22 years of covering Bradford City for the Telegraph & Argus

Bear with me, there is some kind of relevance to that random fact.

Yesterday marked my 22nd anniversary since taking up the esteemed role of reporting on the fortunes of the Bantams for the T&A.

Haaland, meanwhile, was bossing the Manchester derby on the way to a third hat-trick in eight Premier League games.

And here’s that tenuous link between the top flight’s deadly version of Andy Cook and this well-worn provincial hack.

My T&A match debut was at the long-gone Maine Road - a ground that would be bulldozed three years later - watching a lacklustre 2-0 loss against Man City.

The decisive second goal on the stroke of half-time was scored, via a deflection off Stuart McCall, by defender Alf-Inge Haaland.

A rare strike from the old man of Europe’s hottest shot right now (with all due deference to the current City number nine). Haaland junior, it’s safe to say, would have absolutely no recollection whatsoever of that significant milestone.

Yes, it makes me feel very old.

Forgive me the self-indulgence - or stopping reading this column about now.

A clearer view of City's friendly at Wexford not through a grimy window in the bar (Image: Newsquest)

Saturday’s landmark victory over Harrogate, a sentence I could never imagine typing all those years ago, was my 1,106th competitive City game for the paper/website.

That does not include the countless friendlies in that time - some varying experiences that provide memorable moments, some hazier than others, of following this mighty club here, there and everywhere.

Like the time that I was trying to do a running report from a friendly at Wexford in Ireland from the sofa in the club bar. Honest guv, it was the only place with power.

Watching through a smeary window was hard enough but then some kind City soul decided to generously offer me some Guinness - all over the screen of the laptop. A decade on and we’re still, surprisingly, on speaking and drinking terms.

There was the infamous pre-season tour of Essex when basically Peter Taylor just wanted to go back home for the week.

We were hardly “giving it large” in the likes of Great Stambridge, a village of 300 inhabitants, where City kicked off their preparations against the local team from the Southend Borough Combination.

Having parked in a hayfield, my “media seat” was perched precariously on the bottom of a climbing frame in the playground bordering the park pitch.

That meant scowling at any local children who had hoped to use it at the same time - while shouting to those stood in front of me what was happening in the half that I couldn’t see.

A fresh-faced reporter with Colin Todd after City's second administration (Image: Newsquest)

James O’Brien’s goal in the last five minutes would never have made the T&A otherwise if it wasn’t for those observers in the burger queue.

Scotland excursions were always fun. Like the sunny afternoon I was dictating some notes back to the office while strolling along the seafront at Kirkcaldy - only to slip mid-sentence on the seaweed-encrusted steps leading down to the beach.

Not the best day to unveil the white holiday shorts, which blended in with the sea floor by the time I had recovered my errant mobile. My dignity took a while longer to find.

Covering the “actual” football, of course, has seen its share of ups and downs. Make that mainly downs, really.

Four relegations, three Wembleys, two administrations and one promotion make up my T&A CV - a handful of very good seasons, including one out of this world, among many that it’s best to gloss over and pretend never happened.

But results like Saturday - and beating Steve Evans at last the other week - give me real hope of doubling that “up” column come May.

City's Andy Cook has been scoring as freely as Erling Haaland this season (Image: Thomas Gadd)

Harrogate had also been the opposition on the night I reached four figures. A 1-0 Valley Parade defeat behind closed doors just about summed up my record of success.

But it’s the odd things that stick in the mind.

Geoffrey Richmond berating me at Walsall after I’d got cramp sat in their old press box - a medieval torture device for anyone above 5ft 6 - and stood up shouting in pain … at the precise second that the home side scored! The former chairman then accused me of celebrating that fact.

Or manager Nicky Law pointing out the exact spot on his “upper leg” where he was suffering a painful rash. He did this at the bottom of the banqueting suite - in full view of the car park just as a couple of elderly women walked past.

The five or six “comfort breaks” because of an upset stomach on the way to Gillingham on an Easter Monday were not fun; nor the time, I got a midnight puncture halfway back from Kidderminster after a Football League Trophy defeat four days before Christmas.

I’ve been locked in at Preston and Oldham, where our photographer ended up having to sleep in the car park; locked out of a B&B in Southend after midnight; broken down in Yeovil; force-fed by Colin Todd to drink the industrial-strength rum that Donovan Ricketts had brought back from Jamaica; hassled by wild-eyed locals to join something called the anti-Welsh league in a café in Shrewsbury and driven a complimentary frozen haggis home from Motherwell.

I never imagined going to Wembley for a cup final with Bradford City (Image: Newsquest)

I’ve also been lucky enough to report on a team from the fourth tier make history by stepping out at Wembley in a major cup final.

Others in the media might enjoy a far more glamorous lifestyle than League Two week in, week out, but, for want of a better phrase, “you’ll never sing that.”

So, yes, in some ways I count myself fortunate watching the likes of Harrogate rather than Haaland.

This club might drive you nuts at times and the disappointments outnumber the glory days. But this is real football and there’s always a story to tell.

You’ve gotta love those chickens!