Welcome to the Coral Windows Stadium for this afternoon's match against Barnet. I am particularly pleased to welcome the players, officials and supporters from Barnet today, including their chairman Tony Kleanthouse.
Tony has worked incredibly hard both for his club and as the representative for League Two on the Football League board. He does this despite the voting procedures in the league being very much biased against League Two clubs, and I would like to thank him on our behalf for all of his efforts.
With the general election now just around the corner, I thought I would take this opportunity to comment on the latest situation regarding the Odsal Stadium development. I think it is important that all City fans are made aware of the plans that the council has to effectively give another £15m to Bradford Bulls in order to ensure that their stadium is fit for the Super League. This is just the latest gesture from a council which has never showed any similar interest in supporting Bradford City in any way at all.
Recently, the council spent £2m looking into a proposal that would see City and the Bulls playing together at Odsal, but this entire process was a farce. They never even took the time to contact us for our financial information- and so they ended up using figures which showed our proposed earnings being in excess of the time when we were in the Premier League. It was fitting that I ended up discovering about the results of this consultation through the newspaper.
It is our position that the proposal to spend £15m in this way is the wrong decision for Bradford at a time when the city has so many other more pressing priorities. We feel that the council should instead support a plan which would see both clubs accommodated at the Coral Windows Stadium.
Sadly, the state of the council is reflected in the problems facing the city at the moment. I think it is now time for much firmer leadership from the top and we should consider having an elected mayor. My choice would be someone such as John Pennington who has worked tirelessly for the city, and has the vision that is needed to make Bradford the great place again that it once was. For example, his vision for a new rail station in the centre of the city that would enable services to pass through the city is an excellent idea. Unfortunately, it seems that Huddersfield is likely to steal a march on Bradford and that it will become part of a new electrified route from east to west.
I have mentioned these issues because I think it is important that the Bradford public reflect on them when they go to the ballot box. It is time for radical action if we are to drag this city out of the wilderness and get it back where it belongs.
To matters on the pitch and it was nice to record a win against Morecambe on Tuesday, with both the result and manner of the victory being pleasing. We played some good attacking football with a young and enthusiastic team and I thought the second goal was a real peach - one of the best I have seen here in many years.
We hope that such performances will encourage more fans to buy season tickets for next year as the take up since the re-launch has been very disappointing. It is so important that the fans back us in large numbers to allow us to provide the funds required to mount a challenge for promotion next year.
On this respect, we remain hopeful that Peter Taylor will be the man to lead that charge. Negotiations regarding our proposed new training facility are going well and we have agreed the playing budget with him. We hope to get personal terms sorted with Peter and that he will sign up for next year as he remains our number one choice.
As we have decided to open up this column to all of the directors of the club, these will be my final programme notes of the season. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your fantastic support and let's hope we can look forward to a more enjoyable season in 2010-11 with a renewed vigour thanks to the changes that are now beginning to take place.
Enjoy the game
Mark Lawn
Joint chairman
