Saturday 19 July 2014
Pre-season fixture
Shelbourne 0
Bradford City 4 (Sheehan pen 21, Clarke 29, 55, De Vita 78)
Kick Off: 3.00pm
at Tolka Park
The Bantams ended their stay in Ireland with a comfortable pre-season victory over Airtricity First Division side Shelbourne.
A penalty from Alan Sheehan opened the scoring for City midway through the first half before strikes either side of half time from Billy Clarke gave the Bantams a deserved three-goal cushion.
A late fourth from substitute Raffaele De Vita then completed a pleasing afternoon for Phil Parkinson's men.
After starting Tuesday's UCD game on the bench, Clarke, Matthew Dolan, James Hanson, Stephen Darby and Andrew Davies were all named in City's line up at Tolka Park.
Billy Knott and Gary Liddle were also named in the starting eleven after shaking off minor knocks picked up against UCD.
As planned pre-match, they were all given around 60 minutes before being taken off. De Vita, James Meredith, Jason Kennedy, Matt Taylor, Niall Heaton and trialists Angelo Balanta and Nick Arnold were all given the final half an hour of the friendly.
Youth team members James King, Elliott Barker and Sam Wright also featured in the final 30 minutes of the friendly.
Clarke was nearly on the end of City's best chance in the early stages of the friendly but the sliding striker narrowly missed out on reaching Yeates' shot across the six yard box with the goal gaping.
The Bantams did take the lead in the 21st minute, however, when they were awarded a penalty following Willo McDonagh's handball from Sheehan's cross into the area.
Sheehan took the kick himself and the left back fired the ball confidently into the 'keeper's bottom left-hand corner.
With City on top of the game, Darby then fired a low cross-come-shot narrowly wide of the far post minutes later after being played into space inside the area by Yeates.
Yeates was involved again just before the half hour mark as the attacker played in fellow Irishman Clarke to allow the striker fire home past Shelbourne 'keeper Jack Brady.
Clarke nearly turned provider himself shortly afterwards with a neat cut-back following Yeates' far post cross but the lurking Liddle's shot was blocked from close range by Sean Russell.
The Bantams extended their lead further ten minutes into the second period when Clarke drilled low into the far bottom corner from around 20 yards out following a run deep into Shelbourne territory from Davies.
Shortly after the mass pre-planned substitutions after the hour mark, one of the second half introductions - De Vita - twice got on the end of decent scoring chances within the space of a minute.
De Vita's first effort from just outside the box was pushed away via a strong save from Brady, while the Italian's second strike for goal narrowly missed the target after Heaton's low cross had found him in space on the edge of the area.
City thought they had a fourth 15 minutes from the end when Balanta converted Arnold's searching cross into the area but the Colombian-born attacker was correctly flagged for offside.
The Bantams didn't have to wait too long for their fourth goal of the contest though - just three minutes more - when De Vita rifled low into the far bottom corner from an angle deep inside Shelbourne's area.
CITY XI
1. Jon McLaughlin
2. Stephen Darby
3. Alan Sheehan
4. Matthew Dolan
5. Andrew Davies
8. Gary Liddle
9. James Hanson
10. Billy Clarke
11. Billy Knott
14. Mark Yeates
22. Rory McArdle
Substitutes:
12. Elliott Barker for 1 (63)
6. Matt Taylor for 22 (63)
7. Sam Wright for 11 (63)
15. TRIALIST for 9 (63)
16. James Meredith for 4 (63)
17. Jason Kennedy for 8 (63)
18. Angelo Balanta for 14 (63)
19. James King for 5 (63)
20. Raffaele De Vita for 10 (63)
21. Nick Arnold for 2 (63)
23. Niall Heaton for 3 (63)