BfB

After the Second World War a group of men got together in an Amsterdam Hotel and made a decision that the conflict they had just lived though had been caused by the rise of irrationality, and that it was an imperative that irrationality be combatted.

That group of men took a hand in forming the post-war consensus that maintained a global peace for over fifty years and created a new world free of the chaos of irrational individuals.

Those men were known as The Bilderberg Group and the weapon which they wielded against the forces of chaos was a simple one. They were going to be competent.

Sigmund

When Mark Hughes arrived at Bradford City he did so with a shrug. It seemed a curious thing to the outside world that a manager who had only carried out his role at International level and in the Premier League would decide to take charge of a League Two club.

The footballing world reacted with a shrug, albeit a grudgingly impressed one, were happy to prefix his name to the club while those around Bradford City sought refuge in Freud’s aphorism that they would never want to be in any club which would have them for a member.

Whatever had brought Mark Hughes to Bradford City it seemed to confirm that there was something wrong with Mark Hughes, and this fault had caused him to step into the world of a chaotic mess of a football club.

Derek

Derek Adams has suffered relegation with Morecambe following his return from Bradford City where he had a short spell as manager, but very few people want the unaffable Scot to leave that club, who have no money to spend and no real way of resourcing a League One club.

Adams’ time at Bradford City is not at all fondly remembered, but the changes he was a part of may prove significant. Professional to his fault, Adams’ legacy at Valley Parade and his promise at Morecambe is that he will control the chaos around a football club and impose order.

Adams’ appointment coincided with a number of changed at Valley Parade which, to most, are rooted in the appointment of Chief Executive Ryan Sparks. Sparks took the role saying that the club were setting a higher standard, and were no longer going to accept mediocrity, but really his revolution at Valley Parade has been one of competency.

Competency

Having worked for Bradford City in the chaotic times of Edin Rahic’s regime at Sparks set about remaking the club along the lines of a modern football business. Dysfunctional systems were replaced with processes which had stable outputs.

And while this might not be to the taste of every supporter, with the club increasingly falling into the unagreed upon shapes put down by rivals, it is effective in minimising instability.

To his great credit, Sparks has created a functioning business in an industry which is built on disorder.

Mancini

Over ten years ago Mark Hughes was fired from Manchester City following a fulcrum shift of overseas investment. That investment has dominated English Football since. The Abu Dhabi United Group’s money has changed Manchester City into an ultra-efficient football business which stands as marked contrast to the scattershot approach to football that occurs across the City at Hughes’ former club, Manchester United.

That decision to replace Hughes set him on a course which would ultimately lead him to Valley Parade, but it may have ramifications for Manchester City with the man who replaced him, Roberto Mancici, having been paid to do a second job while doing the job he had taken over from Hughes, to get around rules on funding.

This and any number of other misdemeanours the Abu Dhabi Group made on their path towards creating the utterly competent football business of Manchester City are to be the subject of punishment by the Premier League in the coming weeks.

All Around

Football is chaos. It relies on the performances of individuals who are in the least stable time of their lives and makes them rich, adding further instability.

To add to this problem clubs are bewitched by creating newsworthy events around dismissing managers and signing players to stand out in a crowed media landscape. Success, for most clubs, comes from the sort of stability which the system they participate in abhors.

This is the chaos which Manchester City were escaping, but it may catch up with them yet dragging them into the seething morass of football.

Hughes

Sparks found Hughes and in doing so found a fellow in competency. Coming over like a capable professional able to stand aside from the chaos that enfolds around them, Mark Hughes is the Hannah Waddingham of football managers.

Hughes assessed the squad over his opening months, and changed it to the team which took to the field in August 2022 that obviously had strengths but were susceptible to losing the ball and not regaining it, and were weak in the space in front of the back four.

Richie Smallwood, captain and would be pivot midfielder, is significant here. There is a persistent meme that Smallwood is performing poorly. Smallwood’s trajectory follows a script best typified by former Bradford City manager Peter Taylor and Tommy Doherty where the latter struggled to perform, and the former struggled to find a solution, and the season declined as a result.

Smallwood struggling to fill the role Hughes had for him in the first half of the season, but his performance levels were managed, and his usefulness kept until Adam Clayton was recruited, allowing the captain to move a little forward on the field and perform exceptionally well.

Spark(s/y)

The Winter of 2022/23 recruitment was product of the stablity Sparks had built and Hughes was the benefactor of where the team could be altered, and altered in some fundamental ways, without breaking because the competency brought to it had created an anti-fragile environment.

Hughes’ team steadily improved in a league characterised by the wild swings in form of rivals. That City flirted with the top three was more a product of those swings in form than it was Hughes’ side, who carried on with a metronomic gathering of points through a series of controlled performances.

Those points took Hughes and City into a play off game with Carlisle United, the first leg of which was won last night, with an unfussy first half goal when Jamie Walker put a low finish in at the Bradford End. The rest of the match, entirely in keeping, was about City ensuring that everything that could be controlled was controlled, and that City were not the victims of chaos.

What’s Next

This then stands as Hughes’ contribution. The club is transformed into a competent member of the football community, with the manager’s warm statesman like persona disarming antagonism.

Having seen a weakness in football and found the correct way to apply pressure this is an achievement for which Ryan Sparks can take credit. Football is an inherently unstable game, and chaos is everywhere, but if one can insulate oneself from the chaos one can be successful as other teams break themselves apart.

The weapon which Sparks is wielding, and the one which typifies the club as it goes into next week’s second leg against Carlisle United, is to be competent.