2 hours ago
2
A cup tie at Newcastle United on Wednesday night won’t bring all the money in the world to Bradford City, but they are a club building their way back up by counting every penny and the journey to Tyneside certainly helps.
‘The reward we get for playing Newcastle is obviously a few hundred thousand pounds, which will help in the conversation we're having,’ chief executive Ryan Sparks tells Daily Mail Sport.
It was a ‘conversation’, a few weeks back, in which he described how sustainability - sweating the small details – really can be a substitute for big investment from a benefactor. That an ambitious club with a huge fanbase like Bradford don’t need a Sheikh or a Ryan Reynolds to begin to build back.
A week or so after our conversation, Bradford beat old rivals Huddersfield Town at home in front of 24,000 people to go top of League One – a position they strengthened on Saturday with a 3-1 win at early pacesetters Cardiff City before a crowd of 22,000. The Bantams are the talk of the EFL.
The noises tell the story on the day we meet the chief executive. There is the hammering and drilling of builders working on one of the executive suites, testing the wits of a receptionist fielding calls about tickets for the feverishly anticipated first derby match against Huddersfield in the league for 18 years.
The chorus of song from the thousands of fans packing out Doncaster Rovers’ away end, a few days later, buoyed by the promising start to a first season back in League One after six long years in the fourth tier. ‘We’ll sing on our own. This is the best trip we’ve ever been on.’
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
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 a home crowd of 20,000. It’s surprising that a big-money buyer hasn’t made an offer which could see the club reach 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 £6m buyout eight years ago and who, though a far more acceptable face of ownership than some, does not covey 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.
Though comparatively modest, the investment naturally helps - as has an improved relationship between Rupp and the fans. The Bradford City Independent Fans Group have been a significant part of that, with a 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 Bantams twice enter administration after relegation in 2001.
Turnover has increased from around £5m to around £9m 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 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.
The owner remains the enigmatic Stefan Rupp (right) in lieu of a big-money buyer
The team look fitter with Alexander's pre-season training camps getting them in shape
Though City’s collective losses are only £3.6m over a decade, too few clubs think about revenue growth at a time when the onus on clubs is financial controls, CEO Sparks says.
‘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. ‘You have to give real credit to clubs like Wrexham and Birmingham about their sheer desire to grow a club.
‘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 10 appearances this season. ‘Will Swan again, ole ole’ is already an anthem.
Bradford lost 3-1 at Doncaster, despite Swan equalising after the home team’s early opener. In the aftermath of that game, Alexander was impressive – quietly exuding dissatisfaction while maintaining perspective. ‘The biggest thing is that no one’s died. We’ve got a great opportunity in a job we love,’ he told Daily Mail Sport. ‘I don’t like bad body language and feeling sorry for ourselves. C*** happens to everybody and it’s just about how we respond to it. The next time we get an opportunity to work, let’s work. Let’s be better.’
In Alexander, the Bantams 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.
New captain Max Power seems to suit Bradford's intense pressing system
City have a manager who looks a cut above in Alexander, who was harshly sacked by Salford
On paper, City are punching above their weight. Their budget makes them a bottom half team. But the size of fanbase and the drive to get the details right transcends that. Bradford have ambitions to take overall turnover to £12m in League One.
‘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. ’It's feasible to go on. We're certainly not sitting here talking about, “Well, what are we going to do for the next 20 years in League One?”’
Financial 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.
Bradford last visited St James' Park almost 25 years ago, suffering a 2-1 defeat in the Premier League on their way to eventual relegation. But Alexander radiated the club’s new-found belief, ahead of Wednesday night's tie. ‘Newcastle have got much bigger numbers than us at Bradford but I don't think their passion is any bigger than what our supporters have for their club,’ he said. ‘It's just a great test. It's going to be a game that's bouncing and, hopefully, we can contribute to that.’
