STUART McCall has revealed that City produced the best training session of his reign – on the same day their season ended.

The Bantams have accepted that their League Two campaign is over as clubs wait on how the EFL will resolve the issues at both ends of the table.

City remain in the minority of wanting to keep relegation to the National League this season to protect the “integrity” of the competition.

But they conceded their own outside promotion hopes by agreeing that the suspended schedule should be stopped.

McCall’s men were two places and four points outside of the play-offs following a dismal 2-0 defeat at Salford on March 7.

Six days later, the curtain came down as football began its coronavirus lockdown.

McCall opted to have one more work-out with his squad at Valley Parade – and was thrilled with the results.

“We had a big game among ourselves when we knew we weren’t playing (Leyton Orient) on the Saturday,” he said. “It was actually 12 v 12 on the pitch.

“I know it sounds crazy now but I came off with the staff saying that it was the best training session we’ve had since we’ve been in at the club.

“The ground covered on the GPS, the quality, the togetherness – it was all there.

“We’d had a meeting after the Salford game and we made it clear that was the last time we could perform like that if we still wanted to get where we were aiming.

“It wasn’t a case of, ‘that’s it, we’re giving up’. But we were realistic.

“We had a couple of players coming back from injury and were desperate to be involved.

“Everyone was involved in the training session on the Friday after that and I remember driving away thinking, ‘I can’t wait, we can still get something’. But obviously it wasn’t to be.”

City had been warned the previous evening that the Leyton Orient game would be off as the EFL and Premier League prepared to shut down. The news was announced publicly the next day while the training match was taking place.

McCall added: “I was as down as anyone after that Salford game because it was just such a non-performance. It lacked everything that we would want and expect.

“Obviously, there were words said in the dressing room afterwards and certainly in the meeting on the Monday.

“We played a game behind closed doors at Burnley the next day, which again was good. I thought some of the young boys had played really well.

“Then we had the final training session on the Friday and that was another positive.

“The way they played in that was the standard that we expected from them as individuals and together. That set the level going forward – or it would have done.

“I know I’m more optimistic than pessimistic as a person, and you’ve sometimes got to be like that, but it did give me heart.

“Unfortunately, we didn’t realise what was going to happen from then on and we wouldn’t get another chance.”

City will still finish ninth in the final League Two table which will be decided using a points-per-game method.