Bradford 1 Swindon 2

Last updated : 04 January 2005 By Tim
Grant Smith returned to the Swindon starting team after finishing his three game ban in place of Steve Robinson.

Swindon started well, although it was Bradford that had the first of the chances, but Swindon were soon back in the game, and looked a lot better than they played against Colchester.

Grant Smith had Swindon's best chance in the first half that was well saved by the Bradford 'keeper, and put on for a corner, whcih was cleared away.

Matt Hewlett went off injured in the first half, and was replaced by Steve Robinson, who was then injured himself after he cleared the ball away to prevent Bradford from scoring, so he was replaced by Rory Fallon who went up front with Sam Parkin.

A good save from Rhys Evans in the first half kept Swindon in the game as Bradford looked to have scored, but Evans just managed to get a hand to the shot, and he forced the ball just over, and away for a corner.

Sam Parkin came close to scoring shortly before half time, but his shot hit the side netting, so both sides went into the half time break with the score still level at 0-0.

Swindon got off to a dream second half start with two goals in a minute both by Grant Smith. For the first goal he scored from the edge of the area after a pass from Fallon.

Then seconds later Smith made it 2-0 when Igoe got the ball from the restart, and passed to Parkin, who then passed to Smith the score his second from the edge of the box. Before this game Smith had only ever scored one league goal.

A few minutes later Bradford were back in the game when ex Oxford striker Dean Windass scored from the edge of the box after some poor Swindon defending.

Bradford started to come back in the game, and it looked like they would equalise sooner or later. Evans was once again forced to make a number of saves to keep them out.

Most of the Bradford fans thought they had equalised mid way through the second half, but the linesman's flag was up, so it didn't count. The referee also turned down a Bradford appeal for a penalty.

On 75 minutes Jerel Ifil was sent off for the second time in a month for a late tackle on the edge of the box. Swindon's then subbed Fallon, and bought on Alan Reeves for the last 15 minutes of normal time, so although 3 subs all played, only one finished the game.

Swindon managed to hold out for the rest of the game, including the five and a half minutes added on by the referee, so they game didn't finish until 5pm as it had started a few minutes late as well.

Overall a good game where Swindon deserved their win, although for much of the second half Swindon were hanging on, and it looked like Bradford would equalise. Swindon stay 10th in the table after picking up 3 wins out of 4 over Christmas.

Swindon's next game is on Saturday when they are back in Yorkshire to play Sheffield Wednesday for the third time this season.