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Bradford City play Aldershot Town At Valley Parade in League Two, 2009/2010

It was 53 short weeks ago that Bradford City crushed Aldershot Town on their last visit to Valley Parade. Two goals from the returning-to-form Peter Thorne, a beauty of an effort from the edge of the box by Dean Furman, a tap in for Barry Conlon and a comical own-goal set up by Joe Colbeck. 5-0, City fourth in the league with 11 games to go. The excitement was growing at the prospect of ending the season with the glory of promotion.

As we all know, it ended miserably with the platform that victory had laid on for City proving something of a peak to the second half of the season at least. The next nine of those remaining 11 were winless as the Bantams fell out of the promotion picture, the ending of the season with back-to-back victories thus meaningless. The backwards steps have continued into this season.

City now have a long way to go just to get to where they were after that Spring demolition of the Shots. The up and down nature of results since Peter Taylor took over the reins has at times given hope of a late play off push this time around, but the slip ups and barely decreasing distance from the top seven has all but extinguished such faint chances. After Saturday’s clash with Aldershot is over, there will again be 11 games to go – even a complete reversal of results compared to those nine games at the end of last season probably wouldn’t be enough.

If we could turn the clocks back to the final whistle a year ago and apply hindsight, what warnings would we now offer and to whom? Perhaps the most obvious would seem to be changing Stuart McCall’s u-turn over his threat to quit. As Taylor impresses for the composure and organisation he has brought to the team, the growing temptation is to look back over McCall’s final season and dismiss it a waste of time. If only Taylor had taken over sooner, it can be argued, the club might still be approaching the final section of the season with promotion hopes.

The ‘SOS’ demonstration at the end of the last season might be something we’d go back and urge the organisers to cancel. The holding up of banners in support of McCall has caused widespread debate even during this season, with the number of supporters willing to admit they displayed a sign surprisingly few.

Where I sit in the Midland Road Stand, a previously quiet and pleasant woman suddenly can’t stop ranting, during the last few months, about how poor a manager McCall is/was, and inadvertently slamming those who backed him. Prior to the start of recent homes games she’s repeatedly uttered, “Do you know who I blame for this season? All those supporters who held up signs supporting him at the last home game” out loud to everyone around her, the majority of whom did hold up signs. Sorry lady, it’s all my fault.

But perhaps we’d take a different approach if we could go back, considering where City might be today but for that late season collapse. If City have gone onto earn promotion during those final 11 games a year ago, there would have been no need to reduce the transfer and wage budgets by a third for this campaign – an action which has undoubtedly undermined efforts.

Instead we might warn McCall where it would all go wrong -  to be mindful of defending set pieces at Spotland a few days later, to make sure Barry Conlon and Matt Clarke are behaving while staying in Devon prior to the Exeter game, how tinkering with the team too much leads to the inconsistent form, how a linesman will rob the team at Morecambe, not to sign Paul chuffin Mullin, that certain players cannot be counted on when the chips are down, and why it’s so important he doesn’t let it all get him down too much.

Perhaps most of all we’d warn him not to publicly threaten to quit in the manner he did after losing to Bournemouth, because it seemed to only breed instability and nervousness in the team rather than help it. The decline was already starting and he needed to be more positive in addressing it. The Bournemouth defeat was the third in a row; worrying form – but it needn’t have turned into the disastrous form that would continue another six games.

Mistakes were made, as McCall himself readily admits, and they soon added up to something far bigger. Ultimately City’s failure this season is due to the failure of the one before, and the immediate challenge remains reversing those backward steps. 53 weeks after thrashing Aldershot 5-0, it is now the visitors who harbour the promotion hopes. They, and so many other clubs, have been able to catch up and overtake City over the last 12 months, it’s already going to be a long road back.

But like in any aspect of life – it’s not how many mistakes are made, but how quickly they are learned from. Sometimes it’s a torturous and miserable path, but if the resultant lessons can be applied positively it will be a journey worth taking. If we had not put up our SOS posters and if McCall had departed during the summer, it’s highly unlikely City would be currently employing Taylor. Someone else would have come in and, with the same budget constraints, may have done no better.

The lessons McCall learned from his first two seasons would not have been applied, the new guy may have repeated the City legend’s mistakes of hiring players not up to this level or lacking in desire. However well it can be judged McCall performed this season, there’s little doubt Taylor has inherited a squad to build on rather than start all over again – due to McCall targeting the right kind of players within the budget constraints.

And if the short-term deal works out and Taylor can replicate the kind of success he enjoyed at Hull, the misery of the last 12 months and the refusal of McCall to quit last summer will ultimately have been worth it. Life doesn’t allow you to turn back the clock, mistakes cannot be undone.  City have had 53 weeks of regrets and now more than ever is the time to apply those lessons. Taylor is impressing in both victory and defeat. We know he has the experience, he’s proving he has the knowledge, the main question mark is that of his own appetite – and that of the Chairmen – to make it work.

53 weeks on Taylor has so far used only seven players from the sixteen involved against the Shots last season  – only three of which have started the last four games. Luke O’Brien, Lee Bullock and Matt Clarke have themselves been the subject of healthy debates for much of this season, but all appear to be impressing Taylor. Meanwhile the futures of the other four – Thorne, Michael Boulding, Zesh Rehman and Chris Brandon – look decidedly shaky.  Taylor vowed to give everyone a go and would seem to already be making his mind up over who he would offer a City future too and who he’d move on.

Two of his own short-term recruits have yet to really feature but, after a disappointing performance in losing to Port Vale, may now get their chance. Little is known of Luke Oliver, other than his height, but he could make his debut alongside Clarke in the centre of defence. Gavin Grant has arrived on a pay-as-you-play basis and in need of building fitness. With Gareth Evans having a poor game at Vale Park, that fitness might be tested from the start tomorrow. Omar Daley too will be vying for only a fourth start in a year.

Daley is one of the few players not out of contract this summer and Taylor’s ability to judge the Jamaican is hampered by his understandable lack of fitness. So far Taylor has gone for the workrate of Evans and O’Brien on the flanks to start and, if Daley watched AC Milan’s pathetic surrender at Old Trafford this week largely due to widemen not bothering to track back and Manchester United murdering the Italians down the flanks, he will have some idea of what he needs to do to fit in with the new-look City.

Elsewhere Mark McCammon will have arrived for a month at City with greater ambition than swapping one sub bench for another, and Taylor may consider him to start ahead of James Hanson or Michael Flynn, the latter moving back to midfield. The arrival of Adam Bolder sees greater competition in the centre of midfield, with Steve O’Leary still on the fringes, but Taylor would surely be reluctant to leave out either Bolder or the in-form Bullock.

Matt Glennon keeps goal, having been faintly criticised in public by Taylor for not stopping Vale’s winning goal on Tuesday. Glennon’s spell at City has been curious for its lack of incident. He has made some good saves, but nothing too noteworthy. He has also conceded a few goals he might have been expected to save. He has impressed in the command of his penalty area, but the long-term custodian he may not be. Having played only seven games for Bristol Rovers, a third return of Rhys Evans this summer would be widely cheered by fans.

Simon Ramsden and Robbie Threlfall retain the full back slots; Steve Williams may face the axe for Oliver; Jon Bateson, Michael Boulding and Thorne wait impatiently for rare opportunities.

Aldershot 1 Bradford City 0 At Recreation Ground in League Two, 2009/2010

If there is a reason that Peter Taylor is at Bradford City it is to make City hard to beat. Long trips in the dark to places like Aldershot always seem like the sort of games which have – in the past decade or so – drifted all to easily away and when one considers that ideally the fixtures are played one home, one away then to create a sense of momentum it is important that trips on the road are fruitful.

Not that Stuart McCall’s side were especially weak on their travels – his last away trip as City manager, or first before becoming QPR Assistant if you believe another rumour – was a 2-1 win at Torquay United but for a team to get into the winning mentality that all promoted teams have and Taylor’s side aspires to then trips like Aldershot need to be not lost.

Which suits Taylor fine. Away from Valley Parade City have been a curious beast for sometime. Freed from the weighty Bradford City home support and more vocally backed by the travellers the players often come alive in a way they never do at VP. They play more freely, at times, and often face more adventurous sides than tose who put two lines of four behind the ball when in West Yorkshire.

Which is not that dissimilar to the approach that the new Bradford City take to the first of these three trips on the road. A back four protected by a pair of tough central midfielders – Lee Bullock continued his excellent form tonight and Flynn’s robust play finds a home in the middle of Taylor’s midfield – with two wide men who are requires to work back. It is football from the men in claret of a type we have not often seen.

Nevertheless it is effective. The directness of play to Mark McCammon and James Hanson seems to cut through a million meanders forward and seems no less dangerous. McCammon takes every opportunity to unsettle defender Anthony Straker and the pair clash all night long. He tries an overhead kick at one point after a well worked corner to no avail and the home side struggle to deal with him or with Hanson.

None of which is to say that there is not football played – the interchanges between either front man and the flank players are especially useful – but without the first half goal that despirited Darlington on Saturday Aldershot were able to make a break through with Matthew Clarke and Steve Williams both leaving Anthony Charles to take his time and fire in just after half time. On balance it seems a little harsh on City but perhaps it was more unexpected with a growing belief in Peter Taylor and his team perhaps growing too much, too quickly.

The Bantams response is to introduce Omar Daley and switch to something like a three up front, McCammon coming off and Hanson being pressed into solo service and Gareth Evans moving into the forward line. Both players get into the action quickly with Evans hitting a free kick at goal and Daley firing the ball wide from just inside the box. Daley starts to cause more problems for the home side and looks hungry and eager to impress. It is over thirteen months since his last goal, a long slice to be taken out of the career of any player and I think about how much I have missed the winger. Selfish, greedy, lazy? Perhaps and the booking he gets minutes after coming on is far from impressive but if he is these things he is also the player who most often gets you on the edge of your seat.

Not that we have seats here. The Recreation Ground is hardly better than Farsley Celtic. Football has been through the biggest boom in its history but games are played in conditions like this which is not criticism of what they are doing at Aldershot – I’m sure they would love to improve the place – just that one has to wonder if football is going to emerge out of the end of the boom years having squandered all the rewards.

Taylor’s last throw the dice comes after Michael Flynn has spurned a great chance to head City level. Gavin Grant – a player who does not get paid for his troubles – comes on for Evans are provides a double fork of speedy attacking opposite Daley. Aldershot had a couple of chances to get a second as the Bantams went more open – Taylor deployed what we shall no doubt dub “Plan B” – and Robbie Threlfall puts an Omar Daley cross wide of the post from eight yards out. Aldershot head one wide of their own post. Lee Bullock slams the ball towards the goal. An equaliser seems fated.

Minutes later and Michael Flynn is applauding the few City fans who have been able to come down for this twice rearranged match to see a team battle hard but ultimately be beaten.

Beaten, but hard to be beaten.

Bradford City 1 Darlington 0 At Valley Parade in League Two, 2009/2010

While Peter Taylor was plotting to take Bradford City to two wins in five days Mark Lawn was considering pulling out the club to put the Bantams in administration.

Lawn’s ire came after his car was vandalised by some City fans following the Accrington Stanley game last weekend. Lawn’s upset abated as he described,

The general abuse shocked me and I won’t stand for it. It’s more than out of order. I talked to Julian (Rhodes) the following day and said that I felt like taking the loan back. Then Bradford City would be in administration – it’s as simple as that. We have all these wonderful fans but there are always some who want me out. But what would they do then? If I took my £1 million loan back, what do they think is going to happen to the football club? Never mind my share investment capital, without that loan the club would not exist.

Lawn wants the offenders to come to him to talk the matter over, and to be banned for life and to face criminal damaged charges and rightly so. The joint chairman is right to make a clear statement that such behaviour is unacceptable.

What to make of Lawn’s follow up statement is up to the individual fans – be they those who attack cars, those who turn up week in and week out for decades, who raise money to pay for today’s match winner James Hanson, those who kept the club in business twice in the last decade:

I’m a fan like them and I’ve two million more reasons to be frustrated.

The £5,000 donated to the club by a supporter via The City Gent paid for two thirds of James Hanson’s transfer represents a significant fan investment in the club and paid off handsomely for the Bantams today with the former shelf stacker turned City top scorer starting and ending the conclusive move of the match that saw Darlington dispatched from Valley Parade on the wrong end of a 1-0 defeat.

The result seemed in little doubt once the Bantams – who started the game effectively with new signing Mark McCammon and Hanson operating as a powerful two man battering ram – took the lead when Hanson played a smart ball deep to a confident Gareth Evans down the right flank who centred to McCammon only for Hanson to spirit in front of the new boy to convert.

Hanson should have doubled City’s advantage when a similarly well crafted move came to the striker who hit a good shot which was saved by young keeper Shane Redmond who – along with the central defender Ian Miller – put in superb performances that did much to keep the Quakers in with a chance of salvaging something from the match right up until the final whistle.

Not that the forward line of the visitors – well marshalled by Steve Williams – looked like taking those chances. The visitors lacked confidence and often lashed the ball on the slightest sight of the net threatening very little.

When Darlington did muster an attack they found Peter Taylor’s City more resolute than one would imagine they would have been under Stuart McCall but – as a result – a touch more tedious.

Twenty minutes from time and substitute Omar Daley played a fine cross field ball thirty five yards from his own goal and as Michael Flynn took the ball to attack Daley meandered forward more bothered about maintaining defensive position in front of Robbie Threlfall than joining the mounting attack. It was not uncommon over the afternoon and typified City’s approach to the game. Being hard to beat rather than beating the opposition out of sight.

Taylor’s side got a first home win for the new manager and the second win in three. His pragmatic approach to the game becomes clearer with his withdrawal of McCammon and introduction of Michael Boulding who spurned a last minute chance to set Hanson’s up for a double. Boulding’s arrival saw City’s midfield switch to a prescribed path of playing early balls to try get behind the Darlington backline. Flynn and Bullock would play the ball long – often without looking – to the groans of the supporters but Taylor was satisfied that the players were following his plan.

Sitting back, hitting a team on the break, and sneaking a win. It was a far cry from the expansive 433 and dashed hopes of Stuart McCall’s three years at the club but as Taylor takes his Bantams for three away games at Aldershot, Rotherham and then Port Vale on the road in in the next ten days such an approach could prove useful.

And three points won at Valley Parade is a welcome Saturday afternoon but it is an afternoon tinged with sadness and Peter Taylor and his practical football took over from Stuart McCall’s dream of glory and shows signs of reward. City have beaten the top and the bottom sides in the last week and done so with the same common sense, simple type of performance.

Drifting away was the dream of McCall for sure, but with it it seems goes that of a club in which the supporters who have done so much to keep the Bantams in football are at the heart of Bradford City. The club exists at the behest of the joint chairman – he makes that very clear – and feels things more times more than any other supporters.

One hopes that he fells he has 2,000,000 reasons to feel happier today.