Thoughts on the Coming Season

The 2009/10 season marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Bradford City fire disaster and will also define Stuart McCall’s reign as Bradford City manager.

Two seasons of underachievement in League Two under McCall has seen the whirlwind of hysteria that accompanied his appointment blow out of town and the sobering reality now facing the former City skipper is that if promotion cannot be achieved at the third time of asking, then it may be time to walk away from his beloved Bantams.

City were armed with a bumper budget last season and made several eyecatching additions to their side, such as Paul McLaren, Graeme Lee and Chris Brandon, but despite an excellent start to the campaign, in which they won five of their first six league matches, their promotion challenge petered out after Christmas and a wretched run in March – which saw them pick up just three points from a possible twenty seven – consigned them to a third season in the bottom tier of the Football League, without even having a tilt at the play-offs.

Inevitably, this has meant McCall has been forced to trim his budget for the forthcoming season and high earners such as McLaren and Lee have been shown the door whilst the club were in no position to compete with Rotherham and Oldham for the permanent captures of Nicky Law and Dean Furman respectively – two men that made such a big impression on loan at Valley Parade last season.

With the heart of the side ripped out, the mood in pre-season has been rather sombre, but in seasons gone by the exorbitant expectation levels have hindered, rather than helped, the club that is the best supported side in the division.

No longer is there talk of league domination as in previous seasons; the general consensus is that a play-off finish would be an achievable target to aim for and there is more anxiety than expectation in the stands, but McCall still has the crux of a competent League Two side and perhaps his new recruitment policy could be the catalyst for improvement from last season.

A barber from Bamber Bridge (Steve Williams) and a shelf-stacker from Guiseley (James Hanson) have been plucked from non-league circles and perhaps their enthusiasm for the game could be just what City are looking for, after a season where the big names, supposedly used to handling pressure situations, buckled under the weight of expectation and crawled into their shells when they were needed to come out fighting.

What Bradford have proved over the years is that they do things the hard way – whether that be fighting for promotion or relegation – and being forced to bring their budget in line with the rest of the division, and faced with the prospect of losing their prodigal son McCall, may just turn out to be the shocks required to bring this underachieving club out of hibernation.