WIMBLEDON 2 CITY 1

FORGET any talk of club records, form tables, league tables, whatever.

You can drum up all the statistics possible – but ultimately, they aren’t worth the paper they are written on.

Football is a game played by humans – and they will make mistakes.

Crunch all the numbers but they don’t allow for genuine bloopers.

So, League One’s best away record slipped up against the division’s worst hosts.

A Wimbledon team with only two previous home wins pocketed the three points against a City side who had won eight out of 11, including their previous four.

Those impressive victories at Portsmouth, leaders Wigan, Shrewsbury and Southend had set up the possibility of equalling a club mark only achieved three times before – the last 32 years ago when Stuart McCall was at the heart of the action.

Here was the opportunity for McCall to do the same as manager.

Maybe we should all have known better.

Inevitably the Bantams came a cropper to opponents who could barely buy a point on their own turf.

Wimbledon literally couldn’t believe their luck – and the woodwork played a blinder, thwarting City three times as they did everything but score.

But the game was settled by one decisive moment and fortune didn’t come into it.

Maybe there was a fair shout for a City foul when Romain Vincelot was dispossessed from behind inside the Wimbledon half.

But once Lyle Taylor seized on the loose ball and made up his mind to try his luck from distance, there was no case for the defence.

It’s a keeper’s lot that any mistake is made to look ten times worse compared with others elsewhere on the pitch. Inevitably any error usually leads to a goal.

Sattelmaier could not blame the pitch – an excellent surface relaid in the summer by Chelsea’s deep pockets for their ladies team that share the ground – or any wicked diversion from the ball.

Taylor’s shot might have moved a little in the air but certainly nowhere near enough to leave the German hopelessly wrong-footed as it flew through his grasp and into the bottom corner of the net.

“It’s all your fault” was the taunting song from the home fans that followed the keeper’s every touch from that point on.

Two big saves in the first half were suddenly declared irrelevant by that one horrible lapse; a late tip-over from a free-kick equally reduced to a mere footnote.

Sattelmaier was firmly in the spotlight for one head-rush and there was no escape.

Colin Doyle’s deputy was also culpable for Wimbledon’s opener; his starting position a bit too hesitant to leave the goal exposed as Cody McDonald found the gap between the keeper and back-pedalling Adam Thompson.

But that was nowhere as horrible as the blunder in the second half, a dramatic momentum-shifter at a time when you fancied City for a comeback away win.

They could still have achieved that had the Wimbledon woodwork been more forgiving.

Had Nicky Law’s header pinged in off the post and not bounced back along the line to a grateful George Long, Stuart McCall’s men may well have gone on to emulate last season’s 3-2 triumph.

Thompson could have banked a point at least in the frantic final stages with a swing-and-hope that came back into play via the corner of the bar as a helpless Long stood, watched and prayed.

But there was no reprise; no late get-out-of-jail card for City’s unfortunate keeper at a club synonymous for bloodying the noses of more fancied opponents.

Wimbledon, both old and new, have never been respecters of reputations. Here was just another example of that renowned backs-to-the-wall mentality.

They had come out fighting in a first half when City played into their hands.

Wimbledon set out to make the game ugly and frantic; giving the visitors no time to think in possession and jumping on the second balls.

They used the angled pass to the right well, looking to exploit the physical mismatch between Taylor and Tyrell Robinson.

City looked good going forward but Wimbledon won the key battles in midfield, where Jake Reeves played second fiddle against his former club, and kept a tight lid on the front two.

The hosts, in McCall’s words, “did the dirty bits better” for the first half, getting the ball behind the Bantams and turning a back four that lacked the calming presence of Nathaniel Knight-Percival.

The first goal came that way after a City attack broke down outside the Wimbledon box.

Home skipper Barry Fuller instantly launched the ball forward and McDonald, who had previous scoring history against the Bantams for Gillingham, exploited the gap between Thompson and Sattelmaier to poke home.

It was the first time that City had conceded the first goal on the road all season.

Matt Kilgallon rattled the bar with a bullet header from Tony McMahon’s corner but City continued to creak at the other end.

Conceding a few soft free-kicks around the box didn’t help and McDonald could have helped himself to another couple with a steadier finish.

Sattelmaier thwarted two more Wimbledon raids before City appeared to get their act together on the resumption.

The response after the break was swift as they hit Wimbledon at their own game.

Sattelmaier launched a quick clearance upfield and this time it was Alex Gilliead with the chance to use the room behind a retreating defence.

In the ensuing pinball in the penalty box, Charlie Wyke’s effort pinged off the keeper and Paul Taylor, restored into an attacking role with Dominic Poleon sidelined, lashed home the rebound.

The scene seemed set for the comeback to clinch that place in the club history books.

But then Lyle Taylor, a striker who has been on City’s checklist and may still be, did his chances no harm with that speculative attempt that caused Sattelmaier no end of problems.

McCall chose his words carefully after the game but the grimace on the manager’s face said it all. City had let a big chance slip through their hands.