More About Valley Parade
There is a school of thought on message boards and forums that has it that Gordon Gibb is preparing to ride to the rescue of Bradford City with a huge financial investment which would see him take control of the club to protect his asset - Valley Parade - and catapult the team back to glory.
Frankly I wish I had some of what those people are drinking. Gordon Gibb is not the white knight riding to our rescue. In fact Gordon Gibb would not know one side of a white horse from the other and the investment he has in Valley Parade is as much his sister’s as his and belongs to a pension fund.
Nevertheless BfB understands that some kind of investment is coming and coming soon. Julian Rhodes has been in talks with a guy with a bob or two and the upshot would seem to be that his time as the man holding the weight of Bradford City on his own may be coming to an end. I doubt the phrase White Knight should be used - should it ever be applied to someone preparing for the thankless task of football ownership - but maybe Knighthood is a good metaphor to use.
For a long time Bradford City - as a whole rather than a group of directors or owners - have operated a kind of Quixotic belief that the club would flourish on the basis of a couple of decisions taken in popularist ways. For the La Mancha windmills read the managers of Valley Parade. Each one slain would prove something, would right some wrong, but never did.
In League Two we face up to reality and that reality is that any investment in the club from another owner needs to be matched by a reality check around the ground. I’ve spoken too long about atmosphere and development of players in that environment, about expectations and setting them to reasonable levels and about good old fashioned get behind the lads support. I honestly believe that without these things being addressed then money into City is wasted. I honestly believe that a very good start addressing these would be to appoint Stuart McCall.
It is a commonly held belief that McCall would have become City manager had we not been relegated this season and from what BfB understand this is the case but McCall has issued no comments
rather than denials and - as he faces up to trying to keep Sheffield United in the Premiership as assistant tomorrow afternoon - is torn between his head which tells him to coach at The Blades until a top two divisions job comes up or follow his heart back to Valley Parade.
For inspiration perhaps McCall will look ten years to his left tomorrow to Paul Jewell who took City and Wigan and made his own Premiership clubs. Had Jewell not taken brave decisions with his career then he would not be considered the manager he is today. League Two to anywhere is a huge ask but City need McCall and he knows it but without him City’s future looks bleak.
McCall’s thinking time has the same clock as the investment and Julian Rhodes’s desire to announce a new manager - read into that what you will - and those who are in the know say that it is not as cut and dried as he won’t come cause we went down
and in situations such as these the murkiness of uncertainty is better than assured defeat.
I’m still not really sure how this happened this relegation thing.
I remember having an argument with a few people about how City were going to grind away to mid-table mediocrity under Colin Todd and I was saying that we should give the guy time cause he was doing a good job just having us in League One and then I was told that sacking him we could get promoted.
It was like a promise that getting rid of Todd would make things better. Someone must have believed it. I which this was me being wise after the event but I said it at the time.
I remember that we had a guy up front called Dean Windass who could do some stupid stuff but was the best striker in the league and people were telling me we shouldn’t play him to teach him a lesson or punish him for getting sent off and then someone said he should not even play for us again and now it looks like he won’t.
I’m pretty sure that things were not perfect and that basically things have been wrong at City since Richmond’s summer of madness but it struck me on Saturday that this club has a load of problems caused by Richmond and a load of problems caused by the way that big football screws over little football and a lot of problems caused by rubbish refereeing but we also had a load of problems caused by us.
The booing, the insisting that the gaffer is sacked, the guys who pick on one player be it Deano or Ben Parker or Billy Paynter or anyone, the mood at VP that is so negative. All stopping people coming to Valley Parade. All real problems.
So I remembered that City had loads of problems outside the camp and then it struck me as I watched half a team playing out the end of League One football that we should sort out the problems inside the ground and inside us fans first.
It seems to me that booing is the new cheering. I’m old fashioned and I remember a time when a supporter would make good on the term and shout words of encouragement from the sidelines with the hope that a passing player may be effected. Of course I have no idea if whailing “Skin ‘em Johnny” to Hendrie caused the dominative Scot to make that one final but perhaps decisive run past a defender or not - one doubts his plan was to do anything else - but I like to feel that he felt inspiration.
I like to think that had someone bellowed at lung limit to Pansear yesterday Stay in for more than three balls and make a hundred run last man stand
then he might have at least been inspired to do so.
Nevertheless the chorus of boos has replaced the round of applause at sporting events these days and there is no better example of this than the treatment of Joe Colbeck at Valley Parade. The lad has a few thousand of the worst sort of School game Dad’s berating his every mistake and like a shrinking 12 year old it shows in a lack of confidence.
Booing has replaced cheering because it is easier to do. Destruction has always been easier than creation and recognising the good has always required a little more than pointing to the bad. Especially in situations like City’s were the one so obviously outweighs the other. Of course this is all Thatcher’s fault. The every man for himself model of society clashes with the ethic of team sports as a community representation. Success at all costs, loathing for those without.
Realpolitik aside this is hardly a new phenomenon. In the Coliseum Emperors signaled who was to live and who was to die with the famed thumbs up/thumbs down gesture. It is a curio of history that the with the digit pointing upwards signalled that to the delight of the masses the Gladiator in question would be ripped apart and generally killed which while pleasing for the crowd was so what damaging to the fighter’s career.
We use the thumbs up to mean good things - at least The Fonz did - in recognition of how it means that good things would happen. A thumbs down probably saw the Emperor booed so he will have avoided it. As long as the crowd get what they want everyone is probably happy.
None of which brings us round to Valley Parade on Saturday. It has long been the opinion of many that there is a significant section of City fans who enjoy the moan more than the match and the thumbs up of City getting beaten gives them a focus for their week of conversation.
City’s own Julian Rhodes - and Emperor of sorts - said about the weekend all or nothing game with Leyton Orient
“Saturday is not going to be pretty. It’s all about blood, guts and endeavour. But the pleasing thing is that every player is giving it their all. To see the loanees putting in the kind of effort they are has been a joy to watch.
Me, I’m less keen on the sight of someone being ripped limb from limb and old school enough to cheer or say nothing at all. I was brought up on “Skin ‘em Johnny” not skinless Gladiators and I’m happy to stay that way.