HIS TIME at Bradford City has already grown Aden Baldwin as a footballer and a person, and now he is looking to grow again under the gaze of a fresh pair of eyes.
Even though he is a very good one, as a centre-back, the 29-year-old is not one to hog the highlights like the glory boys at the other end. So when one thinks of a Valley Parade career into its third season, the moment that springs to mind first is not a great one.
But life is about learning, and Baldwin goes into Saturday's League One game against Stevenage a better player for April 26, 2025.
It was the day Doncaster Rovers won promotion from League Two with a 2-1 win over the Bantams. Had the scores been reversed, Bradford would have gone up with their Yorkshire rivals that afternoon.
His side 1-0 down when the half-time whistle went, Baldwin got himself sent off walking off at the break for persistent dissent and choice language towards referee Ross Joyce.
As well as harming their chances of winning, it meant Baldwin was suspended for the season’s final match, where the Bantams needed to beat Fleetwood Town to secure automatic promotion.
Maybe now we can see why life happened that way for him, because Baldwin was humble and intelligent enough to learn from his mistake and become a key figure in a League One back three that is the meanest in the entire Football League.
"I don't mind speaking about it now because it's in the past," says Baldwin, who brought the subject up ahead of a Stevenage home game.
"I don't want to dwell on it too much but I've grown from that and I've experienced it. I feel like it's made me more mature, made me understand and just become stronger mentally for it.
"It was a real difficult time, because once it happened, I understood everything. I could tell by the faces in the building. It wasn't a good feeling. You've just got to deal with it yourself, however you do.
"Thankfully, I have good team-mates around me, and had a good manager (Graham Alexander) who understood it. I had to take ownership and stand up in the meeting, and just apologise.
"That's what I did, and moved on very quickly.
"That's how relationships build, that's how trust builds.
"They got to know I was hurting from it. I was gutted, because I couldn't play the last game of the season, I couldn't help in any way.
"It's never a nice thing to go through, but once you do go through it, I think you make yourself more aware and you understand. I suppose you become a bit more educated on doing that type of thing. You sort of grow as a person, as a player.
"If someone's gone through a bad time, I will say, 'Well, I've had this, so don't be afraid to do this or do that.' I've slipped over a ball and the lad’s got in and scored. It happens. But how can you react to that?"
Baldwin’s confessional was typical of the dressing room Alexander fostered, and the way his successor Michael Duff likes to run things too.
"We are a mature group," he says.
"This club has lived that way for the last two or three years and had success on the back of it," says Duff. "There's a grittiness here, a humility in terms of what we're good at.
"It's important not to start chipping away at it."
He is talking about way more than the maturity Baldwin refers to, but it is a big foundation for all of it.
But equally, Duff is not just here for more of the same.
"They can see I'm not going to take a hammer to it but they can also see I'm not Graham," says Duff. "Hopefully we can add to what they've already got."
Duff’s public utterances have been about improving the goal output – including from set-pieces, where Baldwin admits he needs to do better – but it is more than just that.
After just "four or five" games for Duff’s Cheltenham Town as a wing-back before injury Baldwin claims: "I don't know him from Adam."
Asked the main early differences between Duff and Alexander, he replies: "It's probably more tactical than anything. He loves body shapes, he loves starting positions, he's really big on that, and he puts a lot of emphasis on the way we start in terms of pressing.
"In possession, he wants to improve us on the ball.
"I can't go into too much detail but there's sessions where he sets us up in a way where he feels like we could be in more control of the game.
"He likes to take the centre-backs for a session, so we're getting a lot of headaches at the minute.
"He loves body positions, he loves being side-on, trying to manipulate the striker. That’s something I can definitely get better at, and not just me, but all the back lads."