BANTAMS SUPPORTERS TRUST

This is an updated version of our comment on on the pitch matters, from our Chair’s Report Agreed at our AGM in November 2024. It captures the excellent run from on Boxing Day 2024 and brings us up to date on the football. After we had done so well with a bit of luck on our side throughout October, we were upstaged by Doncaster, a team that showed us how to win games by beating us 2-1. The attendance was the highest up to that point of the season, 18,267, with 1,587 Donny fans making their way to Valley Parade. With excitement in the air amongst fans, the pressure was too much on the pitch and caused our bubble to burst. From November right up to the last match before Christmas against Notts County where we lost 3 - 0, the Bantams put in some absolutely turgid performances. It was only a shadow of a team and painful to watch. Since the Doncaster defeat and up until Boxing Day we had only won one League game, against Swindon on the 14 th December. Morecambe also knocked out of the FA Cup in the 2 nd round at the Mazuma Stadium in that month. The performances were so poor they invited an open letter from the Independent Bradford City Fans Independent Group, 24 th December, for the attention of Stefan Rupp and Ryan Sparks, to reiterate their assertion that there is a lack of a plan and investment at Bradford City to get the team out of League Two. The Joys of Boxing Day and other results Beating Port Vale was a tremendous lift for all City fans and reward for such a team effort. Taking 3 points off the Valiants was a huge achievement which saw our Andy Cook score both our goals and saw him reach a personal feat of 100 EFL goals It was certainly the antidote to the negative pressure that arises every time the team goes through a sluggish spell. A slightly bigger crowd of 18,330 watched this one with over 1,300 making their way from Staffordshire. The Bantams had been on a real roll, winning 7 out of 8 league and cup matches including the 3 -1 win against Aston Villa under 21’s at Villa Park in the Mickey Mouse Cup, er, I mean, EFL Trophy, invoking wonderful memories of that historic victory in the League Cup at Villa Park 12 years ago now when we beat them 4-3 on aggregate. The winning run included, Chesterfield at VP at the end of December, 2-1, with a great attendance of 18,730, and 2,341 away support, and then the Mariners, beating them 3 – 1, the first home match of 2025 – 4 th January, with a post festive attendance of 18, 011. Slightly lower than the other two big game attendances with 2,187 Grimsby supporters making their way from South East Yorkshire area. City appeared to have a strong conviction to battle right to the end. The other significant win by a solitary goal, for us was of course a long trip to Carlisle, and it was 40 years ago since we last won at Brunton Park. It was a sell out for the Bantams barmy army with 1,391 making the trip to the north East, Cumbria. The attendance was 8,399. And of course we have to mention the significance of Andy Cook getting injured in the one all draw at Barrow on New Years’ Day. There was a real concern about how we were going to cope without him, but the continuing winning form has answered those doubts. Walsall Many had feared that our next opposition to play at VP were going to be a tough nut to crack but high-flying Walsall just could not find their form at all at the weekend. City had done such a professional job in not only neutralising Walsall’s attacking prowess but did an excellent job breaking forward and taking their chances and executing some great finishes. This 3 nil win saw us put in the best performance so far. There was a lower than expected attendance of 17,172, with 901 from Walsall, and although their away support was not that big it did appear much busier everywhere else. It’s clear that prior to results being more favourable, many season ticket holders that chose to stay away are now returning. Morecambe The match against Morecambe on a very chilly Tuesday night of January 28 brought what looked like half of the numbers inside VP than on Saturday, 15,083 the official attendance, with maybe 100 from Morecambe. It was a close finish in the end, but in the end we took 3 points off the struggling side that are at the wrong end of the table. City were much the better team of the first half where we had the better chances and of course got our solitary goal on the half hour mark (Cavanagh), but in the 2 nd half, Morecambe sucked City into a rough battle and were unfortunate not level the game at least. Much to our advantage we did well to keep another clean sheet and we reached 3 rd in the table. Who would’ve believed it after witnessing the Notts County display at Meadow Lane before Christmas? Frustration at Wimbledon The winning streak ended at Plough Lane. It was very a physically game. Wimbledon deserved the win. City succumbed to Wimbledon's game. Both teams spent the game cancelling each other out, but the Don's did it better. We threw away our opportunities including free kicks and corners. Our game needed changing in the 2nd half with subs on but it didn't happen. Back to winning ways in t’ Cup City have done really well to reach the semi-final after beating the Millers 1-0 via a Ritchie Smallwood well taken penalty. Attendance was 3,073 with 1,128 traveling City fans. It’s not a popular cup competition but we are certainly enjoying the ride, with a trip to League One side Birmingham City, and if we are lucky a trip to Wembley for the final. The financial reward is said to be reported as £100,000, and £50,000 for the runners up. Harrogate Back to the League and we picked up 3 points to a side we haven’t had much luck playing against since their promotion into League Two. Prior to the win, we had only won 2 out of 10. Harrogate had won 7 and there has been 1 draw. Sarcevic early solitary goal kept us in the mix for promotion. 17,126 saw this one. Prospects for promotion? Over the last few games, it has been great to hear City fans find their voice again as we now have something to cheer. The atmosphere at the Walsall game has to be the best so far, now we have really seen in action Graham Alexander’s team at it’s best. The Bantams performed well with the home crowd creating a wall of sound at Valley Parade, a sound of pleasure and excitement, and a sound that has been missed. Fans have been yearning for City to find its’ form, and the team responded to our backing. Can we be talking about promotion now? Will we see the passion and determination from our team consistently? To maintain a presence in the mix it has to be. Roller Coaster Graham Alexander came to Bradford City in November 2023, well over a year ago, and this is first full season in charge. His contract runs out in June next season and his team have struggled to find a consistent form, yet they have managed to put together little runs together up to now. Hopefully, however we can put a run together that keeps us in and around where we want to be. Most fans will understand we will have some blips along the way, but hopefully some of the worst performances are behind us. Alexander is fortunate that results and performances did pick up in the way they did, because up until then, there was an awful amount of discontented pressure building up not only on his shoulders but also on the Clubs’. It was March of last year that saw us get hammered 5 times in a row. This was the only other time that brought the toughest period of disenchanted pressure. Mark Hughes, who managed the team from February 22, was a popular manager initially, that took us to the play off’s but failed to beat Carlisle away in the semi final. It wasn’t the most exciting journey on the road to the play off’s but we got there, and after that let-down, Hughes could never really get his team going again after starting the new season with us, and he parted with the Club on the 4 th October, leaving us in 18 th in the League table. We said at the time, “No one predicted such shocking displays of football within these 11 games so far. It is the manner in which the team has played up to now that has been so disappointing, and no fan of any football team enjoys watching their team play stripped of belief.” Thankfully, with fortunes looking so much more favourable, it is unthinkable that any City fan will be saying Alexander has got to go, and the Trust hopes we can all enjoy this ride for as long as possible. There is such a real desire from the fans for our Club to get promoted it’s almost tangible, and it is widely understood, and certainly from experience, that a resorting to the short term path of the managerial merry-go-round can be a damaging gamble for a football club. We can only hope that this is our year of progressing out of League Two. 

This is the Chairs’ Report, written in October 24, ahead of our November AGM 2024, commenting on the managerial situation, the national picture as a backdrop and the Trust’s year engaging with the Club, and building the Trust to ensure its longevity by encouraging supporters to join and play leading role in ensuring we have a football club for generations to come. On the Pitch At the time of writing, the Bantams are 5 th in the League Two table after coming away from Cheltenham on a Tuesday night with a point. Could we be seeing something of a renaissance after seeing three wins on the bounce following a dip in form in September up until early October. In fact the anniversary of Mark Hughes departure, October 4 th , last year, came and went and our 3 wins in a row started on October 7 th at home against Newport County, winning 2 – 1 on a Monday night in front of the Sky TV cameras. Rewind to the beginning of Graham Alexander’s career with Bradford City, his first game didn’t go as well as planned, losing to Barrow 2 – 1 at home on the 11 th November 23. We lost again to Notts County 42 in the following game away in the league before beating Barnsley at home 5 – 1 in the EFL Trophy group stage getting his first win at home under his belt at VP against Accrington Stanley, and this winning streak continued well into December, beating Doncaster away 3-1 away on the 22 nd . The next stint of back-to-back league wins came in February of this year (2024), a 4 – 0 beating over MK Dons and a solitary goal beating Sutton United respectively, both at home. March saw us get hammered 5 times in a row and it also gave reason to growing unrest from a section of the fanbase, frustrated with the lack of progress on the pitch come to it’s height in the form of a protest led by ‘Bradford City Independent Fans Group on the 29 th March before City’s home fixture against Tranmere which we won 2 – 0. City had a run of 6 games unbeaten starting with a 1 – 1 draw against the Mariners away and then 5 wins, and came so close to a play-off off place. It left us City fans and probably the players and the management team wondering what if? What if we had won that Crawley game at home, what if we didn’t lose so many in March? At the time of writing we will soon come to Graham Alexander’s 1 st year as Manager and hopefully a better season. The pressure on the Club to succeed to get out of this league is almost tangible and we are sure the manager and players understand. It is imperative the team doesn’t buckle under that pressure. At the moment the team are fifth in the division and a win against Doncaster Rovers on the 26 th of October could see us leap frog over them and potentially reach third place in League 2. The difficult challenge will be however to maintain the consistency needed to hold that position. It is indeed a long season, a season of challenges to the team and another roller coaster season for the fans. The Football Governance Bill update Earlier this year (2024) the Football Governance Bill had started its process of getting legislated (19 th March 24) with the introduction of the Independent regulator being the key component of the proposals as a means to intervene and stop clubs being run into the ground, protect the heritage of clubs, give supporters a much bigger voice in the running of the game, and prevent any chance of domestic clubs joining a breakaway European Super League. However the snap general election in the summer prevented the Bill in completing its process of getting through parliament. In May this year (2024), keen to continue put pressure on politicians after the general election was called, the FSA tabled an open letter signed by 200+ supporters’ groups, calling on all parties to get behind a new Football Governance Bill. Bantams Supporters Trust was amongst those signatories. On the 23 rd of October 24, the Labour government launched the Bill in parliament strengthened with additional powers to protect clubs and support fans, chiefly on: Consulting fans on ticket pricing, home stadium relocations, and fan representation at clubs. Parachute payments included in Regulator’s remit so it will have full oversight to tackle financial sustainability across the football pyramid. Requirement to consider government foreign policy dropped to cement regulator’s full independence. It’s considered that the independent regulator will be seen as a ‘back stop’ power if EFL and PL clubs cannot come to agreement around issues around wealth redistribution. Naturally the EFL are happier of the two because the parachute payments are within the remit of the independent regulator You can see more detail here . FA Cup Replays In April (2024) we reported that the FA had authorized the banning of FA Cup replays from the first round proper from next year. It was something the Premier League had always wanted, predominantly to ease their fixture calendar which has been made more congested by the expansion of European club competitions, and initially it formed part of it’s proposal to the EFL and National League on financial redistribution. It has angered many football supporters and clubs especially of clubs further down the pyramid. You can find a fuller report on the detail and what it means in our article on it here . On the 1 st May, 27 clubs, 11 from the EFL and 16 non league clubs joined forces to back a football reform body called Fair Play who are requesting an amendment to the Football Governance Bill to re-instate FA Cup replays. See more here . The EFL TV Deal In May 2023 EFL clubs have unanimously voted to accept a £935m 5-year deal with Sky Sports, which starts this season and will run until the end of the 2028-29 season. It is said the deal will keep the Saturday blackout in place. The blackout is when the majority (i.e. 50% or more) of the weekly football matches in the top or top two domestic leagues or in the national cup(s) in the country are played in a two and a half hour window. It is also said that under the deal 1,059 league EFL Cup and EFL Trophy matches will be shown live either on a Sky main channel or via a Sky streaming platform, replacing the iFollow service. You can still get iFollow if you live internationally. When the dates were confirmed in the summer, Sky and EFL had maneuvered to stagger all scheduled live matches around the black-out for the period up to the FA Cup third round in early January. Viewing times will stagger over long weekends from Friday to Mondays. The FSA will keep a watching brief over future confirmed televised fixtures. You can see more here . The year’s work Again, like previous years, there is always something to keep on top of. It is very demanding. Our three key things that we do best are: Keeping members informed and in the loop about we are doing and keeping you up to date as much as we can to what is going on nationally with our email articles, which we post on social media. Physically engage with members and supporters through our stalls on match days in the stadium. Engage with the Club through our ‘Structured Dialogue’, and of course keep members and supporters informed with what we have discussed and what comes out of the meetings. Commercial relationships We are now in our first full season with UK based, ethically sourced company called Teemill. We have samples of our designed clothing on our stall and have an advert, now with a QR code to take members and supporters directly to the online store : where supporters can buy our products. There is no investment costs with this, but if it does prove popular the income we get with each sale of merch sold could finance any upgrade to have more choice in terms of stylization, so for example merch such as T-shirts and hoodies could have back printing. Our scarves are the key seller on our stall. One of our members, Ryan Bell (RB) had donated some of the scarves he had made from a supplier in Europe before Brexit done in a retro European style so that the Trust could raise money from them. MD and RB then went halves on 50 claret and amber retro design scarves with Leeds-based company Global scarves for the start of the 2022/23 season. We still had plenty of the white with claret and amber trim type scarves left over, and this is what we have been selling up to date. The Global Scarves ones are a jacquard knit design, harking back to how football scarves were originally mass produced in the UK, but as everything is so much more expensive post Brexit we had to sell them at £15 each to get a return, but we have not taken out our investment back from what we have sold and we have very nearly sold them all in over 2 seasons. Our publicity and website As we have mentioned earlier, we always regularly update members and supporters updates on national things that can have a direct or sometimes indirect impact on our Club, and articles about whet we accomplish. Our members get our emails, and there is always a trace of our work so that members can look up or go back to articles. The emails that get sent to over 500 members is a basic free service and on average 40% click on the emails. However there are less people that click on the links to see the articles in full. On Social media City supporters can just see a strapline and link to our articles, and we regularly share on multiple groups with the help of the Meta Business Suite and we continue to use twitter of ‘X’ as it is now called. And we continue to reach Instagram too. Our profile on these social media channels has grown and we are much larger than life because of the frequency of posting. If it is not for posting links to articles, often with an image / design in our Trust box, it is our regular well wishing prior to matches regularly asking poignant questions relating to form and record of results and immediate challenges. These get the most ‘likes’. These have the retro scoreboard C’mon City clap graphics. Our Facebook Group has 881 members, up by 54 and our ‘Likes’ Page has 1,500 plus people liking it, and 1,572 people follow it, up by 45. Our Twitter account , has 394 Following , up 12, and 287 Followers , up by 67. We do have an Instagram site with 72 following on that. Our presence on social media has definitely grown and we have shown to be consistent in our approach to what we do. Our website has also seen improvement. You are now able to share features on our website onto social media via your mobile phone as most people use their phones to look at social media and share within their social groups. Also we have changed the way you see our news items whether it is on your phone, laptop or computer desktop, and we have added a structured dialogue area in the ‘About us’ section and an ‘ACV’ or Asset of Community Value’ section in the ‘campaigns’ section of our website. We will explain the ACV further on. Concourse stalls in the Main Stand The Trust is now in our fourth season running a stall on matchdays. We are in the main stand, usually setting up between 1.30pm and 2pm on a Saturday. It is difficult because we are not there every week due to work commitments, but even so, we definitely have established a firm base of friendly faces that stop and chat and discuss their concerns and / or put a few quid in the donations tin, and supporters constantly look at what we have to sell. It is a very good set up. As we have said earlier, it is the scarves that sell best. We think it important to have this live link to the Trust. It is a shame we only have the resources to do it in that one spot, and in other parts of the stadium. Fan Engagement / Structured Dialogue During the last Financial Year we have held three meetings with CEO Ryan Sparks: in November 23 , and then February 24 , and August 24 attended by Marco Townson as the club's Supporter Liaison Officer (SLO). It was just Marco that represented the Club at the last one. We are due to have another meeting this November. It is always work in progress and developments within the Club are always at pace, so we are often playing catch-up in what is always a movable feast. The key themes running through these meetings are: Matchday experience, including Fanzone, atmosphere section, stewarding home and away, food and drink choices and prices. Railed seating Season tickets and loyalty points as well as matchday ticket pricing and special offers for struggling people. Environmental sustainability Restorative Justice – discussing how the Club deal with and support troublesome supporters seeing the error of their ways. Community building and Diversity projects – finding ways to work with the Club supporting community projects. Other core agenda items: Aspects of the Fan-Led Review / the proposed Football Governance Bill. Improving our Structured Dialogue – improving the Clubs’ fan engagement. Ownership – The importance of seeing Stefan Rup as improving the Clubs’ fan engagement. Important achievements for the Trust We had helped to improve the Clubs’ Sanctions Policy . We discussed through the findings of our extensive survey, see February’s meeting with the Club report . In November 23 we told the Club of our intention to nominate Valley Parade as an Asset of Community Value (ACV) and in March this year we submitted our nomination of VP to be an ACV and it was confirmed it had been successful in June . We even made it as an item of news on BBC’s Look North in July ! That was a major coup for us that generated a lot of interest and support from City fans. In April we played an important part in getting as many as 30 members able to do the bucket collection, raising £4,176.71 before the last match of the season against Newport County. Membership We now have 984 contacts that we have on our InTouch database, an increase of 23 on last year (2023), and the email membership figure now stands at 514, an increase of 5. We have a total of 272 ‘suppressed’ contacts (an increase of 25 on last year (2023) that we have to go through and identify – This list covers all contacts whose emails have bounced – this could be because they have changed their email addresses, or indeed passed away. It covers members who have unsubscribed or indeed members who have no contact details. Whilst our membership is respectable, we still need to increase the membership in order to represent a wider and more diverse support base the Club has. We have made it easier to join than ever before, from when people can enter the website on their phones to the links on social media to our articles, there is always an option to join, and supporters can still pay their membership or renew via paypal and bank transfer by going to ‘ Membership Cost’ The Trust Board We continue to meet regularly, but it has been difficult getting everyone available to meet at the same time. This makes it more pressing that we need more people interested in joining the Trust and getting involved and playing a role on the board. With more board members we can reach out more and be a bigger influence. You don’t have to live in Bradford to attend meetings (you can attend meetings on Skype) and play a role but living in the West Yorkshire area would help as we need more hands to maintain and expand our work. If you fancy it get in touch on at hello@bantamstrust.co.uk . Whilst the Trust as an identity has a larger than life presence, as a board, looking to the future, we do need to develop a new generation of Trust activists replenishing the existing board, who I would like to thank one and all for helping the Trust stay alive. I would also like to give a special thanks to Board member Simon Hagerty, who continues to play a tremendous role in managing our website and getting our articles and documents out there, making them accessible to all. The Trust is a democratic and independent organisation, and the only body of City fans that is part of a wider Supporters Trust movement on a national scale. We can act as a critical friend of the Club and as a collective campaigning force that can be organised into action. To realise this potential, we need more fans to join and get involved.

Bantams Supporters Trust are moved to respond to derogatory remarks aimed at victims of the fire disaster on social media after the Walsall game on Saturday 25 th and reports of tragedy chanting at our match away at Carlisle on the 18 th January. Last weeks we saw our Clubs statement on the recent social media post and more recently we saw a statement from Walsall Supporters Trust; "Following complaints made by the Trust and many individuals, Walsall Football Club (and the West Midlands Police) are taking steps to identify the individual responsible for this so called joke about the deaths of 56 people who went to a football match and never returned home. Our thoughts are with any relatives who may have seen this abomination, not to mention the 250 odd people injured that day, some of whom received life changing injuries." First of all, we share the sentiments of the Walsall Trust’s statement, and we are saddened that we have to respond about negative news about supporters again. We would like to share our Clubs zero tolerance position on any form of abuse or discrimination, including tragedy chanting and condemn it in the strongest possible manner. Love Football. Protect the Game. We would like to remind supporters that last season (23/24) the football authorities united to introduce a series of measures to help improve football participation and fan behavior, and more specifically, address the issue of football tragedy abuse under the banner of ‘Love Football. Protect the Game’. Measures to challenge unacceptable fan behavior include bans and potential criminal prosecutions. Restorative Practice However, to support the rehabilitation of those identified as having engaged in negative matchday behavior, offenders may be referred to restorative practice programmes, with a range of in-stadium, in-classroom and online resources, to educate adults and children alike about the hurt tragedy chanting and other forms of abusive behavior causes. See more about all the types of measures rolled out last season to help improve the behaviour of players, managers, coaches and fans across the professional, National League system and grassroots game here .