By Jake Verity

There’s a phrase used too often in football that the only people who will be there forever for a club, are the fans. And while of course, that is true, the potential departure of Graham Alexander must not let us lose sight of the fact we still have something else.

We still have a squad of committed, dedicated players who have actually run across the pitch over seven league games so far, and won five of them. For sure, Alexander has been the guiding light for this club, both on and off the pitch. He has coached and improved them. He has developed them into a formidable force. But he hasn’t put boots on himself, or kicked a ball.

That’s down to those players we love.

We still have our captain Antoni Sarcevic and his dogged determination to cover every blade of grass on the pitch and score big goals. We still have Aden Baldwin and his cross-field balls, that have become a bigger part of the furniture at Valley Parade than the flashy new dugouts we put in place a couple of years ago.

We still have Bobby Pointon, one of our own and somebody who will hopefully be even more determined than ever to take his boyhood club to a division it’s been out of for the best part of twenty years. There’s Ibou Touray, who is in your head; through to Tyreik Wright out on the left. There’s still Josh Neufville flying up the actual right hand side, tying left wing backs in knots.

There’s still Adam Phillips, Macauley Gillesphey, Jake Beesley and others who are fresh to life at Valley Parade ready to kick on, and Callum Connolly who has seamlessly fit into this squad like he’s been with us for years. And of course, there’s a chance we might actually play Stephen Humphrys out on the wing!

Don’t forget about super Jon McCracken either, who is spending this weekend north of the border too. There’s also an inspired super Nick Powell, with possibly the best goals to games ratio in the country, who has got plenty of ambition for this season. All these players have a point to prove, still.

We also have a fortress called Valley Parade behind us. A stadium that looked tired and down half a decade ago, now bouncing and thriving on a matchday. Again, for sure, Alexander has led the revival. But it’s 20,000 of us who plonked ourselves around the pitch week-on-week. It’s our vocal cords the players hear with every pass, shot and save. It’s our city it proudly stands aloft on, and looks every inch the Championship ground it deserves to soon become.

We still have a cup we are in the fourth round of, with a chance to reach our third major cup quarter final in fourteen years, all achieved as a League One, or League Two side. Mightily impressive and eminently possible. And tickets at a fiver for the occasion too against a Peterborough United going through their own managerial search.

We still have 39 games to play, in which promotion will be won and lost. Nothing is done or decided yet. There’s a lot of football to be played and there’s a very good Bradford City squad waiting to be directed towards a promotion that looks very achievable indeed.

We still have a potential recruitment process in which we are fully in charge of our own destiny and a very attractive proposition indeed, rather than in previous years where we were a basket case of a club, that frankly wasn’t heading anywhere.

We still have two big Derby days against Huddersfield Town, and a mouthwatering March fixture against Sheffield Wednesday at Valley Parade. There are countless other big games to come, too, whether that’s a trip to Leicester or our next home game against Leyton Orient in which we may have a new permanent resident in the Bradford City dugout.

We still have something that’s become a fairly new phenomenon for us: ambition. We know what we have at this football club once again, in part, thanks to Graham Alexander and the belief he’s let us have again in our football club. But now, as it appears we enter a brand new era, we have a very clear idea of who we are and where we can go.

What I’m getting at, with this piece, is we have a lot to look forward to. Whether you are cross about what’s unfolded over the past few days, unsure about what’s to come, or are looking on the last few years as the great memories they are: we all have one thing in common.

We support a football club that’s very much at the peak of its powers. And who knows, maybe there’s another gear we can find out of this and pleasantly surprise ourselves.

So over the next few hours, days and weeks, keep telling yourself all the above is true, because it largely is.

As our most famous song goes, “we know what we want”.

The bigger question is, do we know how we’ll get it?

Categories: Opinion

Tags: BCAFC, Graham Alexander