Capital One Cup comment: The day Bradford City shook up the world (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Capital One Cup comment: The day Bradford City shook up the world

10:20am Saturday 12th January 2013 in Sport By Simon Parker, Bradford City Reporter

It was hardly Mills and Boon but the moment encapsulated the romance of City’s latest giant-killing episode.

The rest of the press box looked on nervously as Mark Lawn and myself, hardly two of the slightest figures at Valley Parade, embraced in a bear hug.

I had expected a handshake not the full-on cuddle but, hey, that’s what this cup run does for you!

The emotion of the occasion had consumed the joint-chairman and few could blame him. Not for hugging me obviously but for getting so carried away by the euphoria of the occasion ...

Another reporter on Twitter joked that I must have run out of superlatives churning out the report of another fairytale. I did that after Wigan.

Then came Arsenal, another “it doesn’t get better than this” night. And then along popped Aston Villa ...

When you think this cup run cannot get any more magical, it just does.

Whatever transpires at Villa Park ten days from now – and Villa should still be regarded as the favourites to progress, if nowhere near as nailed on as before – Tuesday raised the bar once again.

For those nit-pickers who claim penalty shoot-outs aren’t “proper” victories – and of course Man United never actually “defeated” Chelsea to win the Champions’ League – there was no disputing the authenticity of the triumph.

Aston Villa were well beaten and well beaten in 90 minutes – only the third occasion in City’s 12 cup ties when the result has been sorted in normal time.

Lawn grandly announced afterwards, once we had been prised apart, that the win “would send shockwaves round the world.”

Too predictably, one of the first comments on the messageboard ridiculed the suggestion that the match would have a global impact.

Just for amusement’s sake, I had a glance down the endless list of Valley Parade match reports on the Internet to see which newspapers thought it worthy of a mention.

A brief scan turned up the Fiji Times, Bangladesh Daily Star, Khaleej Times, Gulf News, USA Today (not counting the daily papers in New York, Orlando, Washington and San Francisco), the South China Morning Post, Melbourne Age, Bangkok Post and Times of India...

And without labouring the point too much, regarding the reader’s opinion that it was hardly breaking news in Nepal .... the Himalayan Times.

The name Bradford is popping up everywhere, quite literally. The exploits of Phil Parkinson’s Bantams have put the city on the world map with the type of publicity that money can’t buy.

Those who claim that sport does not sell, whether it’s shifting copies of newspapers or portraying a positive image of the region, have clearly been walking round blind-folded in these past few days.

Beating Villa has put a broad grin on every Bradfordian, whether they reside in Manningham, Melbourne or Manila. It has also caught the imagination of every media outlet from here to Timbuktu (I’m sure their local paper must have carried a paragraph or two).

So let’s just follow Lawn’s lead and embrace it.