Bradford City 1 Northampton Town 0

The final scores flashed up like winning lottery balls.

Exeter 0 Dagenham 1, Fleetwood 0 Rochdale 3, Morecambe 2 Rotherham 1, Plymouth 2 Cheltenham 0; the lucky sequence kept on coming.

With each number, the cheer around Valley Parade grew louder until it crescendoed into a throaty chorus of “we are going up”. It was sung with joy, intensity – and conviction.

Because believe it or not, there is a genuine feeling growing that City can do this.

They are no longer five points off the play-offs, or seven – or even eight, as they stood this time last week on the way to Torquay.

The one-place gap to seventh is now just two. A mere tantalising two. So close that you can almost touch it.

Another win tomorrow against a Bristol Rovers side who have stormed from nowhere and the barrier will be breached. Suddenly the prospect of going back to Wembley does not sound quite so outlandish.

It is too easy to say that a play-off place is in City’s hands now. Win all the remaining games and they are guaranteed top seven.

That’s a mighty tall order, particularly given the quality of opponent between now and a potentially Boothferry Park-esque trip to Cheltenham on April 27.

But the fact that City have a control on their destiny is remarkable. When they trailed off 4-1 losers at Exeter three weeks ago, who could have predicted such a turnaround in so short a space of time?

City’s double-clinching victory over North-ampton was the first time since October they had recorded back-to-back victories – since beating the same opponents at Sixfields in fact.

If that was long overdue so was a goal for their top scorer, though nobody should have been remotely surprised to see Nahki Wells convert against his favourite opposition.

The Cobblers can’t say they hadn’t been warned – he was splashed across the back page on Friday announcing that the two-month drought would end that weekend.

It was the sixth goal the Bermudian had scored against them in five meetings.

So he was hardly in the 66-1 long-shot bracket like Bingley’s Grand National winner Auroras Encore, even if he chose Aintree day to sink Northampton for the second year running.

Their boss Aidy Boothroyd was magnanimous in defeat to his hometown club, if somewhat miffed that the latest downfall had come from a familiar source.

“If I was playing against Wells, I’d just have to smash him,” he said, admittedly with a hint of a smile.

“He does brilliantly against us and he was very good again. He was always going to score.

“No matter how quiet Wells is, he always looks like he might get one. He’s certainly a player that has done very well for Bradford.

“The management team have turned this club right round and obviously being from Bradford that pleases me, though maybe not right now.”

The goal midway through the first half was hardly a belter but nobody of a home persuasion gave two hoots about that.

Garry Thompson helped the ball on from inside his own half, Northampton keeper Lee Nicholls had an inexplicable rush of blood and came charging out of his goal – and on-loan defender Nathan Cameron obligingly headed over him.

Wells chased the ball in and tapped in by the post with a carbon copy to one he had scored at the same end against Oxford in January. Only this time, there was no away fightback.

With three previous meetings this season, both sides knew exactly what to expect from each other. But then you don’t have to play Northampton at all to guess how they will come at you.

Their style is as difficult on the eye as that lime green away kit.

Big, strong and very direct, the Cobblers are nothing fancy but still mightily effective at what they do.

The sight of Andrew Davies shambling out of the dressing room looking like a man twice his age showed the physical exertions that the City back four had been put through. For much of the afternoon it became a private game between Davies and Ben Tozer, the Northampton midfielder with the prodigious long throw-in.

Tozer would launch another missile into the penalty area and Davies would be there through the crowd to nod clear. It happened time and time and time again.

And you sensed Davies, who can hardly be described as a shrinking violet, loved every minute.

“I’ve been at Stoke City a long time so I’m used to that,” he grinned.

City had the chances to put the result to bed and avoid any late discomfort.

Thompson headed over the bar and Davies was guilty of missing from a free-kick unmarked six yards out. Then Nicholls atoned for his earlier blunder with big saves at the start of the second half from Gary Jones and the lively Kyel Reid.

By that point, Boothroyd had ditched the third central defender and gone for the big gun. Or should that be biggest gun as Adebayo Akinfenwa was wheeled off the bench.

Phil Parkinson described him as an “awkward customer”. That’s big unit, in gaffer speak.

Akinfenwa’s arrival added more urgency and a hint of desperation to the mix. Second balls were scrapped for with the ferocity of a Wrestlemania tag match.

Davies and Rory McArdle had to get through even more at the sharp end of the battle. When the defence was momentarily opened up, Jon McLaughlin made a superb save from Ben Harding’s volley.

Parkinson ensured City did not become bogged down in their own territory by keeping two up front for every Northampton set-piece. It also stopped the visitors from cramming everybody forward.

The counter-attack threat allowed the defence some respite, with Reid always a willing outlet. Northampton, for all their huff and puff, offered nothing of real danger after that Harding chance.

Valley Parade greeted the final whistle with a mighty roar. That was followed with reactions just as vocal as the other results appeared on the scoreboard.

It seems that this season isn’t going quietly.