Latest news with #GrahamAlexander
BBC News
2 days ago
- Business
- BBC News
Bradford sign Salford defender Tilt
Bradford City have signed Salford City defender Curtis Tilt on a two-year 33-year-old will join the newly promoted League One side on 1 July when his contract with the Ammies who has had spells with Blackpool, Rotherham and Wigan, made 82 league appearances in his two seasons with Salford."Curtis is a player who we have admired from playing against us and has attributes we know will help us with our way of defending and playing," boss Graham Alexander told the club website., external
Daily Maverick
3 days ago
- Science
- Daily Maverick
Forget cats, forget traps — bring in the puff adders to revolutionise pest control
Africa's coolest pest control agents have fangs, no overheads and a killer instinct. Enter the puff adder (Bitis arietans) — nature's unassuming, cold-blooded rodent regulator. A new study by Professor Graham Alexander at the University of the Witwatersrand has revealed just how spectacularly efficient these snakes are, offering compelling evidence that they might be the farmers' unsung ally. They're often cast as villains, coiled and hissing in the corners of bushveld myths, but puff adders are ecological rockstars with a lazy flair for lethal efficiency. Unlike mammals who must eat constantly to fuel their furnace-like bodies, puff adders can down tools — or fangs — and wait. For months. Even years. In the largest-ever study of its kind, Alexander raised 18 puff adders over four years under tightly controlled conditions. The snakes, all born in captivity, were housed at Wits University and observed during a series of trials that measured their feeding, fasting and weight changes. What he discovered could change the way we think about snakes — and pest control. 'The key idea,' Alexander explains, 'is something I called the 'factorial scope of ingestion'. It's a way of measuring how much more a predator can eat when food becomes abundant. No one's used this in animals before — I made up the name.' Masters of the buffet Turns out puff adders are masters of the buffet. During peak feeding periods, the snakes increased their intake by twelve times their normal dietary needs. One snake even ballooned to more than 2kg, more than double its starting weight. That level of flexibility is practically unheard of in mammals, whose metabolic needs keep them on a tight leash. Let's translate: if puff adders were people, they'd gorge through the holidays on a dozen Christmas dinners, then not eat again until December. And they'd still be fine. These findings, published in Scientific Reports, debunk the long-held idea that snakes, being ectotherms with slow digestion, have little impact on prey populations. Not only can puff adders gobble up rodents at astonishing rates when prey is abundant, they can also wait out the lean years, lying low with metabolic grace. 'I estimate that some of these snakes could fast for over two years and still survive,' Alexander says. 'When rodents boom, puff adders switch on, consuming mice week after week. But when the prey disappears, they simply… switch off.' This ability offers a significant advantage over warm-blooded predators like mongooses or jackals, which must eat regularly or perish. Puff adders, with their secretive ways and ambush tactics, are perfectly adapted for ecological boom-and-bust cycles. They're like the ultimate freelance exterminators — no contract, no complaints. But there's more. By staying put and waiting for rodents to scurry by, puff adders mount what ecologists call a 'functional response' — an immediate adjustment in feeding and breeding rate based on prey availability. In the dusty corners of barns and the grassy fringes of maize fields, puff adders lie in ambush. And while their approach may be passive, the effect is anything but. 'Simple. Effective. Immediate.' 'When rodent numbers go up,' says Alexander, 'more rodents run past the snakes. And the snakes just eat more. Simple. Effective. Immediate.' Puff adders, the study suggests, act as ecosystem stabilisers — naturally damping down the rodent population explosions that wreak havoc on crops. And because they don't need frequent meals, their populations don't crash during the quiet years, like mammals often do. That alone should earn them some farmyard respect. But old fears die hard. Puff adders are responsible for the highest number of serious snake bites in Africa, due to their camouflage and tendency to stay still when threatened. But this reputation needs a rethink. According to data at a hospital in KwaZulu-Natal, the fatality rate from puff adder bites is extremely low. In one study of nearly 900 hospitalised snakebite cases, not a single death was recorded. Still, Alexander admits he's been on the sharp end of a puff adder's fang. 'About 25 years ago I got bitten on the leg,' he says. 'It put me in ICU for nine days. But the real issue was the antivenom. I'm violently allergic to the horse serum it's made from — it stopped my heart.' It's a sobering reminder of the risks. But it hasn't dampened his enthusiasm. 'Some people say working with venomous snakes is heroic,' he laughs. 'Others say it's just stupid.' Each of the 18 snakes in his colony had its own personality, he adds — some were curious, others reclusive. This growing recognition of reptilian personality, even sentience, is changing how scientists view snakes. Strategic and adaptive 'Snakes aren't mindless machines,' Alexander says. 'They're remarkable animals — strategic, adaptive and vital to the ecosystems they live in.' So should farmers release puff adders into their barns? Not quite. Alexander cautions against artificially introducing snakes into new environments, which could disrupt local ecosystems. 'But if they're already there,' he says, 'don't kill them.' With snake antivenom production faltering in South Africa, and rodenticide poisoning creating knock-on effects across food chains, the case for protecting natural pest regulators has never been stronger. Most bites, Alexander says, result from trying to kill them. They respond to threats. Puff adders might not be cuddly, but they're efficient, low-maintenance, and — as Alexander's research shows — astonishingly good at their job. So next time you see a puff adder in your barn or near your wheat field, maybe hold off on the hoe. That fat, lazy, patterned lump might just be your best employee. DM
Telegraph
11-05-2025
- Sport
- Telegraph
Forty years on from Bradford fire disaster, club are force for good in city
Things got a little hectic in Bradford city centre last Tuesday. Tens of thousands of people lined the streets to cheer Graham Alexander's Bradford City team as they made their way on an open-top bus from the Valley Parade Stadium to City Park, where celebrations for gaining promotion after six years marooned in League Two could begin in earnest. Everywhere there were fans seeking vantage points to watch the bus trundle past. Many in search of a better view were climbing the lampposts, all of which were decorated with banners proclaiming Bradford to be this year's UK City of Culture. Football meets high art: it was some melting pot. 'It was all a bit surreal,' says Hiron Miah, a regular at Bradford games. 'You felt like you were at the centre of everything. For the city itself, what with all the City of Culture stuff and being promoted, there is such a strong feel-good factor around. Bradford is back all right.' How different from what happened here exactly 40 years ago. On May 11, 1985, Bradford City were also saluting promotion. Ahead of the game against Lincoln at Valley Parade, the Third Division (these days League One) trophy was presented with suitable fanfare. Then, just 40 minutes later, disaster struck: a fire broke out in the venerable, creaking main stand. Such was the speed, spread and scale of the flames, 56 people lost their lives, while another 265 were injured. For everybody who witnessed it, it quickly became a scene of unimaginable horror. 'I was six years old at the time,' recalls Miah, who these days works for the local authority in the city. 'We lived right next to the main stand. I remember coming out of the house and seeing this inferno. We were terrified it was going to set the whole street alight.' This was no one-off accident. Rather, it was a sign of the times. The first of a series of footballing disasters in the eighties, the Bradford fire, like Heysel and Hillsborough to follow, was symptomatic of the kind of neglect, ignorance and under-investment that not just tarnished the game but put its supporters in mortal danger. Lord Justice Popplewell's inquiry into the fire discovered it simply should never have happened. It was not merely preventable through their neglect, those in charge had conspired to let it happen. Safety advice was ignored The wooden Valley Parade main stand, designed by the great stadium architect, Archibald Leitch, opened in 1907. Unusually, it was built on a hill, so the entrance turnstiles were at the top. By 1985, it had reached the end of its life and City's board had sought local authority permission to replace it with a steel structure. When the planning officer came to visit, he noted the pile-up of rubbish in the hollow beneath the wooden seats. While he was happy to authorise the new building, he told the club the debris was a fire hazard and should be removed immediately. Nothing was done. Then, as the game against Lincoln City meandered into end-of-season irrelevance, a fan dropped a lit cigarette through the floorboards into the pile-up below. Almost immediately smoke began to billow from the smouldering rubbish. As fans made their way up the stand to the exits to escape the gathering flames, they found the gates were locked. The place had become quickly engulfed, and, unable to get back down to escape on to the pitch, people were trapped at the back. Within just four minutes, 56 people had lost their lives. As the ground was evacuated, and hundreds of fans fled the scene choking on the foul, black smoke, the occupants of the terraced houses surrounding the stadium opened their doors and invited in those escaping to wash their faces and use their telephones. Which was a complete change from how they normally reacted to the match-goers. Manningham, the ward in which the stadium is situated, had long been the place where those arriving in West Yorkshire from Bangladesh had settled. And on match days, the locals preferred to make themselves scarce, shutting themselves off from what was regarded as a fortnightly invasion. 'We'd lock ourselves in the house from fear,' says Miah. 'In the Eighties, the perception we had of football was of hooliganism and racism. My parents would say on Saturday afternoons: don't go out today, stay indoors. We literally shut the game out.' As the fire raged, opening up the door to help was, for locals and fans alike, a revelation. Both sides discovered their prejudices were wrong: these were just people, after all. 'In a sense it was the first time we'd met each other,' says Miah. 'That day we didn't think of them as someone who'd attack you. We just thought: they need our help.' Not that the experience immediately turned the locals into fans. It was not until the early Nineties, when he was a teenager, that Miah himself started to go to games with his mates. By the time Bradford reached the Premier League in 1999, he found more and more Manningham residents alongside him, a few of whom stuck around as they plunged back down through the divisions, propelled by financial missteps, over the next decade. Yet, without the kind of embedded culture in which fathers pass down the habit of match-going to their sons, Asians still remained in a minority among the Valley Parade crowd. What really changed things was an initiative started just over 10 years ago, run jointly by the club and Anwar Uddin, the former Dagenham and Redbridge player who worked with the Football Supporters' Association. By a combination of free tickets, coaching sessions in schools and the establishment of a facility in the middle of Manningham to train up local kids with the hope of a pathway into the club academy, the plan was to encourage youngsters to go to games with their parents. As part of the scheme, in 2015 Miah established the Bangla Bantams group. 'We try to target people who have never been before, take them to matches, break down the stereotype,' he says of his group. 'We try and get women with hijabs to go to a game. And when they do, they feel comfortable. We try to help them appreciate it is nothing like the community's perception was.' It has worked. In the decade since Bangla Bantams began their evangelical work, hundreds of Manningham locals have become regulars at the game. 'I'm not going to say we alone increased diversity,' he says. 'We're just one group of people showing the way, showing it's safe and enjoyable whoever you are. Showing everyone that they can be supportive of the city we live in.' Though what, he adds, would give real uplift to the scheme would be if a local player of South Asian background could get into the first team. 'A Manningham lad out there on match day, that would be the ultimate,' he says. 'It will take time, but we've got several in the academy.' Mind, it is not just from Manningham that the club have sought to draw supporters these past few years. Cheap ticket schemes (as little as £5 for a one-off match, with children's season tickets for next year working out at 18p per game) have swelled the numbers going to games. Four times this last season, crowds of more than 20,000 came to Valley Parade. What a change that is from the Eighties. In 1985, a crowd of 11,076, nearly double that season's average of 6,610, came to the fateful final game. Last Saturday, 24,033 were in attendance, a record for the fourth tier. And looking at the pictures of fans pouring on to the pitch at the end to celebrate promotion, it is noticeable how many of them are Asian. There is a particularly striking image of a beaming Alexander surrounded on one side by an Asian father and son and on the other by a white lad in a Burberry checked cap. More to the point, however, none of those engaged in collective exuberance last weekend was in any danger. Every single person who attended the game went home safely. How different from 40 years ago. Indeed in Bradford the very idea that things were so much better in the good old days would be laughed out of court. 'When I compare it to living round the stadium in the Eighties and now, well, there is just no comparison,' says Miah. 'Thanks to the work the club has done, it feels so much more welcoming. For the people here in Manningham, you feel like this is your town, your home, your club.' From the ashes of '85, in Bradford it seems nothing but good has emerged.
BBC News
02-05-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Bradford must grab promotion chance
Bradford City boss Graham Alexander has said his side must relish the pressure of their promotion decider against Fleetwood Town on Bantams go into the final day in third place in League Two and will go up with a victory at Valley they fail to win then either Walsall or Notts County could pip them to the remaining automatic promotion spot."When you get to the end of the season and see other teams in these situations you are jealous of it because you want to be involved in them," he told BBC Radio Leeds."I speak to the players about the pressure of playing for Bradford, it is something that attracted you here so you can't shy away from it."I told them after the EFL Trophy semi-final defeat by Birmingham [in February] 'lads, we are destined to play bigger games than this', I really felt that at that particular moment and that is what we have here."Everything they have done this season is down to this, so don't let that opportunity go because you have worked hard for it."It's in our hands and this is where we have to grab it." 'I just don't want to let people down' Promotion would end City's six-season spell in the bottom tier and also see them go up automatically for the first time since West Yorkshire side have enjoyed a strong second half of the season and rose up to the top of the table on 5 a run of four games without a win has seen them drop back down to third, behind promoted Port Vale and who took over at Valley Parade in November 2023, has previously led Fleetwood and Salford to promotion and said he felt a real connection with the club."This job has stretched me more than any other, without a shadow of a doubt, but I think, in turn, that is what makes you grow and improve," he said."As you get more interwoven into a club and understand the history then when you feel like you are making a mark and you are hopefully going to be in their history then you do feel a connection."It hasn't always been rosy but I have always felt the support from the people around me and from the stands."I just don't want to let people down so we have to get the job done."
The Guardian
07-04-2025
- Sport
- The Guardian
‘I want us to finish the job': Bradford dream big as League Two enters final stretch
It was Saturday lunchtime on the outskirts of Bradford and Graham Alexander found himself caught in traffic. He was, in his mind, a good 20 minutes' drive from the University of Bradford Stadium on a route usually clear of cars. 'I thought: 'this can't be for our game',' said the Bantams manager. 'As I got closer and closer … it was.' Bradford City are becoming familiar with bumper crowds these days as the club ride high in League Two. Promotion talk is now rife around the city. The 22,214 fans packed into the ground most still know as Valley Parade certainly got value for their money on Saturday. Just 12 seconds had elapsed, in fact, when their team went ahead against Crewe thanks to Bobby Pointon. The visitors' first proper touch of the ball was when their goalkeeper Filip Marschall fetched the ball from his net, Pointon having steered home after Calum Kavanagh struck the post. There was plenty more entertainment to follow, Bradford's Sam Walker saving Ryan Cooney's penalty before Kavanagh sealed a 2-0 win late on. It took them top of League Two – the first time in 17 years they have topped any division. And despite chants of 'we're gonna win the league' echoing around the stands at full time, Alexander is taking nothing for granted. The man largely responsible for turning Bradford's season around is trying to keep an entire city's feet on the ground. 'I don't want to get caught up in the moment because we've got five massive games in front of us, we've got an opportunity to do something really good,' he said. 'We have to keep our eyes on the prize. Hopefully people will forgive me for not going overboard on the crowd and the atmosphere, but I want us to finish the job.' Promotion would mean a huge amount. Bradford have spent the past five seasons in League Two, having also been in the fourth tier between 2007 and 2013. It's a league Bradford have always felt too big for, yet it's become their new normal. Many fans now are too young to remember those two heady seasons in the Premier League either side of the millennium. The celebrations would be something to savour, as the response of the city to Alexander's team suggests, crowds swelling from around 15,000 at the start of the campaign to a peak of 23,381 against Colchester a fortnight ago. Alexander is understandably cautious. His side only lead second-placed Port Vale on goal difference, with long-time table-toppers Walsall a point behind having wobbled off the top in recent months. Even below that trio of clubs, there are others who harbour realistic hopes of stealing a spot in the coveted top three. Doncaster could join the top two on 73 points if they win their game in hand; AFC Wimbledon and Notts County (on 68 points) will feel they can still challenge for an automatic berth. It's been called the promotion race nobody wants to win, with teams' form fluctuating wildly. At one stage in January, Walsall sat 12 points clear at the summit, having won six on the bounce either side of Christmas. Now Mat Sadler's Saddlers seemingly cannot buy a win. They have lost or drawn each of their past nine as Bradford, who were 10th at the start of 2025, head in the opposite direction having won every home game bar one during that time. Sadler urged Walsall to summon a second wind after a damaging 3-2 home defeat by Port Vale on Saturday came as the latest in a series of body blows. 'Everyone will be doubting us now,' he said. 'No problem at all, let everyone doubt us and it's up to us to prove those doubters wrong. There are still plenty of big games ahead.' Sign up to Football Daily Kick off your evenings with the Guardian's take on the world of football after newsletter promotion Vale themselves found renewed 'belief' in that victory according to their manager, Darren Moore, and have arguably the most palatable run-in of all the contenders. 'A win like this increases confidence, togetherness, determination, resilience, character,' said Moore at Walsall. 'We've just kept chipping away, kept that belief.' Bradford's next challenge is to take their stellar home form on the road. They won't have a 20,000-plus crowd behind them – although such home attendances would be deemed a luxury by most League One clubs and half the Championship – but Alexander is pushing standards higher. He wants Bradford to 'replicate that kind of energy and zest' they exhibit in front of their own fans. No goals and just one point from their past three away games suggests there's definitely room for improvement. A trip to in-form Swindon – who have only lost two of their last 16 league games – is next on Saturday and then it's into the final four games of the season. Can Bradford hold on and claim the league nobody wants to win, or will there be another twist in this topsy-turvy tale? The only certainty in League Two is the uncertainty.
