Width of a Post regular writers Tim Penfold, Alex Scott, Adam Raj, Jake Verity, Gareth Walker and Jason McKeown have voted for their top five players this season.

Pre-amble

By Jason

Voting for the 2024/25 WOAP Player of the Season proved harder than expected. Not when it came to picking the overall winner admittedly, with a clean sweep of votes going to the winner (to save you from jumping ahead, the City skipper clinched it). But each contributor is asked to provide a top five, and that was tricky. We were simultaneously spoilt for choice and short of absolute deserving candidates.

That’s because of the unprecedented squad approach that was borne out of necessity (City had ridiculous injury problems), and because of the realities of modern football. It meant that while 34 players featured over the campaign, very few played the vast majority of games.

Just look at league starts. Sam Walker tops the appearance list with a full house of 46 games. Richie Smallwood is just behind on 43. Brad Halliday began 39 games.

But after that, there’s quite the gap. The next highest league starters are Calum Kavanagh and Jack Shepherd, all the way down on 31. Aden Baldwin started 30 games. Bobby Pointon 27. No one else started more than 24 games, which means only six players started more than 52% of City’s league matches this season.

What a contrast to City’s last automatic promotion back in 1998/99 season, for example, where seven players made more than 40 league starts. Selecting a top five from that season would have been hard for so many reasons, but lack of overall game time would not have been on the list.

This season, so many players put in brilliant displays. But largely because of injuries, many delivered bursts of superb form rather than season-long excellence. Take Lewis Richards, who was outstanding from October to January, before injury cruelly ended his season. Alex Pattison was perhaps the best player in League Two over January and February, but then he unexpectedly had to have his appendix removed and was out of action. Tayo Adaramola had a strong end to the season, but ultimately only started 15 games.

And that’s where the debate between us over the top five raged. Do you go for longevity or for periods of impact? Can a player earn a top five ranking if they only start 20 games? There were agreements and disagreements, with at least one of us falling back on the classic Simpsons quote. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Democracy simply doesn’t work.”

When the ballot boxes closed and the voting was counted, seven different City players had received a top five nomination. That means two players miss out, with both neatly summarising the notability vs durability argument.

Because in seventh place is Andy Cook. Up until New Year’s Day, City’s talisman was having a great campaign and rivalling Smallwood for the player of the season crown. He missed the second half the season of course, but where would the Bantams be without his heroic efforts over the first half?

And then just missing the top five cut off is sixth place Brad Halliday. He of 39 starts. Halliday’s early season struggles are well documented,  but in typically understated fashion he recovered strongly and was consistently excellent post Christmas.

How can Halliday not be in the top five? Who has polled ahead of him? It’s time to find out.

In 5th place…Antoni Sarcevic

By Alex

Has anyone ever achieved more in less time during their first season at Valley Parade than Antoni Sarcevic? 

Last week’s scrambled last second winner at home to Fleetwood was only Sarcevic’s 24th league appearance for City. Andy Cook feels like he has been injured for a lifetime and he made more starts than Sarcevic this season. Just as a comparison, Dylan Connolly and Olly Crankshaw have played for City about as much as Sarcevic has. But just look at the impact!

He’s already become a City icon. Him wheeling away ripping off his shirt will surely adorn one of the walls in Valley Parade as a mural before long. That moment has already begun to be etched on the Mount Rushmore of modern era City moments.

Graham Alexander said pre-match that this team had the opportunity to bind themselves into the history of this football club, but only if they won. Sarcevic is the embodiment of that, transforming from ‘impressive if fleeting first season’ to ‘iconic’ with one moment, one goal, one that maybe wasn’t even his.

Sarcevic finished the season as he lived it, popping up in the right place at the right time, to earn City a crucial win. This was two minutes after he popped up and spurned what might have been “the chance” over the bar. In one eye, this is the archetypal Sliding Doors moment, a game of inches. But in another, this is what he was here for. He was the only player left on the pitch at the end of the season who looked like they had a goal in them. It was going to have to be him, and eventually it was.

When you look at the impact he had on the performance of the team, it’s easy to argue he was City’s most crucial player. With another 10 appearances you’d think we’d have won the title and he’d have comfortably locked up player of the season. He wasn’t a creative force, but for players in his position, only Luke Molyneux (Doncaster) and James Berry (Chesterfield) had a better goals per game this season.

As we discussed on our latest podcast, City were not a dominant team throughout the season. They showed the potential to be champions, but battled multiple periods of inconsistency. Those spells of dominance were often associated with when Antoni Sarcevic was in the team.

Sarcevic was brought in as a marquee signing; a promotion specialist, a big game player capable of finally ending City’s long stay in the Football League doldrums. Quite the billing, and quite the pressure on one player. Yet he lived up to it!

Over the season, he was the one player with whom City looked capable of reaching their potential. Without him, they looked much like the mediocre underwhelming team we’d seen for years. And when the pressure was at its highest, he was there to find a way to get the ball into the back of the net and seal the win.

He’s had such a long and successful career, he probably won’t be remembered as a ‘City’ player (you’d think he’d be remembered as a Stockport, Plymouth and Fleetwood player before City). That said, at 33, there is still a Gary Jones-style late career reinvention at City open to him with another one or two big seasons.

He couldn’t have made a better first impression. Even in limited game time, he played such a pivotal role in leading City to promotion, he is more than deserving of a place in this list.

Retrospectives like this need to tell the story of the season, and we can’t tell the story of the club’s success this year without Antoni Sarcevic.

In 4th place…Jack Shepherd

By Tim

They say to never fall in love with a loan player, but Bradford City’s fanbase never learns that lesson. Jack Shepherd joins a list going back (at least in my time) to Matty Etherington and including such luminaries as Reece Burke, Josh Cullen and most recently Scott Banks.

Shepherd joined at the end of pre-season, but injuries got him an early opportunity as City ended up down to the bare bones, and he impressed, grabbing a vital late equaliser against Morecambe and a goal of the season contender at home to Gillingham.

As players came back and the defence improved, Shepherd was still the first pick amongst them, moving into the middle of the back three to accommodate Ciaran Kelly and, later, Romoney Crichlow. The harsh red card against Newport aside, he barely put a foot wrong as City rocketed up the table.

His hip injury, which caused him to miss half of the run-in, damaged his form somewhat, and his late own goal against Swindon was devastating, but he played well on the last day and he came so close to being the promotion hero as an emergency striker, hitting the post and having a follow-up blocked as the clock ticked into stoppage time.

Barnsley have made it clear that they want Shepherd to be part of their team next season, so it is unlikely that we will see him line up in Claret and Amber again in the near future, but given the chance you suspect the club would be thrilled to see him return.

Even without a permanent move in the offing, Shepherd can reflect on an excellent loan spell that gives him a great chance of making it at his parent club.

He was the best defender in a team that mostly defended very well, and takes fourth place in the Width of a Post player of the season awards.

In 3rd place…Sam Walker

By Tim

It’s amazing how a career can turn around in football. Sam Walker had been a regular at Colchester for a few years, but a move up to Reading hadn’t worked out, and his appearances had become sporadic – only 60 league and cup games in five and a half seasons, and more than half of those in one season at Kilmarnock.

Such can be the life of a backup keeper, but it’s very easy to get pigeonholed into that role, becoming a lower league Scott Carson. However, following the sale of Harry Lewis to Carlisle, Colin Doyle recommended Walker, who he knew from Kilmarnock, and Walker slotted in nicely as Lewis’ replacement.

This season he started as a clear number one, and just like his predecessor in goal he had a wobbly start to the season. This wasn’t the drop-off in form that impacted Lewis last campaign, but Walker made a poor error against Carlisle at home and generally wasn’t quite at his best form. But as the season went on, and as Graham Alexander’s defenders gelled more as a unit, Walker stepped his game up a level.

The magnificent run that catapulted City from upper mid-table into the automatic places was built on an excellent defence, and despite a revolving door of centre backs ahead of him (no fewer than seven different centre-backs used), Walker excelled. City only conceded seven goals in that fifteen game run, and when opponents got past the high press, Smallwood covering and the back line, they generally found the Bantams keeper in imperious form.

As the team wobbled during the run-in, Walker stood tall. It was his penalty save that kept the team ahead in the vital Crewe win, and his vital stop on the final day that meant it was still 0-0 when George Lapslie’s shot deflected off Sarcevic in stoppage time.

Walker ends the season with impressive stats – 45 goals conceded from 46 games, 16 clean sheets. A place in Fotmob’s Team of the Season and – most important of all – third place in Width of a Post’s player of the season awards.

In 2nd place…Bobby Pointon

By Alex

In second place, we have the Boy Wonder, Bobby Pointon. And what can you really say? We can spend the next few minutes discussing his performances this year, but the thing with Pointon isn’t what he makes you say, but what he makes you feel.

Seeing an academy kid from Low Moor not only break into the first team, but become one of the most pivotal players in a promotion team at just 21 years old is about as good as it gets as a football fan.

Some of his high points – the goals against Crewe and at Bromley for starters – are some of the peaks of the entire season, that it was Bobby popping up with those goals made the moments sweeter. But Pointon’s case is strong not just because of the peaks, but because of his availability. His 40 league appearances were good enough for fifth place in the entire squad.

And, hard as it may be to remember now, Pointon spent most of the first few months out of the team, until injuries in front of him created an opportunity. He only started three of City’s first twelve league games, initially behind Sarcevic and Alex Pattison in the advanced midfield roles, and then Jamie Walker and Clarke Oduor in October. He was chipping in with goals, but these were ‘icing on the cake’ goals to seal wins late against Newport and Bromley.

It took Pointon until November to start three consecutive games, after which point he became a mainstay, only being benched when fit four times from that point until the end of the season (and in one of those he came on after half an hour).

And as the season wore on, he began popping up with big goals. An important flick ten minutes after coming on at home to Chesterfield in a game that was slipping away. A striker’s finish amidst a virtuoso performance at Birmingham. A late winner in a crucial away battle at Bromley. And two opening goals that lit the touch paper against Crewe and Chesterfield again.

Even at this early stage of his career, you can see an emerging theme in his goals. They are invariably following crosses and counter attacks from the right, and are either close range finishes, or low and across the keeper. These are the finishes of someone who is going to score a lot of goals in his career. Especially a someone who is more of a creative player than a finisher, if he can blend these two aspects, he could go really far.

What’s most important, as noted tearfully here, is that with promotion we probably get to keep him for another nine months at least. Were we not to secure promotion, there was likely to be a horde of League One teams willing to take a punt on the 21-year old with the hope of turning him into a Championship player and making a profit. But now, we might be able to be that team.

Next season will be a challenge for him of course, a step up into a new league, but he’s the type of player who is more suited to that level, with some proof of concept through the performances at Mansfield, Stockport and Birmingham this year. He’s by far the best young player we have seen break through at City since James Hanson 15 years ago (given we only Oli McBurnie make 15 appearances). A once in a generation player for City. 

He’s one of our own, and hopefully he will be for a lot longer. 

And the winner is…Richie Smallwood

By Jake

Being the Bradford City captain is a huge responsibility. Many have tried and failed.

But for those captains who come along and deliver success for this club? They ingrain their names into Bradford City history for years to come.

When we first signed Richie Smallwood, a then Championship captain – twice recently promoted from League One with Hull and Blackburn, we expected the world. The reality was that we shoehorned him into a system that didn’t meet his potential, alongside many different midfield partners.

Smallwood did show quality, yet success failed to follow. Play off heartbreak, and a tricky second season meant that he hadn’t quite endeared the fanbase to himself, as say a Gary Jones or Stuart McCall.

But this season? He joins the club alongside them – as a captain to take us up. Not just by taking us to our first automatic promotion in 26 years, but being the key cog in the machine – the most pivotal player in our squad to send us back into League One.

The worst part though, was that in being the person to drag us up the table through a set of nearly faultless midfield displays, he nearly cost us it all.

For all of Smallwood’s brilliance, and his rightful inclusion in the EFL’s League Two team of the year – it was a sunny afternoon at Swindon which nearly led to a very paragraph in this season’s chapter with the club.

A strong Bradford City side were 2-0 up within nine minutes in Wiltshire and in cruise control at the County Ground, before Smallwood launched his way into a reckless red card. One of our only two ever-presents up to then, it was a huge blow. He missed the crucial games against Notts County, Chesterfield and Doncaster – all games which the Bantams failed to win, and could have done so had he been there.

But no problem. Because he made it back in time for the final game, and took his team, the one he has led all season, back into League One.

Alexander was fairly clear when he came in just how important he believed Smallwood would be. He had previously managed him at Scunthorpe in the 2016/17 season – and it was no surprise that he decided to extend his contract last summer.

I could talk about his performances, especially as a huge advocate of his. But what is most pertinent to talk about is his character. At times, our supporters have either rightly, or wrongly, been frustrated by him not taking a conventional approach to the captaincy. He rarely does interviews, and has had some difficult moments.

But Smallwood, actually embodies the Bradfordian spirit. No matter whether he has missed key penalties. Had his doubters. Or been through three managers during his time with the club – he has done one thing.

Which is to give everything he has got – and this determination, coupled with a season playing his actual role, rather than a midfield role that asks too much of him has brought the best out of him. It felt at times that Smallwood had unfinished business. The type of character that he is – and the greatest prize on offer of being the captain to take us up, was ultimately a huge opportunity.

We go into League One now a better team because of him, and with him needing to be one of our first signings of the summer. It’s fair to say that he’s exactly the type of player we can not only build around, but also it would be smart to bring in a younger player who can begin to learn from him, and ultimately take over in a couple of years time.

To finish, it’s fair to say that this season simply wouldn’t have been possible without having Richie Smallwood. His role in our team, no matter the formation, personnel around him or opposition has been vital. To find a player of his quality, calibre and experience is rare – and we should do all we can to keep hold of him. His consistency has been remarkable, but he has also allowed other players such as Antoni Sarcevic, Bobby Pointon and Alex Pattison to be at their best – all three of whom will be key next year too.

It’s fair to say he’s exactly what we need. Because, this season where Crichlow came back, and we lost Cooky in attack. We went up.

That’s because we’ve got Smallwood in the middle.

 ***

Past WOAP Player of the Season winners

2011/12: Luke Oliver

2012/13: Gary Jones

2013/14: Stephen Darby

2014/15: Rory McArdle

2015/16: Reece Burke

2016/17: Mark Marshall

2017/18: Matt Kilgallon

2018/19: Paul Caddis

2019/20: No award, as season curtailed

2020/21: Callum Cooke

2021/22: Paudie O’Connor

2022/23: Andy Cook

2023/24: Brad Halliday

Categories: 2024/25 season review, Season Reviews

Tags: BCAFC