Bradford City have five senior players. Read that sentence again. At this moment, manager Nicky Law possesses less than half a team.

The five to escape the savaging of the wage bill - Michael Standing, Tom Kearney, Andy Lee, Lewis Emanuel and Mark Bower - are babes in footballing terms.

Between them they have played 68 games, with centre-half Bower accounting for 50 of those - the bulk on loan at York City. Local boy Lee came on for half an hour at Walsall on the final day of last season while Standing has yet to feature at senior level.

As a list of names it is hardly in the same division as the likes of Benito Carbone, Ashley Ward, David Wetherall or Stuart McCall.

But this will be the shell of the side Law will have to mould for next season. Young, keen, hungry, raw - and from what we've seen of Kearney so far, maybe not too bad.

In the mean time, get your tin hats on. The players' union will by now be manoeuvring their heavy artillery into position at their Manchester headquarters and setting their sights along the M62 towards Valley Parade.

Expect damning headlines in every newspaper. "Kick them out", "Anarchy", "Tip of the iceberg" will scream out at every fan.

But City will ride this storm. And so will all the other clubs who are expected to follow their lead having watched safely from the sidelines as the drama unfolds. The likes of Grimsby, Sheffield Wednesday and Brentford could be among the first to follow suit. Then anticipate a stampede as football's cash crisis - and the total absence of a transfer market below the Premiership - really kicks in.

In one swipe of the pen, the administrators have wiped out virtually an entire dressing room - no fewer than 16 contracted players. Halfway through the year, none of the City faces beaming out from the calendars hanging in Up Front are still there.

It's finito Benito and all the rest. That era is kaput and a new one is beginning with an all-mighty bang.

And the shock waves from today's bombshell will be felt around football for a long time yet.