For millions of football fans throughout the world, the thought of seeing a beloved striker, heroic defender or tenacious midfield succeed elsewhere can be heartbreaking. Just ask anyone who used to own a shirt with the name ‘Wells’ printed on the back.
Unfortunately however, seeing a former player plying their trade elsewhere is now more common than ever – and even some of the biggest clubs in the world have had to wave goodbye to their star men. What’s less common however is seeing the same thing happen with managers, especially here at Valley Parade.
This afternoon, Phil Parkinson will return to VP for the first time since leaving to start a new challenge across t’hill last summer. He returns with his Bolton side, unlike ours, keeping pace with the top two in League One – a fact that plenty of city fans are more than happy to use as an excuse to boo the former city favourite.
What’s frustrating about this is that Parky isn’t like the players who so often leave for bigger clubs and even bigger pay cheques. He is, and always will be the man who gave this club stability, hope and a bundle of memories far too big to cram into one YouTube tribute video. He deserves better, and he almost certainly deserves your applause.
Sure, he may have called Josh Cullen a ‘prick’ or been too quick to dismiss city’s slick (and yet still, ultimately ineffectual) style of play when the team headed across the M62 in September, but if that’s a good enough reason to boo the man who restored our club’s League One status and oversaw one of the most memorable comebacks in our club’s history (not to mention a cup final), then we really ought to be ashamed.
I for one will be giving Phil Parkinson a standing ovation as he makes his way to the away dugout – not just because he’s achieving miracles with a Bolton set-up that, let’s be honest, looked like a step down in June 2016, but because of the aforementioned memories, success and security he brought to our club.
In fact, if you were to ask me to choose any manager currently working in League One to replace Stuart right now, I’d be hard pressed to choose anyone other than PP.
Will any of this matter once the referee’s whistle blows at 3pm? Of course not – and just like you, I’ll be hoping that tomorrow is a day we all remember as the start of Stuart’s surge to a similarly legendary status. You never know, maybe Stuart is the special one, after all.
But for now, in the build up to what is arguably the biggest game of the season so far, all I ask (along with hundreds, if not thousands of others), is that you stand and clap one of the greatest manager’s Bradford City have ever had. We’re not Leeds, we know better than to boo our own.