Football: Big spenders in Bradford

Bolton face rivals with lofty ambitions on their quest for promotion. By Jon Culley

IF STAYING in the Premiership was difficult, relegated Bolton Wanderers are likely to find that fighting their way out of the Nationwide First Division presents a task of scarcely smaller magnitude.

Quite apart from the threat to their ambitions posed by the likes of Ipswich, Sunderland and Wolverhampton Wanderers, not to mention Barnsley and Crystal Palace, Colin Todd's side face challenges from less obvious quarters. Today's opponents, Bradford City, for example, are one club for whom the lure of a place among the elite has given rise to lofty ideas some might consider to be above their station.

Most of Bradford's post-war life has been spent in the lower divisions yet the present management see no reason to consider the Premiership beyond their dreams. With that aim in mind, Bradford have spent pounds 3.5m in the transfer market this summer, by their standards an unprecedented spending spree.

It reflects the determination of their chairman, Geoffrey Richmond, to elevate the club to a platform from which it can compete with the more fashionable teams. Richmond, who gained brief notoriety last season after his spat with David Mellor over the dismissal of the manager Chris Kamara, now has Paul Jewell in charge and it was with Richmond's backing that Jewell recently smashed the club's transfer record twice in a week.

He paid Port Vale pounds 1m for the former Derby striker Lee Mills and topped that by spending pounds 1.3m on the Arsenal reserve forward Isiah Rankin. These followed the pounds 600,000 acquisition of the midfielder Gareth Whalley, once a target for Liverpool, from Crewe.

Jewell had also been in the hunt for West Ham's Samassi Abou until informed that the French striker was suffering from malaria and tabled a pounds 2m bid for Sheffield Wednesday's Andy Booth.

Rankin represents the most interesting of those signings. The 20-year- old Londoner, who scored 68 times in 114 youth and reserve team matches for Arsenal, was close to a breakthrough at Highbury but instead chose the chance of regular first-team football straight away, despite being encouraged by Arsene Wenger to stay at Highbury. "Mr Wenger said Arsenal would like me to stay but at this stage of my career I need to be playing first-team football," Rankin said. "Bradford appear to be a very ambitious club."

His experience of the Premiership amounts to one four-minute appearance as substitute against Tottenham, but he believes he learned a lot merely by working with the senior squad. "I picked up a lot of things at Arsenal. The forwards would have two sessions each week working on everything from movement to finishing and you cannot fail to learn working alongside players like Dennis Bergkamp and Ian Wright."

Rankin joins a squad that already includes Peter Beagrie, Gordon Watson, John McGinlay and the former Middlesbrough goalkeeper Gary Walsh, to which Crewe's Ashley Westwood, the former Rangers defender Stephen Wright, and Lee Todd, from Stockport, have also been added.

Bradford have yet to make the impression they desired, losing their first home match to Stockport, but Jewell believes his team will progress once they get to know one another. "There is enough quality at the club for us to mount a serious challenge," he said.