More About 2007/2008
William Hill are offering Bradford City at 10/1 to win League Two next season. After Darlington, perpetual four tier club Rochdale and relegated Gillingham we are the shortest odds in the division as the bookmakers take a look at the Bantams and see potential.
Stuart McCall is - we believe - abut to make Chris Brandon a Bantam at last as he rounds on ten players to increase the quality of the squad at Valley Parade. Brandon might be followed by Luke Beckett of Huddersfield Town, by Alan Marriott of Lincoln City and by Darren Moore of Derby County or all these players may never set foot in BD8 but it would seem that City are making a noise.
Mark Lawn is optimistic that the Bantams will make the 9,000 adult season ticket marker he has set down and should ticket sales be akin to last season then the Bantams would be the 20th best supported club in the Football League.
A further look at those figures tells you that only Leeds United and Nottingham Forest have bigger attendance in the bottom two divisions and that City’s average bums on seats is bigger than at least one club in the Scots, German, French and Italian top divisions.
Add to that the rumoured £250,000 coming City’s way following Dean Windass’s guiding Hull City to the Premiership then it is not hard to see why the bookies are starting to take notice. Lawn, Julian Rhodes and McCall must ensure that the momentum is built on in the coming weeks and month.
Perhaps though we should not pay much attention to bookmakers. Hull City are 5,000/1 to win the Premiership, Stoke 2,000/1. Bono of U2 is 1,000/1 to be the next Pope. These 1,000/1 Papal odds are the same price should one want to bet on Father Dougal Maguire of Father Ted to become the Holy Father.
I’m on my feet cheering Hull City on a Saturday afternoon and I’ve got two fists in the air and I’m watching the Tigers win promotion and I’m happy.
Hull City really hate Bradford City but I don’t know why and no one I know does. I guess they don’t like the way we went off to the Premiership after nicking their stand that time but whatever it is they hate us and we are a bit confused as to why. I have the same thing with a guy called Tim Johnson and I think me and Tim could get along well if only he got over the wanting to punch my face in thing. We are the same with Hull.
Especially because Hull have got Dean Windass leading them.
I always feel like Dean Windass was robbed from me. I loved having Dean Windass up front for City and from the minute he left for Hull I knew we were in trouble that season. Deano was the only player who had a club where the net was and he worked hard and he was smart as anything on the football field and without any of those things we were never going to win many. It would be like City now letting the goals of Peter Thorne, the work of Barry Conlon and the tricks of Billy Topp go on the same day.
But the worst thing about Deano leaving was that it was a self inflicted wound. Deano left and at the time he was getting death threats from a hand full of idiots who call themselves City fans but are really just sad cases. We ignore them cause they really are a minority.
But these guys were fed by the fact that we never appreciated Deano. All through his City career the boos were not far away. He was booed when we signed him for getting into the team over Robbie Blake and in the Premiership for not being Blake and the people who booed him when he played for us booed him when he came back for other clubs and scored against us.
Then when he returned to City the boos were not far away and some fans were so quick to get on his back. Deano was never perfect and his sending off against Bournemouth was stupid but he played with passion and he won matches for City and he did it time and time again.
But he could do ten things right and one thing wrong and some people would ignore the ten and jump on him for the one. Some people just enjoyed getting on Deano’s back cause they thought that being able to criticise Deano meant they were smarter football fans. It was personal abuse and nothing to do with what Deano did on the field which was head and shoulders above Eddie Johnson, Andy Cooke, Spencer Weir-Daley, Moses Ashikodi, Danny Cadamarteri, Michael Branch or any the other partners Deano had.
So when he had an offer from Hull City on the table alongside the death threats he probably looked at the team he has keeping up on his own and compared them to the club where he is a legend and thought why does he need to play for a team who boo him and moan about him. If he had thought “Lets see what they can do without me” then he would have been right. Letting Dean Windass go got us relegated and the people who made the climate that made him want to leave should know that they are responsible for that.
So I’m cheering Dean Windass’s brilliant twenty yarder at Wembley and thinking how that could have been a goal for us cause Deano would have stuck at VP for the rest of his career had it not been for some so-called fans driving him out. I hope Hull City do ok in the Premiership and I’m not jealous cause they will have thier Rodney Marsh.
But I am jealous of them for having Deano because he should be out player and some of us threw him away.
South Leeds is the part of the City that fashion has forgotten but it is in this refuge of the non-business man that having walked from work I looked for a haircut and settled onto a barber who had the most important thing one can find in this search - an empty chair.
I got snug and looked around catching a glimpse of the odd United poster - to be expected - before doffing my glasses and waiting for the cut. The rule with barbers is small talk and so we killed time before inevitably getting onto football and the Champions League final on Wednesday.
“Coke vs Pepsi” I offered attempting to close down the conversation. I sensed he wanted more so I continued “But I guess Man United, what with being Northern…”
“I hate Man Yoo,” he replied, “Because I am Leeds.”
He was and in the middle of Leeds he has a right to be. He snipped well and quickly so I tried to press him for more saying “I thought Leeds hated Chelsea too.”
He said that he would rather both teams lost the game - if only that were possible - and that if the fans were all sent to Siberian prisons then he would not be upset. It amused me and I laughed only for his hands to roughly grab me ensuring even sideburns.
“I don’t care.” he declared “I’m going to Wembley and we are going up.” and for a moment a rush of conversation ran though my head. We should be kin - this barber and me - for we have no interest in this Moscow Show and we long for the success of our own clubs.
We are the best of rivals but not enemies. We can agree on this point and build common ground from there. The interests of clubs outside the less than a dozen that make up the haves in football are best served by recognising that Leeds United, Bradford City, Ipswich, Yeovil Town, Exeter and on and on have more in common than we do separating us.
Here in this barbers shop in South Leeds we could join on this point.
“Perhaps a bomb will go off and both Man Yoo and Chelsea will be killed?” he smiled and started to finish my hair with a razor.
His cutthroat razor flicking down the back of my neck.
We are the two of us alone in his shop and bomb idea hanging in a pregnant pause between us. A long, sharp blade flicking my neck as he asks me “Who do you support?”
Well what would you say?