It was Saturday lunchtime on the outskirts of Bradford and Graham Alexander found himself caught in traffic. He was, in his mind, a good 20 minutes’ drive from the University of Bradford Stadium on a route usually clear of cars. “I thought: ‘this can’t be for our game’,” said the Bantams manager. “As I got closer and closer … it was.”
Bradford City are becoming familiar with bumper crowds these days as the club ride high in League Two. Promotion talk is now rife around the city. The 22,214 fans packed into the ground most still know as Valley Parade certainly got value for their money on Saturday. Just 12 seconds had elapsed, in fact, when their team went ahead against Crewe thanks to Bobby Pointon. The visitors’ first proper touch of the ball was when their goalkeeper Filip Marschall fetched the ball from his net, Pointon having steered home after Calum Kavanagh struck the post.
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There was plenty more entertainment to follow, Bradford’s Sam Walker saving Ryan Cooney’s penalty before Kavanagh sealed a 2-0 win late on. It took them top of League Two – the first time in 17 years they have topped any division. And despite chants of “we’re gonna win the league” echoing around the stands at full time, Alexander is taking nothing for granted. The man largely responsible for turning Bradford’s season around is trying to keep an entire city’s feet on the ground.
“I don’t want to get caught up in the moment because we’ve got five massive games in front of us, we’ve got an opportunity to do something really good,” he said. “We have to keep our eyes on the prize. Hopefully people will forgive me for not going overboard on the crowd and the atmosphere, but I want us to finish the job.”
Promotion would mean a huge amount. Bradford have spent the past five seasons in League Two, having also been in the fourth tier between 2007 and 2013. It’s a league Bradford have always felt too big for, yet it’s become their new normal. Many fans now are too young to remember those two heady seasons in the Premier League either side of the millennium. The celebrations would be something to savour, as the response of the city to Alexander’s team suggests, crowds swelling from around 15,000 at the start of the campaign to a peak of 23,381 against Colchester a fortnight ago.
Alexander is understandably cautious. His side only lead second-placed Port Vale on goal difference, with long-time table-toppers Walsall a point behind having wobbled off the top in recent months.
Even below that trio of clubs, there are others who harbour realistic hopes of stealing a spot in the coveted top three. Doncaster could join the top two on 73 points if they win their game in hand; AFC Wimbledon and Notts County (on 68 points) will feel they can still challenge for an automatic berth.
It’s been called the promotion race nobody wants to win, with teams’ form fluctuating wildly. At one stage in January, Walsall sat 12 points clear at the summit, having won six on the bounce either side of Christmas. Now Mat Sadler’s Saddlers seemingly cannot buy a win. They have lost or drawn each of their past nine as Bradford, who were 10th at the start of 2025, head in the opposite direction having won every home game bar one during that time.
Sadler urged Walsall to summon a second wind after a damaging 3-2 home defeat by Port Vale on Saturday came as the latest in a series of body blows. “Everyone will be doubting us now,” he said. “No problem at all, let everyone doubt us and it’s up to us to prove those doubters wrong. There are still plenty of big games ahead.”
Vale themselves found renewed “belief” in that victory according to their manager, Darren Moore, and have arguably the most palatable run-in of all the contenders. “A win like this increases confidence, togetherness, determination, resilience, character,” said Moore at Walsall. “We’ve just kept chipping away, kept that belief.”
Bradford’s next challenge is to take their stellar home form on the road. They won’t have a 20,000-plus crowd behind them – although such home attendances would be deemed a luxury by most League One clubs and half the Championship – but Alexander is pushing standards higher.
He wants Bradford to “replicate that kind of energy and zest” they exhibit in front of their own fans. No goals and just one point from their past three away games suggests there’s definitely room for improvement. A trip to in-form Swindon – who have only lost two of their last 16 league games – is next on Saturday and then it’s into the final four games of the season.
Can Bradford hold on and claim the league nobody wants to win, or will there be another twist in this topsy-turvy tale? The only certainty in League Two is the uncertainty.
