FARSLEY chief executive Joshua Greaves voiced the club's disappointment after missing out on a friendly with City.

The Bantams were scheduled to visit Throstle Nest on Saturday for their opening warm-up game under head coach Michael Collins.

But the plug was pulled on Friday night because they felt the pitch was too hard because of the current heatwave.

Greaves said: “You’ve got to respect the decision they made. Everybody has their reasons.

“Bradford are a professional club, have had some changes over the summer and have got new players. They’ve got to protect their interests.

“As a chief executive, I fully understand that.

“But when the boot is on the other foot, it’s obviously very frustrating and disappointing.

“We’re not a professional outfit where people work full time for the club. We’ve got lads here who are grafting all the time to ensure things are done right.

“We’ve just had the most unprecedented spell of weather since 1972. It’s the driest we’ve ever had – but that’s the same with every pitch in the country.

“We had sprinklers on it for the best part of seven days, 24 hours a day.

“I sought some advice from a professional groundsman and he said that you could have put 30-40,000 gallons of water on it and we’d still be where we are because of the weather.”

The kick-off had been moved forward three hours to avoid clashing with England’s World Cup quarter-final. Farsley had installed a large screen and temporary bar in the sports hall to show the Sweden game afterwards.

After City pulled out, Farsley instead staged a training session on the pitch on Saturday morning. They are due to host Harrogate Town next weekend.

Greaves said: “We even offered to have grounds teams working throughout the night to ensure that as much water as possible could get on the pitch. We made every effort but they made the decision at tea-time.

“It’s frustrating for anybody in our situation. There are very few non-league clubs, especially around West Yorkshire, who have automated sprinkler systems.

“But even if we had, I do feel there would still have been an issue about the pitch being so hard because of the weather.”

City’s first friendly will now be at Guiseley tomorrow night.