When it comes to football, I hold my hands up to being a fickle, fairweather kind of follower.

I’ve only ever been to one football match. It was one Boxing Day about 20 years ago and I wasn’t exactly blown away by the experience. All I remember is that it was freezing, boring and I’d never seen so many people consume so many pies. Oh, and City lost.

I only ever get vaguely excited about football when England reach the quarter final of an international tournament. I have fond memories of Euro 96, piling into a pub or someone’s front room after work on balmy summer evenings to watch the England matches, but for me it was more about the party atmosphere than the game itself.

I don’t pretend to understand football and I struggle to stay interested for a full 90 minutes. While I’m full of admiration for the diehard fans, I don’t know how they can put themselves through all those highs and lows every week.

But lately I’ve found myself getting caught up in some of those highs and lows. Like the rest of Bradford, I’ve been swept up in footie fever, following City’s remarkable journey to Wembley.

I admit I had zero interest in something called a league cup, but then City played Arsenal and a much-needed sense of civic pride started to creep into Bradford. My brother, a lifelong City fan, took his daughter to the match – she painted her nails claret and amber – and when I sent her a half-hearted text asking how it was going, I wasn’t expecting a series of excited updates announcing goal after goal, followed by “We’ve won!” accompanied by a smiley face.

City had beaten one of the Premiership big guns. Maybe there was a chance they could go all the way.

And go all the way they did, getting to Wembley for the first time since footballers wore long baggy shorts and flickering black-and-white films.

Sunday’s result wasn’t great, but the Capital One Cup final was a huge day for Bradford and the fans did us proud.

My brother joined the claret-and-amber army on the convoy of coaches heading down the M1. And despite the 5-0 defeat, it’s a day he will cherish forever.

I will never forget the bewildered teenage boy who came home from a City match on May 11, 1985, and shut himself in his bedroom. I will never forget the scenes on the television news that terrible day, when 56 people went to a match and never came home.

That bewildered teenage boy, who witnessed things that day that he still doesn’t talk about, got to take his children to Wembley on Sunday, to watch a team he has supported since he was ten. That won’t happen again.

For the fans who turned one half of Wembley Stadium into a sea of claret and amber, it was a day to treasure.