George Pratt nearly gifted Notts County the lead. Forty-seven minutes later, he was celebrating his first EFL goal. Just your standard afternoon following Bradford City.
There are wins where you leave the ground talking about the goals, and there are wins where you talk about the football. Then there are games like this, where somewhere around the 82nd minute you realise you’ve spent the last half hour staring at the clock and wondering whether time has actually stopped.
Notts County 0. Bradford City 1.
It won’t be appearing on any end-of-season Greatest Games of 2026/27 collection, but there was plenty to like. Bradford went to a Notts County side who hadn’t lost a league game this season, survived a first half where the hosts probably carried the greater threat, came out noticeably stronger after the break and then managed the game well enough to leave Meadow Lane with all three points.
And the winner came from George Pratt, who only 47 minutes earlier looked like he might have been responsible for putting City behind.
Football has a sense of humour sometimes.
An early escape
Bradford could easily have found themselves 1–0 down inside five minutes.
Pratt misplaced a pass, Hindolo Mustapha intercepted it, went beyond Jon McCracken and looked set to open the scoring before Callum Connolly produced a hugely important goal-line clearance.
It was the sort of moment that can completely change an away game. If Notts score there, they have the crowd behind them, Bradford are chasing the match and the afternoon potentially looks very different. Instead, Connolly bailed City out and gave Pratt the chance to recover from what could have been a really costly mistake.
That clearance deserves almost as much credit as the winning goal. It’s easy to remember the bloke who sticks one in from 20 yards, but without Connolly being in the right place five minutes into the game, Pratt’s strike might only have been an equaliser.
Notts probably had the better of the first half
There’s no need to rewrite the game because Bradford eventually won it. City weren’t particularly good during the opening 45 minutes and Notts looked the more threatening side for large parts of it.
Mustapha’s chance was the obvious warning, while Rory Finneran and Nick Tsaroulla also had openings. Antoni Sarcevic tested James Belshaw at the other end, but City weren’t exactly laying siege to the Notts goal.
That isn’t necessarily a criticism. Notts came into the match unbeaten, looked organised and made Bradford work for everything. Sometimes difficult away games against decent sides are allowed to be difficult.
The statistics reflected how tight it was. Notts finished with 51% possession to Bradford’s 49%, nine shots to City’s eight and five corners to four, although Bradford did manage three efforts on target compared with the hosts’ one.
Nobody battered anybody.
But at half-time, you definitely felt Bradford needed to improve.
Whatever happened at half-time worked
The second half was much better.
City came out playing higher up the pitch, with more aggression and far more purpose. Notts were suddenly finding it harder to move the ball around comfortably and Bradford began to dictate where more of the game was being played.
That was probably the most encouraging thing about the performance. The first half hadn’t really worked, but Alexander’s side didn’t simply come back out and repeat it.
How many Bradford teams over the years have we watched struggle through 45 minutes, disappear down the tunnel and then emerge to do exactly the same thing again?
This time there was a clear improvement, and within seven minutes City had their reward.
From early mistake to match winner
Of course it was George Pratt.
The ball fell to him around 20 yards from goal and he found the bottom corner to put Bradford 1–0 up. Not a centre-back bundling one home from three yards after a corner, either. It was a genuinely very good finish.
It was Pratt’s first EFL goal and, for a Bradford-born defender playing for City, there probably aren’t many better ways to get it.
The whole story of his afternoon made it even better. Five minutes in, he had nearly gifted Notts the lead. By the 52nd minute, he had scored the goal that would eventually win Bradford the game.
For a young player, that response matters. An early error like that can easily get into your head, particularly away from home, but Pratt stayed in the game, recovered and ended up being the hero.
If you’d told Bradford fans after five minutes that Pratt was going to decide the game, I’m not sure many would have assumed you meant in a positive way.
Bradford didn’t simply hang on
This was another pleasing part of the second half.
After going ahead, Bradford could easily have dropped ten yards deeper and spent the remaining 35 minutes trying to defend the edge of their own box. Instead, City continued looking for another goal.
Kayden Jackson found the side-netting, Jake Beesley went close from a Josh Neufville delivery and Nick Powell forced Belshaw into a save after coming off the bench.
Bradford didn’t dominate possession and they certainly didn’t create chance after chance, but they carried enough threat to stop Notts from simply throwing everyone forward.
There’s a difference between protecting a lead and surrendering the football completely. For most of the second half, City did the former.
The defence deserves credit for that too. Notts still had moments, but once Bradford went ahead there was no prolonged backs-to-the-wall spell where McCracken was being asked to make save after save.
Baldwin, Pennington and Pratt dealt with what came their way, Connolly had another strong afternoon and City competed for the ugly stuff too, recording 21 tackles to Notts County’s 13.
It might not be the part of football that fills highlight reels, but teams hoping to spend the season around the top end of League One generally need to be pretty good at it.
Are Bradford becoming good at winning ugly?
This is where Saturday becomes more interesting than simply another three points.
Bradford have now won four of their opening six League One games and, in doing so, ended Notts County’s unbeaten start.
More importantly, we’re starting to see City win different types of matches.
There will be afternoons when Bobby Pointon produces something brilliant or everything clicks and Bradford win comfortably, but if this side genuinely wants to challenge at the top end of the division, they’re also going to need results like this.
Difficult away ground. Not at your best. Stay in the game. Find a goal. Defend properly. Go home with three points.
Those are often the victories that look increasingly important when you get to March and April.
And Graham Alexander deserves credit for it too. The first half wasn’t particularly convincing, but the second half was much better. City got themselves ahead, continued creating chances and the substitutions helped keep fresh legs on the pitch rather than simply shutting up shop.
It wasn’t a tactical masterclass that will be studied at coaching conferences for the next decade. It was simply a manager recognising that the first half needed improving and his side doing exactly that.
We’ll take it.
So, how good is this Bradford City side?
Six games is obviously far too early to start getting carried away with promotion talk.
So naturally, as football supporters, we’re going to do it anyway.
Four wins from six is a strong start, and going away to one of the division’s unbeaten sides and finding a way to beat them makes it look even better.
There will be poor performances, injuries and probably a Tuesday night at some point where Bradford lose to a team near the bottom and social media decides the entire squad needs rebuilding.
That’s football.
But right now, City look organised, difficult to beat and increasingly capable of getting results even when they aren’t playing particularly well.
That last bit might be the most encouraging of all.
Bantams Unfiltered Man of the Match
George Pratt
It has to be Pratt.
The early mistake could have been costly, and Callum Connolly deserves a huge amount of credit for preventing it from becoming one, but Pratt’s response was excellent.
He recovered, defended well, helped City keep the clean sheet and then scored a brilliant winner from outside the box.
Not a bad afternoon in the end.
Honourable mention: Callum Connolly. Without that early clearance, we could be talking about a completely different game.
Bantams Unfiltered verdict
Performance: 7/10 Result: 9/10 Entertainment: 6/10 Defensive display: 8/10
George Pratt redemption arc: 10/10
This wasn’t Bradford at their most spectacular, but it might have been one of the more encouraging victories of the season so far.
Good teams don’t play brilliantly every week.
Sometimes they go away, stay in the game, improve after half-time, score once and come home with three points.
Notts County 0. Bradford City 1.
A very good day’s work.
Your turn
Were Bradford good value for the three points? Who was your Man of the Match? And after four wins from the opening six, are you allowing yourself to think about the top six yet?
Bantams Unfiltered
Bradford City. Straight opinions. No nonsense.
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