By Jason McKeown (image by John Dewhirst)

The old guard certainly is changing. If there wasn’t already enough sadness amongst Bradford City supporters about the recent exits of the popular Alex Pattison and Andy Cook, a third jolt to the heart has come along with news that Brad Halliday is also leaving the club, signing for Scottish Premier League side Dundee.

These truly are emotional times. Players who we have loved for their whole-hearted brilliance are exiting Valley Parade for pastures new. Victims of success they played such a big part in starting. Halliday did not command the same level of headlines and talking points as Pattison and Cook, but he was loved just as deeply. The place will not be the same without our Ginger Cafu.

Let’s start by talking about this wider pattern and what it signifies. Typically, when players have left Valley Parade in recent years, it’s because they had ultimately not produced enough to suggest they could play a big enough part in realising the club’s ambitions. Even those who chose to leave didn’t exactly exit with a back catalogue of sparkling moments that left us hugely mourning their departure.

This January trio of farewells hits very differently. Like Richie Smallwood and Jamie Walker last summer, they leave not because they failed a failing club, but because their success has helped create a stronger Bradford City that can now move on from them.

That opens up all kinds of supporter feelings, and it fuels sensitive debates. It’s heart vs head. It’s taking a leap of faith in backing Graham Alexander’s judgement in taking decisions we ourselves would find very difficult to make. We know these are good players. We know they could still do a job for us. And then there’s that bucketload of positive memories of their recent contributions that you don’t want to let go of.

It’s certainly the easier route to keep these players, and let them grow old with us. To give in to sentimentality. No one was canvassing for the trio to leave. No one is packing their bags for them. No one is smiling at seeing them go.

Alexander’s job is of course to rise above that. To recognise history but not to live in it. His task is to keep City moving forwards, and to build a team that can fulfil rising expectations.

Last May’s promotion was Alexander’s third as a manager – and he has past, not wholly successful, experience of guiding a newly promoted team to a higher level, needing to quickly evolve. He’s also managed at the top of League One with Scunthorpe, and will have a keen understanding of how to build and maintain success.

In short, he’s been here before. And past scars will have taught him not to be afraid to take tough decisions. To move on, to move forwards.

So why should we believe in his strategy? Well, proof Point One – the current League One table, that sees the Bantams placed third and with a huge opportunity of achieving back-to-back promotions. Proof Point Two – he’s signed players that have taken the places of Pattison, Cook and Halliday, and they’ve all fared really well. The transition has already happened. Can we cope without Pattison, Cook and Halliday? Well, we already are.

Proof Point Three – he’s done this before. Just consider how well Alexander and City have navigated the significant departures of Harry Lewis, Jake Young, Matty Platt, Richie Smallwood and Jamie Walker in recent years. So even with these latest notable departures, there’s every reason to be confident Alexander and City will continue to prosper.

They are tough decisions though. It’s not that Pattison, Cook and Halliday can’t still be really important members of the squad. Playing a role. Even if they might not be first choice, they offer considerable strength in depth.

But this is where the loyalty that these players have shown to the club – and their achievements in claret and amber – are repaid. It’s not fair to let their careers decay by turning them into reserves, when they still have so much to offer. All three have understandably attracted interest elsewhere, and it would be wrong to stand in their way simply because City would benefit from having them around for just-in-case scenarios.

That said, there are risks – and Halliday is the best example of this. The right back’s three-and-a-half-years at Valley Parade have seen him experience spells where the manager has looked to move away from him – Halliday began the 2023/24 season on the bench, under Mark Hughes, and in the first half of 2024/25 was sidelined for six weeks when Graham Alexander opted for promising loanee Jay Benn. But they’ve always returned to Halliday.

Even this season, when summer signing Josh Neufville has fared so well in taking Halliday’s role in the team, a winter loss of form saw City’s number two back in the team for the month of December. Neufville clearly needed a break and has come back re-energised, ready to hit his best form again. But recent history would suggest Neufville might need resting again and so Halliday might have been leaned on. Imagine – and let’s not do it for very long – if Neufville were to get injured in the coming weeks?

Harrison Ashby has of course been recruited on loan from Newcastle and will hopefully prove a suitable Halliday replacement. But the 24-year-old has just 46 senior starts over his career so far. He spent the entire 2024/25 season on loan at QPR but made only 17 Championship starts. Because of his age, he won’t have been able to turn out for Newcastle Under 21s (he didn’t feature in their EFL Trophy campaign, for example, nor was he involved in the League Cup tie against the Bantams when other back-ups were). It’s not a lot of recent game time.

Ashby is highly rated. Hopefully he will prove great business. But he doesn’t exactly rock up at Valley Parade with the deepest track record.

Of the three iconic modern day Bradford City players who have exited in recent days, I worry Halliday might be the one we miss most in terms of team selection – at least in the short-term. It says a lot that he is moving to the Scottish Premier League, rather than dropping a division like Pattison and Cook. Halliday’s league debut for Dundee is likely to be at Ibrox, no less, in a week-and-a-half’s time. At 30, he has got plenty left in his career. Letting him go is definitely right for Halliday long-term, but perhaps not wholly ideal for City for the rest of this campaign.

We’ll see. For now, we should celebrate the great times Halliday gave to this club. 159 starts for City. Huge consistency and reliability. You never worried about the sight of Halliday on the team sheet. He offered calm, positive reassurance. A guy who would never give anything short of everything.

Halliday arrived during that busy summer of 2022 when Mark Hughes and Stephen Gent set to work revamping a squad that had underachieved for too long. Halliday had been at League One Fleetwood but it hadn’t gone well, after he endured a serious injury in just his fourth game for the Cod Army, ruling him out for the best part of a year. You feared that in Halliday City might be recruiting someone with questionable fitness, but thankfully that wasn’t the case. He turned out more than 50 times in each of his three full seasons at Valley Parade.

Halliday was in some ways quiet and unassuming. A steady presence on the right side of the defence, doing his job with minimum fuss. Boring! But then you remember just what a nightmare it was finding a reliable right back in the years that followed the departures of Stephen Darby and Tony McMahon. The names of some of Halliday’s predecessors may invoke an involuntary shudder – Oscar Threlkeld, Kelvin Mellor, Joe Riley. Right back was a problem position, until Halliday made sure it wasn’t.

He was just great. Consistent, reliable, dependable. Full of energy and courage. The best comparison in City’s modern history is probably fellow ginger haired full back Wayne Jacobs. Just a good, straight up guy who would never let you down. Easy to take for granted, sometimes. But soon missed when not around.

Halliday played a big part in City’s ultimately unsuccessful 2022/23 play off push (he scored the goal that sealed City’s top seven spot), finishing third in the player of the season vote behind only the outstanding Andy Cook and Harry Lewis. The season after, Halliday ran away with the player prize. As City went through the transition of Hughes to Alexander, then went through an existential crisis, and then nearly made the play offs, Halliday was a big player. He even got four goals along the way, including memorable late season winners against Gillingham and Salford that fuelled the Bantams’ late top seven push.

In 2024/25, Halliday lost his place to Benn for a while but came storming back. By now under Alexander, full backs were out, and wing backs in. And at times, the greater attacking responsibilities entrusted to Halliday challenged his capability. But he still gave everything and was an important, steady head during the emotionally-charged promotion run-in. City did the job on the final day against Fleetwood, the club Halliday had left to join the Bantams. And the player deserved to soak up every second of the dizzying celebrations he helped to create.

Unfortunately for Halliday, the rise up the division has left him behind. In summer signing Neufville, City had a genuine attacking right wing back. We still expected rotation between the pair, but Neufville’s excellence soon left Halliday a regular on the sidelines. When he was involved, it didn’t always go well either. There was that moment at the end of the October Lincoln City draw at Valley Parade, where in stoppage time substitute Halliday had possession and the chance to forge something. He played a safe inside pass that attracted the public wrath of Max Power. This is the standard now, and Halliday was sadly falling short of it.

Yet even in what were difficult personal moments for Halliday, his character shone through. Neufville was quick to praise Halliday for the support offered by his starting berth rival. Jay Benn said similar things about Halliday’s treatment towards him when he temporarily claimed the starting right back spot a year before that. Alexander regularly lauded Halliday’s “professionalism and character”. Hughes described him as “underrated player” adding he is a “decent, solid right-back who lets nobody down”. A manager’s dream for sure.

Some of the qualities Halliday offers are difficult to define. They’re not measured in Opta stats or Expected Goals. It’s desire, drive and projecting a positive influence on those around him. Just like when Stephen Darby left Bradford City in 2017, those qualities will be sorely missed.  

Ultimately, City are a different beast. Different to what they were in August 2022 when Halliday joined. Different to what they even were in August 2025. The high press style has heavily relied on the back three sending diagonal passes to a marauding Neufville, to turn defence into attack and begin pinning the opponents inside their own box. With the more defensive-minded Ibou Touray providing some balance on the left, it’s an approach that has worked really well. Halliday can’t attack like Neufville. And even in December when he filled in, City lacked their same attacking thrust because both wing backs were too defensive.

So Halliday leaves because he is too well regarded to be allowed to wither in the shadows. But just like Pattison and Cook, a place in Bradford City history will always be his. One of the good guys is sadly no longer one of our guys. The old guard are out, but will never be forgotten.  

Categories: Opinion

Tags: BCAFC, Brad Halliday