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Gillingham boss Peter Taylor was kind enough to raise an arm to greet the Bradford City supporters who for a brief time watched him manage the side and for a time he must have wondered how the noise from the Bantams stands had changed.

Taylor once heard his own team booed off after winning a match, and his leader Tommy Doherty was booed on the field, to a point where the then City boss suggested that if the fans thought jeering was so beneficial he should work it into training.

When he watched Aaron McLean sprint into the box as a James Hanson header was fed out wide to Adam Reach and probably feared that the once feared hit man would dart past the defender and do what he had not done in eight weeks as a Bradford City player and score. He did.

McLean’s relief was obvious after his goal as was the affection for him from the Bradford City supporters. Such a drastic change since Doherty being booed, Taylor must of thought, and as City pressed on his Gillingham side in a tide which should have washed the Kent side away how right he was in his criticism of the booing supporters.

McLean has been nursed through every game by fans willing him to be all he could be. It warms the heart to watch.

But little else did as City squandered near total domination over Gillingham and ended up with a draw which it might be said both managers will be happy with but that Phil Parkinson should take no delight in at all.

Gillingham’s open midfield in the first half left an area between the back four and the midfield which City were able to exploit and did so. Adam Reach and Kyle Bennett started to show an understanding as if linked by sixty yards of elastic one showing one side when then other came in for the ball. Matthew Dolan moved forwards well and City had a chance to expand on the one goal lead but that chance – or those chances – were squander.

Amine Linganzi moved into the gap in the second half and Adebayo Akinfenwa came on and City would soon be looking at an equaliser by Cody McDonald and an afternoon where standards were lowered.

A word on Akinfenwa. He is often a joke of a player massive as he is but today Referee Michael Bull, and a good few of the City players, were taken in by that joke. Akinfenwa played by his own set of rules about the physical game and Bull allowed him to do so. It was like watching a kid at school who was rubbish so he was allowed to be offside to even things up.

But Akinfenwa is not rubbish, he is over weight, and he is allowed to throw that weight around with far less intervention from the Referee than other players on the field suffer. It is as tedious as it is disappointing and Andrew Davies must have wondered why Akinfenwa was allowed to spend fifteen minutes at the start of the second half jumping at him rather than with him (including in the build up to the goal) without a free kick being given.

But had Davies played with the spirit that saw him not even give Akinfenwa a kick at Wembley last May then City would have won and that leads us to the lowering of standards which was in evidence especially in the second half.

City have started to accept less than they should and this Parkinson should be worried about this.

First let me draw a distinction here between the idea that fans deserve more – a phrase I hate – or that players should always score with every shot or never make mistakes or other things which go under the idea of not accepting less and focus on this very specific issue of the lowering of standards.

Take Matthew Dolan on seventy minutes when the ball came to him thirty five yards out and when falling he lashed a ball which would not trouble the goalkeeper even slightly. Take Nathan Doyle putting in a half challenge in midfield and complaining that he has fouled. Take Kyle Bennett being challenged in his own half and unlike Adam Reach’s Elvis hips shimmy into the box in the first half falling and darting eyes to the Referee.

Parkinson needs to set a higher standard than this. He needs to underline to the players what playing well looks like and not accept that the players had a jolly good try at doing something else. Players need to play with their heads and with the trust in their teammates, and they need to play in a way that understands that they have teammates and that much of the time their jobs are to serve those teammates.

There was a moment in the game when Kyle Bennett, furthest forward, chased a ball and on catching it hooked it to the goalkeeper tamely. It was not understanding where your teammates are, it was not playing intelligently, and it was the sign of a standard slipped that Parkinson has to address.

Players are playing for contracts – they always are – and Parkinson will look at Adam Reach and feel that he has found a player who can raise the level of the team but many of the other players who may not be at Valley Parade next season are playing under a standard which they need to be to worth keeping at the club.

And again I underline the difference between holding a high standard and highlighting mistakes. It is not that players are pilloried for mistakes it is that some of the players will have left the field today feeling the did “alright” in a “decent result” and I believe that that is not the right attitude for a team looking to progress.

Today City needed to play to a higher standard and did not. Parkinson’s reaction to that – if he thinks that the way Matthew Dolan played today will replace Gary Jones (eventually) or the way Kyle Bennett played will be a substitute for how Kyel Reid played – will define next season.

There was a moment after Northampton Town’s Michael Jacobs hit a fine long range effort into the goal to give the visitors a second half lead that Phil Parkinson’s Bradford City seemed to make the collective decision that they deserved more from the afternoon than defeat, that they should summon up from a reserve of responsibility and courage and force the performance to swing in their favour. In the parlance of our times: City manned up.

Ten minutes later the Bantams had won the game.

Watching football with a scouting report in one hand is a strange afternoon. Northampton’s side lined up not at all as they had in the game which our report detailed and many of the problems which the City scouting report suggested a few weeks ago had been plugged by Gary Johnson’s side who were missing striker Adebayo Akinfenwa and seemed to have adjusted accordingly. The result was a robust Cobblers side who deployed a man – Ben Tozer – holding between City’s midfield pair and as a result broke up much of the Bantams play but that was all that the visitors did with the Bantams backline utterly shutting out the visitors.

A surprisingly recalled Michael Bryan carved out the best chance – only one of two which stood out the other being a long range effort by Robbie Threlfall – taking the ball in field and twisting the loft a shot onto the bar. City gave nothing away and edged the first half but it was difficult to see where the goals would be coming from.

Where Northampton would be getting goals from was less of a mystery with the report warning of Jacobs and his abilities to strike the ball. His opportunity came when Adam Reed – booked for a bad tackle, but later subject of a similar one which got no punishment – was left floored and as he struggled to get back to position Jacobs fired in.

At that point Reed and Richie Jones – the midfield partnership in the absence of suspended Michael Flynn – seemed to have struggled to get around the Cobblers midfield nor could they make partnerships with the wide men but both seemed to sense the need to make a performance and Jones stepped to the fore.

It had been suggested that the midfielder was wasted on the right flank last week and one might have thought that thinking wishful until Jones took control of the middle of the field coming forward with direction and drive, tracking back to create solidity when needed, and leading by example.

It was Jones who drove forward with the ball feeding it left to Bryan and eventually resulting in a cross which defender Andy Holt tried to cut out but only succeeded in handling. Craig Fagan beat keeper Sam Walker from the spot.

Five minutes later and Jones came forward again battling in to push the ball wide to Kyel Reid for the winger – who had usual game veering between utter frustration and sublime moments – to drop a ball to James Hanson who beat his man and converted from inside the six yard box.

It was a worthy turnaround and one which Jones had much to do with. The midfielder might spend his career being the guy who plays the ball to the guy who gets the assist and very few stats record that contribution, but I’m sure the scout report would have noted it, or will do in the future.

Having been beaten by a long range shot only City never looked like surrendering the lead. Luke Oliver’s performance was remarkable for the fact that we are growing to expect that sort of display from a player that many, many would have written off at the end of last season while Marcel Seip’s Valley Parade debut saw him looking assured, mobile and confident. No one said the words “Guy Branston” all afternoon and as City start to rise up the league so the goal difference starts to look more respectable.

Moreover though City’s victory was – as with the win over Torquay – hard fought. While the attractive football of Stuart McCall’s side might have gone so has the soft centre. City are less easy on the eye, but Saturday nights after a win are satisfying.

Sitting back on such a Saturday night and flicking over the scout report the danger of Michael Jacobs is written in black and white but so is that of Lewis Young – the right winger wearing number two who was frustrated all afternoon – who the Bantams coped with superbly. The talk about the goalkeeper Walker and his control of his box were accurate and City seemed to fire low hard crosses rather than allow the six foot seven custodian grab balls from the air.

One wonders though what the scouts who watched City will have written about the Bantams today. One thing is for sure those reports will have had the word “character” in them, and that is what took Phil Parkinson’s side to victory today.

It has become an open secret that Peter Jackson will be the full time Bradford City manager as long as he does not mess up the next three games.

Open secret might be overstating things, it is a rumour might underplay them though, but one by one everyone you talk to about the City job starts saying the same thing. Jackson has three games to win the job. How many of them he needs to win you can only guess at. Today at Gillingham, Rotherham on Tuesday and Morecambe on Saturday and four points are probably not going to be enough so two wins might be the ticket, unless the board fancy appointing the guy who is doing “ok.”

Three wins to claim the job or three to save it if you prefer and if he does not do enough in the next seven days then John Hughes is the man. It’s like Jackson has arrived under pressure, fighting for his job, and in a way City have managed to find a way of limping from one manager needing wins to another.

So two wins in the next three and Jackson is to be anointed having proved to be too good to not give the job to – or so it will be spun no doubt – but Hughes is a back up in case the season slips again into relegation problems.

Jackson starts the fight well with City going at the home team who will accept nothing less than promotion with Luke Oliver spurning a chance with minutes gone to head in a deep corner. A couple of minutes later both Gareth Evans and Kevin Ellison could have done better.

Evans and Ellison are deployed as widemen in a 4-4-2 with Michael Flynn in the middle and Jon Worthington behind him. Worthington doesn’t last the first half going off bleeding and he is missed quickly when Gillingham’s massive strike Adebayo Akinfenwa scores after a sucession or cheap few kicks.

Cheap free kicks from a referee who at one point books one of the City subs so much does he struggle to keep the players on the rich in control that his bookings leak out to people who aren’t playing. A guy in Argentina sent off 36 players in one game this week, it could be worse.

Jackson’s laying out in the 4-4-2 Peter Taylor would not play, Stuart McCall loved and football managers risk being called old fashioned for using. The shape suits the players more and the look more assured and comfortable and as a result it is all more enjoyable.

Jackson – or Hughes – might wish he had Omar Daley back for the orthodox 4-4-2 which plays little man big man with Jake Speight and Jim Hanson and the kind if midfield pair that seems to work. Worthington knows Jackson from Huddersfield and is instantly back in the side. No one says the F word.

As a supporter who sees mostly Southern games, and away games, the performance was better than we have seen for sometime and some of that is new manager excitement but most is the way the players fit into the formation.

They look more at ease but when at the start of the second half Curtis Weston powers down the wing and smashes the ball into the too corner suddenly that ease starts to worry. The two widemen not know for their crossing, the little man up front who flatter to deceive, and Jackson faces the question as to if his team have the goals in them.

Flynn tries to respond quickly raising the tempo and Speight gets a chance after good work from Evans but the game seems out of reach from the moment of the second goal.

So for Jackson there is optimism from a good performance but the realities of football management for his predecessors have it that only winning is important and technical merit, and being the hero of fans, does not get you far at Valley Parade.

Hanson spends the afternoon winning everything but Speight does not read his flicks well enough and the two widemen are not able to join the attack with pace. It looks good but is not effective.

Luke O’Brien heads the ball off the line, making up for getting stormed past by Weston earlier, to give Jackson’s hopes of claiming this defeat as a creditable enterprise. City were always going to struggle at a promotion chaser and the result is no worse than can be expected, Tuesday night probably represents a better gauge.

Certainly the players will have plenty of time to think about it on the coach on the way home. It is about a five hour drive back to Bradford, Peter Jackson has three hours of football left to make a claim to be City boss.

The silence observed, the t-shirts proudly worn, You’ll Never Walk Alone sung and the football began with Bradford City finishing off a home season which had seen seven wins and eight draws at Valley Parade with an eighth victory courtesy of two sensational goals from Gareth Evans in the type of performance that if the Bantams are to be celebrating in twelve months times City fans will have become used to.

Peter Taylor’s teams play a measured football and play it well standing apart from the hurly burly of most of League Two. Patterns established are followed, players are given roles and simple tasks and results ground out.

Sure enough when the visitors – who came to Valley Parade chasing a play-off place – were reduced to ten men when Dean Beckwith pulled back Leon Osbourne as the young striker broke from the half way line then the path to victory for Taylor could not have been clearer. Already a goal up Taylor was able to tell him team to pass the ball around and let Northampton Town tire themselves out.

So a game that City were nudging ahead in – once Gareth Evans had given The Bantams a first half lead with a goal of the season of a chest down and long range hit – became a matter of how many City would be able to put past the flagging visitors with goalkeeper Jason Steele – and a good performance by defender Andrew Holt – ending up being all that stopped City running out with a half dozen goals.

A limited side Northampton’s threat was mainly in the power of striker Adebayo Akinfenwa who battled with Matthew Clarke for the seventy seven minutes he was on the field winning the odd free kick that seemed more threatening in the build up than they proved to be in practice. While one can be sure that Ian Sampson’s sides had had better afternoons the ineffectual display they – on the whole – endured serves to show how problematic escaping this division can be. That a team so limited can be pushing for a play off place says much how to get promoted.

So Taylor’s team are grinding out results and it is not always pretty to watch – although today saw the Bantams enjoy some lovely football not least of which was Adam Bolder’s delightful cross which Gareth Evans slammed in acrobatically from close range – but it is effective. Taylor’s reading of the game saw the the advantage the Bantams had and exploited it to a point when City ended up comfortable winners. It might not have been the expensive every minute is the chance to start an attack that Stuart McCall’s teams tried but it was impressive coaching.

All of which begs the question as to why – if it were possible – the club have not has Taylor sign a longer term deal? Peter Taylor is fairly obviously the best manager City could have found post-McCall but now the one year deal he has signed sets him very much in a situation where the manager has to win promotion, or be on his way.

As players like Steve Williams, James Hanson and Gareth Evans who arrived last summer are bear fruit in their performances but – as will happen in a club that steadfastly refuses to plan in the long term – there is uncertainty. It would be nice to be able to sit down with players like those three – and other signings we might look to make in the summer – and talk about more than just the idea that in a year’s time everything goes right, or everything changes.

At least the new strip – a tedious amber shirt with thin claret pin-stripe – will change in a year. One could just wish that the tendency to see different as better could be less all encompassing at Bradford City.