Yesterday (Tuesday), we revealed number 2 in the countdown from 10 to 1 of the list of best City victories from throughout the 2014-15 season. Number 2 was of course the come from behind victory against Leeds United at the Coral Windows Stadium to send City into the Capital One Cup 3rd Round. After Matt Smith headed The Whites into the lead, City responded with quick fire goals scored by Billy Knott, and James Hanson to wrap up the victory.
Round at Stamford Bridge.thAt 1, it’s of course the astonishing comeback victory against Premier League Champions to be, Chelsea, in the FA Cup 4
Chelsea2 (Cahill 21, Ramires 38)
Bradford City 4 (Stead 41, Morais 75, Halliday 82, Yeates 90)
24/01/15 – Stamford Bridge
To this day, it is still barely believable that Phil Parkinson’s Bradford City completely turned over the current best team in English football, inflicting what would to be their only defeat at Stamford Bridge all season.
After going two down in just under 40 minutes, chance of a comeback seemed virtually unthinkable, impossible, but nobody told that to the Bantams, they had simply not read the script. Gary Cahill and Ramires set the Blues on their way, but Jon Stead’s thunderous strike before the break gave City hope if anything else, going into the half time interval.
Coming out for the second half full of belief, City battled away with their star quality opponents, and got a deserved equaliser through Chelsea academy product Filip Morais, who stroked home a rebound after Petr Cech had pushed Billy Knott’s shot away.
Under normal circumstances, the underdog would perhaps try and sit back and force a replay in this situation, but Andy Halliday curled a delightful shot past Cech from the edge of the area to spark utter delirium in the packed away end behind the goal.
Chelsea pushed and pushed for an equaliser and Cesc Fabregas and Eden Hazard were brought on in attempt to break their League One opponent down.
The Bantams held firm, and it was them who got the next goal, counter attacking in stylish fashion; Mark Yeates found Jon Stead with an incisive pass and the latter held up two or three Blue shirts before putting the ball on a plate for Yeates to pass the ball into the bottom corner, one on one with Cech. Disbelief would be the main word to be used at that particular moment, the abrupt realisation that Bradford City, had pulled off arguably the greatest FA Cup upset of all time.
Starting XI:
Williams, Darby ©, McArdle, Davies, Meredith, Liddle, Morais (Clarke 89), Halliday (Routis 87), Knott (Yeates 80), Hanson, Stead
Unused Subs:
Urwin, Sheehan, Kennedy, Zoko
Bookings: Darby, McArdle, Liddle, Halliday, Clarke
Attendance: 41,014 (6,000 City fans)
Parkinson’s Reaction:
‘It’s only slowly sinking in, I must admit. When everyone was on the pitch celebrating at the end, it did feel a bit surreal. To come up against the Premier League leaders and score four goals is a great feeling.’
‘We’ll be remembered in Bradford for a long time, but also the rest of the country as well. It was a great performance by the lads, they showed good discipline throughout, but we always carried a threat going forward and we’re at our best when we’re positive – we showed that today.’
‘Being 2-0 down wasn’t in the dream, but we showed great character to come back from that. We were playing against some world class players today, but when we were 2-0 down the heads never dropped, and we stuck to how we wanted to play today.’
‘As much as the goals were the highlights, the honesty and the discipline in the performance for me, was brilliant.’
Andy Halliday
‘I’ve run out of words to be honest. I’ve never felt anything like that on a football park before, to come from 2-0 down at Stamford Bridge against arguably the best team in Europe.’
‘I think you’ll struggle to see a better second half performance at Stamford Bridge all season because I thought we were unbelievable in that second half. We scored three in the second half, but it could’ve been five.’
Filipe Morais
‘I don’t know where to start! Obviously, what an achievement. We’ve made history, nobody comes to Stamford Bridge and does what we just did.’
‘It’s hard to put into words, I’m so proud to play for this club; the fans are unbelievable and we’re all delighted. We’re very high on emotion at the moment and it’s just a great feeling.’
Highlights of THAT victory are below, watch with a smile!