City will always be ‘we’ and ‘us’ to emotional McCall (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

City will always be ‘we’ and ‘us’ to emotional McCall

8:40am Tuesday 9th February 2010 in

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Stuart McCall woke up this morning to a very different day.

Suddenly McCall, for the first time in three decades, is out of football.

His emotional farewell to Valley Parade yesterday severed his ties with the game that has been in his blood man and boy.

And McCall admits there will be a huge void to fill.

With half-term approaching, his family have got plans. There is also the offer of staying at Peter Thorne’s holiday villa in Spain.

But it will not feel the same for someone accustomed to his daily dose of the dressing room.

McCall admitted: “It’s something I’ve not thought about. I honestly don’t know what I’ll be doing from now on.

“I’ll probably go to a game on Saturday, though. In fact, I’ll probably go to our reserve game tomorrow to see how Thorney comes through.”

Bradford City will always be “we” and “us” in his vocabulary, despite the parting of the ways.

McCall agreed a compensation deal with Julian Rhodes first thing yesterday before saying goodbye to assistant Wayne Jacobs and the players. That was the moment when it hit home what he was leaving.

“I’d hardly slept a wink on Sunday night thinking about the scenario of meeting everyone,” he said.

“It was very amicable with Julian but that’s just what I expected. I knew the hardest part would be going in to see the staff.

“Seeing grown men cry was tough to take. It got very emotional. The players were very disappointed and I genuinely feel deep down that none have let me down.

“Last season we were let down in certain areas but you’ve seen from games this year that they’ve given everything they had.

“Sometimes you get players not playing for the manager or the club but that’s certainly not happened here. If it had been the case, I would have gone a long time ago.

“What’s so frustrating is that there’s nothing between the teams in this league.

“If it was like a few years ago where MK Dons, Peterborough or Stockport were miles ahead of the rest, you’d accept that. But this season that’s not been the case.

“Take Saturday’s game with Bury. We’ve played them twice in a few weeks and nobody could tell which team was 16th and which one was third because they were so close – and yet we lost them both.

“It’s been depressing to see the points we’ve got so far knowing we should have a lot more.”

McCall’s decision to go had been in the pipeline since City’s failure to win their Christmas week games against Shrewsbury and Cheltenham. He sat down with Rhodes at that point and both parties knew that results had to change.

When Bury inflicted a sixth home defeat on Saturday, McCall knew he could go no further.

He said: “I’m hurting, naturally, because it was a dream of mine. But it wasn’t to be and now it’s important that the club can put a few wins together.

“I’ve done a lot of things wrong, naturally. I’ve had to learn a lot. But I always remember Neil Warnock saying to me that he’d rather be a lucky manager than a good one. And there have been certain things that didn’t go for us, particularly this season.

“A lad scores against us from the halfway line which he’ll never do again in his career; another scores from the touchline. Then we’ve only had two penalties and missed them both.

“Even with the ten-game unbeaten run, we should have been putting more wins on the board, not draws.”

In hindsight, maybe McCall should have stuck to his guns last spring and followed through his threat to walk away when City fell short of the play-offs.

But he refused to think like that. Taking the easy way out never came into it – and McCall still feels he was right to come back for more.

“I knew this season was going to be really difficult, no doubt about that,” he said.

“With all the changes because of the financial restraints, I was aiming to try and nick seventh spot and get into the play-offs.

“I couldn’t have walked away. With the backing I’d got (from fans), that would have been the coward’s way out for me.

“But the start summed up the way this season would be. To be drawn away to Notts County after the summer they had with Sven and the rest was hard enough.

“Then to get Nottingham Forest away in the League Cup had the makings of what was going to be a tough season.

“We pulled it round for a while with the unbeaten run but results, especially at home, have been poor even if performances haven’t been.

“The disappointment will always live with me. This was the one place I really wanted to succeed and it hasn’t happened.

“I feel for everyone at the club – from Julian, who’s been here a long time and put a lot of money in, to all the staff. Everybody has been behind me and willed us to do well.

“You saw that with the supporters on Saturday. If results were based on goodwill we’d be top of the league.”