Bradford City’s Adam Clayton is tomorrow hoping to prevail at the ground where he received his first-team football education.
While the experienced Bantams player is targeting play-off success against Carlisle United, he has not forgotten how the Blues helped his early career.
Clayton made his Football League debut during a loan spell at Carlisle from Manchester City.
He played under the Blues’ current head of recruitment Greg Abbott and, ahead of tomorrow’s semi-final second leg, has described it as a formative time.
“It was a good eye-opener. I used to take the centre halves down in a car school, in a TT – you put two 6ft 3in centre halves in the back of that!” Clayton recalled.
“Greg wasn’t very happy about that because they were stiff as a board when we got there!
“It was really good experience, a first taste of [that fact that] you’ve got to pay your mortgage, pay your bills by winning games, how serious it is – nobody cares who you are, what you’ve done, why you’re there.
“If the ball’s there to be won, someone has to go and win it.
“It was a really good education for me.”
Clayton made 36 appearance for Carlisle in an impressive stint in the 2009/10 season, which included an outing at Wembley in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy final defeat to Southampton and an FA Cup third round clash with Everton at Goodison Park.
Now, after a career which has seen spells with Leeds United, Peterborough, MK Dons, Huddersfield Town, Middlesbrough, Birmingham City and Doncaster Rovers, the 34-year-old is aiming to deny the Blues another appearance under the arch.
“I saw Greg the other night and we had a bit of banter about the game. He’s a top character, one of the best in football,” added Clayton, speaking to the Telegraph & Argus.
“He started it all off for me back in the day at Carlisle. We had a good team – Richard Keogh played in that side, Scott Dobie was a very good striker. We got to the Johnstone’s Paint final and played at Wembley.
“Hopefully we won’t let that happen again for them!
“If they weren’t playing us, I’d wish them all the best and want them to do really well. But come Saturday, it’s about going up there and getting the job done.”
Clayton will come up against United’s midfield star Owen Moxon on Saturday and earmarked the Carlisle-born player as an obvious man to watch.
“He got in [the League Two] team of the year and has done really well. His deliveries on Sunday were really good and we managed to get our heads on stuff and not give clean headers,” he said. “We’ll have to do that again.”
“I really enjoyed the game the other night. It was two teams trying to win without being gung-ho.
“It will be another good battle. I’ve played against them four times this year and it’s always been a tough day.”
Clayton, meanwhile, responded to Blues boss Paul Simpson’s remarks about first-leg referee Ross Joyce.
Simpson felt Joyce was a “homer” in how he felt his decisions often went Bradford’s way.
But Clayton said: “I’d say he was consistent then. There were definitely decisions that didn’t go for us that should.
“The one where the lad dived over [Sam] Stubbsy’s leg…I think it’s a bit of a reach what he’s saying about the referee’s performance.
“He was consistent for both teams, whether that was good or bad.”
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