Welcome to Issue One of our brand new Bantams fanzine page - written entirely by City fans for City fans. We hope you'll enjoy the news, views and sheer fun every Thursday in your T&A. Our contributors - all Valley Parade season ticket holders - aim to give YOU, the fans, a real voice in the T&A. We believe we're the first evening paper in the country to deliver a full fanzine page, and we hope you'll help us to make it a success by sending in your letters and E-mails every week to our Bantams Banter column.

The good, the bad and the oatmeal suit

It's been an exciting season at Valley Parade, that's for sure. Here's a look at what's been happening.

ROT: Pre-match entertainment and music - Although we have ditched the bloke mincing around the pitch pre-match and during half time we now play guff classical opera music just before kick off. Does it fill the opposing team and fans with fear? The only fear is that they might have to listen to it again next season. Personally I would play Into The Valley by the 70s/80s punk band The Skids. If being sung by 17,000 Bradfordians it may put skids into the other team's shorts and not remind them of cheap after-shave which their granny buys them every Christmas.

HOT: I enjoy seeing 50-year-old men and women jumping up and down and singing Whoo Whoo from Blur's Song 13 after every home goal scored. However, maybe every player should have his own theme song. For instance, when Dean Saunders scores we should play Pulp's Help The Aged or a psalm or hymn after Jacobs grabs one. Obviously, I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down by Elvis Costello for Stuart after his exploits on a car roof and bonnet after the Wolves game, and anything by Barry Manilow for O'Brien.

ROT: Jagger's 1970 throwback oatmeal suit (last seen on Nightfever) which is aired for every live Sky game and Match Of The Day. Come on Paul, the thing doesn't fit you. I know you're trying to eat your way into it being a snug fit but why not ditch it and follow your Liverpool mates Barnes and Venison and get a lovely white suit from the 80s. At least you will have moved on a decade.

HOT: Jagger's one-liners. The guy must be a stand-up comedian, because in every national paper's column this season he has given at least one good laugh comment - keep 'em coming Paul, you never know, a captaincy on A Question Of Sport or a night at The London Palladium may be just around the corner.

ROT: Players who have not made the grade or just don't seem to care - a tale of two Lees! Lee Mills turns slower than an oil tanker and couldn't trap or control a balloon. In fact, my one-year-old labrador called Holly runs with a ball better. And as for Lee Sharpe, he's supposed to have a great left foot. I think he should stand on that one and start swinging the other, as his left boot seems to be oddly diamond shaped! And for some strange reason I have seen him duck out of every 70-30 tackle in his favour this season.

HOT: The emergence of players who have excelled and been a benefit to the team - Matt Clarke, a great discovery, but I just can't understand why he wasn't playing for Sheffield Wednesday.

David Wetherall (Mr Reliable) has not put a foot wrong all season. Andy O'Brien (Screech), excellent this season and good prospect at international level. Let's hope we keep him. Dean Windass, a true fighter and a 100% player. I caught him on Sky's Soccer AM saying the club could buy anybody and he'd still be in the team. That's confidence for you and with him scoring goals it can only be good for our survival prospects. Stuart McCall, need I say more?

ROT: It has been a great season so far even though we are still in the bottom three. Nevertheless, I will keep praying that we do stay up and like all the Bradford faithful out there, given a straight choice between world peace and remaining in the Premiership? Easy choose really. But I do intend to enjoy every moment I can while it is here. Therefore, can someone please enlighten me why people, after years and years of supporting their tam in the lower leagues and finally watching them in the best league in the world (which there is a possibility of us slipping out of this season) do they leave five minutes before the final whistle? City are losing one nil or two one and some berks get up and leave - you morons, you should be using your last breath until the last second, encouraging your team to get something out of the game (remember Sheffield Wednesday, Tottenham and Barnsley last season?). Moreover, if your team is winning, you should at least clap your team off - they just might deserve it and the points may just be the difference between the Nationwide and the Premiership next season! But what does that matter when you arrive home five minutes early and you saved 15p on petrol you would have wasted in a very small traffic jam?

And finally, HOT: Seeing some of the great teams and players in the world this season - Bergkamp, Desailles, Suker, Shearer, Owen, Poyet, Overmars, Keane, Vieira, Ginola and, of course, Beckham. Now if there was a couple who has been through "thick and thin" it has to be David and Posh

Mark Beetham

Memories of the unspeakables

As City approach the last third of the season, I am amazed that they have held their own for so long.

Home form has been the key - apart from the performances against West Ham and Sunderland, City have been a match for anyone at Valley Parade. A shame that things go pear-shaped outside Manningham.

Anyway, they'll need all their resolve on Sunday against that outfit from Beeston whose name we dare not mention in polite society. There's nothing that lifts a City fan more than putting one over on the Flash Harrys from down the M621.

There have been many memorable moments in City-Leeds games; Brian Tinnion's last-minute penalty to pinch a point on Grand National day in 1990 is one that comes to mind as one of the few bright spots of the J**n D******y era. The battling performance in last year's League Cup tie, where only Lucas Radebe's brilliance denied City, was another.

But for entertainment value, the 3-3 draw at Elland Road in the 1988/89 season took some beating. It was a weakened City side that night. Evans was injured and Abbott was suspended, so Leigh Palin and Peter Costello came in. And it was Costello who provided the champagne moment with a 75-yard run before smacking the ball past Day in front of 4,000 City fans herded into the away end.

Football, though, can be fickle, and Costello went on to play only one more league game for City before returning to the lower leagues, while Leeds eventually equalised with a dubious free-kick turned in by a lumbering centre half called Noel Blake. Wonder what happened to him.

Tez Burke

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