Home Is Where The Heart Is For Estate Agent Boss Bower

The wonderful thing about football is there’s usually little time to sit and stew on the bad moments, there’s always a game around the corner.

Except when a pandemic hits. Poor Bradford (Park Avenue) have had more than six months to reflect on what went wrong. They probably needed most of the half-a-year on offer to assess it.

But Covid did at least offer a National League North stay of execution.

Mark Bower may have had to give his squad surgery this close season but- after a summer off last season having left the club in May- has relished the rebuild.

Things, as they say, can only get better.

“I don’t think we can hide away from the fact that we are fortunate to still be here,” the manager said in our last close season special feature.

“We have been given a lifeline but we need to make the most of it. We need some solidity, forward-thinking and some proper plans for the future which we stick to.

“We have had a lot of time to reflect and now it’s about reacting to last season and putting things right. It was a really tough one, especially for the supporters after two good seasons before that.

“But in the last few weeks we beat Chester at home and King’s Lynn Town- the champions- away.

“We’ve been given a second chance, and we want to get back to where we were a few years ago with players who want to do the best for the club.”

All managers will always ask about a players’ attitude before completing a deal.

Bower knew all about Adam Nowakowski of course but when he offered to play for the club next season for £1 a week it rightly made headlines.

He will also cover his own travel costs and said he wanted to "give something back" to football.

“Adam is a great lad, we are going through a period where money is tight,” the manager told the National League’s Oli Osborn in a Zoom chat.

“We were struggling to do much for him to try and get him back. But he said he would do it for a pound a week.

“He has a good job and he is in a position to do it, thankfully. But we’re at a high level and players can earn good money, so I am sure he could have gone to another club and earned a fair bit of money.

“It’s a tremendous sacrifice he has made and it’s the type of attitude we need.”

Bower is back for a third time, returning to the Horsfall Stadium two months into last season after a chaotic start.

Avenue had been under the stewardship of Marcus Law, on an interim basis, after Garry Thompson was let go early on. They started with back-to-back 5-0 defeats before being hit for eight by Brackley Town soon after.

But one thing will change for certain - the surface they play on.

“I left last May because my working relationship with people behind-the-scenes had perhaps broken down a bit,” he adds.

“It made sense for us to part ways, but a couple of managers later we agreed to give it a go again. Things had changed and we can build the club in a more sustainable way.

“This season is about trying to establish ourselves again. We were the worst team in the league last season so we need to improve and give the fans something to smile about.

“It was sad to see the results as they were early on last season. The work done didn’t manage to produce a team to compete at that level.

“The first target for us is to avoid relegation. With a bit of luck and if we keep players fit, we can do better than that.

“But you need that bit of luck. That’s the challenge for us. But the initial target is to stay up but who knows where it could take us after that.

“With a 3G pitch, we looked at players with different technical abilities as well. Hopefully the new surface has its advantages for us.”

But he warned: “We know it’s going to be tough. The league just keeps getting stronger and stronger - that makes it difficult for clubs like ourselves. We need to find a way.

“We want a clean slate. We had no players under contract from last season so we now have a good mixture of experience and youth.

“We needed people who would give us 7/10 performances every week, players we could rely on and hopefully we have got that.”

It’s always important for any manager to be flexible - and Bower’s job allows him vital freedom.

“I decided to open an estate agents with a friend of mine ten or eleven years ago now,” he explained.

“It’s always been on the backburner, I never intended to work in it as much as I do but with it being my own business I can step away when I need to make the odd phone call. It’s ideal to marry the two together.”

Returning to the club for a third time, they do say home is where the heart is.