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Cableguy's Football Therapy

Edition #1: The Professor, the millionaire and the flamingo.

Question – which club over the last 8 years has gained promotion twice, won at Wembley, tasted European football and fought 3 successful relegation battles. Rebuilt their ground twice over in 15 years (on the same site.). As well as suffering relegation and seen 5 managers come and go, no, not got it?

Well last Friday they almost became extinct.

They are none other than Bradford City.

Trying to set the scene to explain the goings on at Valley Parade (VP) over the last few years would require an effort worthy of War and Peace. I tried and wrote 25 pages of text. This is the very short version!

With the distraction of a World Cup it would be easy to ‘miss’ a story such as the one at Bradford. A lavish Hollywood film could not portray such drama over 3 or 4 hours. A popular Chairman turned villain, an entire playing staff sacked, managers and coaches washing the kits! That’s leaving aside the Flamingos, union disputes and UFO’s. Okay so I made the last one up!

I’ll start at the end, as the beginning is so far back Moses would forget. With no one bidder coming forward to buy BCFC 1983 Ltd., it was left to the current/old board of Mr. Geoffrey Richmond and Prof. Rhodes to try and out bid each other. This is where the Flamingo’s come in. On GR’s side (Geoff Richmond), a certain Mr Gibb. Owner of North Yorkshires very own Flamingo land. Ready to put some money into the pot. With player’s contracts to honour, it soon became apparent that only a “joint” bid by the “existing” board would do the trick. Exit the Flamingo’s who wouldn’t work with the Rhodes family – keeping up so far?

Enter Mr Gordon Taylor, PFA supreme leader and the John Prescott of football. On Friday the 28th Of June, the club stood on the edge of closure. Only last ditch talks between the parties saved the club. This Monday 1st of July it was announced to a bewildered set of City fans that the very man who’d been our biggest critic had loaned us a sum of 4 million pounds. This man was Gordon Taylor; PFA funds were used to do this. Leaving the club with a lifeline and a team once more to play with. Other creditors are yet to accept the clubs offer of debt repayment. But it is likely that they will.

The ironic thing about the PFA doing this is that during the recent threat of the players strike, GR said that any City player going on strike would be sacked. The very money the PFA were fighting to get has now been used to ‘bail’ Bradford City out. This is not lost on many City fans I speak to. Chairman GR remains an icon for supporters who remember the ‘old’ BCFC, fourth division football, no future ahead, poor facilities at VP. These fans along with the newer ones who joined the throng after the 1996 Wembley play off win will stick with GR no matter what mistakes he has made over the last 3 years. Others on the other hand see things differently.

It would be fair to say right now the fans are split over the whole affair. To come so close to closure you would think be considered failure to run a club properly. Not it seems in the eyes of the administrators who have handed back control to the very people who ran up the debts in the first place. This must be a first in football.

But do fans have a choice? Well I know at a lot of clubs fans would rebel in numbers at such goings on. Yet this is not the ‘Bradford’ way, loyalty is a ‘big’ word at VP. The fans that have stuck by GR recently see this as the correct thing to do considering the heights his Chairmanship took the club to. This kind of loyalty could be seen as blind, but you’ve only to see the way fans treat ex-players of BCFC to realise they love people who show them love back.

Trust will be hard to win back by other fans who will keep a close eye on the boardroom in future. The various public battles fought through the summer will be soon forgotten as the season starts and that’s what everyone wanted to see.

Bradford City starting a new season in Div 1 – this time as relegation favourites. One thing other teams visiting VP this season should take note of. If there’s something in Bradford they have bags of its passion. Don’t be too surprised if you see the Bantams defying the odds once more and gaining an unlikely promotion come May.

Nigel Hall (cableguy)

Send feedback to this columnist at eriktheboneless@blueyonder.co.uk

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