Delighted chairman Geoffrey Richmond today promised an even brighter future for Bradford City after yesterday's dramatic Premiership survival.

Work on the £7.4 million Sunwin Stand re-development scheme began today less than 24 hours after the life saving 1-0 victory over Liverpool to increase Valley Parade's capacity to 25,000 by early next year.

And the chairman has also promised that manager Paul Jewell will have money to spend in the transfer market to strengthen the team who have defied the pundits by a avoiding relegation.

He said: "There won't be bucketfuls of money available for signings.

"This season we spent £3.3 million in the transfer market and that included the abortive money spent on Bruno Rodrigeuz.

"In Premiership terms that is not a lot. I would not like to say at this moment in time how much will be available to spend, but there will be team strengthening and there would have been team strengthening if we had been relegated."

"It was a great achievement to get into the Premiership, but in my view it is an even greater achievement to survive.

"I am happy for everyone, but I am happiest for Paul Jewell and his family. There has been pressure on a young man.

"We didn't win a game between February 5 when we won at home to Arsenal and Easter Monday when we shocked everyone by winning at Sunderland, but he never lost his sense of humour nor did we lose our sense of belief and our team spirit never disintegrated.

"We have a great set of lads in our dressing room and Paul Jewell and his coaching staff deserve every credit.

"We always tried to be as positive as we could in the circumstances in which we found ourselves.

"The supporters could have turned on the players and the manager and the club, but the overwhelming majority kept with us and now 8,330 supporters have paid for their season tickets before they knew what division we would be playing next season. That just shows how far the club has come.

"I am not suggesting others would not have renewed, but these people renewed when the outcome looked for all the world like relegation.

"Work starts tomorrow on the new stand and it would have started whatever happened against Liverpool. That has been the pledge and commitment which has been there for some time and demonstrates the faith the board have in the future of the club.

"The commitment in financial terms is £7.4 million plus building the academy as well."

Richmond said the effect of City competing in the Premiership spread wider than the 18,000 regular supporters who went to Valley Parade.

"The whole of the city gets a positive lift, people can walk round the city during the summer with a smile on their faces and it provides great civic pride," he said.

"We have earned the right to play next season in one of the finest leagues in the world and certainly the most high profile league in the world, and a lot of that rubs off on the city of Bradford."

When Richmond arrived at Valley Parade just over six years ago City were a mid-table Second Division club with average gates of about 6,000.

He admits that promotion to First Division, then to the Premiership and now survival in the Premiership is 'a fairy tale story.'

He added; "There is clearly someone up there somewhere very kindly disposed towards Bradford City.

"To some considerable extent you can earn your luck. I am positive by nature and I have got confidence in the future of the club.

"To be relegated was the likeliest outcome at the start of the match and if that had happened I would have simply considered it to be a blip and we would have looked back upon it as such in a few years' time.

"This club has moved out of all recognition in the last six years, but in the next four or five years it will move as far forward again. Of that I have no doubt whatever."

The abiding off-the field-memory of those of us sat in the press box was of an ecstatic chairman standing in the directors' box behind us punching the air with delight when he saw on the TV monitor that Southampton had taken the lead against City's relegation rivals Wimbledon.

His message spread to the fans in front who stood and roared their delight.

Richmond admitted he had been on a roller coaster afternoon of emotions as he watched City beating Liverpool while keeping in touch with Southampton's crucial 2-0 win over Wimbledon.

He joked: "I started the afternoon as a 34-year-old chairman with a full head of hair and I finished the afternoon as a 97-year-old chairman who had lost his hair, and what bit of hair he had left had gone grey.

"I was a glutton for punishment.

"It was a great achievement to get into the Premiership, but in my view it is an even greater achievement to survive in the Premiership."

Match Report

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