We will be unable to go ahead with plans to hold our Fans Forum / AGM as planed on the provisional date of 20th of January, but we are looking forward to holding it in February as we have confirmation that we will have one of the interim management team, either Interim Manager, Mark Trueman, or Joint-Interim Manager, Conor Sellars.

We will announce the date as soon as we have confirmaition of attendance.

The Fans Forum / AGM will be held on Zoom and the AGM will be a 7.15pm start will be for members only, whilst the Fans Forum will be held at an 8pm start and will run until 9.30pm.

As well as inviting the Bradford City interim Management team to tell you about their strategy for success on the field, we plan to have a national Speaker from the Football Supporters Association who will give a snapshot of the national picture in terms of where we are with the Government's supporter-led review and a sustainable future for football.

We will also be having an online Zoom auction bidding for various items from artist, Dave Baldwin who paints football stadiums. He kindly gave us a pack of goodies with his painting of Valley Parade, which include, coasters, key fobs, postcards, posters and fridge magnets.

By bidding for them, you will be helping to raise money for our Supporters Trust. We don't have any big business backers and as a small independent Supporters democratic organisation we rely solely on the good will of our members and well wishers. All the money goes back into supporting the Club and the local community in various ways. So please, we encourage you to join in the fun and give generously.

On Sunday 13th of December the Club announced that they had let Stuart McCall go, the day after crashing 3-1 at Oldham away at Boundary Park, the 6th consecutive league defeat and saw the Club in 22nd position of the EFL League Two table. After raising some eyebrows by extending his contract a year a fortnight earlier, it came a bit of surprise perhaps to see him depart so soon.

Could this decision have been an act of panic, whilst staring at the unenviable, gargantuan and urgent task of turning the Bantams’ fortunes around from freefall?

Stuart is the 6th manager after the legacy of Phil Parkinson (not including caretaker managers). Ironically, it was Stuart who came back after Phil Parkinson’s departure in June 2016, only to be unfairly dismissed by Edin Rahic when Stuart was struggling after narrowly missing out on a return to the Championship the season before.

Stuart’s love for City made him come three times when asked by the Club, and he has been desperately unlucky with the three opportunities he had to improve the Club’s fortunes.

Could the Club have done more to support him and his Coach Kenny Black? Was the addition of a Chief Scout figure too little too late? His recruitment has been heavily criticised in some quarters. We never saw the true potential of the team, and of course he still inherited a legacy from the past he had no control over. Did those senior players impede the development and progress of the team? Could there have been more time for Stuart to turn the season around?

Does our Club value long-term vision when it comes to keeping a manager? Stuart and his number two were in post less than a year! The ‘you’re fired’ culture in football to yield a quick turnaround in results is appalingly cruel and is borne out of how money fuels the aggressive nature of competition in football.

So we see the under 18’s team manager, Mark Trueman and youth team coach as acting caretaker managers for the senior team. The team were able to grind out draw at Crawley on Tuesday so that is something. The question on everyone’s mind is who will stand up and take the poisoned chalice as the new City who will be determined to take us to infinity and beyond in the latest of the managerial merry go round? We would not like to speculate.

Stuart will always be a legend, a true City Gent for certainly the vast majority of the City faithful and we wish him the very best for the future.

What do you think about Stuart McCall’s sacking?

Please write your response in the reply box below this article.

This might cheer everyone up! We received an enquiry from Tom Gillespie who is a reporter at Sky News and he is working on a podcast series called Storycast 21 - where they are telling 21 stories from the year 2000 to 2021. The series will be released next year. 

For one of their sports stories, we are retelling the night Bradford knocked Arsenal out of the League Cup on penalties. The podcast will be around 10 to 12 minutes long - with one of our reporters and a fan giving an account of the night.

Tom Gillespie is putting the word out asking any life-long fan who was at Valley Parade that night who would like to get in touch with him share their story with us.

If you would like to get in touch with Tom let us know through our 'Contact us' form here, and we can pass your details on to him.

Any member of the BST is welcome to stand to become a board member when annual elections take place at our AGM; the most recent election was in January 2020. However, we can co-opt members onto the Board at any time of the year.

The Trust membership includes those with many different skills, coming through all walks of life with an enthusiasm that can broaden the Trust's reach so that we can develop effectively different arms within our rich and diverse football community that makes up the Bradford City fan base.

Bantams Supporters Trust is only as strong as it's members. The Trust aims to be a dynamic and influential organisation that can unite City fans on common themes such as improving the match day atmosphere; improve the facilities that can induce a great atmosphere within the ground; making the prices at the kiosks affordable; improving choice within the Club shop; fundraising schemes to invest in Club facilities or community projects; keeping football affordable for the many; supporting the Club in widening City's support base within the community and ensuring that Valley Parade is secured as a home for our Club for generations to come. There is so much more to do.

At times as a football supporter, perhaps more frequently in the here and now when there is so much uncertainty, there will be times when we have to show our strength in numbers, to be listened to, or to rally round, should the Club need it, fans should be able to hear our clarion call.

As an independent organisation as part of a wider Supporters Trust movement, we would like to embue a culture of fratenity, solidarity and unity amongst our membership. Those qualities of strength go hand in hand with commitment and determination.

To lead on all these things we need volunteers to come and join our Trust Board and help get the message out that we are here and can do so much more with your help.

To be a Board Member you don't have to take up a specific role. If you have an interest in getting involved you can come to a Board meeting. Prior to the pandemic we met at the Midland Hotel once a month. Now we are on Zoom. Have a chat with us and let us know your interests and what skills you can offer and you can volunteer as little or as much as you feel comfortable with.

Now is the time to get involve! Help us be a force for good! Get in touch here.

You can also access our model Board member role descriptions from our 'Board & Constitution' page, here.

The provisional date for Bantams Supporters Trust AGM /Fans' Forum is Wednesday 20th January, and will be held on Zoom. We had hoped to bring the now ex assistant manager, Kenny Black as a guest to a Fan's Forum we are organising, but our hopes have obviously been dashed last weekend.

However, all is not lost. We do have confirmation from Deborah Dilworth, the EFL Network Manager and Women's Game Lead for the FSA. Doborah is very experienced at assisting with Supporters Trusts in developing a Structured Dialogue with their Clubs and is very informative on the wider national picture on the state of the EFL, the latest on the EFL / PL agreed rescue package, how the players' cap works and so on. She is a great ally to have when Supporters Trust's need support. She can also talk about the Women's game and the latest developments on that as well.

We will be sending out our Annual Report and Agenda papers and the Zoom link to the meeting in due course.

There is a set of unique and creative Bradford City artwork to be auctioned at the meeting as well with proceeds going Bradord Central Foodbank.

If you can let us know if you intend to come here so we can gauge how many of you intend to come that would be grately appreciated.

As every committed Bantams' fan is aware, the return of fans to stadiums began from the 1st of December, just before the second national lockdown was released. It also meant that Clubs across the country had been preparing for months. Unfortunately for much of the north including Bradford, we've been in tier 3 of the local lockdown. This will continue from the latest announcement from the 17th December until the next lockdown review at the end of this month.

Bradford City have been keenly preparing for Bradford to be released into Tier 2, as all season ticket holders received their season tickets recently, be it claret or amber, as the plan was in August. Back then, it was anticipated up to 7,000 were to be let in. This time in the localised tier 2, the maximum is 2,000, a much smaller number.

We have observed that the first come first served strategy to define the first 2,000 of 'clarets' to attend the first home match against Cambridge United on Saturday the 19th caused a bit of a fiasco with the website ticketing system last week. It was a surprise, particularly for those who had listened to a recent BBC Radio Leeds interview with the new CEO, Ryan Sparks, who was then floating the idea of balloting season ticket holders to deduce how many fans are prepared to return amid hightened concern of the virus at this time. We felt that would've been a good approach to begin with. In hindsight, it may have potentially reduced any IT problems.

Because the impact of covid has been so widespread in football, affecting clubs and supporters in so many ways we want to give you a heads up about an incoming survey we are working on, consulting you on the EFL's iFollow service, the return to Valley Parade and loss of income worries fans might have for the club. We will be able to share it with you shortly after the new year.