BfB

If you were to use the words “nothing has happened” in relation to the last two weeks someone might look at you askance.

Prime Minister, Brexit, Iceland, Etc.

If you did said it about Bradford City’s transfer policy you would be able to claim some level of accuracy. The list of transfers in June 2016 grows and the signing club is not Bradford City in any of them.

And that list includes some interesting names too. George Moncur – who joined Championship Barnsley – is the very type of player one might want to see in Stuart McCall’s new Bradford City team. Paul Downing – who joined MK Dons – is reported to have been a target that City missed out on.

No matter. As season ticket sales report to be slower than hoped for there is an idea that were Bradford City to make some impressive signings then bums would go onto seats. This is wishful thinking. While there are players who might sign at League One level who could convert the unconverted they are hard to think of.

If you, dear reader, believe that were we to sign the much lauded Bradley Dack, or Romaine Sawyers of Walsall, or Millwall’s Lee Gregory that the man sitting in his armchair watching Match of the Day will be beating a path to Valley Parade I’d suggest you are engaging in a wilful self-delusion.

There are a number of great targets available for sure but the people who know them are not staying away from Valley Parade for their absence. If you are the sort of person who knows who Mark Beevers is you have probably already got your season ticket sorted out.

If you are waiting for City to sign a big name then I would suggest that there is no name City could sign big enough to stimulate your interest.

So while it is curious that City are a few weeks away from pre-season and have allowed the player pool to be whittled away it is not exactly troubling. New chairman, new owners, new manager, new scouts, new targets. It might be unfortunate than Moncur and Downing have slipped away from City’s grasp but it is hardly surprising.

And it probably beats the alternative which is a scatter signing where you get the best players you can find on paper and nail them into system. If you want to know what scatter signing teams look like you need only cast your mind back to Monday in Nice where a group of very talented players with very expensive price tags were beaten by another group of talented players with much less expensive price tags who had been assembled with a little more care.

Or better still think back to Stuart McCall’s first spell as City manager where players were brought in and shipped out with an indecent frequency causing a team with as brittle a character as one can remember.

Players like Paul McLaren came in and were shipped out and one wonders how much care went into their signings. Three of the best signing in City’s recent: Gary Jones, Rory McArdle, and Stephen Darby; all came with a guarantee of character from assistant boss Steve Parkin.

When signing a player managers want to – need to – know about the character of the individuals they are signing. Skills are obvious – on the whole – but how do you know you are not signing a Jake Speight, or a Leon Osborne?

Take two of McCall’s signings. James Hanson is proved himself as a character and as a player for Bradford City. Steve Williams has proved himself as a barber.

Williams looked like a superbly talented footballer and a classy defender but the two conversation I have had with people who knew Williams said they same thing. He did not have the desire needed to be a footballer. He did not “want it” enough and it showed.

There is a celebrated story of West Yorkshire’s own Frank Worthington – a sublimely talented 1970s footballer – turning up to play for Sir Alf Ramsey’s England wearing leather boots and all over denim.

This was the England team of Bobby Moore and the Shelf Cowboy need not apply. He did not fit in, at all, and which accounted for his few caps in the same way that his move to Liverpool was – according to David Peace’s account and popular folklore – cancelled because his to STDs he picked up in the space of a week.

Shankley, and Ramsey, took one look at Worthington and knew that as good as he was on the field he was not good for the dressing room.

How do you find these things out? How do you get better at recruitment? I’d imagine it has a lot to do with scouting, with knowing the difference between a good footballer and someone who is good at kicking a football, and about having enough contacts to find that information out.

Maybe it can be done ten times in the space of two weeks. Maybe not.

We heard much talk of hoping that Stuart McCall had changed and had learnt as a manager and here it is. It might put a dampener on season ticket sales that City have not brought in ten players in a week (and I would argue that it does not) but it heartens me that no one at Valley Parade is bringing in ten new faces with a week or two preperation.

To me that is the first sign that McCall has changed and, dare one say it, improved.

Football used to have a place for people like Dean Windass who – talking on Radio Leeds – declared his interest in taking over at Valley Parade. He is expected to be interviewed next week.

After a long career and a good deal of highs and lows some club in the lower leagues would take the journeyman player and welcome him into their club, showing him to the manager’s office, and seeing what happened.

And often it was not much.

Sir Bobby Moore turned up at Southend United as a reward for a career well done, Sir Bobby Charlton did the same at Preston North End. Sir Bobby’s uncle “Wor” Jackie Milburn was Ipswich Town manager for a year and a bit. These were big names. Lower down the ladder of football the jobbing player got given a chance just as England stars did. Football tends to like to look after its own and any player who has been heard of got given a club to manage for a brief spell before ended up running a pub.

Reputation was the key of course. When Sir Bobby Moore walked into Roots Hall he brought a dash of World Cup magic with him. Forever painted in red and gold on a sunny day in ’66 he must have dazzled in interview and the supporters no doubt welcomed him with the same awe. Aside from the odd quote in a newspaper – tidied up by a friendly editor – footballers seldom talked about football so the idea that the England skipper might not be that clued up on running a team never seemed to occur.

And then came BSkyB. Twenty four hour non-stop talking about football from anyone and everyone who can string a sentence together, and often those who cannot.

Which brings us to Dean Windass who is exactly that sort of player who would have been given a chance by some chairman who held him in high esteem and supporters would have been impressed by his reputation. Not now though with Windass having spent the last few years struggling to be coherent in front of camera for Sky TV.

Not that I would criticise him for struggling with that job – on the hoof football analysis is tough – but the fact that his abilities thinking on his feet has been exposed means that rather than his arrival being treated with he surprise of the new Windass has already been revealed.

He is what he is. Gruff, passionate, seemingly not especially bright (again, one would hate to conclude that on the basis of doing a tough job on Sky) and hardly the stuff of the modern tactical manager. A million miles away from Mourinho.

How close to Trevor Cherry? How close to Roy McFarland? Two of City’s successful managers of the 1980s got the job on the basis of England credentials and their own reputations. When appointed no supporter could say if Cherry or McFarland talked a good game, both played one, and that was enough.

So Windass represents a kind of old school approach to appointments. The guy who gets the job because of his reputation and a good feel that they chairman gets from him and – if he does well – gets to keep it.

It seems doubtful that City are prepared to turn the clock back.