotionally detached from the club.
I just want to get back to enjoying the football, getting excited when we attack the Kop, getting excited when a certain player runs with the ball. Most of the talk of City these days ends up going to Sparks, Rupp etc – I think both are terrible and need to go, but I’m fed up with the negativity everywhere and it being such a waste of emotion.
At the moment, I’m not renewing. I’ve no confidence in how the club is managed or owned, the football is a mess, and the transfer window so far implies the club have written off the season.
I feel the future is genuinely bleak unless there is a massive shift in approach and direction at the strategic / investment level.
I went on my own on Tuesday out of our normal group of 6. I think we’ve all been there maybe 5 times over the last 2 years. I don’t want to be the guy that ends up just going on his own because he has nothing else to do in life, I really don’t.
My elderly parents used to go with me, they never went before I started. It’s now a mix of slight health issues, general effort and it just being so unappealing as to why they don’t go anymore.
I’ve been taking my child on and off for over 2 years. They’re 7. Tried to get them interested, got them their own season ticket, but they hate it. It’s boring, I keep getting told, and I agree, it is. I’ve given up trying to get them into.
Sorry City, but the reality is I’d rather spend that time doing much more positive and memorable things with my family than watching low quality football on my own.
I dropped lucky, my lad started going in the year of the history makers (2013). I told him then it won’t get any better than this….
Great article – agree with the comment that highlights Sparks, we don’t know but it’s fair to assume Rupp is giving a decent budget and the CEO is overseeing the miss spending of it.
One thing that surprises me is how Gibbs never comes in for criticism. His asset strip has severely damaged the value of the club.
He’s had his money back from rent and then some – time to do the right thing and give the ground back? Or at least switch to a lease to own at renewal.
Totally agree Gibbs has had his money back , we need to find a way to bring the ownership back to the club either through an increase in season ticket and investment from local businesses as a one off but to me this issue holds us back massively NOT Rupps ownership,
Has to whether I would trust the current structure with the extra funds is an argument for another day
It not Gordon Gibbs decision.
The stadium.is an asset for the Flsmingolsnd pension fund. Not Gibbs personal.pension fund and as such is administered by trustees.
The trustees have a legal obligation to maximise their assets. Not Gibb. And its a personal legal.obligation for each trustee. At the moment the annual rent/lease is the BEST use of the asset so it cannot be sold.
Unless something dramatic happens such as Rupp selling or RS and Co leaving then I won’t be renewing x7.
The only feasible sales pitch to attach to a season ticket sales campaign now would be to support a new regime with significant change.
City’s most valuable asset is the supporters. Therefore the growing disaffection by supporters towards the Club should be deeply worrying for the man at the top. Stefan Rupp, who I think is a decent and honourable man, should already be aware of this developing situation, but to be sure, I would propose that Jason and John Dewhirst be encouraged to try to make contact with him.
Whilst promotion is clearly an important objective it can never be guaranteed as every other club in the division has that objective. What should be guaranteed is entertainment. Whether the team wins or loses, the supporters should always come away feeling they’ve had their “money’s worth”. In my view it is this lack of entertainment that is driving the supporters away.
The Club needs to identify the style of football that will best entertain the supporters and then recruit Manager and players with this in mind. Having said that, most of the players currently at the Club are decent “footballers “ and should be capable of providing entertaining football if encouraged to do so by the management team.
Name me the decent footballers please.
This is a shockingly poor squad lacking in talent, energy and pace.
I think we may have 3 decent players if Young plays like he did for Swindon, along with Halliday and Gilead plus i supose Pointon shows promise. McDonald has ability but istoo imobile for me
That is it out of a squad of 25 to 30 players.
Well it’s certainly not the fans fault . A bit of fight, passion, and a work ethic would go a long way to appease the fans.Not we have to improve blah blah blah ,heard it all before from the usual suspects . Its like tinnitus .Club going nowhere .Im done .
I keep hearing for the introduction of a Director of Football as a cure for all footballing ills. I am neither for nor against a DoF. If Sparks and Rupp feel it would be helpful I’ll go with it. However, I
would be grateful to those supporters who are suggesting/implying that us not having a
DoF is the reason for not progressing on the field -if we completely ignore last season that is- could provide some insite as to why Clubs like Colchester, Sutton, Doncaster, Forest Green and, in particular, Salford -with all their “football knowledge”- are performing as badly as they are.
“Insight”. Gerrrr!
I will be there next season but many around me won’t. They are already staying away. The club just isn’t right; owner, CEO, manager, head of recruitment, captain. They patronise our loyal support and treat us like idiots. In the 50 years I have supported Bradford I’ve never felt so dispirited. It has to change. WOAP simply says what the hierarchy of the club doesn’t want to face or do something about.