Bradford City and an unthinkable change ...Middle East

Life is pretty good at Valley Parade right now. A little over two years ago they were 86th in the Football League ladder, having lost 3-0 at Harrogate Town in League Two. Then Bradford City were drifting. Now they are three games away from the Championship.

It is the ground itself that speaks best to the recovery and redemption. This season, the average home league attendance was 20,444. That is the highest figure for more than a century. It is an unthinkable change over such a short period to have the ground packed for every match.

Life is pretty good for Bobby Pointon too, albeit he will feel better when a niggling injury fully heals and he is back in the team for the play-offs. This 22-year-old academy graduate, capable in attacking midfield or out wide, has a journey to match Bradford’s own.

On 29 March 2024, one match after that Harrogate defeat, Pointon started his second league game for four months and only his third under Graham Alexander. He scored, stayed in the team and never looked back. Last season he was picked as Young Player of the Year. Last week he was named jointly as the Players’ Player of the Year.

“The club is moving forward now,” Pointon tells The i Paper.

“I’ve been here before on a Tuesday night when there were about 10,000 people in and now it’s 20,000 every single game.

“Bradford means a lot to me. I’ve been coming here since I was five. So it’s just brilliant to see.”

Winning matches and rising through divisions is the principal driver of bums on seats. But the connection between supporters and club, which was hardly always healthy here, is maintained away from matchday when a community leans upon Bradford City and is supported.

Pointon knows that more than most; last week he was named as the club’s PFA Community Champion. We meet at the side of a pitch in the shadow of the stadium, where a £100,000 award from the Sky Bet EFL Building Foundations Fund has been used by Bradford City FC Community Foundation to create The Way Forward programme, using sport to aid men aged 18 to 24 to take steps towards improved mental and physical wellbeing and greater employability.

Pointon started his work by visiting children in local hospitals. He has helped out on a food truck supplying hot meals to the community and with Action for Sport, who offer sports kits and trainers to youngsters who would otherwise go without. Those inside the foundation point out just how much Pointon is prepared to give. Even at 22, he carries himself like a senior player.

But Pointon is also from here. He grew up in Low Moor. He trained as a boxer in Rourkey’s Gym in West Bowling.

When he scored his first Bradford goal in 2023, he had 18 tickets for family and friends and there were more in the Kop and Midland Road stands. He dreamt of playing for his hometown club and the dream came true. And he knows what it means.

It gives him the power to make a difference. Pointon says it really hit home last November, when he took a penalty at Valley Parade for the first time. He realised that in one moment and with one kick, he had the power to change the mood of 20,000 people. The community work is his wielding of that power.

“It’s about doing everything you can from your position of good fortune,” he says.

“You never know when someone might just need a chat; that’s why I’m here. I walk around the city and I’m happy to talk to anyone. It keeps me grounded and humble and, who knows, it might just help someone.

“There were plenty of times when I thought that it might not work out. I remember talking to my dad about planning for other jobs and things like that, just as a backup, just in case. Thankfully it did work out. The way to say thank you is to be a good role model.”

Bradford City may not get their second successive promotion and be back in the second tier for the first time in 22 years. Bolton Wanderers and Stockport County have formidable squads built with bigger budgets; Stevenage are one of the EFL’s great overachievers in 2025-26. Pointon may not get to play at Wembley just yet. And obviously all that stuff matters a great deal.

Yet you get the sense that this club has turned a corner, taken an irrevocable step in the right direction after a little too much infighting and existential drift. It is a collective effort, driven by decision-makers and managers. The people want to come to the stadium because they can believe in something meaningful and the way it is being achieved.

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People – role models – like Pointon help. Not just because of the unseen difference he makes, but because of the invisible, unbreakable strings the work creates between Bradford and its football club.

And because of the example it sets within a club culture when a young player takes on senior responsibilities. These are players that supporters are most proud of.

“You’ve got a chance, an opportunity to change, to help people on an individual level,” Pointon says.

“That’s true outside the club, but inside it too. There are a few academy lads coming through now. Hopefully they’re looking at my journey and how I’ve done it and how I’ve conducted myself off of the pitch.

“I hope that some of them are looking up and thinking ‘Yes, I want to do that too’.”

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