Coventry City 0, Bradford City 0 - Andy Myers spent all Friday night coughing and spluttering. Poor old Stuart McCall could hardly bend his knee.

But the patched-up heroes decided they owed it to the fans to give it one last effort for Bradford City.

The guilt they felt before the Coventry game wasn't down to that ding-dong at Elland Road. It was the collective shame that hung over the whole place after being thrashed so embarrassingly.

That was not how the Bantams intended to leave the Premiership. That was why a big show was required on Saturday to go out on a positive note. And a defient message from one City fan, pictured, summed up the hopes of all Bantams fans.

Myers said: "I'm full of flu and was struggling badly. I hardly slept before the game.

"But I desperately wanted to play and just tried to knock it out the system. It was so important that we got a good result after last week.

"I felt for the fans at Leeds because we let ourselves down and we let them down badly. That was how we all felt so we had to bounce back.

"The fans were absolutely tremendous again and never stopped singing. And we made sure they had something to be happy about."

McCall had hobbled around the training ground all week, unable to join in with his pals because of injury. But he wasn't going to miss the opportunity to say sorry for the derby demolition.

The skipper said: "When I woke up on Saturday, the fluid had gone enough for me to half-bend my knee. It wasn't ideal but the manager asked me if I wanted to play and I felt that I should.

"It's good to blood youngsters sometimes but it could have been demoralising if we had got a bit of a doing over. At least we gave everyone a send off with a decent result.

"A couple of Coventry supporters spoke to me afterwards and said our fans were a different class, the best they'd seen all season. I'll go along with that totally because they were absolutely great.

"They treated it as a party and I'm so glad we got something out the game. It would have been really sickening if we hadn't.

"But if you take last week away and look at the last two months, it has been quite promising."

McCall goes in to hospital on Wednesday to have a bit of cartilage removed. Every City supporter will have fingers crossed that by then he has signed on the dotted line to put his war-weary body through another campaign for the claret and amber cause.

There have been worrying noises emanating from Valley Parade in recent days with talks of more cuts, consolidation and tough decisions. Not the sort of vocabulary the fans were hoping for as they anticipate a possible promotion push.

Instead of new faces coming in, the fear is that more of the established ones will be heading for pastures new to get the wagebill under the £5m bar set by the chairman.

Characters like McCall and Myers will be essential if City have ambitions of filling any more than a mid-table berth in Division One. With determination like that, everyone around them is lifted.

Coventry were no great shakes - they are going down as well, after all - but with a battering ram like John Hartson lumbering around up front, you can never take your eye off the ball.

Myers said: "He is a big unit and there's not much you can do about him. He's been on form of late but I thought we kept him quiet.

"We worked really hard and played some good football, particularly in the first half when we created a few chances. They came at us after the break as we knew they would but we weathered the storm and were unlucky not to nick it at the end through Gareth Grant."

What a final paragraph to the Premiership story that would have been.

Grant had only been on the field for ten minutes when he suddenly found himself a chink of daylight to the left of the Coventry goal.

You could see the quiz question - Who was City's final scorer in the Premiership?

Grant certainly could but his inexperience unfortunately won through. He hesitated a fraction and goalkeeper Chris Kirkland was out like a shot to spread-eagle himself around the attempted chip shot.

Boss Jim Jefferies sighed: "I think Gareth had it in the net and had read the headlines before he got on the park.

"We put him on at the end to try and get behind them and he came up trumps for us. It was a time to go and make a name for himself but the keeper made a fine save.

"Maybe an experienced player like Beni might have dinked it over him but Gareth will learn from that.

"But I'm really pleased with the way the boys worked and we got back a wee bit of pride after what went on last week.

"It will give the supporters a lift because they were magnificent. We couldn't let them down again after the way they made so much noise for us."

Ashley Ward, incidentally the correct answer to that earlier poser, went close after just 90 seconds but City's real heroes were at the other end.

Gunnar Halle, the other member of the back three alongside Hopalong and Chesty, said: "We got our pride back which was the main thing. We had to do that after Leeds."