On-loan Egan kicks off new column.

Defender John Egan will be penning a column for safc.com each week during his loan spell with Npower League Two side Bradford City. 

My first impressions of the club have been brilliant and I’ve settled in well.

I actually already knew one of the lads, Carl McHugh, and it’s been good to have a few chats with him.

To have a face I knew in the dressing room was great and my first game [against Chesterfield] came the day after I joined so it was good to get out there and show the lads what I could do.

I had a chat with the gaffer on the Monday and he said I’d be starting, which was brilliant.

We got a 0-0 draw and could have won it on another day. Then we followed up with a good win at Aldershot [2-0] – six points from the two games would have been better but four isn’t bad.

At Aldershot were got our rewards for our endeavour; we defended well as a team and took our chances. We have a strong side and I think we’ll be a match for anyone in this league.

It was an easy decision for me to come here. Everyone wants to play football at the first-team level and I’m not different.

As soon as I heard Bradford were interested I wanted to join. They are a big club who are going well in the league. Hopefully I can help push them on.

It’s all valuable experience for me and I’ve already learned so much. It’s a big learning curve.

There’s a huge difference between the development squad at Sunderland and League Two. It’s a lot more physical and the game is quicker – everything goes on at 100mph and you can’t afford to switch off, even for a couple of seconds.

At three o’clock on a Saturday there’s nowhere else a footballer wants to be other than on a football pitch and I’m really excited to be a part of things here.

I couldn’t play in midweek [against Northampton Town in the FA Cup with Budweiser] but hopefully I’ll be back in this weekend.

The fan base is huge here – I heard they took 5,000 to Wigan recently – and hopefully we can continue to push on and do well in league and cup.

John’s Bradford side face Exeter at Valley Parade this Saturday (3pm).