By Jason McKeown
It was a rhetorical question, but now it’s become a very real one. Where would Bradford City be without Andy Cook? Take a deep breath. Because we’re about to find out.
After going down injured early doors at Barrow on New Year’s Day, fingers and toes have been crossed that Cook was going to be okay. That his absence would be short-lived. A small footnote on what was proving to be another wonderful individual season. Now we have the diagnosis – Cook’s wonderful individual season is over. A cruciate ligament injury robs City of the services of their inspirational number nine for the rest of the campaign. At around 3pm on Tuesday afternoon, birds scattered everywhere across Bradford in fright over the collective “f**k” that echoed around the city, as the Cook news was released. Worst fears realised and then some.
The stats bear out the huge reliance on Cook for the last two and a half seasons. Since the start of the 2022/23 and up to right now, City have scored 196 goals. Cook has netted 65 of them and assisted a further 16. That means 41% of all Bradford City goals since July 2022 have involved Cook.
This includes 15 goals this season, league and cup. Their next highest scorer? Calum Kavanagh and Bobby Pointon with four each. Alex Pattison and Olly Sanderson have three goals. Of the other strikers on the books right now, Vadaine Oliver has one goal to his name (and that came against non-league opposition) and Tyler Smith has zero. City are not a team blessed with great goalscorers outside of Cook.
It’s a huge setback for the club. In a season that has been blighted by the busyness of the Bradford City treatment room, they might just have suffered their most serious blow of the lot.
For Cook, you can only feel utter devastation. Less than two weeks ago, he was yet again the darling of Valley Parade with his superb two-goal match-winning contribution in City’s important 2-1 victory over Port Vale. It included arguably the goal of the season – a stunning long range strike early doors – before a powerful second half header clinched three points. Those two goals put him on 85 in a Bradford City shirt, just two shy of overtaking Dean Windass to become the club’s fourth-highest all-time scorer. “This place is my home,” he emotionally declared after the game.
As the graph below shows, Cook was just about on track to have his best season yet in a City shirt. The graph charts the number of goals he has scored over the course of each of his full seasons at the club. The green line (2024/25 season) shows that after his Port Vale brace, he was just one short of total he had at this stage of his immense 31-goal haul of 2022/23. And given at this stage of that campaign, Mark Hughes rested him up for a month, slowing his goal progress, there was every reason to believe Cook was about to move above 2022/23 (the red line). At least there was before he went down in a heap at Barrow.
If there was one player who deserves to celebrate promotion in this current Bradford City squad, it is Cook. His place in the club’s history is absolutely assured, but spear-heading club success would surely tip him into another category of all-time cult heroes. If City go onto achieve promotion this season, Cook will be watching on from the sidelines like the rest of us. And that really, really sucks.
Of course, the big question now is whether they’re capable of going up without their talisman. It is a big debate for sure, with reasons to be optimistic the sky isn’t about to fall in gleaned from Saturday’s brilliant win over Grimsby without Cook. That comes almost a month to the day on from the 1-1 draw at Crewe – when Cook was suspended – that prompted Graham Alexander to change formation with promising results. You can, it’s fair to say, argue that City’s best two footballing displays of the season were the Cook-less encounters with Crewe and Grimsby.
In our Crewe match report, we talked about Ewing Theory. This is an idea that arose over 20 years ago in Basketball with the New York Knicks and their star player Patrick Ewing. Despite Ewing’s heroics, the Knicks were a habitually under-performing team. So when Ewing was injured ahead of the 1999 play off series, no one expected much. Yet strangely the Knicks prospered and won the series.
Thus the theory was born that a team inexplicably becomes better after their star player leaves the team for any reason. Two elements have to be at play. Firstly, the team has a star player who receives a lot of attention but never wins anything. And secondly, the star becomes unavailable and everybody writes them off.
You can see how this theory could work with Cook and City. He is our star player, and receives a lot of attention. If you’re a football fan with a decent knowledge of the game, you know all about Andy Cook, a prolific lower league striker who scores lots of goals for Bradford City (in the calendar year of 2024, only Middlesbrough’s Emmanuel Latte Lath scored more EFL goals than Cook). And as news of Cook’s lengthy absence travels around League Two over the coming days, absolutely City are going to be written off.
The question, then, is whether Ewing Theory will be witnessed at City over the rest of the season.
Saturday’s win hints that it could. City missed Cook – of course they did – but they got on fine without him, producing a performance widely viewed as their finest in years. So far, so good then. But clearly there is a long way to go.
Grimsby (and Crewe last month) are a team of footballing principles. They made it an open game, giving City lots of space to operate. As we all know, not all opposition sides are so accommodating. Parking the bus and keeping men behind the ball has become a habitual visiting tactic. When City face those kind of tactics in the coming weeks, will they be able to prosper and win tight games without a striker capable of scoring out of nothing?
We shall see. What’s clear is that other players are going to have some very big shoes to fill. Step up and replace the arguably irreplaceable. Bradford City need a goalscorer. And though the recent promise of the 3-4-3 would suggest a more even spread of scorers (even before Cook’s injury), they do need some sort of focal point to become the goalscorer.
According to reports from Stockport, that person could be Michael Mellon, set to arrive at City on loan from Burnley. The 21-year-old made a big impact on loan at Morecambe over the first half of last season, scoring 15 goals from 23 starts. Last January Burnley sent him to Dundee on loan, and in the Scottish Premier League Mellon netted three goals from three starts and 11 sub appearances.
Mellon’s next stop was Stockport this season. Fair to say it isn’t really working out. He got injured in pre-season, and was only able to return in October. By that point, Stockport were flying in League One with another loanee – the superb Louie Barry – presenting a considerable barrier to Mellon’s prospects. He’s started just one game for Stockport, and looks set to switch to West Yorkshire in search of more regular game time. Mellon was spotted at Valley Parade at the Chesterfield game.
If Mellon joins and can find the form he showed at Morecambe just over a year ago, it could be a great bit of business. Mellon is 6 foot 1 inch and can play up front on his own in the 3-4-3 Alexander is favouring. He would need the broadest of shoulders to replace Cook, but he has a record that suggests he could do so.
Kavanagh – who filled in on Saturday – will also fancy his chances having twice played well down the middle in those Crewe and Grimsby games. And though you suspect Vadaine Oliver, Olly Sanderson and Tyler Smith have run out of chances with Alexander, if Oliver especially can be moved on, the wages saved could allow City to bring in another good standard striker to help compensate for the loss of Cook. (There’s also the promise from Stefan Rupp of extra funds that are definitely needed now.)
We shall closely follow how it turns out. Cook’s season is over. Bradford City’s doesn’t have to be. But clearly, having to get by without the best striker in League Two is a considerable hurdle to overcome. There is no spinning this as a good outcome.
For now, we can only wish Cook all the best. Hope he’s getting all the physical and mental support he needs. Some dark days might lie ahead, and the message from every City supporter is clear. Andy – we love you, we appreciate everything you do, and we can’t wait to see you back in action. Thank goodness you have another year on your contract, and so don’t have the added uncertainty of going into the summer without a club. So focus on getting back fit, Andy. And the huge roar of joy that will greet you, the next time you set foot on the Valley Parade pitch.
Hopefully, Cook can recover for next season and return the same player. This is a horrible, sad and worrying moment. But the Andy Cook Bradford City story is yet to be completed. And there can still be a happy ending for a player who deserves nothing less.
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Incredibly sad news, for someone who has been nothing but brilliant for us. Think it’s fair to say he’s been one of the best strikers in the Club’s history – he’s certainly provided us with some great moments.
Even if his absence between now and the end of the season might prevent him from moving up the scoring charts; hopefully he can be back stronger and break the records that he deserves to claim as his own.
The important thing now is that we recruit intelligently in his absence, and that we do all we can to fill what are going to be incredibly large shoes up front. A big moment for the club – which they can hopefully rise to meet.
Most of all though, I really hope we can make this, the year we win promotion more than ever. There is nobody more deserving, who has been more integral to our success over the past few years, than him. He’s more than owed the chance to return in a City shirt playing League One football – and if we can do that, it’ll be some tribute to a man that many of us would call a City legend!
Get well soon, Andy, from all of us.
I just want to wish Cook well in his recovery, at his age it’s going to be hard to come back from an injury as serious as this one. I hope he’s getting lots of help and support both physically and mentally from the club.
It would be great if the squad can go and get the promotion cook as always deserved at the club with his scoring record. This could end up being cooks last season with us now so let’s give him the promotion he deserves. He’s already played is part. To the rest of the lads go do it for hi.
Our owner’s pledge to make funds available to strengthen the squad is about to be put to the test – big time! Andy Cook is a big, tough, incredibly proud man. We are all devastated for him and wish him not so much a speedy recovery as a full recovery in nature’s own good time. I’m a bit old for hero worship but let’s say if I weren’t he would be mine – right up there with my greats, Layne, McCole, Stokes, Stowell,Leek, Ham, Podd, Campbell and McCall. That’s some company!
Yes, nothing to argue with in your summary. However the season goes for us, he’s done more than his share in the first half of it, alone. My family are the proud owners of a £4 broken ball boy’s stool kicked to smithereens by Andy 2 season ago after scoring following a barren spell- which I bought on a Friday night for £34 in an ebay auction. Great investment.
Five goals since he left the field in 2 games shows it can be done…but I have fingers and toes crossed too for some strike re-enforcement before the end of the month.
Yes- and thoughts with Andy has he fights the hardest battle.
Cook is already a legend at city.
Now its up to EVERYONE ELSE at the club to make sure we, and especially Cooky has the best end of season party we can have.
#GET PROMOTED FOR COOKY!
take care Andy. On the Ewing theory, I think there is an element there that can apply to us. When teams set up against us trying to double mark Cook and cut off the supply to him, they won’t know how to play against us as they don’t know where the goals will come from. So even if we don’t know either , it can work for us. I’d prefer Cook was fit but we can’t always have what we want. Cheers Jason for another good article.
I suggested selling Cook in the window a couple of weeks back, not because he wasn’t a great player but because we’d failed a few times under different managers to put a contending team together with him as our figurehead.
Our players know that Cook is upfront and know that his record is great, they also know that they should get it to Cook as often as possible or the crowd and Cook and likely the manager will be on their backs, this leads to us being one dimensional.
I hate it for Cook but I am interested to see what the players we have can do with perhaps a greater freedom of play.
Genuinely sad at losing Cook. However, it gives the club the opportunity to respond with the loss of our high scoring centre forward.
We have just signed Michael Mellow on load from Burnley. His scoring record is reasonable being loaned out by Burnley. He has scored goals at the clubs he’s been sent to on loan. Also, a strong rumour that a striker called Tommy Leigh is about to sign from MK Dons. He played for Accrington Stanley for 2 seasons. First season for them in division 1 and when relegated to division 2, before being signed for £200K by MK Don’s. He has scored goals and at 24 he’s sounds like a good option for us.. Apparently, City has had offered a fee for him and it has been accepted. As well as other positions he has played Centre Forward. Sounds positive imo.
City fans do amaze me though.
For several.seasons there has been a clamour for a ’20 goal a season’ striker.
Then when we get one they say we might play better without him.
i remember Terry Dolan been asked how the team was planned with Bobby Campbell and the answer was they simply let him do his own thing and organised the rest around him.
Playing to his strengths.
When you have an exceptional player and there is little doubt that Cook is a natural goalscorer ( as rare as hens teeth) you build a team around him and his stregths.
A twenty goal a season player is fantastic and Cook did that the last 2 years and was on course to do it again. The problem has been that no one else has scored and twenty goals alone isn’t getting you out of the division.
I’m sure if Dolan had Cook, it would be pretty straight forward, 442, little quick guy next to him, two wingers, 20 goals for Cook, 12 for the little guy and a few from midfield, promotion won.
Styles have changed however and as GA found out earlier in the season it’s very hard to make 442 work when most teams have 3 in the middle.
We’ve had 4 managers try and build a promotion level team with Cook and none have managed it, so suggesting trying without him isn’t a knock on Cook, it’s just an interest in seeing whether a different style of striker could work with this squad and this manager.
Another great WOTP article.
In my 55yrs of watching City Andy Cook is up there with the likes of Bobby Campbell. Hopefully the lad will be back next season starting where he left off.
I would like to see the likes of young ibbotson given a shot up front, he could partner Mellon and who knows.
Oliver is a nice lad but he is just not good enough, he gets the odd header or chest in but the wages he is on is clearly not justified, let’s give our promising youngsters a run out.
Numbers don’t lie. He’s been immense for us. But we can now show that we have a squad capable of getting promoted. What better incentive for him to return, fit and strong, knowing he’ll be playing in league one next season.
Wishing you a speedy recovery, and keep away from them pies! 😊🤞