Bradford City keep close eye on test with Forest Green fans

A smattering of supporters at Forest Green, who averaged the fourth lowest attendances in League Two last season, hardly replicates a bouncing Valley Parade.

But it is hopefully a small step towards some kind of audience being allowed back for home games.

City, like the rest of football, are keeping fingers crossed for a loosening of the restrictions from October 1. The home game against Harrogate 10 days later is pencilled in as the first league action in front of a crowd, even if only a fraction of the capacity, at Valley Parade.

So, the Bantams will be interested – and nervous – onlookers to see that everything passes without incident in Gloucestershire and the six other grounds where crowd tests are being carried out. Three more chosen, Luton, Hull and Morecambe, declined to take part.

Numbers will be strictly limited – and may not even reach the maximum of 1,000 fans permitted given that Forest Green’s season-tickets sales are only around the 400 mark.

The sight of a full Valley Parade again is still a long way off

But at least they can try – unlike the Bantams, who could not put themselves forward for a similar pilot at Valley Parade because of the local lockdown.

“The chances are slim to none at the moment,” admitted City’s director of communications and commercial Ryan Sparks.

“Our local safety advisory group and even medical professionals in the area would never advise us to do that because of the rising situation (with COVID cases).

“More worryingly, there appears to be a void of testing in the inner city of Bradford which appears to have only happened recently and we don’t know what that’s all about.

“We are obviously watching the pilot events with keen interest. If everyone comes through and believes there’s a way forward, then you’d like to think they will give clubs an opportunity to stage games at the reduced capacity expressed.

As long as things progress how we would like and expect them to, we are not thinking of a catastrophic disaster at Valley Parade

“From our perspective, we need to get a minimum of 4,500 people in the ground to adhere to the season-ticket campaign.

“Even if they reduce us down from what we believed it was going to be, which was just over 7,000, we would like to think that it wouldn’t be too far beyond that.”

The EFL and FA and officials from the likes of rugby league and horse racing met Oliver Dowden, the secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport on Wednesday to stress the urgency to bring back some form of matchday income.

A letter sent out to clubs by the EFL warned of “catastrophic consequences” the longer the lock-out of fans continues.

Sparks said: “Catastrophic is a big word. I think a lot of it is down to how you run your business and where you were at in March.

“Some clubs have loaned money left, right and centre, some have made themselves non-sustainable. It’s always been our ambition to get this club back on an even keel and make it self-sustaining again.

City have been playing behind closed doors at Valley Parade since football returned

“At this time, as long as things progress how we would like and expect them to, we are not thinking of a catastrophic disaster at Valley Parade.”

City have drawn up financial forecasts covering various scenarios which they believe will see them through the worst of it. But missing out on a potential six-figure windfall from a Carabao Cup meeting with Liverpool did not help.

“We can’t look too far down the road but we do have some plans of how we’d approach things if we were told we couldn’t have fans back in the stadium in October,” added Sparks.

“This week, I’ve sat down personally to forecast our commercial budget and redone that.

“Where we were at, we were going to come in far in front of where we were last season. That was obviously a nod to people that have done a lot of work over the summer at the club.

“We were going to be in a great position but if we’re unable to fulfil any of those commercial obligations for whatever reason, we may be down in excess of £200,000.

The last time City played in front of fans was at Salford on March 7

“That’s only one element of the business.

“We have run a second set of budgets that relate to not having crowds in for a slightly longer period.

“We’ve no reason to believe it won’t be October but there is a chance it may go a little bit further. We must be prepared for it.

“Some clubs are facing catastrophic circumstances and could lose their place. Those clubs are struggling on all fronts and it’s probably because they’ve not financially been in a great place prior to the pandemic.

“Football is the same as all businesses in that it only takes a couple of things to put you in a bad position. If you don’t recover from it and something else then hits you in the face, it can be really damaging.”