PETER Beagrie was made famous for his back flip.

But he will always acknowledge it was City who really turned it around with his career.

Beagrie played an integral part in Paul Jewell’s team that won promotion to the Premiership in 1999 and then defied all the odds and the experts to stay there the following year.

Interviewing him for the club’s forthcoming book to mark 20 years since the two seasons in the top flight, it was clear that City still hold a very special place in his heart.

“It was absolutely the perfect club for me at the right time,” he said, looking back on a 148-game stint in claret and amber.

“You see the supporters who came to the Premier League reunion in November. They are not fans who are glory seekers, they are there through thin and thinner almost.

“But at least they’ve had moments where they can celebrate rubbing shoulders with the big boys and ruffling a few feathers.

“Sometimes the fans want the players to excite them. At Bradford, they put the belief into me.”

The joke among his team-mates was that Beagrie was not content to beat a full back once. The winger was just as likely to go back and take his man on again.

The confidence bordering on cockiness that surged in his play, he admitted, came from that bond with those in the stands. He could feel the collective will whenever the ball came his way.

“They would forgive you everything if you are honest,” he added.

“People think that football bravery is about crashing into tackles.

“Yes, you need your midfielders and centre halves to do that. It’s a given that everybody should give everything and not shirk a tackle or a header.

“But it also takes a lot of bottle if your team are struggling when you’ve picked up the ball again after being tackled a couple of times.

“But they gave me that belief to go again and keep going. Without that, I don’t think I would have been anywhere near as successful at Bradford as I was.

“It’s a mutual admiration society and always will be.”

Beagrie’s debt to the Bantams stemmed from the mid-1990s. After nearly two years out with serious injury, he feared for his future.

Then Chris Kamara, his captain at Stoke where they had become friends, got in touch.

Kamara encouraged Beagrie to use the move to City as a stepping stone back towards the Premiership – something he would achieve within two seasons with the club.

Beagrie said: “I’d got to the stage where I’d had so much negativity with my injury at Man City.

“I had only played two games at the back end of the season after thinking that my career was over.

“Talk about people with a point to prove, I probably had the most frustration of any player on the back of being out for two years.

“Going to Bradford was the perfect place for me and the perfect fans. I used to run out on that pitch and the whole stand would stand up.

“When I got the ball, it just encouraged me to take people on.

“But as with Jamie (Lawrence) on the other wing, if we tried that and lost the ball, you knew you’d have to try and win it back.

“The supporters got as much pleasure out of us smashing a full back as they did watching us waltzing past a couple of players. It was like an old-fashioned Mike Summerbee at Man City.”

Beagrie played for 10 clubs and more than 20 managers and appeared in every division. He won promotion and suffered relegation along the way – and never worried about being written off.

Rodney Marsh’s derisory comments about having his head shaved on the pitch if City stayed in the Premiership weren’t an extra incentive. He just ignored them.

“I never took any notice. I’ve always had the attitude that if somebody doesn’t believe in me or the team that I play for then I’ll show them.

“It’s that feeling of against all odds which, realistically, it was with the budget and the team on paper that we had.

“But we never changed our style and that helped us stay up. We still attacked teams and had that self-belief.

“Yes, we had to go more disciplined and more structured and find an extra percentage up against world-class players here, there and everywhere.

“We needed to be at the real top of our form every single minute of every game to garner any points whatsoever.

“But we weren’t going to be one of those teams who just defended the whole time and tried to nick something.

“There was also an element of surprise and of people not taking us too seriously.

“When you look at the teams we beat, I’m sure that was the case.”

Beagrie scored seven goals in the survival season, including a crucial double at Valley Parade against Wimbledon.

But he became a frustrated bit-part player the following year and left for Wigan after Jim Jefferies made it clear he was no longer part of the plans.

“It didn’t end well for me,” said Beagrie, “but I don’t regret a minute.”