REFEREE Darren England said sorry to City for not awarding Jack Payne’s “equaliser” at Sunderland.

Film footage clearly showed that former Bantams keeper Jon McLaughlin had allowed Payne’s late effort over the line.

But it was not awarded by either England or Mark Dwyer, the assistant closest to the incident, as City were beaten 1-0.

England admitted he had made an error to City assistant coach Martin Drury afterwards.

Boss David Hopkin, who was booked for his protests along with Drury, said: “Martin spoke to him and the ref apologised. But that’s no good to us.

“You look at everybody’s body language – the whole stadium knew.

“As a manager or a coach, I’ll be the first person to say when we get away with one and it should have been 1-1 if it happened to us.

“I could tell by where the goalkeeper’s body was that it was in. His whole torso is nearly over the line.

"He’s actually pulled it back and it hits his knee again and goes back over the line. It goes in twice.

“But the good thing is the media frenzy now. Everybody knows it was a goal.

“I know we lost the game but everyone will see that Bradford deserved a point.”