De Vita left Swindon Town at the end of his contract and joined Phil Parkinson’s Bradford City in 2013. Signing a one-year deal with ‘The Bantams’, Raffaele got off to a promising start assisting Rory McArdle’s late equaliser in a 2-2 draw with Bristol City.
He scored his first goal for the club against Wolverhampton Wonderers where they ran out 2-1 winners on October 26thbut unfortunately suffered a thigh injury early on, which kept him out of action for the majority of the season. During his spell in Yorkshire, De Vita played with some other high profiled players including the likes of John Stead, Matty Taylor and current Burnley forward Nakhi Wells.
“Nakhi was probably the standout player there, he was just a player that from the first minute you watched him you knew he was going to play at a higher level.
“You knew that come the end of that season he would get a chance to test himself at a higher level and he got his move to Huddersfield. I think he moved in January when I was there but personally it was a brilliant experience playing for Bradford City even though I had struggled with a bad injury since October and I couldn’t get it right by April so I kind of wasted a season, I loved being there.”
“When you look at the stadium and fanbase at Bradford you wouldn’t believe they are a League One side. It’s a massive club and the fans are so attached to the club as well. It’s a Premier League club the way the fans follow the team, even away from home you would get 4 or 5 thousand there on a Tuesday night.”
After a full season with Bradford, Raffaele’s contract expired and he left the club, signing a short term contract with Cheltenham. Before signing for Cheltenham, he featured in Bradford’s pre-season training in the lead up to the 2014/15 season in the hope of earning a new deal but was not offered a new contract and left disappointed. However, he did leave with some great memories from his time at the club.
“Obviously I was sad to leave at the end of the season because I would’ve loved to have another chance and stay a bit longer. But it’s a good family club and the players were a good group of lads, with quite a few talented players as well.”
“For me, the best game in my time there was against Wolves, they had just been relegated from the championship and were a premiership side the season before. That game I played, I scored and the stadium was completely full, I think there was over 20,000 fans there. It was a brilliant game, although I think we lost 2-1 in the end, it was a brilliant match and I think that was one of my first few matches for the club, so I was very excited. I thought there would have been a lot more games like this coming but obviously the injury prevented me from that.”