Boy From Brazil: Bradford City News

Since we last talked, dear reader, things have not gone well at Valley Parade.

You may recall this website being dubbed “pro-Todd” and in the months of our absence he was fired from the club one Monday morning for suggesting to the chairman that he may leave in the Summer. Todd’s replacement - skipper David Wetherall - has struggled to get results and if one were to formulate the opinion that Todd’s management abilities were shown by the fact that he could get the club mid-table not shown up by that then some would not argue.

Nevertheless to suggest that Todd was some kind of miracle worker is off the mark too. It would perhaps be a miracle to get the team we have out of the division the right way and it was certainly something that the former Derby man very rarely like achieving. That Todd’s steady hand on the tiller would is missed should not be mistaken for an idea that he was over-achieving. “Thanks Colin,” we would say, “But we are going to move it on.”

Moving it on to David Wetherall has not reaped results thus far but the skipper turned gaffer is switched onto the sort of ideas that Todd may have needed to listen to. So many of the issues around managers seem to resolve about Craig Bentham or whomever is assigned to play that holding midfield role that has been a problem since Stuart McCall went south. Marc Bridge-Wilkinson and Steven Schumacher need a muscle to win the ball but Bentham - as with Crooks, Kearney and other players given the number four role - never seems to be glued into position in the side and always is the first to go in the name of pressing for attacking play.

As this is the new opinion bursting full BfB then unequivocally I’ll say that there is nothing attacking about not possession and too often without Bentham or similar in the side we left with creative players chasing attackers rather than using the ball. Should Stuart McCall end up in the Bradford City job in the summer then one can only hope he knows his own position well enough to cement a ball winner in the middle of the midfield and build out from there.

McCall may or may not return in the summer when season ticket prices may or may not go down depending on the willingness of 10,000 supporters to commit to the club. The old BfB’s pressing for a price revolution is doubly underlined by this new site and Julian Rhodes should be congratulated - and hopefully rewarded - for this innovation.

To be damned are those who drove Dean Windass out of Valley Parade. Death threats to a player who got sent off is appalling, death threats to a player is appalling, death threats to a person is appalling but most appalling is the lack of condemnation for the people who drove away a player who is increasingly looking like the reason we were half way up the league.

For sure Windass may have only received two or three letters but the brickbats and booing that came before those letters set the tone. From a humanistic point of view Windass was pushed towards the door by an ill feeling towards him that was far more common - and totally unjustified - than two or three letters.

Opinions about the man and the way he plays football are valid but the abuse of Windass from a significant section of Bradford City supporters far beyond the two or three letters are tantamount to vandalism of the club and the results are manifest now Windass has gone on loan to Hull.

Of the newer signings - all loan players - Billy Paynter looks impressive and Kelly Youga is starting to be very useful. Loan football - which seems to be on the increase - is not desirable and for every Paynter or Nathan Doyle who comes to the club City end up with a decent young lad playing within his limits. Ben Parker is probably a nice guy and is a decent footballer but that we expect the same level of commitment from him as we do from our own players and I see no reason why he should be able to give it. I would much rather see our young lads given the chance to play week in week out than I would blood someone else’s youth talent. Parker will be back at Valley Parade next season no doubt but probably as a member of the team that replaces the team that they call the worst Leeds side ever so why we expect players who’s futures are so obviously separate from the club to put in the same level of commitment is beyond me.

The young lads need a chance. They need more than the odd sprinkling of games too. They need to be given runs in the side just as Joe Colbeck is being given now. Then they need the understanding that being a young player means being inconsistent and being inconsistent means sometimes having bad games and - and this is the important bit - being a fan of a particular club means supporting your players through bad games.

I’ve not got much of a problem with people booing slackers and shirkers - I doubt it really does any good because and think that booing Lee Sharpe or Nicky Summerbee for not playing hard enough just justified their appalling attitudes - but I have a big problem with people booing players who are trying hard and having a bad game and I have a big problem with people booing the kids that come through the ranks and are trying to make it work in professional football for Bradford City.

At present City face a seven game struggle to start in League One and after that God only knows. That is where we are. Let’s see what happens…

The twenty-five year season tickets are on the way out to be replaced with an extended discount system which - aside from giving the 900 of us who parted with the thick chunk of cash when asked to six years ago the distant promise of free Premiership football once more - works out as decent value.

They promise to give me percentage discount - nicely returning to them the ability to lower as well as raise prices on a season by season basis - and I promise to join the season ticket queue again. They promise to spend my money on buying players improving the team and I think that would be like giving Pete Doherty money to go out and buy a guitar from the shop next to his dealer’s house.

I’m going to put my weight - such as it is - behind the Gang of Five and Julian Rhodes’s attempts to remade these millstones into smaller millstones and I welcome the innovative thinking. I notice the offer includes another trip into the Banqueting Suite for the BfB staff and short of pressing Rhodes, Ham or Longbottom for a pint I want nothing more from them for the £2,250 I spent than is offered.

However as I face the prospect of once again having to explain why supporting a football club requires me to ignore the financial sense part of my brain I’m keen that the same sort of smart thinking which went into this deal gets a deeper hold at the club.

For example the idea of spending the money raised - any money raised - on improving the playing squad is sheer folly when so much of the club’s structure lays at least fifty years out of date.

Bobby Petta is the latest in a long line of skilful players to arrive at Valley Parade and never (so far) come near the boil. Sure we blame the performances and personalities of the likes of Dan Petrescu and Lee Sharpe and we say that they can not hack life in proper football or that they think they are too good for us but for God’s sake I hope City spend the season ticket money I’m going to start paying on proper training facilities.

While thinking outside the box is in fashion at Valley Parade we might want to look at the supporter involvement again. I seem to remember £250,000 of (directly and indirectly) our money finding it’s way to Valley Parade in the summer of 2004 for the vague promise of supporter involvement but how has this involvement manifested itself?

BCISC and BCST have meetings with some of the Gang Of Five - indeed I once heard that someone from BfB was to be invited to that although that never occurred - and that is a form of involvement but listening to customers in this way is not a privilege but rather a requirement for the club.

I’ve said before that supporter involvement should come when the club stops trying to be the father of all things and starts being the facilitator.

If you get a chance to read the Taylor Report into the Hillsborough disaster you will see sections devoted to the need for football club’s to readdress their links with communities and supporters and to bring in more supporter involvement. The all-seater stadia and subsequent price hikes are dogmatically stuck to by every single club in football but those sections are largely ignored.

And speaking of pricing now the need to create a sense of value for the twenty-five year season ticket holders is gone the club needs to look for innovation in the pricing policy at Valley Parade.

Much joy at the idea of under elevens getting in free and some suggest that in allowing this City are getting in the next generation of fans but in truth the generation lost to football is not at first school but rather doing GCSEs and A-Levels.

Think about the kids who used to sit around you at games but spurted up and stopped coming. Football prices out a generation of people on a yearly basis. Middle class families are always going to bring their kids and letting them in for nothing saves a few quid. A permanent commitment to pricing a day at the football alongside the cost of going to the cinema will stop the leak away which happens when kids get to certain age.

Hey - I do not care for gangs of teenagers any more than the next 32 year old but unless we do something as a club (and as a game) the next 32 year old will not have been going to football for the majority of his life.

So I’m putting the financial side of my brain on hold once more sending my 25 year season ticket form back with a big yes on it and I’m crossing my fingers that this success may beget others.

Football and Bradford City needs a permanent revolution. It needs to start thinking smarter. It needs this kind of thinking times a thousand.

A good start.