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Bradford City	1 - 2	Newcastle United
Half time:	1 - 0
Score Sheet:
Jorgensen (37)		LuaLua (83) Chopra (85)
	Teams
Davison Brodie Emanuel Atherton Bower Jorgensen Juanjo Makel  Forrest Grant Lee		Jon Brain Ryan McGuffie Wayne Quinn Gary Caldwell Sylvain Distin Brian Kerr Christian Bassedas Jamie McClen Shola Ameobi Lomana LuaLua Olivier Bernard
Substitutes:
Bentham for Forrest (30) Morgan for Brodie (46) Makel (Fishlock)		Stuart Green for Kerr (59) Michael Chopra for Quinn (75)
Subs not used:
Worsnop Sanasy		Carl Bell Mark Boyd Colin McMenamin
Bookings:
Jorgensen (31) backchat Morgan (66) waist-high tackle on Quinn.		Gary Caldwell (40) exacting a measure of justice on Juanjo
Dismissals:
n/a		Olivier Bernard (33) Attempted elbow on Juanjo after the two players tangled in midfield while chasing down a loose ball. Contact was questionable but the intent was definitely there. Straight red.
Referee: The lovely Russell Tiffin, specially imported from the Northeast and an absolute fff....fusspot. To be fair, although his intrusive style does grate on both players and spectators, his red and yellow cards were all spot on.
Attendance:  Around 250 - good to see a large contingent of (mostly) locally-based mags, with more black and white on show than claret and amber.

37 mins Substitute Bentham found himself with acres of space down the Bradford right, partly due to gap left by the departed Bernard but also the inability of Quinn to spot the oncoming danger. He swept over a well-directed cross on to the head of Jorgensen who had arrived on the penalty spot, and he nodded past Brain's right hand into the side of the goal 1-0 

Half time: Bradford City 1 Newcastle Reserves 0

83 mins  Attacking the empty away end, sub Stuart Green slipped a through ball down the left hand channel into the advancing McClen. He played it forward into the path of Lua Lua, and he accelerated away into the area, pushed the ball out the left to avoid the oncoming 'keeper Davison and then walloped it into the right hand side of the empty net from a narrowing angle. 1-1

85 mins With City seemingly stunned, United again found space on the left and a neat LuaLua / Shola combination saw the latter in possession on the byline. He quickly sized up the options and slipped a low centre over that beat Davison on the front post. Chopra was on hand to turn the ball home from within the six yard box - a goal on his reserve league debut within 10 minutes of coming on.  2-1 

Full time: Bradford City Reserves 1 Newcastle Reserves 2

Toon coach Tommy Craig commented:

"It was a superhuman effort by the lads to win with two late goals despite being down to 10 men. The first half was relatively even but in the second half, although we were a man short, we created chance after chance and in the end we deserved the victory. It's a psychological thing that a team reduced to 10 men will fight a little bit harder and that's we what we did even though it took two late goals to win it."

About Bernard's dismissal:

"It was one that you can't really defend, their guy was pulling his shirt and Olivier couldn't shrug him off but if his elbow made contact, the referee had no alternative but to send him off."

Ten man United left it very late but came away from Valley Parade with all three points to move second in the table. Hero of the night was Academy and England striker, Michael Chopra, making his reserve league debut as a sub - both his goal and Lomana LuaLua's leveller being warmly greeted by a healthy Newcastle following in the 250ish crowd huddled in the main stand.

After a poor opening period, Newcastle were galvanised by the arrival of substitute Green just before the hour, on for the unimpressive Kerr. His eagerness and prompting allowed Newcastle to see more of the ball in midfield areas than had been the case when McClen and Bassedas were swanning around aimlessly. Green almost levelled matters within 90 seconds of his arrival, but his snap shot from the edge of the area bounced off the crossbar.

The longer the game went on, the less Bradford looked like sealing the win with a second, especially as Juanjo seemed to get a bit over-excited when he dashed forward as United pressed on. Three times he found himself in space, and while Brain bravely saved at his feet 10 yards out after narrowing the angle, the other times the Spaniard blazed his shots wide, with supporting team mates well positioned.

At the other end, we gradually turned the screw and had more chances and more of the ball. However, when both Distin and Ameobi placed headers from set pieces over the crossbar and Bassedas saw his shot saved, it began to look like the winning away run was over.

However, the script was written perfectly for Chopra and he emulated his academy strike partner Richard Offiong with a late away winner - Offy had done the trick of course in the dying seconds of our game at the smoggies. The three points put us second, our best placing for a good while.

PS - accompanying Bobby was none other than the Flying Pig himself, former left-back Frank Clark. Also watching was new Darlo boss, Tommy Taylor. It was later revealed that Frankie was helping out David Platt by scouting for England U21's.

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