“I don’t wanna live that way.” Somebody That I Used to Know, Gotye

By Jason McKeown

Sky Sports still keeps showing reruns of that bloody awful afternoon. 20 May 2017, Wembley Stadium and the League One play off final between Bradford City and Millwall. It’s a typical final – tight, cagey and with inescapable tension holding everyone back from taking undue risk.

Then with five minutes left on the clock, Steve Morison gets the winner for Millwall. Wild scenes of celebration at one end of Wembley. Gut-wrenching heartbreak at the other. The game is soon over, Millwall fans invade the pitch and all we can do is applaud the efforts of our players and head home dejected, chewing over the what-might-have-beens.

It hurt – boy did it hurt. And little did we know this was only the beginnings of a miserable era in Bradford City’s history.

Because that excruciating Wembley defeat not only denied the Bantams a return to the higher divisions, it set them on a course for eight years of disappointment, decline and destitution. Of needless falls, false dawns and futile resets. Relegation, nine managerial changes, forgettable players and far, far too many defeats to Harrogate bloomin’ Town.

We’ve suffered and suffered some more. And putting the pieces back together again has not been easy. But now at last, the first genuine step to redemption can be taken with City just one win away from returning to League One. On Saturday a sell out Valley Parade will roar on their team. They’re on the verge of saying they’re back.

To closing the chapter on eight years of misery.

“You can get addicted to a certain kinda sadness.”

As we stand on the edge of a day that could prove amongst the greatest we’ve ever experienced at Valley Parade, it’s worth reflecting on how far we’ve come and all the pain we’ve suffered along the way. To appreciate the loyalty we’ve shown and the tests we’ve endured. Because let’s face it, we’ve gone through an awful lot of agony to reach an occasion as promising as this.

So I present to you my personal eight lowlights of the last eight years. Please feel free to add your own.

1) The 2018 sacking of Stuart McCall

The post-play off final defeat season was initially pretty good. They won plenty of games, with an especially strong record on the road, and were a permanent top six fixture going into January. But then it all unravelled. A fall out over Luke Hendrie ahead of an FA Cup game at Yeovil, an injury crisis and, for most of the month, a complete lack of transfer window signings.

Form collapsed. Including the Yeovil game, the Bantams embarked on a run of six straight defeats. You can take your pick of the worst ones, but the stand out moments for me were going to top six rivals Rotherham on a Tuesday night and meekly losing 2-0. I was co-commenting on the game for Pulse Radio that night, and after the game got a close up view of the shellshocked faces of McCall and Matt Kilgallon when they came up for interviews. It was a serious blow that underlined much was wrong.

There was then a 4-0 home loss to AFC Wimbledon where every time the Dons went forward, the ball ended up in the back of the net. The Dons cut through a defence that was having an absolute shocker and had back up goalkeeper Rouven Sattelmaier falling to pieces. Signings were belatedly made the week after and some injured players returned, but a 2-1 loss at Oldham spelt the end for McCall.

It was, to say the least, a controversial decision. At Oldham as City were losing, 2,000 City fans still chanted McCall’s name. Most fans could see the wider backdrop that was undermining McCall’s efforts, and that he deserved the chance to keep going as manager – especially with City still in the play off positions. Edin Rahic and Stefan Rupp saw it differently, making a decision that went down badly with fans and sent the club on a decline.

Rupp said they sacked McCall to give City a better chance of finishing in the play offs. It did not.

2) Crashing to the bottom of League One

After McCall came Simon Grayson. A guy with a high opinion of himself, but who didn’t present much evidence for us to understand why. Grayson left at the end of the season with City slumped in mid-table, and then came a search for a new head coach that went on for weeks and weeks. One that quickly fell into farce.

Finally, City unveiled Grayson’s replacement. It was the Under 18s manager. No really. Step forward Michael Collins, apparently the best candidate. He lasted all of five league games, before a panicking Rahic sacked him. David Hopkin came in as manager, inheriting a bulging squad that had been expensively assembled.

But it was not a good squad, and by October it became clear that we were not going to be pushing for promotion as hoped. In fact, we were facing a relegation battle. There was an awful afternoon at Accrington where City lost 3-1 with Kai Brünker up front on his own and looking woefully out of his depth. It was the last afternoon Rahic saw City in the flesh. He sneaked out at half time, and was never present for a match day again.

Then came a 4-2 Tuesday night home defeat to Coventry that sent City bottom of the league. City were 2-0 down inside 11 minutes. The ground looked empty, and I remember going along with some friends to get a pre-match pint on the Kop concourse, only to discover all but one kiosk was closed. It felt symbolic of the situation that was seeing Bradford City fall apart.

This was the evening where it seemed the last remaining Rahic backers gave up and turned on the City chairman. He would indeed be gone within a couple of weeks. But the damage was done. The Bantams were at the foot of the table, and would ultimately finish there.

3) The Walsall farce

The 2018/19 season was definitely one of the worst following the Bantams. But after Rahic left there was a brief window of hope as the team got its act together, and over December they looked formidable. This included 4-0 thrashings of Walsall and Rochdale. I remember after a New Year’s Day 3-0 thumping over Accrington a friend talking about how we could still make the play offs.

Alas, it all went wrong again. A 3-0 loss at Barnsley, then a 4-0 home defeat to fellow strugglers Southend. An ugly 1-0 Valley Parade defeat to Joey Barton’s Fleetwood, and an okay-but-we-needed-to-win-this 0-0 draw at home to Derek Adams’ Plymouth.

Then came another relegation six-pointer and a calamitous loss. Walsall away. Six minutes in, a present for City. Saddlers’ striker Andy Cook (not sure whatever happened to him?) elbowed Nathaniel Knight-Percival to earn a straight red. City had a man advantage for the remaining 84 minutes, with the situation made even better when Eion Doyle put the Bantams in front soon after.

And then, a shambolic collapse. Walsall scored either side of half time, Anthony O’Connor equalised, but Josh Gordon made it 3-2 to the home side. There was still half an hour to play, but City could not find a way back. They had lost a game they couldn’t afford to lose, when it had been gift-wrapped for them.

Hopkin resigned as manager on Monday. City then went to Portsmouth and lost 5-1 under caretaker Michael Drury (a day infamous because of captain’s armbandgate), before Gary Bowyer was appointed. Too late to save City. They went down with three games to spare.

4) Bowyer, Doyle and Vaughan

I don’t think any of us still really know exactly what happened, but in January 2019 City lost 3-0 to Mansfield Town and Bowyer fell out with striker James Vaughan, leading to one of the most astonishingly bad final weeks of any transfer window.

City’s first season back in League Two had been okay and they looked a good play off bet until January, but the promise shown under Bowyer came underneath the heavy shadow of loaning out Eion Doyle to Swindon, and the previously struggling striker turning into the Ginger Pele.

Because at Swindon – who would ultimately be promoted from League Two, whilst City floundered – Doyle discovered some of the best form of his career. He started 22 games on loan at the Robins, he scored 23 goals. Bowyer had opted for a strike partnership of Vaughan and Clayton Donaldson. But with the latter injured for three months and the former seemingly picking up as many yellow cards as he did goals, the wisdom of loaning out Doyle remained highly questionable.

Still, we can get Doyle back, right? In January City recalled him, but what returned from Wiltshire was a player evidently sulking. Not wanting to be part of things at Valley Parade. So Doyle made four, score-less appearances back in claret and amber, which culminated in City’s 3-0 loss at Mansfield that saw fans turn on Bowyer.

We weren’t the only ones. Somewhere around the time of that game, Vaughan and Bowyer clashed, and the striker soon made it clear he wanted to leave. So he was loaned out to Tranmere for the rest of the season. And then there was the double whammy of Doyle going too. It was agreed he could return to Swindon on a permanent deal. Doyle didn’t want to be here. Vaughan didn’t want to be here. City were in a mess.

On deadline day evening, a late flurry of activity ended with City replacing Vaughan and Doyle with Lee Novak and Kurtis Guthrie – the latter joining from bottom of the table Stevenage, where he couldn’t even get in the team, and who would ultimately fail to score a single goal for the Bantams.

The day after the window closed, City went to Oldham, lost 3-0 and fell out of the play off spots. Bowyer was sacked.

5) The Covid season

I think you can put the entire 2020/21 season as a worst moment really. In the midst of the pandemic, lockdown life and all the weirdness back then, having behind closed doors football to watch was something, but it was a hollow version of the real thing.

Our season tickets granted us iFollow access and a season of following the Bantams via laptops, trying to connect to a stream and to a team you’d never seen before in the flesh.

None of this were great conditions for McCall to thrive in his third spell as City boss. A guy who had always fed off the crowd, who had inspired players partly from seeing the adulation City fans afforded their manager, was left struggling to rebuild a club going through changes off the field, with Ryan Sparks taking over as CEO.

The City squad that season was underbaked and soon began to struggle. When everyone was fit, they were okay. But they lacked any depth, and even a small number of injuries saw things fall apart. By November and early December, the form was getting worse and worse, and all McCall could do was try to get his thinbare squad through to January where there was budget to strengthen.

But his time ran out before then, and the last afternoon in charge was probably as woeful at it got. Oldham away – the grim reaper for City managers – defensive shambles, 2-0 down inside 26 minutes, 3-0 down in the second half. A late goal from Paudie O’Connor narrowly stopped them dropping into the relegation zone, but that was the smallest of consolations. McCall was duly sacked.

City did improve under interim managers Mark Trueman and Conor Sellers, then fell away badly again, resulting in yet another change of manager. There were few high points really in 2020/21. A season best forgotten. At least we fans returned to stadiums the season after.

6) “They’re not going to get as successful a manager as myself through the door”

I’ll be honest, I never liked the idea of Derek Adams as our manager. I remember writing a piece about his playing style just before he was confirmed as manager that upset a couple of people, who accused me of being a bad supporter for not giving him a chance.

Fair enough, but my unease came against this wider fan sentiment that we wanted Adams in to give City a nastier, cynical, sh*thousery edge. More streetwise maybe, but rightly or wrongly it didn’t really feel like the football club we are. And whilst we might have become a winning machine under Adams, it was clearly not going to be an easy watch.

As it was, we didn’t get any of the good Adams’ stuff – just the bad side. Tedious football that was neither awful but certainly never spellbinding. The team just bobbled along not being much of anything, before slowing drifting out of top seven contention. Then the bad defeats began to stack up, the Adams’ outbursts grew darker, and it was all about when it would end, rather than if.

The axe was swung after a 1-0 loss at home to Exeter that wasn’t especially awful but saw patience snap. The Kop turned on the manager, and a typically combative Adams had a bit of a go back at fans after the game, adding that City would be stupid to sack him because they would not get a better manager than him.

Whatever you think of Sparks, for him to then unveil Mark Hughes as Adams’ replacement was quite the mike drop response. Oh to have been a fly on the wall to see Adams’ reaction to that piece of news.

7) That bloody substitution

I still remember the feeling so vividly. We’re in the Carlisle away stand, having a torturous afternoon as our first leg play off advantage has slipped away. It’s extra time, and we’re 2-1 down on aggregate, but then Scott Banks does brilliantly to get down the flank and send over a low cross, and there’s Matt Derbyshire sliding in to level the tie. Big celebrations. Now let’s keep going City, they’re on the ropes!

And then the board goes up.

Number 12 off, number 5 on. That can’t be right, can it? Taking off Banks, when he’s just had the full back on toast? Taking off Banks for a central defender? This did happen, and four minutes after it did, Ben Barclay was left completely unmarked to send Carlisle to Wembley. I can recall WOAP’s Alex Scott’s sarcastic message on the WhatsApp group chat. “Good job we had all those defenders on the pitch.”

So City, one game away from Wembley, lost in cruel but self-inflicted circumstances. They never turned up in the second leg, freezing at the wrong moment and tossing away a season’s worth of good work. There were plenty of people to blame, but it was hard not to put Mark Hughes at the top of the list for that terrible substitution.

Hughes had brought back the feelgood factor to City, no doubt. His arrival gave everyone a lift, and though much of 2022/23 was far from wholly convincing, City competed at the right end and gave us some memorable moments.

But that day, Hughes’ reputation took a hammer blow that he ultimately never recovered from. If he could have his time at City again, he would surely not make such a foolish change.

8) The slow extinction of Bradford City Football Club

I used the line above as the conclusion of my Notts County match report, a year ago, which I wrote immediately after watching City lose 3-0 to the Magpies. That came days after an awful 5-1 loss to Mansfield where City were 4-0 behind after 20 minutes, which came days after an embarrassing 2-0 loss to bottom club Forest Green. City weren’t done after Notts County, losing their next game – at Harrogate – 3-0.

Four games, four defeats, 11 goals conceded, and the club on the brink of civil war with supporters.

And that’s why the slow extinction seemed apt. After the play off semi final defeat, things had not gone to plan with Hughes sacked in October. The decision making, competence, and level of investment in the club from the powers-that-be was raising serious questions, and supporter protests followed.

That 11-day period was as bad as anything we’d been served up over these last eight years. But the positive is that it proved to be the catalyst for meaningful change. In the wake of the four straight losses, Rupp issued a statement promising greater investment that he has been true to his word on. Slow extinction averted.

“Now and then, I think of all the times you screwed me over”

Those are just the headline moments, really, of these last eight years. We’ve not had time to talk about the calamities, all the awful defeats, all the questionable signings. The failed club badge rebrand. The Wagmi United episode. The Exeter FA Cup controversy. Tyrell Robinson. Matter of Heart.

It certainly isn’t the first period of Bantam Regression, but unlike – say – the aftermath of the Premier League, it all felt so needless and self-inflicted, which is why patience has been in such short supply.

But here’s the thing – it feels like we’ve genuinely moved on from that. The last few weeks have been tortuous no doubt, but all in all this has been a fun season with much to admire and enjoy. Going to Valley Parade every other week has been a genuine privilege. The players are a likeable, admirable bunch. Graham Alexander is proving himself to be an excellent appointment and really feels like the right fit for this often troubled football club.

Nothing has been achieved yet, and perhaps on Saturday we’re going to endure another painful moment. But whatever happens, this time it really does seem like the club is on the right track. That lessons have been learned from the litany of mistakes made. The bond between club and supporters has been restored, and it feels like we’re all on the same page, fighting together for the same prize.

Hopefully they complete the job this weekend. Move back to League One. Bring eight years of abject misery to an end. And for the bumbling Bradford City of the last eight years to become Somebody That We Used To Know.

Categories: Opinion

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