City's fate was sealed by a comprehensive defeat at Chesterfield, but the home side also went down because Cheltenham walloped Rotherham.
Bradford had to win and hope that results elsewhere went their way, but they never gave themselves a chance and waved goodbye to League One with barely a whimper.
It was a wretched performance and the 1,700 fans who made the journey down from West Yorkshire deserved far better.
They sang and did their best to lift the team, but City always looked doomed from the moment keeper Donovan Ricketts made an awful mistake to let Chesterfield take the lead.
The Jamaican keeper should have saved Jamie Ward's low shot easily but instead the ball somehow managed to squirm under his body and over the line.
Ricketts looked shattered and there was worse to come for the visitors when Ward scored his second goal in the 28th minute.
Derek Niven beat Ricketts with a shot from outside the area and when the ball came back off the post, Ward fired into the roof of the net from close range.
To have any realistic chance of saving themselves, Bradford had to reply before the break but Billy Paynter miscued horribly in front of goal from eight yards and Eddie Johnson struck the top of the crossbar with a 25-yard free-kick.
Bradford must have known that fate was against them when Omar Daley hit the outside of a post two minutes into the second half and Ricketts went some way to redeeming himself with a wonderful acrobatic save to keep out a 20-yard drive from Mark Allott.
But the third decisive goal was only minutes away and it came on the hour when Chesterfield broke away.
Once again it was Ward who did the damage by going past two defenders before driving in a low cross which Mark Bower could only turn into his own net.
The reaction of the City team said it all and, although they kept plugging away, they knew they were as good as down.
Chesterfield could have scored more goals and twice Ward was close to a hat-trick, while striker partner Wayne Allison was denied by Ricketts 12 minutes from the end.
However, it was also a sad day for the home side as news of Cheltenham's fightback at Rotherham filtered through, but at least they went down with their heads held high.