The two Hendries

When John Hendrie left Bradford City in the summer of 1988 he demanded the club pay a loyalty bonus to him as a part of the transfer. Hendrie – it seems – was to be paid for every season he stayed at the club before his exit to Newcastle United for £500,000 and City had to make the payment.

Lee Hendrie left the club on the first of January with the club and the player incapable of making a deal which is normally football talk for the fact that a player wanted – or had been offered elsewhere – more money. Lee Hendrie – the captain a month ago – exits and good luck to him.

The two Hendries provide an interesting contrast. The former showing the days when footballs economics were tipped towards the clubs allowing them to keep a player even when out of contract and the latter highlighting the wandering nature of the post-Bosman rule player. The John Hendrie payment is a quirk of a club trying to keep a player happy rather than keep him under contract, the latter shows how Mark Lawn and Bradford City are sensilbly not willing to try offer the sweetest deal to anyone who frowns.

Much is talked about how City – with Peter Taylor on a one year contract – favour short term thinking but it is worth considering that when players like Hendrie arrive and stay for but three months that the game itself is tipped towards the short term, and while some may think that the club could break that way of thinking, what they are doing is in keeping with the environment.

So Lee Hendrie follows Zesh Rehman out of the club and along with him is Louis Moult. One wonders what Peter Taylor will do with the additional budget. In May 2011 it will be thirty years since my first visit to Valley Parade and perhaps I’m getting long in the tooth with my belief that supporters prefer the players of today to be around next season (or even next month) but the modern football attitude features the phrase “get rid of him” about players so very often that one suspects that the short term contract is most often used for a club to dump a player than the other way around.

City face a Bury team who once again are pushing for promotion under Alan Knill and sit fifth in League Two having just dropped out of the automatic promotion places following a 2-2 draw with Macclesfield Town. The Shakers last win was on 23rd November 2010 when they won away at Lincoln City.

Gareth Evans enjoyed his trip to Lincoln two days ago with a fine strike and a fine performance and he is the player in form looking set to partner James Hanson up front although increasingly predicting Peter Taylor’s mind is an inaccurate science. Jason Price and Omar Daley could also feature – especially if Taylor favours a 433.

Tommy Doherty will look to come back into the midfield although Lee Bullock’s recall may see him keep his place. David Syers seems to feature in Taylor’s teams more often than not and Luke O’Brien’s move to the left side of midfield often bare fruits with Robbie Threlfall back at the back along with centreback pairing Steve Williams and Shane Duff. Richard Eckersley will be right back and Lenny Pidgeley in goal, probably.

Making the most of mistakes

Sometimes, perhaps most of the time, success in football is comes from errors, cock-ups and mistakes.

The best laid plans go wrong and what one is left with, just sort of works. There was no plan in place that after replacing Lennie Lawrence Chris Kamara would spend three months doing nothing and then suddenly go Hell for Leather for promotion, there was no plan that Paul Jewell would end up replacing him and turn out to be brilliant.

Happy accidents then, capitalised on. Normally though it is mistakes by other people which offer the best chance for progress and just as seats were taken at Lincoln City for the first game of 2011 James Hanson was take one of those opportunities. A bad back pass, Hanson on the ball, slips past the keeper and suddenly nothing seemed as bad as it had before.

It was Moses Swaibu who made the mistake. Not his first. It is said he stole a chicken from Asda over the Christmas holiday. “Voting for Christmas” maybe.

Peter Taylor’s team were without Lee Hendrie who had left the club without much fanfare along with Louis Moult who seemed to spend his time at City waiting for someone to make enough mistakes to give him a chance but failing to capitalise on those chances when they arrived. A reduced squad will perhaps give the impression that Peter Taylor has settled on his best team but the surprise return of Robbie Threlfall suggests that the manager still grabs numbers out of a bag to find his team.

Sometimes though his team seems to work. Lee Bullock returned for Tommy Doherty today and gave more of a bite in the midfield and when Gareth Evans was penalised for a handball and Ashley Grimes scored it certainly wasn’t part of the run of play, and it might not have been a penalty either. Evans himself was booked for a dive in the second half but only after he had scored the game’s winning goal barrelling forward and slamming in a great strike to the top corner just before half time.

The win was deserved although had Lincoln had a better striker than Delroy Facey then City might have surrendered the lead. The home side got desperate and Mustapha Carayol was lucky to stay on for a nasty foul on Luke O’Brien.

Brightening City’s afternoon though was the return of Steve Williams who looked insanely good and Shane Duff who played well. Williams came to City when the budget was cut following the failure to win promotion. The chance to bring in Hanson and Williams, match winners today, was capitalising on the mistake. If Peter Taylor can carry on capitalising then the season might not be over yet.