FourFourTwo

THE CITY GENT | est. 1984

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BRADFORD CITY

thecitygen­t. co. uk • @ thecitygen­t

MIKE HARRISON

FAVOURITE COVER The City Gent enjoys a proud history as the longest- surviving printed football fanzine in the UK. For many years, our front cover featured a photograph with a topical caption ( my favourite mixed the topicality of the first Gulf War with the unpopulari­ty of manager John Docherty in December 1990). When I took over as editor in 2004, I wanted to continue with the humorous style, but managed to track down Dave Robinson, whose work I had long admired in When Saturday Comes. Since 2006- 07, we’ve gone with a topical cartoon. I send him a kernel of an idea, and Dave’s imaginatio­n runs with it. One idea ( above) gained so much appreciati­on from our loyal readership that we sold T- shirts as Bradford went into meltdown and had a manager for every season!

STANDOUT MOMENT Winning the FSF’S Fanzine of the Year prize in December 2015, and being congratula­ted afterwards by the esteemed journalist Brian Glanville. MEMORABLE PLAYER/ MANAGER INCIDENT

Ahead of the 2010- 11 season, I contribute­d to a pre- season article in the Yorkshire Post about my thoughts on City’s prospects for the season. I honestly thought we’d do well to finish 17th in League Two. A day later, I went to interview manager Peter Taylor for the fanzine and got collared by our former joint- chairman, who said I “wasn’t very positive” about the Bantams’ chances. But I ended up being almost right – we finished 18th and Taylor resigned in February 2011.

MOST IMPORTANT STORY Prior to the 30th anniversar­y of the Valley Parade fire, we produced a whole issue ( our 200th) telling the story of that tragic day from various perspectiv­es. Many stories were written by Bradford fans who had been unable to put their thoughts, emotions and personal experience­s into words for three decades about that fateful day on May 11, 1985.

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