Bradford City 3, Wimbledon 3: The bookies like to think they never get it wrong. But when it comes to the action at Valley Parade, they are well off-beam.

Pre-match odds last night had a 3-3 draw down as a 50-1 long shot, while 0-0 was just eights. I think they got it all messed up.

One thing is certain at City home games this season - you won't suffer a goalless bore.

Visits to Valley Parade should carry a health warning. They are seriously not for the faint-hearted. The scariest, loopiest rollercoaster feels like a children's swing compared to the stress and tension caused by watching this lot.

But what fantastic value for money for the punters - and there were plenty of them - who cashed in on the cheap £5 tickets. Then again, City's biggest home crowd of the season would have known what to expect.

It's almost standard fare these days - goals galore at both ends, buckets of chances and near-misses and excruciating drama right up to the final whistle. Wimbledon have never won at Valley Parade, but they must have headed back down the M1 last night knowing they had screwed up their best chance.

And it was the man who had done most to rip City to shreds in the first half who became their unwitting saviour.

Republic of Ireland international David Connolly was untouchable for the opening 45 minutes, scoring twice including the Beckhamesque free-kick just before half-time which seemed to have put the game out of sight.

When Connolly curved the dead ball over the wall to restore the two-goal lead, just three minutes after Andy Tod had got one back, the Halloween horror show had surely come a day early.

Even more so when after half-an-hour of puffing and panting and getting nowhere in a second-half torrential downpour, City suddenly let Connolly burst clear. This was surely the hat-trick and the final nail as he rounded Gary Walsh to the right of the empty net. But as the band of Dons supporters behind the goal prepared to celebrate, he slid his off-balance shot a hair's breadth wide.

A turning point for City? Too right! Forty seconds later and Matt Etherington was teasing Kelvin Davis with a bending cross that kept edging further away from the Dons keeper.

It remained just out of his grasp right up to the moment Eoin Jess came rampaging in from beyond the far post to ram in his ninth goal of the campaign and fourth in four days.

His strike switched the power back on as the bumper crowd woke from their soggy slumbers and created an electric atmosphere.

The home side swarmed forward and after Stuart McCall fed substitute Gary Locke to cross deep from the right wing, there was the head of Tod, City's equivalent of the hand of God, to do what he had done all night. Meeting the ball with a thumping contact, it bounced down and over the despairing Davis and into the roof of the net.

Wimbledon, the club built on legendary team spirit, looked broken men and the only surprise was that City couldn't dig out a fourth in the remaining ten or so manic minutes.

And yet there was still a nasty sting in the tail - or would have been if Connolly had remembered what to do when presented with a clear sight of goal.

City were caught on the hop and Kevin Cooper's skidding ball across the box homed in on the Wimbledon leading scorer with all the freedom in the world. He gave it a decent whack - and held his head in horror as the free shot sailed high into the Sunwin Stand.

Hard to believe this was the same marksman who had started proceedings with a quick turn and fire past the floundering Robert Molenaar to give the visitors a 15th-minute lead.

That was the forerunner for a wonder strike from Cooper four minutes later when he swerved a 30-yarder into the top, left corner.

Assistant boss Billy Brown looked fit to burst in front of the City dug-out, obviously forgetting Wimbledon have mastered the art of botching two-goal leads (Remember Rotherham on Saturday?).

Sure enough, Tod got City going with a header from a Gunnar Halle cross. It was a carbon-copy of Etherington's opener against Watford and the popular Scot's first goal since Gillingham.

But Wimbledon didn't seem to be put off their stroke and as the first decent rendition of support emerged from a bulging Carlsberg Stand, the song was abruptly cut short by Connolly's free-kick masterpiece.

Jim Jefferies read the riot act at the interval and changes were made to cut out the Keystone Cops routine. Not surprisingly, the unhappy Molenaar was jettisoned while the midfield were given strict instructions to clamp down on the Dons enforcers Andy Roberts and Michael Hughes.

For 30 frustrating minutes though, nothing happened and a miserable home defeat beckoned. But then Connolly missed, Jess didn't and the City wild ride was once again rocking along at full speed.