Could Bradford be the first Premiership club to lose league status?

Ten years ago, Bradford City were competing in Europe and played Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool in their first six games of the Premier League season. They have begun their fourth season in England’s basement division with games against Torquay, Stevenage, Port Vale and Stockport and sit outside the relegation on only goal difference. Could Bradford, who have  twice entered administration and, despite still getting gates six times that of other League Two clubs, live off a hand to mouth existence, be about to complete an unprecedented fall from Premiership to non-league?

Pre-season, Bradford were promotion favourites having added well to a squad with a good sprinkling of promising young players learning their trade at Valley Parade. Having appointed Peter Taylor and given him financial backing, many around Valley Parade were hopeful this could be the year to start the long climb back up the football league.

Taylor himself was an interesting appointment, a man with a history of coming and going from clubs quickly. Only once in his managerial career, at Hull, has Taylor managed a club for more than two seasons, leaving Brighton, Crystal Palace, Stevenage and Wycombe without success in under eighteen months. Bradford are in desperate need of stability, with three relegations and twelve managers in ten years, and Taylor may not be the ideal man to provide it.

Taylor has moved to bring in fresh faces by raiding old club Wycombe for Luke Oliver, Tommy Doherty and Lewis Hunt. These players are all solid league two players and nothing better and perhaps showed that even Taylor himself was unsure about Bradford’s tag as promotion favourites. To lessen the wage bill eighteen players left the club over the summer, leaving the squad heavily reliant on players coming through the ranks at Valley Parade. While Bradford undoubtedly do have players capable of playing at a higher level their squad is thin and asking teenagers to play an entire season with the tag of promotion favourites around their neck may be asking too much.

Following their start to the season it appears Bradford may already be struggling under the weight of expectation. Taylor’s men have already played and lost to the top three in the league, showing that they will fall short of promotion, but more worryingly they have also struggled against sides who will be in the lower reaches of the league this season. They laboured past a wasteful Stevenage, were defeated by Southend and picked up an undeserved point at Stockport, signs that do not bode well for the rest of the season.

So could the unthinkable happen, could Bradford be the first Premier League member club to be relegated into non-league? On paper they are too good to be worrying about the possibility of Blue Square football. Barnet, Morecombe and Lincoln are all significantly weaker this year and should be the cannon fodder this season. But, with a young squad, the longer they hang around the foot of the table the more the pressure on the players and manager will build. With 11,000 fanatical fans demanding success their next three games could prove crucial. They host Gillingham who are notoriously poor away from home, before tricky trips to Northampton and high-flying Rotherham. If they have still not shown signs of improvement after these three games then trips to Hayes and Yeading, Gateshead and Barrow could well be on the cards.