Well what a difference a few days can make.

On Friday night, Bradford City failed to turn their second half dominance at Crewe into three points by wasting some glorious chances to slip to their third defeat in four league games.

And with their next opponents being high-flying Birmingham, the mood among the fans I spoke to over the weekend would certainly not be described as happy.

However a fully committed display and two superb headed goals by Lee Mills and Darren Moore saw the Blues sent back to the Midlands beaten 2-1 and all of a sudden the mood was transformed.

Promotion may not be the buzz word among the City faithful just yet but there is a clear sense of optimism developing.

Many fans acknowledge that City have bought well since the depressing end of last season.

Gareth Whalley has justified his billing as a Premiership-standard player while record signings Isaiah Rankin and Mills have shown that they can be a force in Division One.

Stuart McCall's return in midfield has also been a timely one as the 34-year-old has led by example with two typically industrious displays over the weekend.

Despite the expectation of success at Valley Parade rising with every summer signing, manager Paul Jewell rightly insisted that his side would take time to gel.

That is undoubtedly still the case but the signs are there that the side is progressing although this improvement will be tested to the limit in the coming weeks, starting at Ipswich on Tuesday night - and a big thank you to the fixture planners for that little gem.

Mind, the Bantams are certainly not alone as on the same night Norwich must travel to Barnsley while Halifax are facing a huge trek to Southend.

How difficult would it have been for Norwich to play Ipswich and City to face Barnsley to make it much more convenient for the fans?

Watching football is an expensive business in the 1990s anyway without the added burden of taking what may amount to two days off work to travel to Suffolk on a Tuesday night.

On a much more depressing note, the scenes outside Gresty Road last Friday night were very worrying.

Around 200 Bantams fans were turned away from Crewe's small ground due to the away enclosure being full.

This may be frustrating for all concerned but once an enclosure is full, then the turnstiles must be closed.

But the fact that more City fans had been allowed into the ground than there were seats for is alarming. Has football not learned the lessons of Hillsborough?

If the 'ground full' signs are going up with just 5,700 inside, as is regularly the case at Crewe, this illustrates that Gresty Road is clearly not big enough for the First Division. Crewe, to their credit, intend addressing this by demolishing the main stand and building a much larger one next summer.

But when Halifax were promoted back to the Football League last season they knew they had to satisfy the criteria of a 6,000 capacity. Why should the requirement be any different for teams already in the league?

Crewe must ensure that the events of last Friday are never repeated. And if that means every game at Gresty Road being made all-ticket with no cash turnstiles on the day, then so be it.

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