Richard Sutcliffe: City reborn after their hat-trick of unprecedented Cup feats

Most replies have been unprintable in a family newspaper as those oh-so-funny enquirers were left in no doubt just where I would rather be. Until Tuesday night, that is, when one of those all too rare sporting occasions to savour came along.

Bradford City, the club whose slide from Premier League to the basement meant they long ago became a byword for the price that can be paid for financial failure, became only the fourth Yorkshire club to reach the League Cup final.

City booking their first appearance in a major Cup final for more than a century was one of those true fairytale moments when any fan, player, manager or even journalist is proud to say ‘I was there’.

Ronnie Radford’s Hereford United, Bob Stokoe’s Sunderland and the Crazy Gang of Wimbledon have all deservedly carved their names across the annals of English football by overcoming the odds in spectacular fashion.

But none of these surely come close to what Bradford have done by battling through to the Capital One Cup final.

Not for Phil Parkinson’s heroes a solitary, albeit remarkable, win a la what accounted for Newcastle United at Edgar Road in 1972. Or the kind of stunning one-off triumph at Wembley that saw overwhelming favourites Leeds United beaten in the 1973 FA Cup final or Liverpool 15 years later.

No, what Bradford of the fourth tier have done is far more remarkable. Arsenal, Wigan Athletic and now Aston Villa, the latter over two legs, have all been beaten by a team whose combined transfer outlay amounts to just £7,500 and the proceeds from a pre-season friendly.

That was the fee that brought James Hanson to Valley Parade in the summer of 2009 from non-League Guiseley. And when you consider that Villa midfielder Fabian Delph alone cost £8m – 12.5 per cent of which went to Bradford due to the midfielder having been on the club’s books as a youngster before joining Leeds – then it shows the magnitude of what Parkinson’s men achieved on Tuesday night by clinching a 4-3 aggregate win.

Just what booking a first trip to the rebuilt Wembley meant to City’s long-suffering fans was obvious. The tremendous roars that greeted, first, Hanson’s second-half goal and then the final whistle had to be heard to be believed, almost as if the pent-up frustration of the past decade or so had finally found its release for the 6,000 Bradfordians who had made the trip to Villa Park.

The three relegations were forgotten. As were the two stints in administration when Bradford looked like losing its second Football League club in less than 35 years.

It was a similar story back in West Yorkshire as fans who had packed the pubs and clubs of the Aire Valley celebrated long into the night.

Some managed just a couple of hours’ sleep before heading to work bleary eyed in the morning, such was the excitement caused by the events of the previous evening.

Already, the scramble for tickets and travel to London is under way with City set to receive an allocation of 30,000 seats for the February 24 final.

All of them will be snapped up in double quick time, meaning when Gary Jones, 35 years young and the talisman of this incredible Cup run, leads his team-mates out at Wembley there is unlikely to be a more proud set of supporters around than those bedecked in claret and amber.

And who knows? Maybe the heroics are not over yet and Parkinson’s heroes will be able to claim a fourth Premier League scalp to – unbelievably – clinch a place in next season’s Europa League. Truly, a City reborn.