Bradford away “2015’s best moment”

In a year packed with memories and good moments, including an historic Sky Bet League One and Johnstone’s Paint Trophy double, it was the April 14th encounter at Valley Parade which stands out for the City boss.

Loanee James Tavernier fired a brace, with Joe Bryan, Luke Ayling, Aden Flint and Aaron Wilbraham on the scoresheet to mathematically wrap up promotion to the Sky Bet Championship.

Cotterill said: “Knowing that we’d secured promotion at Bradford was the highlight. We knew we had two tough away games back to back at Preston North End and then Bradford, and we did our normal six days up north.

“It didn’t get any tougher; we had a great result (1-1) at Preston and should have won the game. We then went on to Bradford and won it 6-0. As I said at the time, I would have taken 1-0, but to win by six…I don’t think anyone saw that coming.

“That moment when we knew we’d got promotion…it’s what we’d been working towards. No matter how tough it’s been this year, this is where we want to be, albeit it for a couple of years because my aim is to get us in the Premier League.”

He added: “I really enjoyed our time at Wembley, in front of 72,000 fans for the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy final – and congratulations to Walsall for playing their part in that. It was a fantastic one-off occasion for the city of Bristol more than our hardcore fans, who would have been at Bradford that night.

“We were proud of what we achieved and we’re thankful for that.”