THE League Two season 2019-2020 will always go down as the one that never finished.

City fans would argue that theirs never really started.

Ninth with nine games to go when the coronavirus pandemic deemed everything else meaningless, the Bantams had nothing to argue in the bun fight to decide promotion and relegation.

As an onlooker outside the play-offs, there is no self-interest in their stance.

And that just adds to the frustration of the division’s largest locked-down supporter base.

The only thing City will win, as they always did in their previous six-year stint on the bottom rung, is the attendance table and there are no medals for that.

The home form, to be fair, remained strong throughout.

Their points-per-game ratio of 2.11 was only bettered by the top three.

Outside of BD8, though, was a different matter. Half a season without an away win saw the average return plummet to 0.84 – only five teams performed worse.

The lack of success on their travels summed up the general mood of a season that should be quickly written off.

Even at Valley Parade where the results were consistently good, there was something missing.

Name the performances that really got you off your seat. It was bland fare.

Think back to last summer and how Gary Bowyer had restored the feelgood factor after relegation.

The club was on its backside with a divide between players and fans following City’s dismal surrender of their League One status.

Bowyer sought to repair bridges and the squad rebuild was matched by an impressive PR drive. Finally, you sensed everyone was back onside for the first time since the halcyon days of Phil Parkinson and Stuart McCall.

The friendly against European champions Liverpool for Stephen Darby’s MND Foundation summed up everything that was right about the club. Valley Parade had rediscovered its mojo.

After the big build-up, it was almost inevitable opening day would fizzle out into a goalless stalemate with Cambridge.

Talk was about how much more there was to come from this squad. It became a common theme through the early months.

Still, City were in a strong league position. A 2-0 win over Exeter to start November saw them in second spot – without really convincing as a promotion contender.

The promise of improved performances raised hopes of a quicker-than-usual reaction to relegation. The fastest City have historically bounced back was after four years of trying in 1982.

But that step-up never materialised.

A disjointed November did not help in building momentum but Bowyer’s caution on their travels hardly suggested a team with their sights on the top.

The fixture list going into winter and the Christmas period looked particularly kind. City faced a run of teams who had seemed to have forgotten how to win.

But draws at Macclesfield, Leyton Orient and Carlisle – who were all out of form at the time - blunted the appetite and frustration grew.

There was no sign of festive spirit at Brunton Park on Boxing Day. “Gary Bowyer, your football is XXXX” bawled a packed away end after another goalless bore.

Results were drying up as much as the entertainment value.

Back-to-back stodgy home wins against Mansfield and Morecambe, two more strugglers, proved to be Bowyer’s last as the away results fell off a cliff.

Terrible efforts at Crawley, Mansfield and Oldham - each one trying to outdo the last for a collective willingness to run up the white flag - forced Stefan Rupp into making the change.

Eoin Doyle, who had to be virtually dragged back from his free-scoring lifestyle with Swindon, had gone by then.

So too, surprisingly, had top scorer James Vaughan amid strong suggestions of a fall-out with his manager.

Bowyer finished the transfer window with three deadline-day additions, taking his grand total to 20 incomings, before he was shown the door three days later.

McCall was summoned once again as bygones from his previous unseemly exit were left in the past.

The reception he got for his homecoming was easily the season’s stand-out moment.

A crowd of over 17,000, swelled by a boisterous following from Grimsby, tried to wipe away the misery of Bowyer’s demise.

Typically, City’s hopes of victory were dashed deep in stoppage time. In a script nicked straight from a soap opera, the scorer had to be Luke Hendrie.

McCall won his two other home games – though not without a wobble or two as Plymouth’s nine men threatened a ridiculous comeback.

But three straight away defeats continued that wretched run. The last one at Salford was as poor as anything from January.

And then that was it. An impressive final training session ironically raising McCall’s hopes before the curtain came down.

A tease of better things to come. But then we’d heard that before.

See the T&A on Monday for all the facts and figures of City's season.