More About Xaviar Barrau
Bradford City 1 Blackpool 2 - Friendly Game 2007/2008
They say that he approached the ball with something like the eye of a Hawk and ran to it with an unusually bandy stride of a baby gazelle trotting to Mother and they say that he stumbled slightly after meeting the ball which rose and fell over wall and into the goal. LA Galaxy pay £450,000 a for this skill - Bradford City pay Paul Evans for it and McCall’s McCall scored his first free kick since his return on the day he writes his name on the second contract he has signed for Bradford City.
Evans - scoring the one in a closed doors 2-1 defeat with good run out against Blackpool - is back and he is not alone. Paul Heckingbottom’s impressiveness years ago came after a slow build up and the left back showed the same steady improvement. Darren Williams supports the right hand side of midfield in a way that McCall will recall Brian Mitchell doing. The new gaffer’s Bradford City forms into a wonderful amalgam of previous incarnations.
Lazy comparisons put Omar Daley and Jamie Lawrence together but industrious Alex Rhodes - former Brentford boy looking at earning a contract - is more like the number seven of ‘99. Rhodes worked both wings - or so they say - and chased everything. Also chasing is Eddie Johnson who seems to have nailed down a place in McCall’s starting midfield alongside Evans. Johnson is a triumph of breeding and attitude over expectations and is welcome in my midfield any time.
Those who saw the game were impressed with City’s gusto and thought the late Blackpool winner was unjust. They said that Nathan Joynes alongside Barry Conlon in McCall’s 442 showed flashes but was worryingly Isaiah Rankin in front of goal. They noted that McCall’s 442 omitted a Peter Beagrie figure but they are few and far between.
Eyes were rubbed when Xavier Barrau - scorer of the last two goals at Valley Parade in May - returned for another go and McCall seemed ready to let the exuberant Frenchman train. Barrau has become a footnote in Bradford City history - a quiz question about who scored the goal before… - but McCall’s referential Bantams are a broad church to play for a massed congregation of up to 12,000.
Room for the Frnechman, the Welshman and anyone else ready to take up the cause.
From The Real McCall which was written in 1998 by by Alan Nixon and Stuart McCall
One day, in the distant future I would love to manage Bradford City. If I had the choice, that would be where I would start. I would like to repay the Bradford fans for all their support and courage for those years ago. There is some unfinished business to be done as far as I’m concerned. I have never meant to put pressure on the manager in charge of Bradford at the time, I am talking down the line…
Andrew Stuart Murray McCall will begin his third spell at Bradford City with a weight of expectation. His first spell saw triumph and tragedy in the same afternoon in 1985. His second saw the hugh achievement of Premiership promotion and the subsequent fall into administration. His path is littered with success.
As the ink dries on the two year deal to manage the Bantams there is no idea of anything other than a replication of those glories.
Julian Rhodes has stood alone over the past few years keeping the club together - let history record that and damn the doubters - but now he is joined and in pursuing McCall so fervently that he was prepared to knock back a job two divisions higher to join City he has made the decision Geoffrey Richmond failed to.
Back in the summer of 2000 when Paul Jewell left the job at Bradford City the invigorating force of McCall should have been employed as manager with Chris Hutchings kept in the role of number two. Bygones. A mistake is only a mistake if it is repeated.
McCall takes over City and immediately has decisions to make. Dean Windass is keen on a transfer to Hull but the return of McCall may see the striker rethink. Windass is McCall’s second call.
McCall’s first call no doubt will be to the man he has in mind to be his assistant. Some think Terry Dolan, others Terry Yorath. Do not be surprised if McCall pulls out a name from his time at Rangers - do be surprised if that name is Paul Gascoigne. Also do not be surprised if David Wetherall’s coaching is rewarded with a place on the staff.
Once his backroom is in place and the Windass situation is resolved McCall will look at the out of contract four of Marc Bridge-Wilkinson, Steven Schumacher, Richard Edghill and Xaviar Barrau and make some decisions. No, Yes, No, No.
After that McCall begins to build and he could start that building at Southend United although not (just) for target man Billy Paynter but for former Bantam and Blade Simon Francis.
Lincoln City’s play off defeat means Spencer Weir-Daley favours us over them. It remains to be seen what McCall thinks of him.
Had we been two years ago then McCall’s side would have no doubt included If McCall gets a call from Italy from an excited Benito he should take it. If he gets one from Lancashire from a bloke called Ashley he can hang up. Players want to join clubs where they can see good things happening and this is Bradford City’s Keegan to Newcastle.
Decisions to be made. McCall is understood to have cancelled his family holiday to start work and what glorious, what long awaited, what wonderful work it should be.
The need for Bradford City to change focus from a club that buys to a club that produces players has been obvious at Valley Parade for some time and the fruits of that policy - first voiced by Gordon Gibb but continued through the investment in the youth set up - are becoming apprarant as the Bantams offered new deals to Tom Penford, Simon Ainge, Joe Colbeck and Craig Bentham.
The four - who all featured in David Wetherall or Colin Todd’s selections last season - are offered new deals while cohorts Joe Brown, Patrick McGuire, Nick Smith and John Swift are released.
The mystery of the stunted development of John Swift will remain at Valley Parade. Impressive in the first team on his debut under Colin Todd and a mouth on committed leader of the juniors who played well in the reserves something - and one doubts is was the performances of Richard Edghill - stood in Swift’s way.
Joe Brown’s release comes after his shined as a bright young thing but failed to nail down a place in the first team squad. Both Brown and Nick Smith are released to allow a more clear path through the ranks for seventeen year old Leon Osborne who featured in the last game of the year. Such a process - of setting a bar for the young players to beat and backing them when they do - replacing them should they not - maintains a healthy demand for continued improvement in the ranks.
Of the retained players Ainge looks ready for a place in the starting eleven next term and Bentham and Colbeck are already considered squad players. Penford has ability to spare as a succession of managers have believed and one hopes that with the exits of Marc Bridge-Wilkinson and perhaps Steven Schumacher he can turn that ability into performance.
Bridge-Wilkinson, Schumacher, Richard Edghill and Xavier Barrau are waiting for a new manager to be installed - something expected within two weeks - before being offered deal. Schumacher and Barrau are thought to be ready to sign, Edghill to be thinking over an offer from Macclesfield and Bridge-Wilkinson to be Port Vale bound.
Russell Howarth has also been released with Ben Saynor stepping up to number two goalkeeper.