Jon Blakely's Canadian Chronicles
Monday 11 March, 2002
Waiting for Richmond to stand down
So Is Richmond Pushing Back in our favour?? Is he pushing back, or is he waiting for the right time to pull his finger? Is he waiting for the time when he has got all the money he wants and well then jump ship and leave Bradford City back in the second division, and as I have said before only the Man City's of this world can survive that kind of relegation because they had 30,000 willing to see the team thru thick and thin. Bratfud do not.
We have our memories of Promotions and Premiership Football and that is what they seem destined to remain. The Promotion team has well and truly gone now and Bradford City FC are left with a team which is worth nothing. I cannot think of a single player anymore who would fetch a million, and yet Luton Town are talking about getting 2 million for their left back!!
Why is it that Portsmouth can shell out 750k on a player this week and we cannot? Manchester City, same issues as us (Wanchope on a ridiculous wage, Berkovic big wages etc etc) sign a player for 5 million, Bradford City have not spent a dime.
You have to admit that the offloading of Ashley Ward was a pathetic attempt for him to 'save' money. Tell me what money would he have saved? maybe pension payments and other overheads to keep an injury prone player around, but he wasn't going to save on the actual wages, cos he was going to pay Ash that anyway.
What makes me really sick is people who go on the BCFC boards and say 'Well you never argued when we signed him', So what do people do now, there were negative comments about signing Danny Cadamarteri on the boards, and then the 'Do-Gooders' say 'Don't complain about the signings, Richmond can't please some people!!'
Richmond was dying to join the elite 'Premiership' Scene, to rub noses with with the incumbents from other clubs, I'm sure his days out at Old Trafford and Highbury were enough to give him a little wet patch. But you see, the day out at Old Trafford was just as special for me, but in a different way, I had longed, ached, to see City come out at these venues since the day we were deciding who City should get on opening day in 1989, Arsenal or Man United?? (BTW it turned out to be Brighton!!)
No, Richmond did exactly what he said Kamara had done and has taken City as far as he can, he should go and let the next man take over, the thing is Richmond should have gone the day he took those Dividend payouts, they should have been his golden handshake, because since that day (or was it the minute the ref blew for the final whistle at home the Chelsea) this club has been in rapid decline, and Geoffrey Richmond has been asset stripping ever since.
No one ever expected City to 'break bread' with Barca and Bayern, but they certainly expected to lunch at MacDonalds with the likes of Ipswich and Charlton, and a few visits to Harrods to have the snot kicked out of us by Man Utd and Arsenal.
Instead Richmond has accepted no responsibility (I deliberated long over the word blame) for the signings and the contracts he awarded. He offloaded some real fan favorites in O'Brien and Windass and too a lesser extent Blake and got nothing in return. I mean Darren Purse of Birmingham is worth 5 million quid and yet OB goes for less than half of that.
I remain a very frustrated Bradford City fan, waiting for the most arrogant man I have ever crossed e-mails with to stand down from his post.