Facing Carlisle is a fixture with an edge for Bradford City

If it’s not hard enough dealing with such a long stretch in the football basement, there are so few fixtures to genuinely get excited about.

The lack of a proper rival really grates.

Go up a division and there’s Huddersfield and an actual local derby that has not taken place in the league for 17 years. Rotherham, now that Steve Evans is back in the well-padded hot-seat, and Barnsley would also offer a bit of Yorkshire edge.

The Championship, of course, boasts Leeds and both Sheffield clubs.

But League Two? Donny maybe and a regular – and usually miserable – trip to Harrogate whose boasts of Yorkshire bragging rights are dismissed at this end.

Andy Cook is yet to score against Carlisle for City (Image: Thomas Gadd)

Let's face it, it’s hard to get too worked up about a local hop where the highlight is a trip to Betty’s Tea Room.

Faced with visiting clubs who often muster barely a couple of hundred at Valley Parade, that back-and-forth on a match day between opposing supporters has become a rare event.

So, when you do get decent travelling numbers to BD8, it becomes a bit of an occasion.

Hence the manufactured rivalry with Carlisle.

The clubs may be over 100 miles apart – let’s face it, the Cumbrians are miles from anyone - but at least there’s some bite to their fixtures.

Of course, it’s only in the last couple of years that’s been the case – a mind-numbing goalless draw at Brunton Park on Boxing Day 2019 under Gary Bowyer sucked any lingering Yuletide joy out of the hung-over travelling support.

The real antagonism built from the Jordan Gibson game up there in January 2022.

Taunted mercilessly by the City fans, Gibson inevitably scored the first goal and made a beeline of celebrating in front of his detractors.

Another Bantams old boy Kelvin Mellor gleefully joined in, having taken his own share of stick.

And when Omari Patrick came off the bench to score the second, the Exes were in their element in front of the seething visiting army.

Jamie Walker is mobbed after scoring in the play-off first leg (Image: PA)

With shackles raised, there was a distasteful incident on the final day of the season when a small number of Carlisle fans disrupted the traditional minute’s silence at Valley Parade.

That understandably left a very sour taste, although the vast majority of the away end were as sickened by the lack of respect as those in the main stands.

To their huge credit, a group of Carlisle supporters raised well over £1,000 with an online fund-raiser the following season to pay for flowers to be laid at the fire memorial the following year.

That was the season when the on-pitch competition between the two clubs kicked up a level.

With both well up there in the promotion race, the stakes were considerably higher for each meeting.

Another Christmas defeat in Cumbria maintained City’s miserable run of never having won there since 1985.

The goalless draw in the return fixture three months later – when pantomime villain Gibson struck the inside of the post late on - felt like a play-off warm-up with the teams sizing each other up for the bigger showdown to follow.

That unfolded in City’s first appearance in the play-offs for six years when Jamie Walker’s first-half goal at an electric Valley Parade gave them the edge in the semi-finals.

But then it all went wrong for the Bantams and Mark Hughes – and how Carlisle fans loved that.

Hughes had decided to overnight the journey for the second leg and some locals got wind of where the team were staying.

A firework display disturbed their peace at 3am on the day of the game as bangers and rockets lit up the sky outside the hotel.

City were struck down by the Brunton Park bogey again with a timid defeat in extra-time - and disbelief at THAT substitution from the manager.

At the final whistle, hundreds of home fans swarmed across the pitch to camp in front of the City corner.

Carlisle fans mass in front of the away section in May 2023 (Image: Simon Parker)

Some missiles were thrown from the goading mob which would end in Carlisle receiving an FA fine – as they had done for incidents of racist chanting in the league encounter.

Carlisle’s promotion meant no rematch last season but the pot was stirred with their capture of Harry Lewis in January – and very public attempt to sign Jake Young which provoked an angry reaction from Graham Alexander.

The Cumbrians, and Lewis, plummeted straight back to League Two and into an early reunion at Valley Parade – minus manager Paul Simpson who "mutually" departed last week after a rotten start.

Throw in a travelling support predicted to be around 2,000 strong tomorrow and the ingredients are there for another tasty encounter.

A fake, fan-fuelled rivalry can still be fun - and makes a welcome change.

And a first Andy Cook goal against Carlisle as the winner would top things off nicely ...