MARK Lawn is looking well as the sun streams across the garden of his family home.

He has shed a bit of weight thanks to three sessions a week in the gym – and has lost the stress of running Bradford City on a daily basis.

The League One play-off final will mark exactly a year since Lawn and Julian Rhodes handed over the club to Edin Rahic and Stefan Rupp.

Lawn will be at Wembley but as a supporter – in a private box of 20 with mates he has grown up watching his team with.

He is enjoying being “one of the lads” again but still has mixed feelings about the role he left behind.

“I miss the daily buzz but I can do without the worry and stress and the bad health it gave me,” he said.

“When I go to a game and we lose, of course I’m upset. I’m probably upset until maybe Monday because it ruins your weekend.

“But when we lost before, it was a constant worry until the next game.

“If you started to lose a few on the trot – like that run with Phil (Parkinson) when we won only one in 21 games – it was a total nightmare.”

But Lawn admits it hit him hard when he had to walk away to make way for the Germans. Coming just a few months after losing wife Yvonne to cancer, it messed with his head.

“I think it sunk in within two or three weeks of leaving, once I’d stopped going in day-to-day to the offices and being involved,” he said.

“Because it consumes your life, it’s almost like a loss in your family again.

“It was a very difficult period for me because I lost Yvonne in February and my football club in June.

“I don’t think I’d even started to grieve over Yvonne before then, so it was like a double whammy.

“Of course they don’t compare – not being at a football club is nowhere near the same as saying goodbye to your wife – but it did affect me. Your rationale goes out of the window sometimes.”

Lawn got involved with Rhodes in the summer of 2007 when Stuart McCall was first brought back to the club.

Stepping away from the shirt-and-tie brigade in the boardroom has felt like turning the clock back for the 56-year-old, who is free to be the boyhood fan once more.

“It’s brilliant because I go with the lads I first went to football with in the 1970s,” he said.

“Having a pie and a pint is a lot nicer than stressing over what’s happening at half-time.

“I didn’t mind being in with the directors and meeting other chairmen – most of them anyway. But it’s good to get back to your roots like that.

“I’ve not been to a lot of games this season but hopefully next year I will get to plenty. I’d like to get to the situation where I’m not missing a game again.”

Lawn was in with City’s travelling army at Fleetwood on Sunday – a matter-of-fact occasion surprisingly free of the tension you would usually anticipate from a play-off semi-final second leg.

He laughed: “I felt pretty cool all through it. But we had started drinking about midday! It was an early start so your nerves are nicely settled after a few beers.

“We looked comfortable. I don’t think we overdid it but if anyone was going to win, it was going to be us again.

“I think it’s going to be a different game against Millwall. The final is going to be hard.

“They are the one team I really didn’t want to play. I was hoping Southend would get into sixth spot.

“It’s not for their fans or anything like that but the team are strong and powerful.

“It’s going to be a little bit like our old team versus the new one because we’ve got more finesse now with Stuart. We can out-football them.

“I don’t think we’d win against Millwall over two legs home and away but we can beat them at Wembley. We’ve got a wider pitch to play on and if we use our brains, then we’ve got a good chance.

“Millwall will try to rattle us, they’ll be kicking us all over the place, pushing and nipping and scratching; anything they can get away with.

“But we’re a better football side than them. Concentrate on doing our thing and I think we’ll be all right.”

Lawn will be going there and back on the day – which promises to be a long one, with an 8am departure near Keighley and a late bar in their box.

“But I’ve got to say sorry to the players’ wives,” he said. “We got the last coach before they put the deposit on it!”