The road back to a place resembling the big time has been a long and painful one for Bradford City – a club who, 25 years ago last week, were drawing 1-1 at home to Arsenal[1] in the Premier League[2].
But they seem to have found the way and the noises tell the story.
There was hammering and drilling of builders working on one of the executive suites, heading into the weekend, testing the wits of a receptionist fielding calls about tickets for the feverishly anticipated first derby match in 18 years against old foes Huddersfield, this coming Saturday. The chorus of song from the thousands of fans packing out Doncaster Rovers’ away end on Saturday, buoyed by the club’s strong start to a first season back in League One after eight long years in the fourth tier. ‘We’ll sing on our own. This is the best trip we’ve ever been on.’
That fanbase has generated City their highest season-ticket revenue in the club’s history this season, on the back of the return to third tier: more than 16,000 sold, bringing in a net £3.2million. They’re projected to average 20,000 home crowds.
It’s surprising that a big money buyer hasn’t made an offer which could see the club reap its maximum potential.
But the owner remains the enigmatic German, Stefan Rupp, who stumbled into the ownership of the club as a junior party in a £6million buyout eight years ago and who, though a far more acceptable face of ownership than some, does not convey the impression of a man who lives and breathes Bradford. He receives his club’s executives in hired meeting rooms at Munich Airport. They fly in and out in a day.
The road back to a place resembling the big time has been long and painful for Bradford City
Graham Alexander has delivered promotion and a strong start to life in League One
The owner remains the enigmatic Stefan Rupp (right) in lieu of a big money buyer
City’s story, though, is beginning to show how sustainability – sweating the small details – can be a substitute for big investment from a benefactor. That you don’t need a Sheikh or a Ryan Reynolds[3] to begin to build back.
The Bradford City Independent Fans Group have been a significant part of it, with an intelligently calibrated protest and subsequent open letter to Rupp 18 months back, at a club then marooned seven places from the League Two relegation zone. They gave Rupp time to respond and kept communication open. He committed slightly more investment and hired a new director of football operations, David Sharpe. Many date the change in trajectory to that point.
But attention to the commercial details has also played a significant part at a club where the perils of overspending are painfully well known from the Premier League era, when former chairman Geoffrey Richmond’s overreach saw the club twice enter administration twice after relegation in 2001.
Turnover has increased from around £5million to around £9million in five years and the dynamic ticketing for which the club have become known has played a significant part. The club asked if they could charge a £1 general admission for last week’s EFL Trophy match against Grimsby. When the league insisted that it must be £5 minimum for adults they went for that, with £1 for everyone else.
The usual 1,600 attendances for those games swelled to 5,000 and what had seemed a non-entity in terms of cashflow brought £10,000 in revenue.
When your target is to restrict losses to a minimum, the spending must be incremental. The incongruous brown and white seats in Valley Parade’s Kop end have just been replaced with those in the Bantams’ claret and amber colours, which are among football’s most distinctive, but the rest of the stadium seats, now looking faded by comparison, must await a re-fit.
Though a recent Swiss Ramble study of City’s finances shows their collective losses to be only £3.6million over a decade, too few clubs think about revenue growth at a time when the onus on clubs is financial controls, chief executive Ryan Sparks tells Daily Mail Sport.
‘I read a whole document recently about how we need to control costs, but nowhere in that document did we talk about how we’re going to grow revenue and increase things,’ he says. ‘I think you have to give real credit to clubs like Wrexham and Birmingham about their sheer desire to grow a club.
Chief executive Ryan Sparks believes too few clubs think about revenue growth
The team look fitter with Alexander’s pre-season training camps getting them in shape
‘Wrexham don’t have 24,000 seats like we do. So they work on what they do have. OK, they’ve got Ryan Reynolds, they’ve got Rob McElhenney, and they work on that. But they do other things. They push the envelope and we are a club, here, who people can talk about in that way. Our vision is to keep moving as fast as we can. You can control costs, but you can also control your revenue.’
Bringing an end to the club’s managerial merry-go-round has helped. There had been 14 managers including caretakers since 2015/16 when Graham Alexander arrived. With Sharpe’s arrival coinciding with better recruitment, Alexander has delivered promotion and a strong start to life in League One.
The team have looked fitter. Alexander’s pre-season training camps, with the players up at 6am, doing three sessions a day and still out on bicycles in the evening, has fuelled the intense pressing he demands. New captain Max Power seems to fit the system far better. New 24-year-old striker Will Swan looks a shrewd acquisition, scoring in six of nine appearances this season.
‘Will Swan again, ole ole’ is already an anthem.
The sun is out at Doncaster on Saturday for a Yorkshire derby which carries unwelcome memories. Defeat here in April to a late Billy Sharp goal temporarily shredded hopes of automatic promotion. Alexander’s players haven’t lost a game since and can go top if they win but Rovers, who can’t fill their stadium, have also gone off like a train in League One.
City walk out in elegant warm-up track suit tops – a classy touch, like the new seats – but are behind inside six minutes when Luke Molyneux arrives to leap and score. There’s an immediate equaliser – Swan pouncing from close range. But City’s high defensive line is vulnerable to the long ball. Two defensive errors hand Rovers a 3-1 lead which they maintain. Uncharacteristically, the air goes out of Bradford.
In the aftermath, Alexander is impressive – quietly exuding dissatisfaction whilst maintaining perspective. ‘The biggest thing is that no-one’s died. We’ve got a great opportunity in a job we love,’ he tells Daily Mail Sport. ‘I don’t like bad body language and feeling sorry for ourselves. Crap happens to everybody. The next time we get an opportunity to work, let’s work. Let’s be better.’
That opportunity comes in the game every City fan has been anticipating since promotion: Saturday lunchtime’s encounter with Huddersfield.
New captain Max Power seems to fit the intense pressing system far better
City have a manager who looks a cut above in Alexander, who was harshly sacked by Salford
The mutual antipathy dates to the 1990s, when Richmond and his Town counterpart had heated arguments on live local radio and City went to the High Court to secure £1million damages from over defender Kevin Gray’s atrocious tackle on Bantams striker Gordon Watson. City legend Stuart McCall once observed that a game of tiddlywinks between these clubs would carry significance.
‘It’s a big game for both clubs and we obviously haven’t competed with them for a long time,’ Alexander observes. ‘But if we compete like that, no chance.’
In Alexander, City have a manager who looks a cut above – unfathomably sacked by Salford City, in a decision Gary Neville has admitted was a mistake, and given a preposterous 16 games at MK Dons.
In Sparks, who took time to be accepted by fans, they have a chief executive with a broader perspective than most: a former journalist who has travelled from writing 200-word match reports on Moldgreen rugby league club for the Huddersfield Examiner.
On paper, City, who sit fifth despite Saturday’s defeat, will be up against it. Their budget makes them a bottom-half team. But the size of their fanbase and the drive to get the details right transcends that. Bradford reckon they can take commercial revenues to £12million.
‘If you ask Gary Sweet, [chief executive] at Luton Town, I very much doubt they had the biggest budget in the Championship when they were promoted from it, but they still did it,’ Sparks says. ‘I think it’s feasible to go on. We’re certainly not sitting here talking about, ‘well, what we’re going to do for the next 20 years in League One?’
Football business expert Swiss Ramble notes that the potential includes a huge catchment area – the 10th largest in England, above the likes of Nottingham, Newcastle, Brighton and Hove and Wolverhampton, who are all represented in the Premier League.
Rupp has not ruled out the idea of handing over to someone richer to capitalise on all this. ‘I, like most owners in the EFL, would and will continue to consider offers from potential buyers who could take Bradford City further than I can,’ he said in his latest open letter to fans.
But the only thought in the city this week will be that of Saturday lunchtime. That 1-1 draw with Arsenal, exactly 25 years ago, came on the back of a 6-0 hammering at Manchester United. Bradford are used to leaving disappointments in the past.
References
- ^ Arsenal (www.dailymail.co.uk)
- ^ Premier League (www.dailymail.co.uk)
- ^ Ryan Reynolds (www.dailymail.co.uk)