BfB

Luke Sharry is playing for Grimsby Town reserves as he joins the plethora of players who – at this time of the season – face up to the idea that unless they can get someone else interested when their contract expires they will no longer be professional footballers.

Sharry will join the Mariners in the hope of winning a new deal for a club that – in all likelihood – will be playing non-league football next season. Down a division his blustering midfield play may prove useful, indeed it may have proved useful in League Two.

Sharry’s career at City has contained few reasons to suggest that he could be given a new contract by the Bantams. His chance came in the Johnstone’s Paint tie with Port Vale but a poor first half saw him substituted, never the return. The words “Blown it” were used, and were hard to argue with.

A right sided midfield who played inside – or perhaps an insider who was on the wing – City gave Sharry a chance and Sharry will not have been pleased with how that chance was grasped. He joins a list of players who promised much in pre-season and glimpses from the bench but ultimately went on their way. Craig Bentham, Robert Morgan, Tom Penford, Danny Forrest, Kevin Sanasy and on and on. The last ten years has been peopled with these players.

It would be tempting to look at the improvements to training facilities and suggest that City hampered our own youth development because of them – that with a decent pitch Forrest would be banging goals in and Bentham would be holding the midfield together – but that does not ring true.

Likewise it would be easy to look at the players and label them “not good enough” the idea being that had Sharry been obviously quality in the way that Joe Colbeck and Luke O’Brien – the past two players of the season – were then he would have broken into the team. This is probably true but only tells half a story.

For it is not the likes of Sharry, Penford, Bentham and the like who tried at City and ultimately moved on but rather the likes of Luke Cornwall, of Gareth Edds, of Michael Symes who replaced them. Moving out our young players only to move in the lads who had been moved out elsewhere. It is common up and down football and somewhere in North East Lincolnshire there is a kid with a right foot but no contract wondering what Luke Sharry has that makes him a better bet for a place next season.

The processes around young players seem to be at fault to me. The lads who come through the ranks are looked on as lottery tickets and if they do not produce a jackpot they are quickly cast aside only to be replaced by the tickets cast aside by another club.

The likes of Sharry, Morgan, Sanasy et al filled places in the squad and often went unused – less than a half dozen appearances between those three – but perhaps while the major aim of a youth set up is unearthing a Fabian Delph to make big profits in the future perhaps another – more realistic – aim should be to create a bunch of players who can fill a squad as Sharry did rather than sifting through other club’s cast offs after casting off our own.

I liked the look of Luke Sharry but – sadly, I guess – it seems he is on his way. He did not do what many people would call a great job at City but he did a job of adding depth to the squad and from the club’s point of view – financially as well as ethically when recruiting lads like him – is it not better to have that done by one of our youth rather than bringing in someone else to be reserve to Omar Daley and Scott Neilson?

And as supporters should we not stop looking at the lads coming through as hot young prospects that might be the next big thing and started giving them a chance to be members of our squad – to be footballers. We talk about the idea of a player being “good enough” without ever finishing the sentence.

Good enough for what? Good enough compared to whom? If the likes of Bentham and Penford were not good enough for League One then – obviously and manifestly – the replacements for those lads who built up a partnership for Colin Todd’s side at the end of one season were not either because twelve months later we were relegated.

The final thought is a comparison of Danny Forrest and Luke Cornwall as the proof that the grass is seldom greener on the other side.

I was always very keen on Danny Forrest – released by Bradford City today aged 21 after 12 years at Valley Parade – but facts that had to be faced were that it was apparent that at this stage of his career Forrest did not look like the player who City need and he needed to be moved out.

Moved out is a harsh term to use about anyone who has been associated with a club for over a decade and applied the levels of passion to it that Danny has but as is right and proper when dealing with young players a graduation day – a day when a level is set and those who are above it prosper and those below fail – has to come and Forrest unfortunately falls under the bar.

Development of young players is a constant filtering process which is done on a timeline of player improvement and Forrest’s improvement seems to have been arrested.

There are some that would say that he was never “going to make a footballer” and they are entitled to that view but City are no less wrong to have persisted with him as they were to pick up the 16 year old Stuart McCall and give him a chance. Development is about graduations and affording chances for young players to rise through the ranks and as Forrest falls under the graduation mark along comes Joe Brown to test himself against it.

Forrest’s release to give Brown a chance is common in football and at City. Lee Sharpe was allowed to leave Manchester United to give Ryan Giggs the left wing position and at City Graeme Tomlinson was pushed through the ranks by pushing Scott Partridge out of the club. Partridge went on to a respectable career – at one point he lived with Helen Chamberlain – and had a decade of football after City let him go. One hopes – fervently hopes that Forrest can do that same and he can use leaving his home town club as the spur to move on as he seems unable to do at City and Halifax.

In the meantime he – and I – have some great memories of the local boy shining out in a sea of rent-a-players like Andy Gray and professionals winding down like Robert Molenaar and playing for Bradford City as if it meant something to them because it meant something to them.

Joe Brown, Joe Colbeck, Tom Penford, John Swift, Craig Bentham et al are all carrying on it the footsteps reforged by Danny Forrest. I know he enjoyed the goals he score din claret and amber – I saw them all – and I enjoyed him scoring them and as he leaves I can only hope that he enjoys the memories as much as I do.

Considering the anticipation I had at his every touch two years ago Tom Penford’s sudden and effective re-emergence blindsided me at Valley Parade on Saturday. Sure TP was on the bench but I had assumed that Colin Todd was engaged in more of a shirt filling exercise and that the player I saw so much potential in before would carry on as a reserve until he exited in the summer.

Penford arrived on the field and then arrived with his perfectly floated cross to Dean Windass and the rest is the future and at the moment that looks bright. Back in August Colin Todd had had the chance to release Penford but kept him on saying he saw something there but making it clear that something needed shaping.

Back when Penford made his debut against West Brom in 2003 blooding players was very much the order of the day. I was impressed by the languid style Penford has and his way of moving slowly with the ball to give himself more time on it. In a game crammed with players and managers who believe pace is the answer to all situations it was refreshing to see Penford style. Refreshing and reminiscent of Chris Waddle’s days at Valley Parade. Penford – born in Leeds but a childhood Bantams – had watched the former England man and learned.

However somewhat conversely to the problems with administration Penford and many of his peers found themselves further from the first team squad as the club rebuilt. Kevin Sanasy was exiled at Farsley Celtic in a kind of swap deal for 18 year old forward Nick Smith and the sense was that Penford would go in a similar direction. He still might – football is a game that punishes the player who rests on his laurels – but the chances of him leaving VP in the summer now seems greatly reduced.

So what has happened in the past few years to Penford. The one cross aside Penford’s contribution to the 1-1 draw with Swansea was significant and effective. It had the end product which Colin Todd used to talk to Ben Muirhead about and showed a talent, not a promise, for the future.

One can only guess. The work Colin Todd and Bobby Davison put in on the training ground has had hand in the development of Penford and who are being presented with chances at Valley Parade at the moment for sure but one suspects that they couple of months of league football when 17 which TP got has given him an understanding of what is required to make it in the game.

After a few months playing the men’s game a 16/17/18 player gets more focused on what will be required of them when they are older and the exceptions made for being a kid are peeled back for the player to be revealed. David Wetherall believes that Penford needs to build up his body and he is no doubt right but that point was probably apparent to the player back in 2004 and is something he has worked on. The 2006 Tom Penford got stuck in enough for my liking and looks like a guy who is serious about getting on in football. The white boots of two years ago were gone and replaced with businesslike black. The early blooding means that we are not fielding a 20 year old fresh face to be kicked about by senior professionals but a player who understands the requirements of league football.

The future for Penford is open now – one good performance needs to be built on – but that future could be bright because at the age of 20 City are producing a player not a prospect. Note that all this applies in equal measure to Danny Forrest who is loaned out at Halifax Town at present but like Penford will be hoping to have a future at the club he supports.

So to Yeovil and Penford hopes to maintain a place in the team. The haircut might be a bit Chris Martin but the attitude in his play and the play on the field is obviously more aimed at producing an end product and that is in no small part thanks to a early blooding in the City team.

A template for the future, so to speak.

Hull City 3 Bradford City 0 At Boothferry Park in Friendly, 2002/2003

Perhaps this is where one hundred years of history has come to an end. 3-0 defeat on a cold and rain soaked night in Hull which could be the last football game Bradford City ever play. Word around the few from Bradford who came across is that the numbers for the CVA do not add up and this club is left looking for a miracle to stay in existence beyond Friday. Perhaps when you look across the hundred years of this club, or maybe just the past twenty years, the balance sheet would show we are owed a miracle.

It is being said that Gerling, the biggest creditor Bradford City have, will refuse the £700,000 payment for the debt of £7m and as a result put the club into liquidation. They will not get anymore money from liquidation in fact they will get substantially less, but they feel that if they do not there will face a rush of clubs trying to follow City down this tortuous, wretched route just to rip up a few balance statements. If they are bloody fools. Who would choose this route? Who would go through this by choice?

So the future for City if this is the case is that we have no future. Unless the numbers come up on the 1st of August then the 31st of July will be Bradford City’s final day as a football club of any real significance. I cannot get my head around that just yet. I am not sure I ever will be able to.

I can remember the mistakes we made. Signing Benito Carbone, Dan Petrescu, Ashley Ward et al in the summer of 2002 but even the most pessimistic would never have seen here from there. Only the harshest of judges could say that a few badly done transfer deals should result in one hundred years of football history being wiped out.

The real problem is that I do not feel that we have done enough wrong for this punishment. What was our crime again? Did we over reached trying to live in the Premiership? I guess we did but surely that equation damns English football for all time. What is the point of this game we would call beautiful if it is as predetermined as a WWF match up?

Should the likes of Bradford City never try get better? What is the punishment for failure? Obliteration? Leicester City, Derby County, Ipswich Town. All tried to move up a rung in the Premiership and had some success but I fear for those clubs.

No, I lie. I fear for this game that I am beginning to call God Forsaken. This is not the sport that we grew up watching. Football was above all things fair. Effort was rewarded. Good pros and good players got just deserts and when things were well-managed success was achieved. If things went wrong then clubs won nothing and scraped by, but they got by in the vast majority of cases.

So who is next? If Bradford City can not be a viable proposition with a year ago 15,000 season ticket holders and a 25,000 capacity stadium then who will be next. My money is on Chelsea, Sunderland, Everton or even Leeds or one of the other clubs that tried to break into the top flight of the top flight and failed. Expect shockwaves when that happens. People will cry crocodile tears over Bradford City.

But not us. Our tears will be a genuine and as real as they are at any funeral. This is not the ending of a business, it is the death of our communal dream. If you do not understand that you do not understand football.

The numbers might come in on Thursday, I pray to God that they do. This article will then seem like the reactionary nonsense of someone too close to proceedings to get perspective but driving back from Hull with the water feeding off the tyres of cars in front and effortlessly being wiped away from the windscreen it seems like we are on the brink of the end of our World.

Bradford City were Richard Siddall, Gus Uhlenbeek, Lewis Emanuel, Paul Evans, Robert Morgan, Mark Bower, Michael Standing, Craig Fishlock, Paul Gedman, Andy Gray, Andrew Lee. Subs: Danny Forrest, Keith Brodie, Tom Penford.