Sheffield United made the decision for him.

In the end, it was the Blades who tipped the balance firmly in City's favour.

Stuart McCall is coming back to Valley Parade. The news that every fan had waited for - not to mention chairman Julian Rhodes - is happening.

He will be officially unveiled as City's new boss when he comes back from holiday. The future is claret and amber - and ginger.

The guessing game is over. Effectively settled by the developments unfolding at Bramall Lane this week.

When the Blades overlooked their long-term No 2 and heir apparent for Neil Warnock's job, they also gave the green light for an emotional return to the Bantams.

Let's not kid ourselves. Given both managerial jobs, it would surely have been no contest.

Take up the hot-seat at a Championship club still warm from the Premiership, with the resources and infrastructure that comes with it, or chance your arm at a team dumped in League Two with less than ten senior players to their name?

But once the Blades indicated that they would not be following Wigan's lead the afternoon before and promoting from within, McCall was bound elsewhere.

And while there would be - and have been - other offers, no club can come remotely close to the emotional pull of the Bantams.

Fans will pinch themselves about it. After all, City has hardly been awash with good news stories in recent years.

Rhodes has taken his fair share of criticism over City's demise. Rightly or wrongly, losing Dean Windass and Jermaine Johnson in January has been used as a stick to beat the chairman with as the team slithered down.

The indications that McCall was top of his managerial wish-list were also dismissed as something of nothing; a cheap marketing ploy that could never possibly come off. How must the chairman be feeling now!

On the same February afternoon when Colin Todd was losing his job with defeat at Gillingham, the Blades beat Tottenham to ease ten points clear of the Premiership drop zone.

Everything at Bramall Lane was rosy and the prospect of Warnock wanting to stay on for at least another year of the high life was high.

But so, too, was Rhodes's confidence that McCall could therefore be lured back to Valley Parade in the summer as Todd's permanent replacement - even if it meant a drop from one end of the football ladder to the other.

After all, here was a guy who had spent the last three seasons at Warnock's side, watching and learning the coaching game. He was getting itchy feet waiting for his chance to step forward into the limelight.

Rhodes waited and hoped while McCall pondered.

Then, like the infamous hand of God that did for England's World Cup in 1986, it seemed the hand of "Jag" would bat away City's dreams of landing the man they craved.

Phil Jagielka's hand ball against Wigan on Sunday to concede the penalty that condemned Sheffield United to relegation also appeared to have scuppered the prospects of McCall's move. Suddenly Warnock was walking and City's best-laid plans had been thrown up in the air.

But three days later, another dramatic U-turn at the Blades press conference which, while announcing their manager's departure, refused to name McCall as the natural successor.

Plc chairman Kevin McCabe's stance had shifted. Having supported McCall's bid previously - he had been prepared to give him the job when Warnock nearly went to Portsmouth 18 months before - he now talked about the need for an experienced head with clear managerial credentials.

McCall's mind was made up. It was time to come home.

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