The rumour mill has been in overdrive for the past 24 hours, and it has now been confirmed that former QPR chairman Giovanni Paladini is in early stage talks about a ‘possible takeover’ of Bradford City.

Daniel Crann is on holiday so I’ve stepped in for this match. What a game to step in for. It feels a little bit like being made BP’s chief PR man… the day before loads of their oil slopped into the sea and wiped out lots of cute-looking sea life.

I have a confession this Sunday morning. I feel OK. All is not lost. I'm not on the verge of going to church in some desperate attempt to find salvation. Even though our slim playoff hopes took a kicking yesterday I'm taking on a massive fry up unbowed. Onwards Bantam soldiers. Our time will come, I am still very sure of that. 

I presume the City team bus ran over a black cat on the way home from Doncaster on Friday night. Plodding away from a sunny Valley Parade yesterday, you couldn’t help but reflect on the bad luck. A deflected goal here, a rebounded penalty there, a header off the line.

In recent weeks, I’ve been listening to old Bantams Banter podcasts starting from the very first one. I’ve just reached the end of the first season. Christ, how depressing things were a few seasons ago. We let in goals for fun, half of the team didn’t care about the club, the manager was pretty muchclueless, and as a result we very very nearly fell out of thefootball league.