Wembley defeats gave McArdle motivation for success

While the claret-and-amber travelling army who came south to Wembley for the second time in just under 12 weeks and other Bradford City players may have afforded themselves a cold shudder at the prospect of failure again at the home of football, McArdle had previous demons to conquer.

As did Bantams’ indomitable leader Gary Jones, with he and Sheffield-born defender McArdle tasting the bitter pill of defeat in a League Two play-off final with Rochdale, who lost 3-2 to Stockport County at Wembley on May 26, 2008.

Just as on that Spring afternoon almost five years ago, McArdle found the net with a header, his effort actually putting Dale ahead in the 24th minute.

His strike to make it 2-0 against Northampton on Saturday had similarities to that effort, albeit arriving five minutes earlier in the piece.

Bantams fans, though, will most likely remember his emphatic weekend header as bearing an uncanny resemblence to his header which flew in like a tracer bullet to put City 2-0 up in January’s Capital One Cup semi-final first leg against Aston Villa.

On a re-run of his memorable winter goal, McArdle said: “I was due a goal. It’s not fair on relying on Nahki (Wells) and Hanse (James Hanson).

“It’s important that we all chip in. The second goal just made us that little bit more comfortable and then Nahki went and got his goal, which he deserved.”

On reliving his previous play-off final goal, he added: “I remember the goal like yesterday and it was a similar sort of goal at the front post. But the feeling afterwards was awful because of the result. Me and Jonah have both spoken about it quite a bit this season. It was important that it didn’t happen on Saturday and it worked out perfectly with us picking up a trophy.”

City’s success represented the third time in the past four seasons in which the team who have finished in seventh, the final play-off place in League Two, have clinched promotion via the end-of-season lottery, with Phil Parkinson’s side following in the footsteps of Crewe and Dagenham and Redbridge.

McArdle insists it was all about momentum for City, who drew upon their inexhaustible reservoirs of grit during an heroic 64-game season to achieve their mission, that message further reinforced amid sombre reflection after the 5-0 loss to Swansea.

McArdle added: “One team always sneaks into the play-offs and fortunately, it was us this season.

“With 10 or 15 games to go, a lot of people had written us off. But we showed the character that everyone has got. After the League Cup final, Parky said: ‘We will be back here.’ We were – with a much-improved performance.”