From May, 2007
It was anticipated that Dean Windass’s move from Bradford City would go without a hitch and it probably would have done but for a missing zero. City want £250,000, Hull have offered £25,000. No one is happy.
Julian Rhodes maintains that City are not going to seel a Championship quality player for a cut down price, Windass complained about City “moving the goalposts” - lovely football metaphor fom the big man - while Hull manager Phil Brown maintains that City suggested that they loan payment the Tigers (Tiger-Ra-Ra-Ra) made for the home town hero should be knocked off the £250,000 tag. Rhodes would probably say it has been. Perhaps Rhodes will suggest Hull take the £25,000 to Milton Keynes Dons and see how close it gets them to signing Izale McLeod who is perhaps the only comparable goalscorer in the league.
Windass is frustrated and calls the price tag an absolute joke but after two administrations and many staff losing jobs few are laughing at Valley Parade when it comes to finance. Windass has two years left on his City contract and the Bantams pay him something around £85,000 a year. Simple maths suggests that any bid less than £170,000 less than the Bantams value the player at - that sort of figure that Windass would be looking at spending if he wanted to buy himself out of his deal at Valley Parade to move abroad - is bound to be rejected but Windass wants age considering and his desire to play at his home town club.
For Hull’s part £250,000 is probably more than they would want to pay for a player with no resale value but resale value on footballers is an increasingly outmoded concept. Reading signed Steve Sidwell from Arsenal for nothing which was exactly how much they got from Chelsea for him when he left having rejected a new contract with the Royals. For the wages they paid him they got a contribution to a promotion and another year the Premiership which represents decent value in anyone’s book. It is this model - not the idea of footballer as resaleable asset - that is taking hold in the game and be is £250,000 or £25,000 that The Tigers spend on Windass they would be advices to spread that cost with the players £1,000 a week as a liability cost of ownership but I’m sure Adam Pearson does not need a lesson in football accounting from me. He was smart enough to get out of Leeds before the money ran out.
Is £250,000 a joke for Windass? Is £25,000? One rumour has it - and we stress that this is little more than idle gossip - that Jan Molby had run up a phone bill of £42,000 in three months when he was fired by Hull City which he expected and got the club to pick up. This is a world where people sweated blood to raise that sort of cash to keep clubs up and down the land in business.
Were the positions reversed and Hull were returning our talisman then no doubt different views would be taken but as it is the men in the East hold all the cards: they are two divisions higher, have more money and have the will to take the player to the KC Stadium. City have Windass and that rules all.
The strikers options are limited should a deal not be struck. He could threaten retirement unless he is allowed to join but such a move would only work as leverage to get the Bantams to allow him to leave for as little as he wants to and while no one has ever accused Deano of having the greatest reason he will at some point begin to wonder what the purpose of his move is if Hull are not prepared to offer the going rate for him? How valued would Dean Windass be at his new club if they only wanted him on the cheap? How many games can he expect to get in the next two years if he is considered a nice-to-have player rather than the first name on Stuart McCall’s team sheet?
One can assume that Windass’s anger at City for demanding big money is equaled by Hull’s instance that he is only worth small potatoes. Without Windass Hull would probably be back in the bottom two divisions - isn’t that worth £225,000?
Or is Windass’s return a sop to supporters who want to see the Lionesque forward reduced to a bit part player poked onto the stage for their amusement. Surely Dean Windass is not going to be reduced to a cameo ten minutes at the end of a Championship game so that the Tigers can applaud their hero but not reward him with the ninety plus games he has left in the next 24 months of his football career.
It escaped sometime overnight and was said to be a leaking of information but one suspect that an inability not to shout from the rooftops has motivated Julian Rhodes as he formally announced
In light of intense media speculation, I’m delighted to say that the new manager is Stuart McCall.
McCall was to be unveiled as part of a three card trick coming at the start of June but idle speculation suggested snags where none existed and to keep momentum on the manager Rhodes opened up for all. He inherited Nicky Law, Gordon Gibb picked Bryan Robson and an administrator promoted Colin Todd. McCall is Rhodes’s first manager and probably the one he has been dreaming about giving the job to.
Tributes for Stuart are plentiful and lead by Walter Smith at Ibrox - the most decorated manager in that club’s history - who says that McCall has all the attribute to make a great boss. McCall seems ready to add Wayne Jacobs to his backroom team as a number two. Jacobs never takes the credited for Darren Moore and Linvoy Primus but both men name Jacobs as the biggest influence on their careers.
Mccall may also have Dean Windass to select after Hull City offered little for a striker whom they credit with a lot. Phil Brown has suggested that Windass’s goals kept them in the Championship but in negotiations he is an 39 year old and not a season-saver and the East Coast side want to pay for him as such. City would rather he be considered similar to Mark Bower - a player capable in The Championship - and paid for accordingly.
Rhodes addresses his opposite number at Hull when he says
The point I made to Adam (Pearson, Hull’s chairman) is that Dean Windass is a striker who could score 30 goals in League Two and what sort of price can you put on that? When Dean went to Hull, and I admit it was at my instigation due to us needing to save money, the understanding was always that the move was temporary. It was not with a view to a permanent deal with the plan always being for Dean to return in the summer.
Windass will not be sold for less than the cost of a thirty goal striking replacement says Rhodes. The inference is there for all. We needed the money before. Do might need it now?
Windass is a man of heart and in McCall in the Premiership he found a kindred spirit. He wants to go back to play for his hometown club but he has done that now and the prospect of giong back into the trenches with McCall may a worthwhile project for the final two years of the lively striker’s career.
McCall will also have the Yang of Windass’s Ying to call on with David Wetherall confirming his intention to step back to playing duties as McCall himself did after a spell in charge. Wetherall hopes to get a chance to run the reserves but seems shell shocked by his time in the big chair and wants to go back and process information on the field until he is ready to take charge again. He will probably be the best - if not the quickest - defender in League Two.
McCall is squad building at the moment. He weighs up options including - BfB understands - reoffering a deal to Steven Schumacher while Marc Bridge-Wilkinson joins Port Vale on a free. There is a calm to follow Rhodes’s confirmation, to precede a storm.
It’s five years since Stuart McCall was shown the door by Bradford City. Considered too old, too expensive and a little disruptive, his contract was not renewed and his number four shirt handed to someone else.
The impending financial meltdown that would come to light weeks later was the true reason behind showing a City legend the door. Yet as a near full house waved goodbye to Stuart during his testimonial game with former club Rangers, it appeared his best days were behind him.
Stuart hooked up with Neil Warnock’s Sheffield United and enjoyed a new leash of life by playing a significant part in the Blades reaching the League and FA Cup semi-finals and losing the Play Off final. Not bad for a player who Jim Jefferies, less than a year earlier, famously wrote off by saying his legs had gone. When those legs did eventually go, his coaching career took off. Rising to Warnock’s assistant, the sight of Stuart stood behind the Blades boss in the dugout has become a regular sight on Match Of The Day this season.
As for his first love Bradford City, it’s not been pretty. Administration, administration again, relegation, relegation again. Six years ago City were the butt of people’s jokes as they exited the Premiership, relegation to League Two was deemed barely worth a mention. The fall from grace may not have been as quick as the club formerly known as Wimbledon, but it’s still startling.
But just as we wondered if good things would ever happen to City again, Stuart comes over the hill as the proverbial knight in shining armour. City shocked the footballing world by signing Benito Carbone seven years ago and some will again be left scratching their heads in disbelief at Stuart’s decision to take the reigns at Valley Parade. Chiefly among them will be us City supporters and the staff, probably even Julian Rhodes himself.
When Colin Todd was dismissed last February, Stuart became number one target. There was nothing doing at the time, so Rhodes entrusted David Wetherall to look after the team and saw it relegated in feeble fashion. The wait continued and, after a turbulent week for the Blades, Rhodes incredibly got his man.
Through all of the waiting and debate of who should be manager, most supporters wanted Stuart in charge. We hoped he’d take the job, but who really believed he would? This is a club that has sunk to its lowest position in quarter of a century, become saddled with debts and played increasingly poor football. Decent players were replaced by average players - and then they were replaced by even poorer ones.
What have we achieved, other than continuing survival, since Stuart left? Staying up in 2002-03, but losing relegation battles in 2003-04 and 2006-07. Signing some decent players like Paul Henderson, Damion Stewart and Andy Gray, but only receiving a fraction of their value back. Attracting a world class big name manager, but discovering he was not a world class manager. Winning some memorable games, but losing more often and when it really mattered.
Good things haven’t happened to Bradford City for a long time. So who would have been surprised if Stuart had of landed the Sheffield United position and turned us down? Of course part of the reason we have got him was because the Blades decided he wasn’t right. But it hardly matters a jot.
A manager to finally unite the fans, attract more interest in the club and breed genuine optimism. A Bradford City man to inspire those who work under him, emphasise with the fans and demonstrate the long sought after ‘passion’ that some supporters believed was lacking in previous managers. A hungry individual with a point to prove to those who rejected him, ambitious for a good career and determined to succeed.
A man to help us remember happier times and look to the future with new belief. Good things haven’t happened to Bradford City for a long time, Stuart’s arrival will hopefully herald a change.