BANTAMS' WAIT IS OVER

Bradford were long odds for League Two promotion in January - now Championship football is a realistic aim

- Ed McCambridge

Since English football's 'rebirth' in 1992, few Premier League alumni have tumbled quite as far down the pyramid as Bradford City. They were a topflight outfit as recently as 2001, but swiftly suffered three relegations in the space of seven years, and have been bouncing between League One and League Two ever since.

The Bantams' latest slide into the fourth tier came at the end of 2018-19 - with a string of managers failing to get them back on their feet thereafter. All of this despite a huge support that saw an average of around 17,000 fans pack into their Valley Parade surrounds for League Two contests.

That was until current gaffer Graham Alexander, formerly of Salford and MK Dons, became the latest to try his hand in November 2023, taking over with the club in 16th. “When I arrived, Bradford had been going through a tough spell over five or six seasons,” Alexander, who followed-up Mark Hughes in the dugout, tells FourFourTwo now. “But it was clear to me that a club with this support base needed to be pushing for promotion, not treading water in League Two.”

Alexander steered the club to ninth by the end of his debut campaign, only missing out on the playoffs by a single point. “Over the course of that season, we implemented a cultural reset,” the Scot explains. “Not only in the way we set up to play - with a back three - but in our objectives and beliefs as well. It was about getting a group of players to believe. We looked back on a good first campaign and that gave us massive confidence going into the summer.”

That sentiment was echoed within the squad. “We went into the 2024-25 season with the target of promotion,” veteran goalkeeper Sam Walker chips in. “We made a really good start to our fixtures too, taking seven points from the first three matches.”