Bradford City Association Football Club

[leckuno]

I've been really struggling this season to be getting past a 2nd season this year and I really hope this is going to be the one to get over this hump.

Bradford City Association Football Club is an English professional football club in Bradford, West Yorkshire. The team competes in League Two, the fourth tier of the English football league system.


The club was founded in 1903 and immediately elected into the Football League Second Division. Promotion to the top tier followed as they won the 1907–08 Second Division title and then they went on to win the 1911 FA Cup Final, which remains the club's only major honour. They were relegated in 1922 and again in 1927, before winning the Third Division North title in 1928–29. Another relegation in 1937 did allow the club to go on to win the Third Division North Cup in 1939, however a further relegation followed in 1962 to leave the club in the newly created Fourth Division. They secured promotions back into the third tier in 1969 and 1977, but were relegated in 1972 and 1978. They found success in the 1980s under the stewardship of first Roy McFarland and then Trevor Cherry, winning promotion in 1981–82 and following this up with the Third Division title in 1984–85, though they were relegated out of the Second Division in 1990.

Bradford were promoted back into the second tier via the play-offs in 1996, before securing another promotion in 1998–99 to reach the Premier League, marking a return to the top-flight after a 77-year absence. They entered Europe and reached the semi-finals of the UEFA Intertoto Cup in 2000–01, but ended the campaign with relegation from the Premier League. A succession of financial crises followed as the club entered administration twice in two years and further relegations followed in 2004 and 2007 to leave the club back in the fourth tier. They found success under the management of Phil Parkinson by reaching the 2013 League Cup final and then going on to win that year's League Two play-off final, but were relegated from League One in 2019.

They are the only professional football club in England to wear claret and amber, and have worn these colours throughout their history. They have though been known by various nicknames, with the "Bantams" being the most commonly used nickname as it appears on the current club crest. Supporters hold West Yorkshire derby rivalries with Huddersfield Town and Leeds United, as well as a historic Bradford derby rivalry with the now non-league side Bradford (Park Avenue).


Stadium

Valley Parade, known as the University of Bradford Stadium for sponsorship reasons, is an all-seater football stadium in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. Built in 1886, it was the home of Manningham Rugby Football Club until 1903, when they changed code from rugby football to association football and became Bradford City. It has been Bradford City's home since, although it is now owned by former chairman Gordon Gibb's pension fund. It has also been home to Bradford (Park Avenue) for one season, and Bradford Bulls rugby league side for two seasons, as well as host to a number of England youth team fixtures.

Football architect Archibald Leitch was commissioned to redevelop the ground when Bradford City were promoted to the First Division in 1908. The stadium underwent few changes until the fatal fire on 11 May 1985, when 56 supporters were killed and at least 265 were injured. It underwent a £2.6 million redevelopment and was re-opened in December 1986. The ground underwent significant changes in the 1990s, and early 2000s, and now has a capacity of 25,136. The record attendance of 39,146 was set in 1911 for an FA Cup tie against Burnley, making it the oldest surviving attendance record at a Football League ground in the country. The highest attendance at Valley Parade, as it is now, was against Reading in the 2015 FA Cup Quarter-finals.


Board Vision

The board expect us to finish in the playoffs and to be competitive in the cups which should hopefully be easy enough

Supporter Vision

Thankfully the supporters don't expect much more from us than the board and they don't have a massive influence on the board which helps. We also have a very healthy amount of season ticket holders as well which will help the club financially.

Squad

Thanks to us not having an U21 team then we have a very large squad with a good few players who will never get a game. Our best players at the club are all sadly in on loan but they are very strong players for us. I don't feel we'll need to be brining players in through the transfer window unless a decent player comes up but we would need to sell players on first to free up wage and transfer funds.

Preseason

We had a good preseason with only losing 3 games and 2 of those were against Championship teams. The stand out result though was beating Derby and Forest Green Rovers to give us a nice boost in confidence.

August

We have a good start to the season against a bunch of teams that will be fighting it out in the bottom half and we have our first taste of cup football as well to look forward to
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[leckuno]

August

Papa Johns Trophy Group

This looks like its going to be a tough group coming up against Burton and Sheffield Wednesday

Bradford v Doncaster Rovers

A very strong start to the season and Banks is going to be key for us down the wings this season and he showed that here with an assist and then a goal

Barrow v Bradford

Another great attacking performance here as we get off to a flying start with the downside being the sending off in the 80th minute.

Carabao Cup 1st Round
Bradford v Hartlepool United

A 6 minute double is enough to see us past Hartlepool and into the next round

Bradford v Newport

Not the best result for us here as Newport are to fight it out at the bottom of the league and we had to come from behind to get the draw.

Colchester United v Bradford

We nearly bottled it here after Colchester came back from 3-1 down to take the lead 4-3 but thank got for Jamie Walker and his long range effort to get us a point

Carabao Cup 2nd Round
Wigan Athletic v Bradford

I thought we were going to get hammered after going 1 down but Harratt had a cracker of a game and bagged a near perfect hat-trick to see us into the next round

Bradford v Crewe Alexandra

We had a great game and the penalty just after half time gave us a 2 goal cushion which let us sit back and enjoy the game even though we did let the concentration slip right at the end of the match to concede

Papa Johns Trophy
Burton Albion v Bradford

Burton were quite poor here even though they took the lead first but thank god we have Jamie Walker to take our penalties as he keeps his 100% record this season from the spot

League

Well 6 games in and we sit top on goal difference

Transfers

We ended up looking at the loan market thanks to a couple of injuries and brought in two new players

Dilan Markanday

Markanday joins on loan from Blackburn and can cover 3 positions but will mainly play down the right win letting Banks move over to the left if needed

Kelvin Abrefa

Abrefa comes in from Reading as wee needed a bit more cover at RB thanks to injuries so far and he will provide that and may even come first choice right back

September

A bit of a quieter month here as we look to push forward for promotion​

 

[leckuno]

September

Bradford v Walsall

We continue our form from last month as Cook gets us off to a flying start after just 6 minutes but more importantly this is our first clean sheet in the league since the opening day.

Mansfield Town v Bradford

What a boring game right up until the final 15 minutes as Mansfield took the lead but we then threw everything at them and Oliver made the difference after being brought on after their goal.

Tranmere Rovers v Bradford

What a first half performance as we race to a 4-0 lead. Jamie Walker even managed a goal that wasn't from the penalty spot as well. I was disappointed to conceded just before full time but it was still a strong performance from us.

Bradford v Stevenage

Finally another clean sheet which is something we really need to work on through the rest of the season but Banks scored a cracker from about 30 yards to open the scoring.

Papa Johns Trophy
Bradford v Leicester City U21's

Its great playing the U21 teams sometimes as they put out really bad teams and we took full advantage of that here as this result see's us guaranteed qualification to the next round with a game to spare

Bradford v AFC Wimbledon

We seem to be at our strongest in the first half just now when it comes to scoring goals but as long as we win I couldn't care

League

We remain unbeaten in the league so far and have a 6 point lead as well over 2nd and 3rd.

October

A busy month with big games against Stockport , Salford and Sheffield Wednesday in the cup​

 

[leckuno]

October

Harrogate Town v Bradford

We played really well here until the final 10 minutes where we got a small fright as Harrogate looked like they were going to pull it back.

Bradford v Stockport Town

The big game against the team behind us and we absolutely demolish them through a brilliant first half performance

Salford v Bradford

Thank god for Jamie Walker and his penalty scoring ability as he yet again rescues us from the spot

Papa John's Trophy
Bradford v Sheffield Wednesday

Sadly we couldn't have a repeat performance of the Carabao Cup as they were the far better team this time and we go through to the next round in 2nd place.

Grimsby Town v Bradford

Another great first half performance but it nearly all came undone in the 2nd half

Bradford v Swindon Town

What an opening 10 minutes for Harratt as he got a lovely brace to set us off nicely

Bradford v Crawley Town

We got really lucky here that after the sending off we were still able to push on but of course Drinkwater scored against us after picking Crawley over us in the summer.

League

We're pushing into a nice lead now but importantly we're ahead of 4th place by a whopping 17 points meaning we should be fine for getting one of the automatic promotion spots/

November

Finally a quiet month for us which means the players should get a bit of recovery time here.​