GARY Bowyer has had to change his sales pitch for joining City because of the size of the audience already guaranteed in League Two.

The Bantams boss remains on the recruitment trail following last week’s capture of defender Ben Richards-Everton from Accrington.

And Bowyer admits his patter with prospective players and their agents has had to be very different from last club Blackpool.

During his reign with the Seasiders, many fans stayed away from home games in a long-running boycott against the club’s owners.

In contrast, City’s season-ticket sales for next term have broken 13,500 despite relegation back to the bottom division.

He said: “The pull of that is huge. You see that when you speak to players’ agents and you tell them how many tickets we’ve sold for next season.

“You see clubs in higher divisions than us next season and their aims are to try and hit 4,000, 5,000 or 6,000 and we’ve absolutely smashed that.

“My challenge is whether the players can handle that. Previously at Blackpool because of the off-field stuff, it was a case of if they could deal with not having many supporters in the ground at home games.

“It’s the opposite now and a case of finding out whether they can thrive in the environment where you’ve got such unbelievable support.”

City's average home gate of 16,130 last season was beaten only by Sunderland and Portsmouth and they are likely to have the biggest attendances by far in League Two.

It is the size of the Valley Parade faithful that will spur on Bowyer to rebuild the club after being unable to save them from the drop.

He added: “I love it, absolutely love it. It’s the best job in the world after playing, even with the abuse.

“The supporters have been very good with me and, to be fair, in my time here they’ve been very good with the team as well.

“We know they are hurting because of what went on.

“I just want to say a huge thank you for the support since I’ve been here. It’s not gone our way but to have so many season ticket sales is incredible.”