Bradford City fans are being urged to raise the roof at Valley Parade and banish all negative feelings in the crunch clash with Southampton.

City's defeat at Newcastle coupled with Derby's win over Leicester means Paul Jewell's side are now five points behind the Rams, who also have a far superior goal difference.

And with seven games to go this appears to have left many supporters accepting relegation as inevitable.

But the editor of City's award-winning fanzine and supporters' leaders are now calling on everyone to make Valley Parade a hostile place for the Saints on Saturday.

City Gent editor Dave Pendleton said: "If you look at the situation on paper then we do appear to be in trouble but the great thing with football is it is not played on paper.

"Football is littered with occasions where a team has looked to be dead and buried but have fought back.

"Just look at ourselves in 1997 when we looked to be certainties to go down from Division One after losing against Birmingham. We stayed up then against the odds and we can do it again.

"Our battle for promotion last season also looked to be over several times but we still came through in the end.

"I went to Newcastle last weekend and was disturbed because I thought that was the first time the fans had given up. We basically took the defeat.

"It costs nothing to get behind the team. We have seven games left so let's go for it until it is mathematically impossible to stay up."

Paul Snowden, secretary of the Queensbury branch of the Supporters Club, added: "We are not down yet. I think if we win the home games against Derby, Southampton and Wimbledon we will do it.

"I honestly think that we can drag Wimbledon into it. We must not panic. Our home form will be crucial.

"Mistakes have been made this season but we need to raise the roof on Saturday and really get behind the team and manager."

Mark Neale, vice-chairman of the Supporters Club, said: "In recent years we have a history of winning the important games - Blackpool in 1996, Wembley, QPR the following year and Wolves last May. When the chips are down we come up with the goods."

Meanwhile, Jamie Lawrence has successfully undergone an operation on his broken jaw after picking up the injury in a training-ground accident with Gunnar Halle.

Physio Steve Redmond said: "It all went well and he has a plate in his jaw. He will not be able to take part in contact training for quite a few weeks and realistically we believe he will be out for the season."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.