By Jason McKeown

“It gives me an extra five, ten per cent.”

Jordan Gibson could hardly have been more explicit. It’s Saturday 6 September 2025. Doncaster Rovers have just defeated Bradford City by three goals to one. Gibson has delivered a player-of-the-match performance, scoring one and assisting another. All this coming after an afternoon where he was verbally abused by visiting supporters.

“I like it, if they want to give me stick I’m happy to take it,” he told BBC Radio Sheffield after the game. “I knew I was going to get a bit today, I have done every time I’ve played them and they don’t learn. I thrive on it.”

Gibson’s comments underlined how the barracking of Bradford City supporters – and that awful chant about the 27-year-old and his dad – had fired him up. Gibson celebrated his goal by rubbing it in with City fans. They had inspired the player to ensure City’s afternoon in South Yorkshire was a losing one. On City fans, Gibson smiled, “We’ll see if next time I play them they carry on.”

Narrator voice: they did.

Fast forward a couple of months and a similar outcome. The EFL Trophy. A final group-stage dead rubber. City are 1-0 up at half-time, looking good value for it. Doncaster boss Grant McCann summons his big guns from the bench – including Gibson.

Again, the boos from City fans.
Again, the horrible chant.
Again, a Jordan Gibson goal. Two, in fact.
Again, a 3-1 defeat.

Gibson’s stats for this season are striking. He has six goals to his name so far, plus two assists. He’s started 18 games and come on as a sub 15 times. Fair to say, he’s inconsistent. Not always particularly brilliant. An on-his-day kind of player – and City keep coming up against him on his day.

Let’s separate those stats out between games against City and games against other opponents. The latter first: 1,499 minutes of Gibson game time, league and cup. Three goals. One assist. That’s one goal or assist for every 374 minutes of action. Pretty run-of-the-mill stuff.

Now let’s look at his game time against Bradford City. 138 minutes, league and cup. Three goals. One assist. That’s one goal or assist every 35 minutes. World-beater stuff.

The point is there’s a huge difference between the Jordan Gibson playing against Bradford City and the one that the rest of League One sees. And when asked – in a roundabout way – why that is, Gibson points to the jeers he gets from City supporters and how it inspires him.

All of which presents an interesting conundrum ahead of this weekend’s league meeting between Bradford City and Doncaster at Valley Parade.

Gibson isn’t definitely going to play. McCann hasn’t started him in a league match since the end of December. But given that record against the Bantams, there’s every chance he will be in the team. And if recent meetings are anything to go by, he’s going to get plenty of stick. And people are going to sing that awful song.

But here’s an idea, what if we don’t?

If we know Gibson relishes the attention, if he is fuelled by the nastiness that comes his way, isn’t it counter-productive to turn him into peak Ronaldo? Is it really helping City to face an opposition player so motivated to ram it down our throats? When it comes to Gibson, we’ve effectively sabotaged our own team twice this season. Maybe it’s better not to repeat that.

And that’s before we even get into the appropriateness of the chanting itself.

You’ve probably guessed by now – I hate the Gibson-and-his-dad chant. It’s nasty, it’s hate-filled and, frankly, I don’t really understand why he deserves such vitriol. Players who performed far worse in a City shirt, and who put in a lot less effort, have returned to Valley Parade and received nothing like this level of abuse. Some of what Gibson has endured, online, has even been racist.

So why is Gibson singled out like this?

I know, I know. The Carlisle goal celebration. January 2022. The final weeks of Derek Adams. City were at Brunton Park and Gibson opened the scoring with a screamer. He chose to incite City supporters in the corner near where he had netted.

Not great. I’m not going to defend him for that. But still – it was four years ago now. A different era. A different time. A grudge has been held, but surely it’s time to let it go. Was his dad a bit annoying on Twitter? Yeah, probably. But does it really matter? (Let’s face it, lots of people are annoying on Twitter.)

That celebration showed Gibson had a grudge against this football club. There was spite there. Not nice to witness through our claret-and-amber spectacles. But we don’t really know why he felt that way. And if we’re honest about the state of Bradford City during his four seasons at Valley Parade, he probably doesn’t look back on it with much fondness.

It was, to be kind, chaotic.

Gibson was signed under the second era of Stuart McCall. He worked his way into the team just as McCall was unjustly sacked (Gibson scored the final goal of his second reign, in a 2-1 defeat to Oldham). Then came Simon Grayson. Then Michael Collins. Then David Hopkin. Then Gary Bowyer. Then McCall again. Then the pandemic. Then he was released.

Quite the whirlwind.

Gibson had as many different Bradford City bosses as he did league starts for the club – five. Under Hopkin, he was part of the bomb squad forced to train away from the first team, later loaned out to Stevenage. When City let him go in the middle of the pandemic, he had to rebuild his career in the League of Ireland before working his way back into English league football.

All I’m saying is this: he probably didn’t get the fairest deal during his time at City. Constant instability is not an ideal environment for a young player to establish himself. None of that is the fault of Bradford City supporters – which is why goading us at Brunton Park felt misjudged – but when emotions run high, maybe we can cut him a little slack.

Instead, that celebration has been worn as a crown of injustice. Every time Gibson has faced City since, he’s endured that awful chant. And almost every time we’ve sung it, he’s had the last laugh.

In 2022/23, he aided Carlisle in getting past City in the play offs. Last April, he helped Doncaster beat the Bantams to seal automatic promotion and keep us sweating. And twice this season, he’s delivered player-of-the-match performances to defeat us. As Gibson added when asked about City fans last September, “I’m going to do my talking on the pitch and shut them up.”

We could boo and sing that awful song again on Saturday. And who knows – maybe this time he will wilt. But why not try something else? Why not ignore the player who thrives on attention? Show silent indifference every time he touches the ball. Sing not about Gibson and his dad, but about how much we love our football club and our current players.

Because Jordan Gibson should be a tiny footnote in our modern-day history – not the man we keep turning into our own undoing.

Categories: Match Reviews

Tags: BCAFC, Jordan Gibson