Valley Parade, Bradford City
League Two v Cheltenham Town
Saturday, January 2nd 2010, 3pm
Tony Rastelli
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1. Why you were looking forward to going to the ground (or not as the case may be): I was looking forward to
going to Bradford because I've never been to their ground before and I
usually now don't have the time to follow my team away from home anymore,
so this was a chance to go. My journey was easy, I went
on the supporters travel coach from Cheltenham to the game. The
ground is pretty easy to find as their floodlights stand out from far away
and is also well signposted, our coach pulled up right outside our section
of the stadium so there was no trouble there. I went straight into the
ground, brought a programme and watched our players warm up, didn't really
come into contact with many home fans as when we got there it was more or
less empty! Arriving at the ground, then
there were two very large stands opposite. Our section and the
stand we were in, was similar to the In2print stand at
Cheltenham. The "Dallas" stand which was to our left looked very poor I
think if you were to sit in the lower tier you would struggle to see the
game, The Upper tier didn't look much better. The only thing that
bugged me about the away section was you had to climb up 3 set of
stairs to get to pitch level and then if you wanted to go to the top
you had to climb another long set of stairs to get there, if your
terribly unfit you may struggle for breath afterwards! I enjoyed the game overall
and would come to Bradford again. We drew 1-1 with them taking the
lead 10 minutes before HT after we failed to clear our lines from a
free kick. Had a Hotdog as a half time snack which cost £3, I don't
usually buy food at grounds so I thought that was expensive. I
didn't need to go to the toilet at all so on with the second half.. we
came out with a bit more desire and got ourselves level when our striker
was pulled down by their right back (which I thought was outside
the box) But the referee deemed the infringement happened in the penalty
area, their player who had been cautioned before picked up his second
yellow and got sent off, so we got a penalty and thankfully
scored!
It was soft, but It was a foul though so we'll take that and get on with the rest of the game.. apart from a half chance later on with our other striker heading wide whilst facing back to goal we didn't really threaten their goalkeeper at all. They had 2 or 3 good chances in the second half, and on another day they would have gone in but fortunately they didn't and we came away with a well deserved point, we didn't threat much but the effort was put in and at the end of the day that's all you can ask for. The atmosphere I
thought was quite flat, their fans didn't sing much, and when they did you
couldn't really hear what they were saying! Our fans made an
effort to sing and got through a couple of songs but apart from that there
was nothing much.
Stewards seemed quite
relaxed with us all the way through the game before and after. The
only thing I would pick them up on was that if you plan to take a drum
inside their ground they would make you sign some sort of contract
paper! before you can take it in, which I thought was bizarre to be
honest, but oh well these things
happen.
6. Comment on getting away from the ground after the game: There was a small delay getting away from the ground as they
get big attendances for a League 2 club but after that we hit the main
roads and got home fairly easily. Overall I enjoyed my visit to Valley Parade and would come again, taking a point I thought was a very good result for us as Bradford is a hard place to come and play football so well Done Robins! |
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