The squally rain tried its worst but the rainbow peaking above Midland Road spoke for everyone.

Nothing was going to knock the shine off the nostalgia-fest as Valley Parade turned the clock back 14 years to party like 1999.

All right, some of the leading cast looked like they could have done with a comfy chair rather than a dance floor.

There was more girth than pace on display as the Premiership promotion team were reunited for one game only.

But that did not dampen the level of affection you could feel in the air. Sunday afternoon was a celebration of an historic era in Bradford City history.

One or two were missing – Robbie Blake’s absence was the biggest disappointment for the 2,000 plus fans in the main stand – but it was still a good turn-out from former team-mates who had put the club on the map.

And how fitting that the reunion should take place just at a time when City are finally on the rise again. For the first time since that promotion – and the following year’s survival in the top flight – fans have a club to be proud of once again.

They say that everything happens for a reason. So perhaps we owe Michael Gove a nod of thanks.

The game, superbly arranged by Wayne Jacobs, was set up to celebrate the opening of the One in a Million free school on the site of the old Valley Parade office block.

The school opened its doors a year late after Secretary of State for Education Gove pulled the plug on funding at the 11th hour.

It was a shocking bolt from the blue at the time, given all the hard work put in to get everything ready for the planned September 2012 launch.

But maybe, in hindsight, everything has worked out for the best.

The delay, massively frustrating as it has been for all concerned, has meant that the school are tapping into the feelgood factor that has finally resurfaced at Valley Parade after so much disappointment.

If it wasn’t for government red tape, the grand opening – and presumably the match to mark it – would have been 12 months ago.

The welcome for the old players would no doubt have been just as warm. Memories stay the same.

But the mere sight of those famous names recreating happier times on the pitch would have also reinforced how far the club had tumbled in the years since.

At that stage, to suggest that City would end the season with two Wembley appearances and a promotion under their belt seemed in the realms of Football Manager on the bedroom computer.

Now City fans have a new set of heroes, the class of 2013, to rank with those of ’99 who lifted the club into the highest level of English football for the first time in 77 years.

So Sunday became a celebration of both glorious past and present: a team that set the bar at new heights and the first one since who can seriously be considered as worthy successors.

Timing is everything.