SO NEAR and yet so far….

Like tens of thousands of Bradford City fans, I’m gutted that they failed to reach the Championship on Saturday.

Of course, the nature of their defeat, with a goal just a few minutes before the final whistle after dominating much of the match, makes it even harder to take. Losing in the last few minutes was almost a regular Bantams trait a few seasons back – but it’s one they have well and truly shaken off in League One.

As I suggested in last week’s column, lack of support certainly wasn’t the issue; more than 24,000 fans made the trip to Wembley and at times it sounded like they were the only fans in the arena.

All of them, as well as legions of others watching the match on television, listening to it on radio or following T&A chief sports reporter Simon Parker’s excellent live blog, will almost certainly agree that City were the best team on the day.

And countless numbers will have used that most heart-breaking of phrases in the hours afterwards, “If only….”

It would be easy to feel utterly dejected, bereft. Who wouldn’t be disappointed after all the emotion that goes into watching their team trying so hard, feeling every tackle, holding their breath as they track the progress of every shot on goal, almost in slow motion?

Who wouldn’t become quiet and introspective on the journey home, lost in their thoughts of what might have been, replaying every significant moment in their mind’s eye?

And who wouldn’t feel that it had all been a waste of time, that all those hours building up to every match, the debates in the pub after every game, the internal turmoil as the highs and lows of every game of the season wrenched at your stomach and made your heart pound?

With so much emotion and passion invested in your team, it would be easy to feel “I can’t go through that again”, that you can’t face another season that could build up your hopes and then crush you with bitter disappointment nine months or so later.

And yet….

Within minutes of the final whistle going, City fans were already talking about next season, about how proud they were that the team had even made it to the League One play-offs.

Of course, it helped that no-one really expected them to get there because the changes at the club at the start of the season, with a new manager and new owners, left most thinking observers expecting it to take some time for the new regime to bed in.

But even if they had been promotion favourites, their loyal fans would still be shaking off the disappointment and thinking “Well, there’s always next year….”

So why do we do it? Why do we put ourselves through these traumas?

What is it in the human spirit that makes people pick themselves up and try to it all over again?

Samuel Johnson is reported to have coined that most apt of phrases “the triumph of hope over experience” after hearing that a man had remarried shortly after the death of his first wife, with whom he had suffered a miserable marriage.

Of course, being a football fan is a lot like being married – with the ups and downs of a relationship and the determination to see it through to the bitter end!

But hope is hard-wired into all of us. Without hope, however little, human life would seem pointless.

It’s how and where we invest that hope that’s important. There are many, many examples in history of where hope has been squandered – on business ventures, on gambling, on wars and, of course, on relationships.

But, no matter how disappointed we are by the end result, there’s some primitive instinct that makes us pick ourselves up and start all over again.

Oscar Wilde took Boswell’s quote and prefaced it with the words “Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence” and perhaps that’s the key: we imagine how much better life will be if we win next time. We crave success as an end it itself.

After all, look at Millwall. They lost at the same stage last year and this season only just managed to scrape into the play-offs by a point.

No-one should condone the behaviour of their fans in invading the pitch after the final – but we wouldn’t mind a taste of the euphoria that drove them to it.

So, roll on next season. C’mon City!

 

Yet more proof that we have to act on housing

A NEW survey by think-tank The Resolution Foundation apparently shows that home ownership among young people across Bradford and West Yorkshire has halved since 1994.

It’s welcome confirmation of a fact this newspaper has been stressing for a long time: that there simply aren’t enough affordable homes being built in the district. Until we incentivise developers to build cheaper houses where they’re needed, on brownfield sites in the inner city, the situation will only get worse. Whether by carrot or by stick, surely it’s not beyond the wit of government to get the job done…?

 

No better time to tackle an issue that’s often forgotten

DEMENTIA is a creeping, pernicious disease. It often starts with simple memory lapses, little temporary blockages that can cause confusion.

It’s rarely obvious immediately; it mimics normal ageing, a touch of forgetfulness as long-held memories fade.

It often takes time before it becomes obvious the lapses are more about remembering how to perform a basic everyday function than recalling some event from the past.

It may well be this is the reason why family members of those with dementia slip into the role of permanent, full-time carer without realising it and without seeking help.

With more than one million people expected to have dementia by 2025, the UK-wide survey being rolled out by researchers at the University of Bradford to find out how prepared carers are for the task, and what support they feel they need, is vital and urgent work.