On or off parade?

So once again, as April comes round with Bradford City struggling on the field and looking at gloomy finances, so has the pesky, perennial problem about what a strain Valley Parade is on the club finances. This time though, it is laden with very dark storm clouds.

Ever since City meandered from crisis to crisis as a result of reckless spending during the Premier League days, the ownership of the ground has been a thorny issue. Loaned off by Geoffrey Richmond to meet spiralling debt, Julian Rhodes once later took creditors round to show what they could seize as assets. Pretty much nothing. Instead, his co-owner Gordon Gibb, who had jumped off one rollercoaster straight onto another, tried to apply the brakes and bought the ground. But the Gibb-Rhodes friendship was worn, even torn, at the edges, and culminated in a very public falling out.

Gibb rode off back to Flamingoland but still holding the keys. The keys and the terms to a 25-year £370,000 per annum rent bill. With nearly the same paid out for Richmond's plus offices. Figures the club cannot afford to give away so easily. With the cars showing no signs of levelling off from its hurtling descent, the figures prove even more of a millstone. More than £1m paid out before the club starts to find budgets for players.

Mark Lawn joined along for the ride, and yet the rollercoaster continues at runaway pace, no-one really in charge of the controls. Stories may have emerged that we were one of just two clubs to post a profit, then more recently of operating losses turned into profits thanks to a sell-on fee for youngster Fabian Delph. But now, who do we believe any more? Having got rid of one expensive manager who blew and failed with an adequate budget, we find there is no more money for another.

Valley Parade offers us unique opportunities. As tenants, it gives us options on sub-letting certain aspects and negotiating deals on the club, food, etc. And while the rent bill is only part of the £1m+ overheads, we'd drag some of those costs elsewhere. As owners, our trouble would be gone. But will we ever own Valley Parade again? Gibb is set to make a fortune for the ground. Bought for £5m, he'll turn that into a profit for his pension fund within little more than a decade at the quoted rental agreements. But he seems unwilling to budge over any rental agreement. Is this the man really still at the controls of the rollercoaster?

So when Lawn talks of moving to Odsal, you can easily see the attraction. Cut ties, get rid of the millstone and lose the overheads. But you also lose the opportunity - we won't own Odsal either. And how to get out of the 25-year lease? Go to court? Take a trip down memory lane and a hit of administration? This time, it would have serious repercussions. Stiff points deductions, almost certain relegation and the threat that the Blue Square League - who don't accept clubs in administration - won't even have us.

So are these very empty threats by Lawn to get Gibb to finally give in or is the situation that perilious? And is that right on the real owners of the ground - its fans? Yes, we support Bradford City and not Valley Parade, and the owners have to make the right decisions for the club's well-being. But Valley Parade ain't just any other football ground. It's the very soul of the club, a survivor of the club's darkest day when 56 people went to a football match to cheer on their team and never returned. They are the true owners of Valley Parade. The club owe it to the 54 City fans who were among the dead on 11 May 1985 to continue to survive, but should also strive to do everything in its power to survive at the most precious of homes of English football.