last year, at the end of July
Who will be the happier? Bradford City 1 Burnley 2
Bradford City 1 Burnley 2 Preseason game 2008/2009
Owen Coyle and Stuart McCall paths crossed as players during their days North of the border but the Irish player born in Scotland and the Scot born in Yorkshire never ended up on the same side and so as they faced each other as managers it is no surprise that one ended up happier than the other.
However - considering the result - one would be very surprised if it was Coyle who was more pleased as McCall watched his Bradford City team that is surely too good for League Two more than match a Championship side who have spent big in the Summer.
Spent big on Martin Patterson - £1.3m from Scunthorpe - who along with Robbie Blake were head and shoulders the best thing about the Burnley side which struggled to keep up with City in the opening exchanges.
The Bantams were approaching race trim. Rhys Evans is still a question mark in goal - his ability with crosses is the question and both visitor goals on the hour and in the last minute came when crosses got into the box and were not cut out - but the back four of Paul Arnison, an outstanding Graeme Lee, Matthew Clarke and Paul Heckingbottom coped well with the troublesome two up front for the men from over the hills. Willy Topp - playing a full ninety minutes - and Omar Daley troubled the full backs and the middle pairing of Paul McLaren and young Luke Sharry - not looking out of place - started brightly.
However - and shamefully - rather than competing with City in the spirit of warming up for league games - Burnley resorted to physical play with Remco van der Schaaf putting in the type of tackles that would get cards in games and resulted in him being compulsorily substituted after thirty-five minutes.
Referees are told to take pre-season games as if they were full matches so where Mr G. Laws got this rule from is anyone’s guess but the validity of the game from that point on was highly dubious. In a league game Burnley would not have been able to use soft reffing to stop City’s playmaker with fouls and one doubts anyone can be proud of the Clarets for that sort of play or for the persistent handballs in the second half that killed off chances which would have gone punished in the season proper.
So City scored before half time through Barry Conlon after he coolly chipped in when capitalising on a mistake and did enough to suggest that we were far closer to the Championship level than we last season - or that Burnley are closer to League Two - and the result mattered even less than usual with the favours that were given to the team from the league higher.
McCall has Chris Brandon, Lee Bullock, Joe Colbeck and Michael Boulding to come back into this side and in McLaren he has a player so good that he has literally put his shirt on him. Ten days until the start of the season for both these clubs and McCall will be happier of the two managers.
Burnley might have had the win thanks to the favours but they were matched by the Bantams and if it turns out that both sides are League One quality then 2009/2010 could very well see this fixture played in that division.
July 30th, 2008 at 23:07
Good luck to the Bantams, hope to see you in Championship soon.
Don’t get carried away with ‘friendly’ we have won a few games but its not that serious as to be a guide to where a team will be in the leagues. You deserve to be higher but the team you faced will not be our first pick either.
July 31st, 2008 at 12:48
I was very interested to hear a few Burnley fans comment on how good our number 11 was after the match, a couple even saying they should look to sign him from us (number 11 was Daley btw). Decent workout from City I thought, McLaren’s first half performance suggests he’ll be a force for us this season.