Most liked posts in thread: Off pitch

This season is really odd....
At the start of the season had someone said we would be within striking distance of the top three, sat in a play off position by the end of Jan, players like AOC would be putting a shift in and grafting, but we were grinding out points and the football was dire to watch I’d have bitten their hands off. Yet........
It’s like the club on and off the pitch is stuck in second gear, as if every one from Rhodes down is apathetic at best, in SMcs first term as manager we had an absolute shocker of a team, epitomised by the likes of Baz Conlan upfront, a dwarf in midfield who’s name escapes me, but they played their arses off even though they were terrible. Rhodes and Lawn worked well together The whole place had a determination to get us out of league 2. Ultimately it failed but that old Bantam spirit appeared to be back. This season it just seems well Meh!!
Along with countless others I can’t motivate myself to go on a Saturday, when I do it’s with a heavy heart and zero expectation.
I’m working in London this week, any other season wild horses wouldn’t have kept me from going to Colchester last night yet I couldn’t be arsed.
Maybe the club needs route and branch change , but who’s going to come In and revitalise it?
Maybe we need a revolution, maybe we just need a 4-0 home win and kick on to promotion.
But something defiantly feels broken, at the moment a 20k season ticket sale is just a pipe dream. I’ll definitely renew, but actually turning up at the moment feels like a chore and has done for 2 years.

 

Rahic's model was codswallop from the beginning. It got ever more bizarre as time passed by.

Development squads don't work. You can't simply develop players who aren't good enough and sell them for millions, but if you COULD make it work, you'd need an exceptional coaching staff with impressive funding. In other words, to be sustainable, you'd have to be a Premier League club or a very lucky Championship club, and you'd have to be picking up players who MIGHT be good enough, not those who definitely weren't - in other words, spending money signing the players in the first place - but even if you ARE a Championship club, you're likely overspending on every single possible front, including your development squad, first team, coaching staff, and everything else, haemorrhaging money in a desperate attempt to keep pace with everybody else haemorrhaging money (ie, all of the clubs in the Championship).

Effectively, we gave up all of the good work Phil Parkinson had done via a men-over-boys policy for that pie-in-the-sky claptrap because we were an above average sized League One club with below average training facilities and average income. The maths doesn't lie. It was absolute bollox from the beginning - not only was it absolute bollox on paper, it was absolute bollox based on historical evidence, as we found out with the embarrassing Jacko/Christie saga that nearly ruined the club.

It's a shortcut mentality for those that think it's too hard work to find a manager like Parky and let him spend the money on first team players who he has spent time identifying and who ARE good enough.

I get that some like the fact we actually had a plan, but for me Parkinson's short-term plan was infinitely superior to any long-term nonsense Rahic had in mind. Parky wanted to field the best possible XI with the money available. That makes a lot more sense than signing Omari Patrick from Barnsley, then giving him a three year contract the first time he scores a first team goal. Patrick isn't good enough for Wrexham - he isn't a professional league-standard footballer in a million years - and the only fella that's proven that he IS good enough (at League Two level rather than League One level) is Conor Wood - and he's got to be worth £50k maximum.

How much was spent on wages, transfers, and accommodation for those clowns that were released or moved on ASAP by David Hopkin? More than the sum total of any transfer fees we recouped, that's a guarantee.

We don't need nonsense ideas - we need pragmatic thinking, a concrete and clear vision of the style of football we want to play, and a consistent approach to manager selection.

We have bounced from McCall (attacking, positive, free-flowing, defensively weak football) to Grayson (defensively minded, direct football based on 'proven' players) to Collins (LOL) to Hopkin (impersonal, work ethic driven, chameleonic tactics) to Bowyer (defensively minded, direct football with zero focus on expansive, attacking play).

What's more, we've allowed only Stuart and Bowyer the crack at a transfer window during that time.

No wonder it failed.

The plan we need is very simple - I'll repeat: we need pragmatic thinking, a concrete and clear vision of the style of football we want to play, and a consistent approach to manager selection.

Bowyer can clear off, and then we can actually look to achieving a vision of the style of football we want. That's the plan, at least it should be in my opinion.

 

I recall buying into the German's spiel, a Bradford City ethos running right through the club, an attack based philosophy providing an entertaining playing style with an acceptance that defeat would sometimes be a by-product. Ace, seeya Parky.

2020 and the club is back in the basement and treading water, on the cheap too, it's just like when I first started going 40+ years ago, a garbage team playing garbage football, on a garbage pitch......in Div4.

All can go, manager, players, owner, CE, everybody.

 

To live one season to the next and see where we are. The official line via Sparks is;

Ryan stated there was a shared will within the club to restore Bradford City back to where it was before it had unravelled – back into League One as a starting point. And then the club can look to build from there.

A shared will. Look to build from there. Not, Promotion, consolidation, own a stadium of our own, grow revenues, aim for promotion to the Championship in 5 years and be sustainable in that division etc.

Just a will to be a league higher and see what happens. On a strategic planning par with my will to meet a naked Kylie Minogue and see what happens from there.

 

The only time we've ever remotely looked ambitious was under Big Geoffrey, the stadium being a lasting legacy of his tenure. yet i've read some on here who would rather not have gone through that period, instead enjoying the treading of water constantly for 30 odd years. As we stand we a level below the likes of Fleetwood and Accrington on the field, off the field there is no appetite to take this club forward. I admire clubs like Fleetwood and Peterborough who work to a long term strategy, only this week i see the Peterborough board in Hungary researching possible new stadium design and a recent £500,000 young signing getting rave reviews from the fans. Where's our ambition?

 

Spot on. Parky was pragmatic, but you saw the approach and it largely made sense. Big man and quick forward (Hanson/Wells), a winger in Reid, narrower wide man on the opposite side, balanced and combative midfield pairing, 2 hard centre backs. We had pairings that worked well across the pitch. Everyone knew their job and we could see what the plan was. The coaching approach was obvious and for the most part, players improved under Parky.

I have no idea what Bowyer is trying to do, beyond getting men behind the ball and hitting long balls to isolated forwards. And no one is improving under him. Maybe Wood, but even he's not been as good over the last couple of months. Several are regessing.

 

Parkys time at the club give me some of my best times supporting city where as bowyer is making me never want to go again

 

Surely the expression of these sorts of sentiments led directly to Rahic's arrival in the first place. A proper cull, big changes and clear-outs will only lead to Rahic 2.0. If there's a need for change it needs to be properly managed with proper contingency and succession planning. Would have thought that the get-shot start again brigade would have realised by now that their preferred strategy is a tad simplistic with huge risks attached.

 

@Park bantam don’t be so sarcastic, I have it on good authority that In the background theirs a massive battle between three consortiums, one is led by George Galloway with backing from his contacts in the Middle East, the second is lead by a skint Italian who’s currently receiving universal credit but is mates with some rich bloke, and the third is @Fordy117 who has offered to put his Merc up as collateral against a business loan, in partnership with the owners of Dixie chix on Manningham Lane.
Bring on the southern fried Bantam stadium, free Halal chicken meal for everyone under four foot

 

BFG was a pied piper, an amazing salesman and, using his skills, made us reach for the stars, we've never had anybody like him, before or after. TBh it's been shit since he went, no fun.

 

That was all down to the magic of BFG. Before he came in the club was a sinking ship, crowds were dwindling form already low numbers. In the early 90s both what was Bradford Northern and Bradford City were clubs with no ambition, only a remit to just survive. I supported both clubs and saw the rise (and eventual demise) of both.
The rise of both clubs started with the impetus of new ownership and innovative marketing campaigns, it was no fluke or a lucky hit. A lot of hard work and investment behind the scenes coupled with ambitious driven directorship saw the rise of the sporting land in the city of Bradford.
I remember being at a Bulls pre season game against Keighley, nearly 8,000 turned up. From then on for the next 10/15 years you felt part of something special due in large to the marketing genius of the late Peter Deakin. Same with Richmond, his dogged determination to succeed knew no bounds. He didn't need no cheap season ticket gimmicks, he let the football do the sales pitch.

 

The two managers aren't comparable. Parky's football was ugly and outdated but it still had the ability to entertain and get bums off seats. No matter how defensive we were, we always used to go out for the win late on. You knew with Parky what his style of play was and what his identity was. Bowyer? Well I still haven't a clue, and that's with and without Donaldson.

 

That 1 win in 21 was strange in that the fans never turned, in fact they backed Parkinson as he had built up a lot of goodwill the season before. This feels different, there is no goodwill there despite the 5th place league position. To a large extent Bowyer is a victim of mitigating circumstances, the fallout from Rahic still haunts Valley Parade and injuries have denied him certain players at times.
That said he doesn't help himself, the football is almost unwatchable at times despite having good players at his disposal, it's the worst example of safety first football you will see. Even Parkys football looks decidedly positive after watching it. In essence he's made a rod for his own back, what should be a platform to kick the season on has seen us scraping for points in the lower half of the division, the last two games we've been markedly second best.
Saturday could be pivotal, only a win will be acceptable in the eyes of most fans. He gets it wrong and the atmosphere will be unfortunately toxic.

 

It ended badly but what a ride, this isn’t just aimed at you but would you rather it never happened? Because before we were mid table league 1(modern day division), with a stadium smaller than the likes of Notts County and Port Vale. Clubs like Carlisle and Northampton had been in the top flight more recently than us, what a ride I’d go through it again if I could just hopefully without the admin at the end.

 

The Rhodes’s got the dividends too !!

 

We’ve got a football identity, just like Barca, Madrid, Liverpool or Man City. Our identity though is just that we’re shit and cheap.

 

One thing Brighton & Bournemouth have in common is consistent investment in players
5 | Brighton & Hove Albion | Net spend: £206.92m
2019/20: £-59.18m
2018/19: £-67.46m
2017/18: £-60.30m
2016/17: £-7.88m
2015/16: £-12.11m
7 | AFC Bournemouth | Net spend: £175.33m
2019/20: £-19.76m
2018/19: £-62.01m
2017/18: £-30.87m
2016/17: £-13.68m
2015/16: £-49.01m

 

Rhodes needs to go.

Rupp needs to sell up.

Bowyer needs to go!

I agree with you... big changes required

 

didnt you know they are forming an orderly queue round valley parade ready to take control

 

I liked watching the likes of Davies, Meredith, Jones, Wells etc under PP. Genuinely can't think of a single player that excites me under Bowyer