From June, 2007
So Dean Windass has left City and I get the feeling I’m never going to see him play again cause while I think Stuart McCall will get City promoted this season I doubt that ‘ull will go down. Windass signed for Hull for £250,000 finally today.
Deano. I’m going to miss you.
I’m going to miss the enthusiasm that you played every game with. I know that sometime that went a bit over the top and other times it went silly crazy like the sending off against Bournemouth but most of the time Windass just did everything he could to make Bradford City win games.
And everything he could meant he dropped into the midfield when City asked him to and one time he played in goal (At Southend) and when he was there he did everything he could to get City winning games. One Dean Windass was worth a million Bobby Pettas.
I’m going to miss Deano The Wind Up King. I’m going to miss him pulling faces to the crowd and I’m going to miss him getting under the skin of defenders that tried to bully him. I hope that Stuart McCall does not think that people like Michael Symes, Andy Cooke and the countless other players who got pocketed by the bully boy number fives of League One are going to do any better a division below.
Deano used to get under the skins of defenders and they couldn’t deal with him. John Finnigan and Ivar Ingermarson at Reading both punched him cause they found him annoying and he probably was but he was our annoying player and he gave us the advantage. Nice guys, Green Day tell us, Finish Last.
I’m going to miss that knack he had for being where the ball was going to be. I’m sure it is not as easy as all that but he made it seem easy dropping off to where some defender was going to clear it or picking it up from a free kick and hitting it so just right that David Seaman couldn’t stop it. I’m going to miss that.
I’m even going to miss him shouting at referees cause God knows I shout at them often enough and I always think that if I was in that number ten shirt I’d be doing the same when I saw some rubbish decision by some idiot official.
That is why I’ll miss Deano. Cause he played football how I’d like to play football when he showed the passion and the grit and at other times like when he got hat-tricks in the Premiership or bent in goals from nothing he played football like I dreamed of.
The Bradford City official website referred to the new fixture list as ‘intriguing’. That’s one way of describing a league programme that brings Macclesfield Town to Valley Parade for the season’s opener, is followed by early season trips to Shrewsbury, Barnet and Hereford and ends with the delights of a visit to Wycombe.
The reality of life in League Two was always going to set in once the plans for the next nine months could begin, and while the clubs rolling up at Valley Parade between August and May will seem largely unfamiliar, it is hoped that the majority of them won’t be back again anytime in the near future.
It’s certainly a contrast looking at next year’s fixture list compared to others we have first read in previous years. I remember spending hours studying the release of our first ever Premiership fixtures. I’ve read this season’s a couple of times, but it doesn’t exactly fill me with great excitement. Of course we go to watch City and the opposition is secondary, but it’s hard to not to feel envious of Huddersfield Town’s Easter Monday trip to Elland Road. Our local derbies this year will be Rochdale, Accrington, Lincoln and Rotherham.
I always find the release of the fixture list to be a mixed blessing. It’s certainly an exciting moment in a Bradford City free summer, but sharply brings into focus that the new season is not long off and usually makes me long for the opening game to come around.
If the club is also looking some way off being ready for the campaign ahead, it can also seem a bit disconcerting. The weeks are flying by, but there are still no new faces to pose in a City kit for the local media and talk about their aims to take the club forward. Meanwhile many of our rivals seem to be snapping up decent players with disturbing regularity.
Chesterfield in particular have brought in a few new faces that we would have been happy to see join this club. There are still plenty of players are available, but with so many new faces needed to be brought in before the Macclesfield game it would be nice to welcome the first batch sooner rather than later.
New signings will soon arrive, pre-season friendlies begin in just over three weeks and we all soon be settling down for another campaign of highs and lows. With City apparently having one of the largest playing budgets in the division, it is to be hoped promise will be fulfilled and the highs will for once outweigh the lows. The fixture may prompt a range of emotions; fear is certainly not among them. Being the first visitors to Shrewsbury’s new stadium might be tricky, but there are no games that leave you feeling less than comfortable about City’s chances.
The fixture list feels unfamiliar, but hopefully it won’t be a novelty that we have to get used to.
It hit home at ten. The Macc Lads will be coming to Valley Parade for Stuart McCall’s first game in charge of City. Macclesfield Town. No name to conjure with but the reality of City’s situation and a sobering thought for those still remembering the day in August 1999 when City wandered into the meliu of the Premiership.
Macclesfield at home is a respectable first game for McCall and shows the scope of his task. They will come to Valley Parade looking to start the season well - who doesn’t - and make it tough for the Bantams to get anything, a microcosm of the season for the new boss who is promising promotion in his first season. Trip to Shrewsbury follows that. City go to the seaside for a first league game with Morecambe on the 13 October - too late for summer sun - and Boxing Day sends us the somber thought of Lincoln City’s first league game at Valley Parade since 11th of May, 1985.
We close on the 3rd of May at Wycombe having rounded up at home the week before when Milton Keynes Dons visit VP.
What of McCall’s promotion hopes? They are realistic - last season’s top four in League Two were the bottom four of League One from the season before - and the three promotion spots allows for breathing room.
One worries that the Bantams squad needs building but Mark Lawn has made sure that resources are there to build with. The atmosphere problem at Valley Parade has been combated with the innovations over season tickets and for the first time since Barnsley opened the season at VP in 2001 there is reason for optimism for progress rather than the relief of continued existence.
In this way Macclesfield is as exciting, as joyous, as worth looking forward to as Middlesbrough was.