Ex-Bantams striker Mark Stallard's view on play-off chances

It will be a gruelling charge for the line if Graham Alexander’s men are going to hit their play-off target.

Yesterday’s wash-out with Notts County saw the gap to Gillingham in seventh stretch to eight points, although the Bantams have two games in hand.

They even moved up a place to 15th without playing as Accrington dropped below them on goal difference.

Realistically, there are only two possible Tuesday dates for the rearranged Notts fixture on either March 19 or April 23 in the final midweek of the regular season.

The EFL may push for the earliest option – which would mean City playing the next three Tuesday nights on the struggling Valley Parade pitch.

It will be a case of survival of the fittest if the Bantams can succeed in the push towards the top seven.

But it’s been done before – and in even quicker time.

The boys of ’96 rattled off their last 13 games in exactly seven weeks, four days shorter than the current schedule, as they raced towards the club’s first trip to Wembley.

At the same 33-game stage, City were 10th in the third tier but 11 points adrift of the last play-off spot.

Nine wins later, they snuck into sixth at Hull’s Boothferry Park, and the rest is history.

Mark Stallard, who scored City’s second goal in the Wembley win over Notts County, made a wasted trip to Valley Parade this weekend for the game between his two former clubs as a radio summariser.

He recalled how nobody saw Chris Kamara’s Bantams coming as they timed their run to perfection – something the current side will need to replicate.

“You’ve got to have a lot of things,” said Stallard. “You’ve obviously got to have the players with the ability but you also need that fight, grit and determination and a bit of that bloody-mindedness when people are writing you off to say, ‘we ain’t going to let that happen.’

“It can be a big motivation. That’s down to the individual and collective make-up of the squad.

“We’re talking about elite sport, even at League Two level, and elite players who should have an elite mindset in that they’re never going to give it up and will always have a go.

“You’ve got to grind it out. Sometimes it will be about playing good football, other times it’s doing the ugly stuff and the hard work to get over the line by hook or by crook.

Mark Stallard on the ball for City against Notts County at Wembley (Image: Newsquest)

“Bradford have been hovering and not really got going.

“But now they’ve won three in a row and started a decent run not dissimilar to what we did in 1996 – written off but in with a chance. You never say never.

“There’s a decent squad here with decent players.

“They seem to be hitting form at a decent time. No goals conceded in February in the league is very good.

“It’s the exact opposite of what has been happening with Notts. They’ve conceded too many while Bradford seem to have found the solution for keeping it out.

“Do that and you’ve always got a chance.”

Stallard’s City time appeared to be going nowhere when they launched the late surge that would catapult them ultimately into the second tier.

He added: “We won nine of the last 13 so we had real confidence, belief and momentum going into the play-offs. We were used to winning games.

“Even when we lost the first leg at home to Blackpool, we still had that belief.

“There have obviously been plenty of words spoken and written at the time but we had that determination.

“We had good players, a good squad, and maybe that feeling that we’d underperformed. But when it came round to it, we felt we were unstoppable.

“When people look from afar now and see the players that Bradford have got, you’re thinking, ‘how are they hovering in mid-table and not doing more?’

“But maybe they will come the end of the season. It only matters where you are when the 46 league games have been played.”