He was the true nemesis of Bradford City managers.

The dastardly operator in the rival dug-out who always gained the upper hand.

While the headlines are dominated by Harry Redknapp, another equally significant football boss slipped under the radar.

John Coleman’s move from Accrington Stanley to Rochdale barely warrants a footnote compared with the fraud case involving the supposed next leader of the national team.

But from a Bantams point of view, his departure from the Crown Ground was big news. And, judging by the results of their skirmishes down the years with Coleman, very welcome at that.

If anyone has had City’s number in recent times, it was the 49-year-old Scouser, who put the league’s smallest club back on the map for football rather than milk advertising reasons.

His reign was more an empire as it spanned an incredible 4,636 days.

Ten of those were spent plotting City’s downfall and he was successful five times.

Accrington lost just twice to the Bantams under his watch, both in East Lancashire, and only one of those – on New Year’s Day 2008 – was really warranted.

The following season’s comeback from two down with three goals in the last ten minutes was the ultimate in Dick Turpin-style robberies. All that was missing from Peter Thorne was the mask.

For the most part, Coleman’s underdogs took great delight in bullying the nose of their loftier neighbours from across the Pennines.

Accrington were still a non-league outfit when Coleman first got his chance in 2004 – and bundled Colin Todd’s League One team out of the LDV Trophy at Valley Parade.

And the last three managers before Phil Parkinson all suffered their lowest moments at the same hands.

Who can forget the Tuesday night when Roscoe D’Sane, the smallest player on City’s pitch, headed over Donovan Ricketts, the biggest, as Stanley humiliated Stuart McCall’s men 3-0?

Or Peter Taylor’s first game at the helm at Accrington? It was a performance so abject that the new manager headed back to Essex afterwards and threatened not to come back.

And then there was Easter Saturday last season when Peter Jackson’s City were blasted with a tirade of “you’re not fit to wear the shirts” as they trailed in 3-0 down at half-time.

I have never seen a manager as low afterwards. In contrast, two Accrington players nearly came to blows after a mix-up.

“We’re the ones supposed to be fighting for our lives,” said a rueful Jackson. “But they are 3-0 up and still showing that aggression.”

Accrington were an image of their manager. Coleman was spiky and combative on the touchline and ramped up his team to perform the same, especially against the perceived “Billy Big Times” of the division.

No wonder that his name was always near the top of the City board’s wish-list whenever the hot-seat vacancy cropped up.

Coleman made little attempt to conceal his eagerness to take up the grander opportunity when Taylor left. But he was prevented from doing so by a compensation demand from his employers – 50 per cent of his long-term contract - that Mark Lawn labelled “ridiculous”.

Could Coleman have hacked it in the Valley Parade goldfish bowl and repeated his Accrington miracles in front of an audience nearly ten times bigger, with the expectations to match? We will probably never know.

But his blatant comments about the City position last year showed that he was nearing the end of his marathon tenure.

I should declare an interest at this point. I’m an Accrington Stanley member for my sins … It was the only way I could get a couple of tickets for a Busman’s holiday to watch their play-off with Stevenage in May.

I bumped into Michael Flynn stood on the open terrace and a well-known face from Sky Sports News. We were all crammed cheek to jowl in the same spot where City’s travelling army wedge in year after year.

The feeling of disappointment at the final whistle was familiar. Coleman’s team finished well beaten and down to nine as the occasion got to them.

But there was no hysterical reaction from the supporters.

The locals around us knew that this was as good as it would get. But they accepted the expected return towards lower-table obscurity with a shrug.

Coleman knew it too. His ambitions to manage at a higher level would only be realised elsewhere.

His 15-mile shift down the A680 puts to bed that trivia question about the longest-serving manager behind Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger.

It will be interesting to see how Accrington fare without their mentor. Who knows, City might finally beat them at Valley Parade for once …