Jekyll and Hyde

Contrast - The state of being strikingly different from something else, typically something in juxtaposition or close association.

Another week passes in the life of Bradford City football club and not for the first time it has held contrasting emotions for supporters.

The home game against Hereford, swelled by cheap tickets saw a crowd of over seventeen thousand at Valley Parade. In truth the game largely lived up to Phil Parkinson’s hardly ringing endorsement beforehand. He promised that it would be a battle and a scrap and it certainly could have been called that amongst other things. The game proved to be of interest due to the divide in opinion between fans over the performance and tactics deployed by the management team of Parkinson and Parkin. The decision to stick with the same formation as the one that nicked an impressive away victory at Torquay was an obvious one and one that Parkinson seemingly favours after employing the 4-4-1-1 at the start of his tenure also. This then was a straightforward decision; one that had suited the team the previous week would surely be as effective against a team with a similar set up as Torquay in Hereford. Who came with the intention to flood the centre of the park by using a five man midfield supporting the lone striker. What was called into question by the fans was if Parkinson had the personnel available to play such a system; due to the absence of the physicality of Craig Fagan leaving Nahki Wells as the pinnacle of the Bantams attack. Wells tried and tried a bit more but is clearly most effective when played off a presence such as James Hanson. The disappointing result in front of such a large crowd left sections of supporters grumbling about Parkinson with several producing stats showing how Parkinson’s win percentage is lower than both Taylor’s and McCall’s and the lack of progress this apparently shows. All this appears to have changed, however after the Bantams recorded a thumping four nil win at Barnet midweek. Suddenly an air of positivity seems to have engulfed the club again and the stats now been produced say ‘one defeat in seven ‘and ‘unbeaten at home since November’. The formation so condemned after the draw to Hereford is now back in favour especially away from Home as it tends to leave the team with a solid base from which they can try and hit teams on the counter attack. This appears to be something that the stifling tactics used by opposing teams at Valley Parade doesn’t allow. The contrast between the two results then leaves the Bantams in high spirits ahead of the away trip to Dagenham on Saturday. Historically the club has seemed to struggle against Dagenham’s style of play in recent years but surely the height and physical presence of the back line and in particular Davies and Oliver should help to counteract the set piece approach favoured by the Daggers.  This then could be said to reflect the fickleness in the life of a football supporter in the sense that something as condemned as last Saturday’s tactics could have such a reversal in circumstance in the space of a few short days.

But that's Football and that's why it's such a great Sport.