Bradford City came away from Reading with a draw this week. The Bantams’ week had begun with the departure of manager Graham Alexander, who stepped down and left for Preston while the club sat top of League One.
Coaches Mark Trueman and Colin Doyle were placed in interim charge. Neither the result at the Select Car Leasing Stadium nor any announcement about a permanent appointment has changed Bradford’s immediate task: protecting a position at the head of the third tier without the man who built it.
The timing hurt. Alexander’s exit came as a surprise to the dressing room, and it landed with Bradford in a promotion race. Going up would end a 23-year absence from the second tier. A run like that tends to rest on settled routines, so a mid-season change in the dugout carries obvious risk.
Trueman and Doyle met the squad on Monday. Trueman admitted the news had unsettled some players at first, but he said their response had been encouraging, as reported by the Guardian.
“Some of the players were a little unsettled, didn’t know what was going on or who was taking the team. But the players have just got on with business, and that’s the key. It shows the mentality of the team. This could quite easily derail them, but they’ve continued to do the right things.”
Trueman is no stranger to this role. He has now taken temporary charge of Bradford five times, which gives the club a caretaker who already knows the squad, the staff and the demands of stepping in at short notice. That familiarity matters most on the training ground, where a stopgap coach usually keeps the existing structures in place rather than rebuilding them.
The point at Reading suggests the squad has not lost its shape in the immediate aftermath. One draw cannot show whether the system Alexander built will hold over a longer run, though, and the coaching staff’s job is to keep it intact until the board picks a successor.
That successor is still unnamed. The Guardian raised the possibility that Bradford’s next permanent manager could be someone who was standing in the opposing dugout at Reading, but the club has confirmed no candidate and no timescale.
For now, Trueman and Doyle keep the reins. Bradford remain the side everyone else in League One is chasing.
