Stuart McCall has hailed the discipline of today's footballers who return from their summer break much fitter than in the Bradford manager's days as a player.

McCall's squad returned for pre-season training this week and will be in much better shape than in years gone by due the sport's raised commitment levels.

McCall told the club's official website: "We're not killing them. The sooner we can get them into kicking the balls the better, but you can only do that if they've got a reasonable level of fitness.

"In my day you'd spend the first week to 10 days of pre-season just running, but those were the days when you went away in the summer, did nothing and put a stone on.

"Now, with the progressive level of fitness that they were given in the programme, nobody should come back more than a couple of pounds over at most."