Saturday 19 April 2008
Coca-Cola Football League 2
Bradford City vs Grimsby Town

A warm welcome to Alan Buckley, his players and staff and the supporters from Grimsby Town to this afternoon's game.

Like ourselves, Grimsby have recovered well this season after a difficult period early on.

I remember they were under a bit of pressure like us when we went there in October. That was during the run when we only managed two points from eight games and we just managed to keep above them when we scored the penalty in the last minute.

Alan always gets his teams playing the right way and we'd noticed from the reports we'd had that they'd been playing some good stuff but not getting the points from it.

I spoke to Alan a few months afterwards and they'd changed systems and gone to three at the back which started them off on a great run, culminating in getting to Wembley for the Johnstone's Paint Trophy Final.

Alan is a wily character, a good football man and he is Mr Grimsby Town.

He's dragged them up the table this season and good luck to him.

I went to watch them on Tuesday night against Wycombe and he has done a good job.

I'd also like to say welcome back to Paul Bolland, although he has had a bit of an injury.

I know Bolly was desperate to play when he missed out against us earlier in the season and he will be hoping to be involved this afternoon.

He's a friend of Bowser's and a good lad as well as a good pro. He's also doing a bit of coaching and even took my little 'un for a training session.

From our point of view, we want to finish as high as we can. There are a group of clubs around us at the moment, including Grimsby, and it would be nice if we could end up above them all as we are now.

With two home games coming up, it would be good if we could finish off here with a couple of victories. A lot of teams in this division have got worse records than ours at home but we still want to do better.

At the moment we've won nine and somebody said that if we can make it into double figures, it will be the first time since Jim Jefferies was here that has happened.

There's still a lot to play for. Us and Grimsby are battling to finish above each other and then we've MK Dons and Wycombe. So there's no reason why we can't end on a high.

Remember we are all one team so give the lads a cheer.

Enjoy the game