TWO things still stick in my mind from Bradford City’s last trip to Stamford Bridge.

The day in December 2000 did not begin well when the photographer’s car decided to conk out halfway down the M1.

Bonnet up at Leicester Forest motorway services, fortunately some travelling fans took pity on a couple of dishevelled local journalists and offered us a lift down to the capital.

But worse followed in the press box when a colleague and I went through a “to me, to you” routine to pass the company lap top which inevitably, in true Chuckle Brothers style, ended with the ominous crack on the unforgiving concrete floor.

It wasn’t as if the game was worth smashing your best electrical gear. I remember Chelsea presented Dan Petrescu with a commemorative silver tray for services rendered before kick-off and then City responded in kind by handing over three of the easiest points the home side gleaned all season.

But then that was pretty much the story of the 2000-2001 campaign, a torturously drawn-out journey to inevitable relegation.

Well it was from the moment I entered the building anyway. By the time I made my Valley Parade “debut” in Geoffrey Richmond’s office to introduce myself to the manager and chairman (and some might say they were one and the same), City were comfortably bedded down in the bottom three for good.

But there was, or so I'm told, a honeymoon period before then when the Premier League looked a different place from a Bantam perspective.

That was the time when those six weeks of summer madness actually threatened to be good business in establishing the club as more than just a top-flight makeweight.

It proved a false dawn inevitably but there was one August night when everything did gloriously click. As Richmond would stress to me later “that was the last special memory of my years in charge”.

The fixture Gods seemed to have made up their mind when City’s first five games of that season included Liverpool, Chelsea, Manchester United and Arsenal.

But after making a decent fist of it at Anfield, hope sprang eternal in the opening home game when Gianluca Vialli’s Blues came to town.

City refused to bow to reputations and Benito Carbone, looking a snip at £40,000 a week, effectively ran the show.

Dean Windass headed the opener with a free header from Lee Sharpe’s cross before teeing up the little Italian to drive the match-clinching second 15 minutes from time. How easy it seemed; how wrong we all were.

The landscape will be very different when City finally lock horns with Jose Mourinho and Co next weekend for their first meeting since. But memories of that Valley Parade victory will inevitably be stirred.

Looking back now, David Wetherall offers a slightly less romantic recollection.

As excited by the imminent Stamford Bridge trip as any City fan, Wetherall admits that previous win was not quite the stand-out result that history has suggested.

“A lot of people said it was as good a team performance from Bradford City that they had ever seen,” said Wetherall. “But Chelsea at the time were probably not as strong as maybe everyone thought.

“They had a lot of big names like Hasselbaink up front but they weren’t really clicking as a team. I know Vialli was under pressure.

“Make no mistake, to keep a clean sheet against strikers like that from a defensive point of view was great. It was part of a really tough start to the season and we did play well that night.

“But maybe over time it’s remembered as a slightly better win than it was.

“The manner of the game certainly wasn’t one of those where we were under the cosh. If anything, I remember we controlled large parts of it and put them on the back foot.”

At the end of the first week, when the first official table came out after three games, City were enjoying the rarified air of ninth.

By the time of their next win, scrambling past Coventry four months and 14 games later, they were bottom to stay.

Wetherall added: “Without going over painful old ground, the plan at the start of that second season was upward and onward. But that Chelsea game was the highlight – the single highlight.

“It will be different for Bradford now. They have had some great days out in the cup in the last couple of years and this is going to be another.”