To Hell and back - supporting the Bantams
I can think of better places to be to find out your team has been relegated to the bottom tier of English football than a Tesco's car park, but that is where I was when I heard Five Live confirm Bradford's continuing demise.
In a bizarre twist of fate captain Mark Bower's own goal at Chesterfield helped condemn City to the bottom tier of English football for the first time in 25 years - in the Premiership seven years ago, then skipper David Wetherall scored the goal that kept the club in the top flight and arguably sparked off the mess we find ourselves in today.
For me it marks the end of a quite unbelieveable period supporting the club in which we have gone full circle - from the wilderness, to the promised land and back again.
All teams have their ups and downs, but none, I suspect have endured quite as many as the Bantams.
I felt more pain and hurt at this relegation than when we dropped out of the Premiership a mere six years ago, or even the Championship three seasons later.
This one, despite all our financial problems, just wasn't supposed to happen - I mean we were challenging at the right end of the table at the end of September and all appeared well.
But from October onwards, we have won just five league games and only one of those was in front of our fans, so we can have no real complaints.
I was among those seriously questioning chairman Julian Rhodes when he offloaded star striker Dean Windass to Hull on loan and sold the man who was providing the ammunition, Jermaine Johnson, to Sheffield Wednesday in January.
But I owe the man an apology after he recently explained his actions - the money to sweeten the Windass deal paid the tax bill, and the proceeds of the Johnson sale paid the wages.
Rhodes is doing his bit to keep us going - he introduced a scheme to get 10,000 season ticket holders signed up for just �138 next season - that's just �6 a game - 7,000 have obliged so far but the future of the club is still far from rosy.
I should have realised what was ahead of me when City first came to my attention in the 1981/82 season.
They finished second in Division Four to achieve promotion - but in 1983, the club went into formal insolvency and Bradford City (1983) AFC was formed.
Things began to look up on the field with the 1984/5 Division Three Championship season - only for the end-of-season party to be horribly gate-crashed by the terrible fire that claimed the lives of 54 Bradford supporters and 2 Lincoln City fans.
Supporting City seems to have a cruel way of giving with one hand and taking away with the other.
The club and the fans picked themselves up again, spent a nomadic year playing home games around West Yorkshire, and retained our Division Two status.
We came within touching distance of reaching the top flight at the end of the 1988 season, but a final-day home draw to Ipswich cast us into the play-offs where Middlesbrough triumphed over two legs.
Our key trio, Stuart McCall, John Hendrie and Ian Ormondroyd all left and relegation back to the third tier followed.
Gates dwindled, but by the end of the 95/96 season, City were back on the up - a 2-0 victory over Notts County in the play-off final in front of 30,000 City fans saw the good times return.
And so did Stuart McCall for the 98/99 season to help new boss, and former player, Paul Jewell, guide us into the Premiership following a final day 3-2 win at Wolves.
Everyone outside the club predicted us to go straight back down.
But on the last day of the 1999/2000 season, Wetherall rose majestically to head in a goal to ensure the club's unlikely survival against a Liverpool side who were themselves needing a win to qualify for the Champions League.
Little were we to know at the time the damage that goal would ultimately have on the club as then chairman Geoffrey Richmond embarked on his "six weeks of madness" in an effort to cement our future in the Premiership.
All this has been covered elsewhere: - suffice to say we went down and we've never really got over it.
Two administrations and two relegations later, and I'm back where I started, in the basement.
In the interim, it's been a rare old ride - I've cried tears of joy and despair, suffered frustration, elation, shovelled snow off the pitch to enable a game to take place (we lost it to Birmingham), and fended off banter from friends who support 'better' teams - (will any City fan forget the Premiership wins over Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea?).
If you've got this far, thank you for reading. Just going through some of my memories of the club helps to put this relegation into perspective.
Where next for the Bantams? To Rochdale some of you may jest. In the short-term, I just want us to survive, consolidate and build a sturdy base for the future - but is anybody daring to dream of promotion yet?
To all other fans in the same boat - I wish you well and remember, the good times will roll again.
But at times like this, I am minded to recall a bedtime story I read to my son about a cork floating on the ocean and a line that reads, "What are the highs without the lows, where is the enjoyment in that?"
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Comments
Must be one of the biggest if not the biggest ground in League Two, one stand seemingly goes up for miles.
Must be something in the Yorkshire water, Leeds in League One, Bradford in League Two....
Poor old City - it has been such a rollercoaster ride. Nineth biggest city in the country, with a massive catchment area, but has never held down a club of the size of even towns like Ipswich or Stoke, even Luton or Barnsley.
Charlton have got it good in comparison.
http://www.arthurlloyd.co.uk/Irving.htm
Bradford are currently are on 6 points, one point out of the relegation zone (Hereford 5 Plymouth 1).
Could Bradford be the first team to have played in the top flight post-war yet go non-league? Not including real Wimbledon
Oxford as well as Luton played top flight in the 80's and got relegated over the last few years.
Northampton in the 60s, Carlisle in the 70s, Barnsley, Notts County and Swindon in the 90s
I love the buttery biscuit base.