The Bantams board began the task of finding City's next boss as Mark Lawn stressed: We've got to get this right.

Joint-chairmen Lawn and Julian Rhodes expect plenty of well-known managerial names throwing their hats in the ring to succeed Stuart McCall.

Interviews will start later this week for the job of steering the Bantams through the rest of the season, with a longer-term appointment will be made in the summer.

Whoever is appointed, Lawn insists that the prospect of lifting City from the depths of League Two is an attractive one.

He said to the Telegraph & Argus: "There are a lot of people out there who've applied for the job and quite rightly. This is a big club stuck in the doldrums and we need to get out.

"If someone can take someone like a Colchester United through the leagues with a small fanbase, then I'm sure they can do it with a Bradford City. I'm sure it's easier to grab hold of us.

"Experience is certainly a criteria. We want someone who's been in a team that's been strong and battling and can bring those attributes.

"We need to have a strong personality that can galvanise the team and also work with the younger, less-experienced lads. We've got to really get this one right."

McCall quit yesterday morning having decided that he could not take the club any further. But Lawn, who has kept out of the spotlight in recent weeks, made it clear that the board would have intervened if the manager had not made up his own mind.

When speaking to the Telegraph & Argus, he added: "We'd certainly have been having a meeting with him and seeing where we go from there. I think Stuart decided to go before that happened.

"It's goals that count and goals that change games, as Stuart said to me. Even at the back end against Bury, we should have had three but didn't - they scored one and that was it."

Wayne Jacobs, McCall's number two, is still at the club and took charge of training yesterday at the indoor 5Alive centre in Fairweather Green. He will pick the team to face Grimsby on Saturday if the new man is not installed in time.

Lawn added: "We've told him to get on with it and run the club as though he's in charge until we say otherwise."