Bradford survive

Friday 22nd September.

Martin Smith seems to have recovered from the injury that forced his early retirement from the Gillingham game last week, and will spearhead the Town attack with Kevin Gallen tomorrow. Visitors Burnley will probably be vociferously supported by the best part of 4,000 fans and hopefully the will lift the atmosphere that has been as flat as the performances recently.

Ben Thornley is set for his first home start since February and it is to be hoped that he can perform as well as we know he can, although since Bruce’s arrival he has looked a shadow of the player he used to be. Perhaps it’s a confidence thing, but we desperately need some quality service into the box from our wide players and we need Thornley to show his best form. Rumours suggest that there have been some differences between Bruce and Thornley, but if Bruce is any kind of man manager he needs to patch these up quickly and get the best out of the players who were at the club prior to his arrival.

Burnley probably will feature two ex-Town strikers with completely different personalities. Almost certain to be in the starting eleven will be Andy Payton who despite scoring regularly for Town was never a favourite with many of the fans. Most of his goals came from within the 6 yard box yet he never seemed to show total commitment to the cause, and was the sort of player who felt he had enjoyed a good afternoon if he scored even if the team had been thrashed 5-1. His goals almost certainly kept us in this division following the long-term injury to strike partner Marcus Stewart, but I think most fans accepted his departure quite happily even though his replacement Paul Barnes failed to deliver the goods.

In contrast the other player who is likely to wear a claret and blue shirt is Ronnie Jepson although probably only as a substitute. Rocket Ron was signed by Neil Warnock from Exeter City as an overweight and unfit centre forward, part way through a season. He looked totally out of his depth, and many fans thought that we had acquired a new Terry Austin or Terry Eccles who came in as supposedly accomplished strikers, but were complete flops at Town. In the closed season, however, he transformed himself from a caterpillar into a butterfly (metaphorically speaking of course) and became a real favourite of the fans.

The Ronnie Jepson who reappeared after the summer break was a meaner, leaner fighting machine. Slimmer, yet still stocky and muscular thanks to reducing his beer consumption to 8 pints a night and cutting down to 20 fags a day, he forged a wonderful strike partnership with Andy Booth. He was one of those 100% players we could so do with now to lift the team and the crowd, as the chant of Rocket, Rocket Ron would regularly lift the McAlpine faithful and I’m sure the players as well. It sometimes makes me think that managers sign players for the wrong reasons, forget ability and skill, fill your team with players with names that make for easy and stirring chants for the fans.

We desperately need to win tomorrow otherwise another failure will achieve another unwanted club record fifth consecutive home league defeat, something even the die-hards of the 70’s were spared.

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