'What the heck is a Bantams Banter?'
'It's a shop isn't it?',
'Who even listens to this shit?'
'Tom and Dom? Aren't they those lads from that bungalow?'
These are some of the many questions we've seen on our Facebook page...you may have heard of Bantams Banter but aren't really sure what it is. You may have bought something from their 'shop' or heard them on Radio Leeds but that's where it all ends for you. So here is 'Bantams Banter' explained...
I think Bantams Banter has such a widespread and enduring appeal for two critical reasons: it taps into the universals of being a football fan – pride, a sense of collective purpose, a shared experience with family – but Tom and Dom’s personalities, coupled with the rise of Bradford City over the past five years, have intensified those fundamentals.
Bradford City isn’t necessarily a ‘normal’ football club. The experiences its fans have enjoyed and endured have been especially extreme, encompassing the whole gamut of emotions. Tom and Dom began podcasting when the club were in League Two, the bottom division of league football in England, losing weekly and battling relegation.
Tom and Dom were honest and outspoken, expressing widely-felt frustrations but teaming them with gallows humour, Yorkshire cynicism and comedic anecdotes. That provided the backdrop to the 2012/13 season, in which Bradford City’s fortunes changed drastically. They reached the League Cup final, the first side from the bottom division to do so since 1962 - and simultaneously achieved promotion, with a side that felt so far removed from the ones that preceded it. It was the most radical transformation possible; that Tom and Dom have such huge personalities meant that their celebrations were always the wildest, eschewing press box etiquette to provide a raw, unique and timeless soundtrack to some of the most iconic moments in the club’s history.
As above, the key tenets of following a football club are the essentially the same for every football fan, but few clubs have enjoyed as many heady nights as Bradford City have, captured by two boys who offer the most unrestrained rendering of how that feels. Perhaps this also places the podcast - especially in the days following events that have made global news, such as the 4-2 FA Cup victory over Chelsea – almost in the eye of the storm, providing something authentic and genuine for the outsiders looking in, for the neutrals who were fascinated by what played out.
Dom vlogs about taking his son to the football – (see: youtube.com/watch?v=bcTCMZ…), but this runs parallel to Bradford City’s own social media strategies and efforts to make football affordable and inclusive. A key aspect of the Bradford City Twitter community is #BantamsFamily, which reinforces football as a shared social experience, and #TeamTwenty sought to sell 20,000 cheap season tickets by making fans feel that sense of belonging keenly. Dom’s videos spoke to all of those feelings, capturing moments and emotions that are of obvious resonance for most football fans.