Bradford survive

Saturday 5th August

Town's home match against Barnsley on October 7th has been brought forward 24 hours to the Friday night. This is because England face Germany on the Saturday in a World Cup qualifier (I'm not sure if it's home or away), and following England's rare victory in Euro 2000 interest is expected to be high. I just hope it's on terrestrial television, because it's a real pain when it's only featured live on Satellite TV and you have to try to avoid the result all night before watching the highlights.

The final pre-season friendly took place today against Leeds United and was the first to be played on home soil but I generally don't bother going to friendly games, and today's was no exception. Following a 5-0 thrashing last season, it sounds as though Town gave a much better account of themselves by only losing 2-0 this time, and enjoying rather more of the game than the previous meeting.

Much as it might grieve me to give too much credit to one of our near neighbours, Leeds are a quality side now having led the Premiership in the earlier part of last season, and maintained a top 3 slot all season I believe. Town had a number of chances to score, but a combination of poor finishing and excellent goalkeeping from Nigel Martyn saw Leeds comfortably through in the end. Leeds goals came from free kick specialist Ian Harte in the eighth minute, and Lee Bowyer in the fortieth.

It sounds as though most of Town's opportunities fell to Clyde Wijnhard, but it seems as if the former Leeds player was possibly trying that bit too hard against his former employers and had a bit of an off-day in front of goal. The injury blight is biting still deeper, with Chris Beech limping off suffering from a calf injury after playing for just 16 minutes.

At the end of the day, it was a good workout against a superior side, and hopefully Bruce will have learnt something in defeat, and possibly the board of directors too. The attendance this season was about 6,000 less than the same fixture last season and the Leeds fans turned out in their numbers so the shortfall must be disillusioned Terriers who feel that the club either lacks ambition or that they don't share the passion of the supporters.

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