More About 2007/2008
Bradford City 0 Dagenham and Redbridge 2 - League Two
The question before us, Dear Reader, is one of motivation as Bradford City lost 2-0 at Valley Parade to Dag and Red after a week of two impressive wins seemed to set up the play off charge for the Bantams.
80 minutes gone when Ben Strevens finished off a tidy move for the visitors taking advantage of Stuart McCall’s laudable efforts to play a fullbackless 3412 to try get back on level terms those play off ambitions seemed lost. In fact they probably were before kick off but confidence after wins and good performances can be as much an enemy at the start of a football match as the habitual losing pattern McCall found his team in earlier in the season.
With two fine wins this week on the back of a run stretching back to Boxing Day which has seem good results and good performances Valley Parade turned up expecting and hands were sat on - football supporters have this way of flipping between an attitude of dark pessimism and massive expectation at the recording of two wins - but more crucially the equivalent performances were put in on the field.
Bradford City emerged from the dressing room in the mistaken believe that the win would flow in following previous results and that - in essence - they did not have to put in the effort to claim victory. This game was lost in the dressing room at 14:59.
Bill Shankly would tell all is Liverpool sides of the 1970s were first tasked in a season with avoiding relegation understanding that every game in football had to be won over the course of 90 minutes and that domination in football comes from an ability to not assume those victories against any opposition.
There is a line between confident and arrogant; between thinking and expecting; and City were too far the wrong side of that line. Alex Rhodes is an easy to pick out offender as he hung on the last man waiting for the perfect pass that would free him for attacking play rather than playing with the endeavour that saw him achieve in recent games. Omar Daley showed the same entirely forgetting that it was his harrying and chasing that brought about his goal against Rotherham last week. Joe Colbeck could hold his head up and say that he put in the same effort to try get this win as he did previous but no doubts anyone else could.
The same cannot be said for Dag & Red who at one point had Scott Griffiths block three shots in a minute - one with his face - and showed the sort of work rate that deserved a victory. It is simple to say but very true: They wanted it more.
All of which sounds damning and the margin of error today was slight - Barry Conlon’s missed penalty at 1-0 could have seen City back in the game and go on to win - but this ability to keep a team focused while winning is one of the most difficult things in football and something that even the best managers the game has seen have to learn and get wrong.
The balance McCall must build is on the one hand he must let confidence grow and let his players think they are winning games because of their excellence and on the other hand he must break them down and remind them that they cannot expect to beat anyone without putting in the effort. It is a conversation that goes “You are the best footballers in the world and can beat anyone but if you don’t run yourselves around then you can’t beat anyone” and if I knew a good way of putting that to a bunch of men then I would be doing it and not writing about doing it.
So McCall faces the inconstancy of over confidence and looks to learn what he can as he did that caused by the lack of confidence earlier in the season. One thing that his rookie year in League Two will have done is provide a lot of learning experiences for the ginger one but it should be noted at this point with a quarter of the season to go that League Two in 2007/2008 is freakish.
Today of the twelve games played five were home wins and five away victories which continues that balance as being seventeen more away wins than home wins this season. It is a season in which - for whatever reason - it is more common that the away side picks up the victory than the home side does. To put that in context in the 120 years of English League Football over all divisions ever run it has never been the case that a season has finished with more away wins than home. Never happened before.
City and McCall’s problems are far more common. Over confidence, players putting in 75% thinking they can stroll to wins, feet off the ground and people not thinking that winning game three on a run requires less effort than winning game one did. Something to work on before any side is able to mount a promotion campaign.
On Saturday Stuart McCall’s team will try record a third win on the bounce and continue a run of good form that started on Boxing Day and has given rise to some optimism at Valley Parade. The 14,000 odd at Valley Parade have reason to be happy with the way that the team is going and Julian Rhodes should be given an award for that.
Rhodes - along with Mark Lawn - will probably pick up the Football League award for the Perform Best Fan Marketing campaign after going down a division but doubling the attendance. They are planning on getting 20,000 into Valley Parade next season through similarly impressive decision making but even if they do one doubts it will make as much difference as dropping season ticket prices last season has.
Back in October, 2005 - Friday 7th to be exact - I wrote the article A rough sketch of a business plan for the future of Bradford City in which I said
A permanent revolution in pricing is needed. City need to set the cost of going to Valley Parade around the level of a trip to the cinema in order that is represent something approaching value. A cursory glance around VP will tell you that the £15 plus price has put off a generation of supporters with older faces outnumbering the young considerably.
After a half season of what in the history of modern football is by far the closest thing to the permanent revolution in pricing those words are starting to bring fruit.
While the atmosphere at Valley Parade has been up and down all season the weight of a support behind Stuart McCall’s side when they capture imagination is impressive. Not only impressive but it seems to be working. I have gone on record as saying I’d like to have the cacophony behind the Bantams at all times but we cannot have everything we want and until City fans get the unfettered support that really would be a permanent revolution then I’m happy that 14,000 people can chant “Barry, Barry, Barry” when the man trundles onto the field. It is the sort of support that builds atmosphere.
And atmosphere - for want of a better phrase - begets enjoyment and enjoyment brings return visits. Just like the kid-a-quid scheme of Geoffrey Richmond the work being put in now is building a generation of supporters for the future. One could only estimate how many City fans would be retained next season should prices have been returned to former levels for 2008/2009 but one can be sure that that number is greater than it would have been in the season following our relegation last term.
So Rhodes and Lawn push on with the two-for-one offer which hopes to bring 20,000 to Valley Parade for League Two football - or perhaps better fingers, toes, eyes crossed - and they deserve credit for not resting on their laurels.
More than credit though they deserve recognition that what Bradford City have done this season is special, should be copied and in a very significant way is giving football back to the supporters.
A shiny trophy is the least they deserve.
Bradford City 3 Rotherham United 2 - League Two
Bradford’s exhilarating first half attacking display was enough to see off Rotherham in this Yorkshire derby clash at Valley Parade.
In one of the most entertaining game seen at home for some years, Rotherham proved to be more than capable opponents as they threatened regularly in the first half. But it was City who got the early breakthrough.
Omar Daley’s persistence in pressurizing Rotherham right back Dale Tonge paid off as he robbed him and found space down the left channel. With a clear break, Peter Thorne was screaming for it at the back stick, but Daley continued to dribble into the box, beat another man, before planting a strike into the bottom corner. It looked like Daley was going to overcook and waste the move, but his determination was rewarded with the opening goal.
Before we had time to recover from the jubilation of getting our noses in front, City doubled their lead with some incisive attacking play.
Joe Colbeck burst down the right and whipped in a fantastic cross which Alex Rhodes got on the end of and side footed in City’s second. Rhodes was alert to the situation as soon as Colbeck regained Bradford possession and sprinted into the box to make sure he got there to finish off the move.
At 2-0, all seemed well, but Rotherham had always threatened, and were always going to score in this game. Early on one of their front men hit the inside of the post before the ball somehow bounced out past the back of Scott Loach and miraculously out for a goal kick.
And it was no surprise when they got back into the game on the half hour, with a long ball played up to Taylor, who controlled well in the box, and slipped the ball under Loach to fire up the contest again.
With the half drawing to a close, City brilliantly regained their two goal cushion. Joe Colbeck was once again the architect, whipping in a superb looping cross which Lee Bullock headed home for his first goal for the club.
And Bradford came out in the second half with a good attitude – to protect the lead and hit Rotherham on the break once they came out to try and come back into the game. And the players seemed to possess a steely determination to not relinquish the lead, and for the most part were quite comfortable.
This determination was opitimised by Colbeck, who seemed to have endless energy, and tracked back to do his defensive work admirably. In fact it was the best game I have ever seen Colbeck play – he produced quality when it mattered, and battled it out until the final whistle. I have been one of his fiercest critics every since he made his first team debut at the club – but this type of performance on a consistent basis is sure to win me over for good.
The second half was a lot less exciting. Rotherham continued to threaten, but never looked overly confident of completing a miraculous turnaround. The onloan Moncur produced a particularly good display and showed he has an eye for a good long accurate pass to feet. Wetherall coped with absolutely everything aerially, as ever.
But inevitably, as with is to often with City these days, the Millers scored a late goal with five minutes remaining which ensured a very nervy finish to the game. Those nerves would have been avoided had the in-form Peter Thorne stuck away the most simple of chances.
Colbeck had beaten the last line of defense and rolled a fantastic ball square across the byline that landed at the feet of Thorne. From 4 yards out, the veteran hitman blasted over when it looked harder to miss than score.
But Thorne’s blushes and miss did not prove to be critical – as the City defense held firm for the full four minutes of injury time - which I have no idea how the officials came to decide on that number of minutes.
This victory was a real triumph. We had beaten one of the best teams in the division, and furthermore we had done it in style. With the new season ticket offer being rolled out, if any further proof was needed that Stuart McCall’s team are headed in the right direction, tonight was the night.
We may have missed the playoff boat now (the optimists among us still believe) , but this display really showed what we are capable of when we get out act together. We have proved we can get decent results away from home – and next season home displays like this will surely give us enough points to mount a serious promotion challenge next season.