Written by Jason McKeown (images by John Dewhirst)

Do you know what we haven’t really talked about yet? How good it was to get promoted last season. Okay, I know that sounds a bit silly. We’ve all lived in a perpetual state of bathing in the glory of the Fleetwood game. Watched and rewatched every video of that day and THAT evening. Regaled anyone who will listen about how wonderful it was to be part of those epic scenes of celebration. What else is there left to say about Saturday 3 May?

But even so, I don’t think we’ve spoken enough about how much fun the overall promotion run-in was to live through.

Okay, I admit – I’m not talking about the anguish of the Doncaster defeat in the penultimate game, where we hit the self-destruct button and did our best to blow it. And yeah, I’m not talking about the Chesterfield game before that, where we somehow squandered a 3-1 lead when we were cruising. While I’m at it, I’m not talking about the Notts County game before that, where David McGoldrick scored that ridiculous goal. And – of my – I’m definitely not talking about the Swindon game. Argh! The painful flashbacks to that day! 2-0 up! 3-1 up! 4-3 up! What are you doing Smallwood?!

So if not those moments, what do we need to talk more about? Well…all the other bits. The nice bits. The bits where it was really fun and it was really memorable. Beating Crewe to go top. Smashing Colchester United in one of the best Valley Parade occasions in years. Hammering Cheltenham on a Tuesday night. The club record-setting 10 homes wins in a row! Wow, that was great.

More than anything, we don’t talk enough about how special it was to be a Bradford City fan again, after so many barren years largely filled with bleakness and greyness. Starting especially with that Colchester day and including Crewe, Notts County and of course Fleetwood, we were treated to four incredible matchday occasions where the feeling of unity was overwhelming. Where the club, players, management and supporters came together, with everyone playing their part. Where there truly was nowhere else in the world you would have wanted to be other than inside Valley Parade, shouting yourself hoarse.

It was electric stuff. The pre-match buzz on North Parade and other city centre watering holes. The thronging crowds of people walking along Manningham Lane and Midland Road towards Valley Parade. The bustling queues to get inside the stadium. The packed out concourses.

Then there was the pre-match build up. Flags, tifo displays, and giant banners. Pumping music, which included the welcome addition of Roy Orbison’s Penny Arcade to the playlist. The players completed their warm ups and headed to the dressing rooms with the roar of the already packed out home stands ringing in their ears. But that was nothing on the noise that greeted their walk onto the pitch for the start of the match.

The games kicked off and the players performed to universal backing. Very little, if any, groans when there was a mistake or misplaced pass. Angry defiance towards any visiting player daring to take the ball into City’s penalty area.

Who can forget, for example, Sam Walker’s penalty save against Crewe? Superb goalkeeping of course, but the City stopper was aided by the daunting sights and sounds of an animated Kop stand doing everything it could to intimidate Ryan Cooney into messing up.

Just over an hour later that same day, at the same end of the ground, Calum Kavanagh ran through to score and seal a vital City win that sparked huge outpourings of joy. In the Colchester United game, we got to experience that elation four times as City ran riot against opposition who at the time were topping the form table. Against Notts County, we went crazy cheering Ciaran Kelly’s header that put us 1-0 up front. And of course the 90+6 minute of the Fleetwood game took all of this to another level.

Those four games were truly special affairs. They reminded you what a magnificent football club this is, and how lucky we are to support them. They deserve to be compared to some of City’s best ever home occasions – at least when it comes to regular league matches. And Penny Arcade – a song about having a good time, subsequently reinvented by fanbases like Rangers to celebrate loyalty and belonging – beautifully captured the BD8 moment.

All the colours did indeed cascade (claret and amber anyway) as the good vibes “played and [it] played and played all the time”.

We’ve done good supporter/bad supporter debates to death. But the truth of the grim years that preceded last season is we would largely turn up with arms folded, waiting to be impressed and not waiting too long to voice displeasure if we didn’t like what we saw. Cue tough moments like the Mansfield game in 2024. The Derek Adams era. Relegation in 2019. We’re scratching the surface of all that terribleness. Skipping quickly through the sea of gloom. But by all means stop and add your own low moments from visiting Valley Parade over the past decade.

Last season – and especially post-Christmas – we reverted from fans to supporters. During the run-in the mood transformed into one where we could all see the big prize and we could all see we had a big part to play in making it happen. So we ramped up our support, our energy, our noise, and the club actively made sure it facilitated this mantra of everyone doing their bit – from discounted tickets that packed out the stands to funding a giant flag that was rolled out for the Notts County game.

Whatever was going to encourage positivity and help turn Valley Parade into a cauldron of noise, the club were willing to make happen. And we responded to it, parking cynicism at the turnstile entrance and embracing our role of cheerleading.

It meant that we got stirring occasions that yielded important City wins and became our reward as supporters for still bothering to turn up after all the misery post-2017. It was beautiful and it was something we all got to be involved in. Some truly eye-popping end of season attendances. Moments that will go down in folklore.

And that’s why we need to talk about them more.

But of course, the past is the past. It’s pre-season. The friendlies have started. The trialists are trialing. Soon we will be getting going properly again, writing the next chapter. And because we’re promoted, the challenge is clearly going to be tougher. We’re not in Kansas anymore. We’re not in Harrogate either.

But as well as league table targets, a key objective for the club this season must surely be bottling up and retaining what they gained last season in terms of the revitalised relationship with supporters. Of creating more big match atmospheres to rival what we experienced at the end of last season. Of maintaining the long queues to get in.

There will be bumps, that’s inevitable. I’m pretty bad at predictions, but I’ll go out on a limb and make at least one – we won’t win 10 home games in a row this season (prove me wrong, Graham!) We will suffer more Valley Parade defeats than the mere two home losses of 2024/25. On some occasions, we’ll probably be outclassed. And as supporters we will grumble, we will moan and perhaps we will boo. And the #bcafc hashtag will revert to a deafening sound of gnashed teeth.

But the sun rises again the next morning, and if City can wisely use the credit in the bank they’ve built up from supporters for what was achieved last season, they’ll be just fine. If City can continue to demonstrate a belated but welcome ability to read the room – which they finally unlocked during the run-in – much will be forgiven.

There will always be twists and turns, but that doesn’t meant the feelgood factor borne from last season has to be lost. Something remarkable happened during that run-in: we got our City back.

As the chant goes, last year truly felt like “the best trip [we’ve] ever been on”. And there’s no reason that ride has to end anytime soon. New league. New challenges. Same noise levels, please.

Categories: Opinion

Tags: BCAFC