thelikesofhull.co.uk

City fans debating the possibilities in the FA cup draw this week were possibly more entertaining than the draw itself. The official twitter site even sharing a joke with City fan Albert Brigham who correctly and lamentably nailed on that we’d get the plum draw of Doncaster Rovers. However in years gone by the FA cup third round draw was the absolute aim for the club, in terms of being involved in it and we’d be crossing every proverbial finger and toe for a chance to prove ourselves against a team from football’s elite.

It’s fair to say the FA cup has been a fairly cruel temptress in our history, with more failure, and ignominious defeats than glorious success, however we’ve had a few moments, one being rather blisteringly obvious, where City have made an imprint on the world’s biggest knockout competition. I don’t know about you dear reader, but I don’t care how hard the FA, the BBC, ITV, the Premier League and god knows who else tries to ruin the mystique of the competition, I still love it, and therefore when we’re taking down the Christmas decorations in a month’s time I’ll be looking forward to Tamworth vs Tottenham Hotspur’s more than any other none City related club game this season. It’s beauty and brilliance simply can’t be erased, which is only proven by the fact it’s still great even after all and sundry have had a go at making it terrible.

5 years ago, I tried explaining to a Danish person, why the main game I wanted to watch that weekend was Newport County vs Manchester City. The answer was essentially because I, like many of you, just believe in the FA cup like it’s Santa Claus, it’s illogically brilliant, and I can’t really put it into words that do it justice, but I just do, and throughout the years it’s given us some of the best of times. Which led me to this blog. I’ve gone down memory lane to recall three times the FA cup has pulled down our pants in front of the whole country and three times it’s given us an incredible ride, I hope you enjoy it.

FA Cup hell…

1997-98 Hull City 0 Hednesford 2

By the year 1997 you’d think there was pretty much no way we could have been dragged through the humiliation mud than we already were, but here it was. Hednesford flying high in the level below turned up and played a City team with all the guile and skill of a broken bicycle covered in dog dirt. You almost felt it was more of a shock if we didn’t lose, buuuuuuut… we did anyway. Going down 2-0 at home with Match of the Day loving the big story and giving us twelve minutes of the main programme when we’d normally have needed some sort of hurricane in East Yorkshire to have justified this.

The ever wonderful Tigertube put it up this year, take a look at it here.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXqwJNUaF8g What strikes you when you see it back is, that actually we were pretty damned unlucky. Tubby Lard Rioch gives away a stupid penalty and then City lay siege to the Hednesford goal, Matt Hocking and Dwayne Darby both headed against the bar, we had another cleared off the line, the ball just wouldn’t go in. It continued this way until Hednesford broke out on the counter in the final minute and made it two. It really didn’t reflect the game, but in that era… nobody cared. We’d found a new and inventive way of hurting the fan base and even your Premier League twatty mate at work had ample evidence to rub your face in it on Monday morning. Cheers City.

2000-2001 Hull City 0 Kettering 1 (replay)

Despite the fact I was at the first game of this 1 goal in 180 minutes thriller, I still needed the help of Matt from Tigerbase and his excellent website to help my fading memory. https://tigerbase.hullcity.com/

In the 0-0 at their old Rockingham Road venue, here’s what I recall… 1.They’d left the pitch or played on it deliberately close to the game to stop City from passing the ball and it resembled an unloved cow field. 2. In an argument about Lee Philpott City fans got pretty near to blows, and the criticiser (I think I’ve made up a word) was berated for his West Yorkshire accent. Things got decidedly more heated than on the pitch. 3. That’s it.

We actually didn’t have a terrible team and would go on to make the play offs that year despite the financial turmoil. However, we were a tad slight in the attacking areas and David Brown, Clint Marcelle and Jonny Eyre struggled to impact a large and direct Kettering back four.

Well I thought… “when they’ve got to play football at City… the best pitch in the league.. we’ll shit ’em” stupidly. And so it turned out to be. Kettering scoring a second half winner at BP in another game devoid of quality and sticking City’s face in the cat litter tray of life once again. In Brian Little’s mild defence, his playing of Jason Perry and the FA Cup eared Steve Swales would suggest he wasn’t that arsed about us going out, which we duly did.

Hull City 0 Crawley Town 1

Incredibly, only 2 and a bit years before we’d grace the hallowed Wembley turf in the actual final, we managed to lose at home to Crawley Town, managed by the bin bag full of milk himself Steve Evans and not only that, we probably deserved to.

I feel like I’ve erased this game from my memory over the years, even though it was actually the fourth round and we’d beaten Ipswich to get there. Matt Tubbs scored, we rested loads of players, Steve Swales started (no really he didn’t but Danny East, and Liam “the liar” Cooper did) and off we popped. 14,000 or so mad souls turned up to watch it and Steve went home and ate an entire chicken that night, deep fried in lard and smeared in melted chocolate from one hundred Kinder Buenos.

Probably.

FA Cup heaven

Hull City 2 Liverpool 3 1989

For the longest time I think most City fans of my generation thought this would be as good as it got. Two 2-1 away wins took the second tier City into the 5th round of the FA cup and we drew Liverpool at home. It’s hard to describe to anyone in their twenties or younger now what that meant. Liverpool were Manchester City and Manchester United rolled into one. They won everything, all the time, and almost never failed.

We had an odd season under Eddie Gray, we started poorly but then around the FA cup run we galvanised and the combination of Whitehurst and Edwards clicked. We climbed the table and as we played Liverpool we were in decent form, winning four of the previous five league games. After we were beaten in this game, we won a grand total of one more league game and clung on to our league status by the skin of our teeth.

The game itself was absorbing and a classic of the type. Liverpool took the lead in the first half and looked fully in control, I always remember a very nervous Neil Buckley looking way off it in this game and it looked like we could be on the end of quite a battering. However after Gary Ablett slipped Whitehurst equalised and then in a whirlwind ten minute spell Big Bill headed the ball back to Keith Edwards, mouth on stick Jan Molby lost his footing and Keith simply didn’t miss chances like that. 2-1 at half time and it seemed like a fever dream to the City faithful.

“Cometh the hour, cometh the really annoying permanently moustached boring know it all tit” said nobody ever and two quick fire goals from John Aldridge sealed victory for Liverpool that day, but City gained many admiring glances that day and did themselves proud on the big stage. Again have a look on the brilliant Tiger Tube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWyn_q91Rzw City came desperately close to an equaliser after an wonderful Billy Askew cross caused problems (and Billy was some player then) but Whitehurst couldn’t quite make the contact to put it in and Andy Payton’s shot was blocked.

Luton Town 1 Hull City 2 1998

Unusual choice perhaps, but back in 1998 and with things about as bad as they could ever be, City were widely expected to get a lesson from a Luton team chasing promotion a league above us. With caretaker boss Warren Joyce in charge we weren’t given a hope. But young Ben Morley playing in a more attacking role gave us a shock lead with a lovely half volley.

Luton restored parity with another very well taken effort, but Big Bad Bob Dewhurst then headed in a second half winner and we were heading for the third round. It was in some ways the start of the great escape, as the fresh faced Joyce got some much needed credit in the bank with both a beleaguered squad and fan base. In some of the darkest of times, this result was a tiny light, and one which offered us hope that better days were to come.

The whole run of 2014

There’s not a City fan I know that seriously had a major issue with losing that final. I know you could point to the non-corner we conceded from as Lee Probert’s guide dog obscured his view after Yaya Sonogo took the ball out himself with his diving flippers for feet. However… we gave everything we had that day, we shocked the living daylights out of the Islington Whoppers and we just couldn’t quite get it over the line. We were heroic, we were proud and it was an incredible occasion.

But it wasn’t just the final was it? It was the battling win at Middlesborough, the composed and classy swatting of Southend, both avoiding a banana skin and reminding the world that Matt Fryatt was a god type figure that should probably be put in charge of some sort of Polynesian Island and allowed to run it as he sees fit, it was the late equaliser by the highly unlikely source of one Yannick Sagbo at Brighton, despite the fact their fans and the coverage had decided they’d already won and thanked us for coming, it was they absolute paggering of the donkey ring road riding, sports direct shopping Sunderland that took us to Wembley part one.

Sure the Sheffield United game was one to avoid if you had some sort of heart condition, but all’s well that end’s well and David Meyler being slotted through to kill the game off and put us into the final was a mix of relief and euphoria that we’ve rarely known in combination. That run, the run of all runs was glorious, it was fun and it vetoed more typical City moments than anything in living memory. As a City fan, the two moments you can never take from me is the first play off final win and then taking part in that day at Wembley. We really shouldn’t ever complain after those days, as they were the best of times and it’s more than any of us who trudged out of Kettering or Hednesford losses thought we’d experience in our life time.

Thanks for reading and UTT.

I sometimes think that modern day substitutions have gone a bit mad. I get that sometimes they are done purely to delay the game or derail an opposition comeback, but that’s only a small percentage of them. There’s too many substitutions available perhaps, so a lot of the time subs are just made to placate people and don’t actually change the game a great deal, in fact they can (and tactically they are) be used to deflate a game, as a negative move to suck the momentum away from the team on top.

At City we’re unsurprisingly a fairly regular offender of this modern phenomenon, and so there are more than enough examples in the recent past. On Saturday you saw both the best of substitutions (Mason Burstow, almost changing the game in our favour by scoring with his first touch) and a more familiar move where Marvin Mehlem was given 9 minutes at 3-1 down to impact a game. Fair enough Andy Dawson had been proactive in his first game back in charge and young Mason’s substitution had given us hope,but, what’s Marvin meant to do in nine minutes? I’m far from picking on the caretaker manager as far, far more examples are seen under the previous manager and at least AD’s subs were for the right reasons and to change the game.

Which made me think… who are the best and most impactful subs we’ve seen at City throughout the years? And why were they so good? The dynamic I think that’s the most important, is that they were able to change a game, perhaps add something that we didn’t have before they came on, was it height? Pace? Insanity? (ok, maybe not insanity… but you take my point). What did they add that wasn’t there before?

Writing this was perhaps not my greatest decision ever as most lads are on the bench in modern football as they just aren’t playing that well. If they come on and do good things, invariably they’re back in the first team, so I’ve settled on 3, every other name I thought of didn’t quite fit. But…I’d also appreciate some statto help on who I’ve missed… because I really have missed some… so send your hate tweets to @thelikesofhull on twitter x and/or @peterthornes.bsky.social on blue sky.

1. Andy Flounders

Andy Flounders should perhaps just be put into “The boy was a larker” because the more I think about it, the more I realise that actually he was hugely underrated. He had to play second fiddle behind several other strikers and big names in the early and mid eighties, the likes of Mutrie, Whitehurst, Saville and Bunn, but he just had that knack, that marvelous knack of scoring goals.

Most strikers that were born in Hull and scored 54 goals in 126 appearances might have a statue up by now, but his name quietly goes under the radar for all but the most ardent city fanatic. I think it’s because he was neither a “big” presence, (he was moderate in stature) and he wasn’t a sexy player as such, with no silky skills or tricks. He just scored goals, and those goals mattered. Not least seen as him banging in two in the improbable “Miracle in Leytonstone” as City came back from 4-1 down to beat Leyton Orient in the promotion season of 1984-85.

He wasn’t on the bench all the time but when he was he would often make an impact as City were chasing a game down and needed more up front. After leaving City in 1987 he went on to be even more prolific for both Scunthorpe and Rochdale and his final stats of 175 goals in 408 appearances is a measure of his goal scoring presence. Underrated and impactful, are the two words that I think befit Andy Flounders most.

2. Steve Massey

Just like Andy Flounders found, the forward positions were pretty tricky to nail down in the eighties and so it proved for young Steve who like Flounders could point to a very impressive career goals to games ratio. (125 in 384). However there is where the comparison probably ends. Massey was a crowd pleaser and definitely had a trick or two in his locker, he was sometimes put into midfield or out wide by both Brian Horton and Colin Appleton, as City were trying to change the game in a second half.

As a kid (and I’ve written it before in a blog) I wanted to be Steve Massey, blond hair, good looking, tall and elegant, with feet like marauding river dancer. He was quite the sight in full flow and despite not getting regular starts during his two year stay in East Yorkshire, he definitely won over the fans and made an impact in two seasons where we chased promotion to the second level.

He went on to play well and score goals at Wrexham and Cambridge United and even managed to play European football for the former, in an era before those well annoying bumblefucks made them like a crap episode of Ted Lasso. I like many other City fans appreciated the impact Steve made for City, and felt we could have given him more chances to shine. He’s still heavily involved in football at Helston Athletic in step 4 of the non-league. Great player and a fantastic bloke.

3. Caleb Folan

Thinking about it. I think Caleb might just be the greatest sub we’ve even known at City, mainly because he epitomised the concept of impact. Injuries and suspensions seemed to have bowled him a curveball after we paid a million pounds for him from Wigan in August of 2007. He sustained a nasty injury at Blackpool early that season and he also struggled with an ankle problem.

That meant in the meantime Windass and Campbell became the dominant duo for City. This though was also fortuitous for City as Deano at 39 was not made to last much more than an hour and we had a game winner ready to go. Folan’s pace and physical strength was all a centre back needed after Dean had threatened his family for an hour and thus the system just worked.

He scored some really important goals, some of the most important ever in the club’s history at times, firstly in a start at West Brom, in the February of the promotion season it was Caleb that pushed us past the much fancied Baggies. It was Caleb’s goal that finally, truly broke Watford in the play off semi final, and meant all the nerves went, leading to us scoring two more and of course, the best one… by miles, when perma-skin head Paul Konchesky cocks up big time and who is Jonny on the spot? None other than super sub Caleb Folan and City have a historic Premier League win the in bank on week one.

Caleb, like all players with eyes, ears and the ability to speak, fell out with Phil Brown and his time at City ended a with a little bit of a whimper. However he of all players that ever played for the club understood how to make an impact off the bench and win the biggest of games.

Thanks for reading UTT.

So Timbo Walts, has gone… it was more inevitable he was going than Terry Dolan’s hairline in 1994, we all knew and, deep down, I think he did too.

True story, I know the staff at a club we played recently through a mate and they said he couldn’t have been nicer, he had time for everyone after the game (we lost, unsurprisingly) he stayed for a drink, went above and beyond and was an absolute stand up guy. I do think we need to be careful not to pile on too much to him as a person, he clearly didn’t want to fail and in some respects we actually showed flashes of promise. Somewhere between a stubbornness with tactics, some relationships with players that were a little frosty and comments that may not have been intentionally incendiary, but were taken that way, it was just doomed to fail. I do believe (and I don’t think I’m alone in thinking it) that the chaos of the transfer policy this summer didn’t help and the club and players must shoulder some blame.

Buuuuuuuut… it’s done now. Andy Dawson’s a great man and we all love him, he will no doubt raise the spirits of the players and we’ll look to appoint. This one we really, really have to get right. Two of three appointments so far by the new owners have been poor, if we don’t get the next one right, we might be doing the League One tour of shame next year like Birmingham City. This squad, this team, this club have enough to drag themselves to safety, but it starts now, and we all need to be onboard if we are going to be a Championship club next season.

Anyway, this failure by the club made me think of other things that you would file under “It didn’t work” and I’ve written about three. I hope you enjoy it and it might put a smile on your face during less than auspicious times, if not, send your hate tweets to @thelikesofhull on Twitter or @peterthornes.bsky.social on Blue Sky. Cheers everyone. Up the Andy Dawson Tigers…

1. Red in the City kit

There’s a couple of different stories about this development in the early/mid eighties, I think (and it’s think, I don’t know) I choose to believe the second of the explanations. The first is that Don Robinson, wrestler, horse rider, chairman and maniac, put in Scarborough colours as it was his previous club. That doesn’t really make sense to me, but I get the logic.

The second was an intention to be like a northern version of Watford, (who played in yellow, black and red and had climbed the leagues to great acclaim), manager Brian Horton was around in this area, we took several players from them (Neil Williams, Richard Jobson, Charlie Palmer) and our programme circa 1986 had “The family club” emblazoned across each copy, this was the mantra of Watford in this era, so it made sense.

Truth is I don’t think people really knew, but the colours did change as Don left (all the kits 1983-88 had some red) and would never come back. What I don’t recall is any fans being unhappy with this new colour in our kit, but it’s fair to say it didn’t really take off either. We also didn’t fit the remit of a “family club” exactly in this era in the same sense of Watford, Elton John and a middle class fan base we weren’t despite Charlie Chaplin impersonators, chucking out free sweets and horse riding owners… so this new image went by the wayside too.

2. Phil Parkinson’s ice baths

I’ve written about slippery Phil before, there’s one City fan on Twitter that tends to come at me and defend him a little too much. Don’t get me wrong, much like Timmy Walto didn’t work either, I’m not sure Phil’s fairly disastrous reign is on him. He like the German perma-capped shouter has had success elsewhere, and clearly wasn’t untalented, but there was just something fundamentally wrong about his time at City and it was only going one way before Adam Pearson pulled the trigger.

Jon Parkin tells the story regularly that his fitness guru that Parkinson brought with him from Colchester (somebody remind me of his name please? Stuart someone?) was a source of supreme irritation to the senior players. They were probably in the wrong as under Peter Taylor, they were allowed to enjoy themselves, as long as they trained and played hard. This I think more than anything else led to Phil’s demise. This squad didn’t buy in to his modern approaches, including the dreaded ice baths, and that’s probably not on Phil.

The other thing you pick up from some of the football podcasts speaking to players of that era was that Parky didn’t like confrontation. Steven Davies on Undr the Cosh, swears blind he had a trap door in his office at Bradford, he describes how you’d follow him to his room, fuming you aren’t in the starting eleven and as soon as you opened the door… he was gone. He’s not the only one to allude to Parkinson’s lack of appetite for confrontation.

City in that era did have some big characters, Parkin, Ashbee, Barmby, Myhill, Windass etc. It was probably too much, too soon for a young manager and Adam Pearson released him of his services reluctantly. Perma tan Phil was in the wings waiting and the rest is history.

3. Hatem Ben Arfa

There’s been many false dawns in our club’s history. Points where we thought “That’s it… that’s the player (s), infinite success awaits” and the transfer window of September 2014 is a stand out example of just that. In came Mo Diame, Abel Hernandez, Gaston Ramirez and several more big names alongside them. Then the orange tied boring rumour mongers on Sky wet their pants at the 11th hour, because Hatem Ben Arfa was joining Hull City.

We won the transfer window. Yippy skippy.

We got relegated.

I still think it’s low key one of the biggest disasters the club has ever overseen, that a team with Jelavic, Hernandez, Dawson, McGregor, Roberston, Huddlestone, Diame, Brady, Davies etc etc could be in the bottom three of a league is absolute madness. But it happened and somehow the most talented squad this club has ever known headed to play in the second level.

Hatem became the flag holder for this underachievement, he wasn’t just bad, he was verging on playing like a look-a-like. He was unfit, overweight and disinterested. One game against Manchester United, he covered less ground than McGregor in goal before getting an early hook and on top of all that, he then disappeared without leave and Steve Bruce had to admit he didn’t know where he was. One of the places that was not on the list of locations to check, was the training ground.

Ben Arfa’s career path could be described as… promising, good, really good, top class, fat and rubbish, rehabilitated and good again and decent for an older player. It’s the most typical City of all typical city things that we got the fat and rubbish era. Cheers Hatem.

Thanks for reading, UTT.

Hello everyone, and if you’ve moved to blue sky or are just reading this blog because you accessed it there, then welcome, I hope you enjoy it. I think I’m heading for my eightieth blog (*warning* this may be a guess) so please feel free to have a look around at previous work, this site will always be free as I’m just a fan sharing my two pennies and I’m really grateful for the nice comments and support you give the blog.

Anywhoodle… this season looks on the face of it, a hot mess. The championship is a cruel master and if you’re not well prepared (see our pre-season and last minutes signings), tactically naïve (can we all agree that our cover at attacking corners is going to repeatedly backfire?) and if you’re at odds (either players and manager, manager and fans, fans and owners) then chances are it won’t end so well.

We need a big improvement in every sense, we need to stop shipping stupid goals, start putting away chances and frankly to grow a sense of toughness that we currently don’t have, we’re a soft touch, lets face facts, survival this season might not be pretty but nobody will care too much if we are successful and back in the championship next season.

The manager? Well we’ll see. I don’t think he, like plump turkeys and Arsenal’s title chances, will be around at Christmas, but if he is, and it’s a big if, a lot has to change. Which led me to this blog. Who is the Michael Turner in this squad circa 2006? Not doing enough/great/the business but capable of being a game changer. In reality we need more than one, I’d say we need a defensive one and an attacking one, possibly a midfield one too!

So here’s three players who we really need to fall out of the Geovanni tree and hit every branch pretty soon. I hope you enjoy, feel free to tell me to shut my face on bluesky, x and any other forum you might find me on. Cheers folks.

The Underachiever

1. Abu Kamara

We haven’t seen the best from this young man clearly, but cometh the hour and all that. To be honest, it’s more cometh the injury list as early on in his stint with us, Abu was behind Liam Miller, Mohamed Belloumi and possibly even Abdul Omur in the pecking order. Belloumi’s form in particular made him almost an automatic choice out wide, but two ACL’s later and Kamara is probably our most natural wide player.

What offers us hope? Well, he was by all measures dynamite last season as Portsmouth were promoted, scoring eight and weighing in with plenty of assists too. The Norwich “welcome” for him earlier in the season was for a reason, Abu thought, much to the chagrin of the big handed chicken feeders that he was too good to sit around on their fringes and wasn’t shy about letting them know. Well.. Abu.. if you’re ever going to show why they should have never let you go, the time is now.

The one thing I feel we’ve lacked is a quality deliverer of the ball from wide, if Bedia or Pedro get a higher quality of cross, they could both be match winners, but most of that quality has come from the now missing wingers or Sir Lewis of Coyle and Cody Drameh at full back. Abu proving himself as a genuine wide threat and taking the game to the opposition could turn around this season. Let’s hope he rises to the occasion.

The known quantity

2. Kasey Palmer

What I don’t think we have in mass is experience of this level. That’s shown at points, where we’ve lifted the “Ooh didn’t they play well cup” but in the big moments, done enough to lose. Coyle, Slater and Jones are examples of that within the current squad, but many (not all) of the players we’ve brought in have the bulk of their experience outside of the champ. A notable exception is Kasey Palmer. I’ll admit that I’ve been a little puzzled as to why he has been a fairly marginal presence this season. To me he’s kind of what we’re missing, he’s industry, he’s toughened up to this league and he’s non-stop. He hasn’t by all accounts ripped up trees when he’s played but I feel it’s a run of games he needs, if we’re going to see the best of him. In my mind, less is sometimes more, and it feels like we’ve tried to field lovely footballers, but you need a little more steel. Thus Kevin Francis complemented Theo Whitmore and more recently Jake Livermore murdered you for going near Tom Huddlestone.

I’d like to see Kasey get the chance, because hard work is definitely going to be a key asset in the situation we’re currently in. As the old man said many years ago about the (frankly terrible) team Mark Hateley assembled. “You don’t get out of a field in a Rolls Royce”… I don’t quite know what the question was, but in 1998-99 the answer was Gary Brabin. I’m prepared to stick my head on the chopping block to suggest that one of the answers this season could be Kasey Palmer.

The wildcard

3. Harry Vaughan

There… I said it. Harry F’in Vaughan. Barely a factor in nearly two years and with a hair cut like a kid in Year eleven that’s refused to go to the barbers because he doesn’t want to bow down “to the man”. Two seasons back young Harry burst onto the scene and looked some talent. My Luton supporting mate still asks about where the little lad is that ran the game against them. What’s the answer to that question? God knows…

I like you dear reader don’t really know why it went south for Harry. He’s been loaned out to Bristol Rovers and more recently has been successfully playing for the U21 team who have done a damned sight more winning than the first team have.

Now don’t get me wrong, it’s a bit left field, but sometimes when you’re stuck in a tricky situation a great idea is to promote within and like lads who’ve stepped up in the past like Jarod Bowen, Keane Lewis Potter or Josh Tymon, the feel good factor of a youth player making it gives everyone a lift, the fans, the club and the players.

There’s something there with young Harry, he’s got “it” the only question is can we nurture that and perhaps get him involved in a first team squad. Like I alluded to earlier wide play is a problem. Harry Vaughan might just be the answer that nobody saw coming.

Thanks for reading UTT.

Most City fans seem to be of the opinion that Tim Walter has “jumped the shark” and that he has mixed himself a cocktail of poor results, a baffling style, some odd selections then stirred it with a dash of fan criticism and there’s no going back. Can I say they are wrong? Probably not. Although the owner hasn’t pulled the trigger as I write, he’s hardly been banging the drum to say he’s not near the end either. Which would suggest Timmy Walts should probably get on Kayak and look at some flights from Manchester back to Germany in the next few days.

Could we all be wrong? Maybe. But if he does make the next game, then anything but a rousing performance in nine days at Luton will surely be the end for the shouty, cap wearing German and right now I don’t think there will be too many tears shed.

Fan wise, critical words aimed at Liam Rosenior on his exit have been miraculously taken back akin to the old Homer going back into the bush meme and the “well I’ll go home and away, love my club me” type posts have been particularly rare on socials of late. All this adds up to an overwhelming sense of apathy and anger in equal measure. The owners don’t tend to like to be seen as the bad guys, so you can’t help but imagine the end is near.

Which made me ponder dear reader. Who ever came back from the dead like T-Waltz needs to do? Who was persona non-grata and then (to quote Dumb and Dumber) “totally redeemed themselves”? Well I’ve documented three so that if Ze Gaffer was looking for hope, might just give him a little helping of it. Stranger things have happened. Just like it did to these folks.

Send your hate tweets to @thelikesofhull on X/Twitter before everyone pops off to Bluesky and I hope you enjoy it.

1. Warren Joyce

Warren wasn’t a bad player, he was a centre mid that was fairly combative and when surrounded by some talent (which he was in his early run with us in Windass, Peacock, Linton Brown etc) he was also quite effective. However when we assembled the worst ever team in our history in the 95-98 era he was just another part of the abject failure that we witnessed. To make matter worse he famously celebrated a goal in front of an empty stand rather than with the protesting fans (who had every single right to protest and more) and that was him in the bin for me, and many others.

What followed was quite stunning. He stepped in to run the team as probably the most experienced player when Hateley was finally put in the ejector seat and whining div David Lloyd thankfully fucked off never to be seen again. It looked like your classic caretaker stint, but after the stunning win at Luton Town in the FA Cup, he bought himself a bit of time, and was able to call in the experienced Jon McGovern to help. The new owners including then Tom Belton gave him the ability to bring in a few players and the rest is history.

The Great Escape was more uplifting than young ‘uns these days can understand, not only had we lost any hope to survive in the league, we’d lost a lot of hope we’d survive as a club. Joycey galvanised an unlikely group of lads who gave everyone hope again, who produced basically play off form to get us out of the bottom 2. It was glorious. It was unexpected and it was life affirming. We weren’t dead, we were bigger than anyone thought we were and we were united in the cause again.

Just a year after this the dodgy, tax evading cretins released Warren from his role after a largely inoffensive mid-table season. But the once maligned figure of Warren Joyce wouldn’t ever be seen negatively again. He really did totally redeem himself.

2. Fraizer Campbell

There’s not really a ton of managers that totally redeemed themselves for a reason, for most, when it’s done, it’s done, there’s no going back, no turning things around. I’ve got one more in the locker but even then it’s a one that will split fans..

What won’t split fans is that Fraizer went from loved to hated, to quite like again and that it was quite the journey. I don’t need to regale you with the first stint, the goals, that assist, the endless work rate. I think he’s low key slept on for that first promotion. I think take out Fraizer Campbell and we probably don’t even get into the playoffs at all. He was endless problems for the opposition with his clever distribution, quick pace, counter attacking skill and goals. He was clearly a Premier League talent and very few Champ teams had the answers to him.

That summer he played a kind of contract footsy with City but didn’t commit and ended up as a make weight in the Berbatov deal to Man U, which meant inevitably he was a bench dweller. Well at least he got a good view of Geo’s incredible free kick that season. But it was a wasted year for him. City reportedly bid for him in that summer and again the next but both times young Fraizer chose other deals and he joined pink seated, blue drink consumers Sunderland following his Spurs stint, clearly not based on the nightlife or local sightseeing tours.

Listen this happens in football but FC then seemed to double down by being a prized bell end on the pitch against us. Never clearer than when he jumped on the back of a non celebrating and respectful Michael Turner when he scored against us and then sought the home fans out after scoring for Cardiff in what would be a promotion decider years later. Were City fans a tad sensitive? Maybe, but like a wrestling heel, Fraizer seemed to absolutely be delighted to poke the bear of our fan base. And boy did they let him know in return.

Then the unlikely return, in 2017 Fraizer signed a two year deal with City again. He wasn’t quite the same player he once was, but his work rate and passion had not diminished. He was a great role model for the likes of Jarrod Bowen and Harry Wilson and he chipped in with several key goals. It wasn’t a particularly good time to be a City fan and I felt there was comfort in watching the returning former prodigy. He felt like he’d come home, and the City fans took him back into their hearts. Full redemption? Maybe not quite, but by the time he quietly exited two years later, he did so on infinitely better terms than when he first left.

3. Grant McCann

I did say the last one would split you.

But the very fact there’s a split tells you how far he came. Grant McCann was every bit as despised as Terry Dolan, with his argumentative approach to interviews, his rigidity in his style and seeming inability to reflect upon any of his own contributions to the single biggest mid season collapse we ever witnessed.

Again I’m not going to tell you a very recent history lesson as it’s pretty fresh in the memory, but probably only Covid and the restrictions that came with it kept him safe out and about around Hull. Such was the level of anger about the humiliating end to the 2019-20 season. Even now I’ll have a couple of people pop up on the Twitter feed to say how he didn’t do anything to turn things round at all, but I think personally that misses the point.

We weren’t more than third or fourth favourites to go up in 2020-21 but we won the title and did it in the most surreal of circumstances. City were a source of hope and happiness where society had none and I for one won’t forget the positivity it brought me during the hardest of times. Players emerged from the title win like George Honeyman, Lewie Coyle and Keane Lewis Potter that would put a smile on anyone’s face even now, the players as much as Grant McCann also redeemed themselves that year.

I think that he also made a much better fist of the Championship the second time around and we were safely in lower mid-table when the new owners chose to go with their new man. We were no longer the hot mess we were just two years later. I almost enjoy the fact that it was someone so unlikely that delivered our first league title win in some forty years. It serves as a reminder that even in the most unlikely of circumstances, people can redeem themselves and be remembered in a different light. I told people in this off season Donny would go up, and I think they will. World class gaffer? Maybe not, but I think he significantly redeemed what would have been an utterly horrendous legacy with the eighteen months that followed.

Thanks for reading, keep the faith everyone. UTT.

Blame Adrian Gosling for this blog.

On Saturday after we’d just been paggered by the silence loving, sister fancying, faux internet hardmen for fans Norwich on telly, Adrian (who is often a very balanced and level headed city fan) commented on some of the criticism of young Charlie Hughes.

Now your author had only seen the first half, as I was travelling to Essex in the FA Trophy (we lost too, cheers East of England) so I hadn’t seen his performance. He’s just back from an appendectomy and is adjusting to the pace of the league, plus the demands T.Walter puts on his defenders. It did seem a tad harsh to be pulling him to bits already. Later on I saw the goal on TV, and I’m going to defend him a little. He gets stuck because he’s looking to pass it rather than lump it out, it’s a bad decision, he gets caught in two minds, but the intention was probably what the manager wanted.

But that’s the deal I guess these days, instant gratification, if someone isn’t instantly Mbappe, they’re “fookin shiiiiite” etc. Or whatever the kids say these days.(Editors note, I’m 51 and have no idea what the kids say these days.)

The window to be good, or prove you are is probably less than ten games in modern football, which if you really think about it is mind blowing. Less than ten games to be benched, put out of a squad and regarded as a failure. That just doesn’t sit right. I’m currently writing my 76th blog, something I started in the second lockdown to stay sane has carried on for over three years now and I honestly don’t think I was very good inside my first ten. (I fully embrace the fact I’m no Irvine Welsh after 76 but you’re here so hopefully I’ve got a little better).

Anywho Charlie Hughes might become prime Harry Maguire, or he could be a young Liam Ridgewell… but let’s find out, rather than go all in and expect too much.. because here’s five times it really wasn’t love at first sight.. but in the long run we did pretty well.

1. Billy Whitehurst.

Young William scored 10 goals in his first 96 appearances for Hull City, 76 of which were in the bottom division in football. The move from Mexborough to the Tigers was exactly sexy. We paid a princely sum of £2000, and in this era of the very early eighties the club were falling to new lows under Mike Smith and the absentee owner Christopher Needler.

Even as we’d turned a corner under Colin Appleton and in a stronger team he often looked devoid of the confidence, the touch and the vision needed to succeed in professional football. City had a lot of other goals on the pitch in Marwood, Mutrie, Flounders and later Massey. Billy was a boo boy, there’s no other real way to put it. But the club continued with him and kept nurturing him, nobody less so than the greatest of all time, Chris Chilton.

Chris took him on as a personal project and I remember Bill telling the story to the press about how Chillo put a ball on a rope from the stanchion of the goal and Billy had to jump and attack it. Let’s be honest, what Chris Chilton didn’t know about being a striker, wasn’t worth knowing. However I think (and anoraks feel free to prove me wrong) that the two biggest factors in the resurrection of Billy was Marwood and Mutrie leaving, then Brian Horton arriving. Brian had seen the great Brighton and Luton teams of the late seventies and early eighties and was a big part of it. He believed in good wingers who delivered high quality crosses into the box, and that ladies and gents was a bit of Billy.

With the other Bill in tow (Askew) the big man would rip up Division Three that season, scoring 24 goals in all competitions. He terrorised young England centre back Mark Wright in a league cup game at BP, he scored the winner in the improbable 3-2 victory of Derby County that many believed was THE game that really cemented promotion. He was the talisman by now and although finesse wasn’t one of his attributes, you couldn’t hide from the fact he was a new man. By the time we’d been promoted the stands were full of scouts and early in 85/86 he’d be on his way to Newcastle for nearly a quarter of a million pounds. Never a boo boy for City again.

2. Richard Jobson

Now Jobbo is the other side to the coin as Billy in almost every conceivable way. Where Billy was a bludgeon to open the door, Jobbo was a golden key, he oozed class and was incredibly comfortable on the ball. We’ve been spoilt for choice with centre backs in the last 40 years and oddly I think Richard Jobson has become slightly overlooked. He was more fluent and graceful than a Curtis Davies or a Michael Dawson, but he also had grit when it was needed, if he was twenty five right here and now, he’d be worth an absolute bomb, no doubt in my mind.

Anyway long story short, Brian Horton brought him in February 1985 for 40 grand from Watford, he’d made the first team breakthrough under Graham Taylor and although still 21, he had experience in higher leagues. That’s when it goes wrong though. A homesick Jobbo, not really playing in a settled and winning team went AWOL and went home and that, well that just wasn’t ok.

Horton like the disciplinarians he played under wasn’t having it and so the young upstart was dispatched to the role of extra pro at games (not on the bench in case you needed him) and kit carrying duty was started. He was well and truly put in the doghouse and deservedly so. Bit by bit the next season at the second level he’d get chances both in midfield and defence and the rest is history. He’d be sold to Oldham for £460,000 in 1990 and push himself to the fringes of the England squad in a distinguished and elite career. But a strong start it was not.

3. Michael Turner

Speaking of all time great defenders. I give you Michael Thomas Turner. The Lewisham Baresi. He was monstrous for City in the 2007-8 promotion winning year and in a play off final where we were on the backfoot for the majority of the game, you’d have to say Mickey T and Boaz were the backbone that meant Bristol wouldn’t have scored if we were still playing now.

Again the run up to this version of him didn’t look likely just a year earlier. Brought in by Phil Parkinson and thrust into the midst of the discontented start we made to 2006-7 Turner looked anything but the top class defender Brentford fans promised us. He looked ragged, mistake ridden and shaky, so just like Billy did twenty plus years before him, Turner got the treatment from the fans and found himself on the bench.

Like Brian Horton was for Billy, Phil Brown was for Michael and when he was phased back into the team he looked a new man, scoring an absolute pearler away at Luton and was an important factor in a underrated Houdini act to stay up that season.

He’d play every minute in the Premier League in our first year and he was simply incredible, taking to life at a higher level with ease. When City were subsequently skint the next season Michael was sold to the blue drink consuming, indecipherable accent fanbased Sunderland for a far too cheap four million pounds. Michael was really, really special and as good as anyone since Peter Skipper at knowing when to shut the door and stop a striker, but the start to his time was hugely underwhelming.

4. Eldin Jakupovic

There’s a few running themes with players in today’s blog. Either they came in with high expectations and struggled early to fulfil them (Jobson or Turner) or they came in through the kitchen entrance and people barely knew they’d arrived at all (Whitehurst and now Jakupovic). Initially Nicky Barmby brought him in as a free agent and wanted to sign him during the 2011-12 season, but after he’d been given his marching orders for an off the ball foul on Ehab Allam the Swiss stopper actually went on trial at Ipswich, before dinner lady faced nice guy Steve Bruce gave him a two year deal at the start of pre-season in 2012.

I don’t think most City fans even noticed. He was a third keeper essentially and there to train and hopefully work on his golf game. He did pick up the odd match that season when David Stockdale was recalled by Fulham but looked somewhat shaky in the process despite City doing relatively well. Stockdale was then brought back in that January and Jak sightings became all the rarer.

Shaky might be kind, during his last game against Sheffield “Bigger than Live Aid” Wednesday in January 2013, utter disaster struck and Jak juggled a harmless corner into his own net as we lost 3-1 to the single best supported club the planet has ever known. It was horrendous.

He was apparently “injured” in the self same incident but it did look an awful lot like it was his pride that was mainly dented. And that was that, City fans prayed we’d never see him again (he was twice loaned to Leyton Orient whilst picking up the very occasional appearance) whilst Eldin himself must have been relieved to be a bit part player himself.

We did get a sign of what was to come in early 2016 however as we drew Arsenal in the FA cup for the one hundred and fortieth consecutive time and Steve Bruce chose to rest some key players. Jak came in and played the game of his life. Basically everything fired at him he stopped, it was almost super human, because in reality we were completely dominated, add that to the iconic moment when Eldin sees his own save on the big screen and reacts in amazement and I’d say we as a fan base had forgiven him, and he had re-found his self belief.

Still he was largely a back up but then in one of the more unlikely events of our clubs history Allan McGregor was injured late in the self same 2016 season and our boy was thrust back into the team. This time however, there were no calamities and City famously won the play offs with him in goal. That plus the Arsenal display were a real redemption but even better was to come.

David Marshall was brought in after we’d got promoted in 2016 but he too seemed to suffer from a confidence crisis, when we’d binned shiny headed balloon popper Mike Phelan, new gaffer and all round sex bomb Marco Silva had no doubt who he wanted in goal and #jakback became a thing again. In an incredibly fun run until the end of the 2016-17 season Jak would more than play his part as City fell probably a win or two short of safety. His penalty save at Southampton to preserve us a point was immense, he’d completed a total 360 degrees change in his perception. Something even the most ardent supporter never saw coming.

5. George Honeyman

Now I’m a George Honeyman guy. I don’t think that’s much of a secret. But to say his time with us didn’t really jump off the page is an understatement. He joined us during the 2019 off-season and even when we’d started relatively well, mainly off the back of Bowen and Grosicki, George didn’t quite click in the City line up. Sometimes occupying a role on the right of midfield the game seemed to pass him by and perhaps the scathing criticisms he’d been given by the Sunderland fans that summer were right.

I won’t bore you with the details again but when the greatest collapse in our club’s history happened (play off spot Jan 1st, bottom by the end of the season) everyone, including George was marked by the failure. It was as low as I can remember being as a City fan in recent times. However, that’s also where the Honeymonster started to completely redeem himself.

The squad of 2020-21 didn’t choose the owners, or the circumstances or the manager, which is essentially why some fans write off the achievements of that year, and also why I don’t. They came together at a time when the whole existence in this country was terrible, and they gave us some of the only joy. In the centre of this success was George, swashbuckling, hard running and goal grabbing, totally relentless as the Tigers would secure their first title in decades and do more for people’s mental health than anyone could measure.

The next season was going to be tough and George was injured at the beginning, but after a slow start City built momentum and by the time the Turkish takeover was completed we had fired ourselves into mid-table safety regardless, something that was above and beyond expectations at the start of the year. George rose to the challenge of that season, City had to edge out the opposition with a few dark arts and non-stop work rate so that the likes of KLP could win the game and he was the epitome of that role. It’s quite possible that his third season was his best and even recently (and certainly two seasons ago) you felt there was a Honeyman sized hole in the midfield, or at the very least that those occupying his previous place in the midfield could have gained by matching his incredible bloodlust to succeed. Words not many City fans would have imagined we’d have said in 2020.

Thanks for reading, keep the faith and UTT.

I’ve more or less recognised in the last couple of years that retro-content is the best content. We all like to reminisce and as a club we have a far deeper and richer history than modern football media ever really acknowledges. Therefore the tales I tell aren’t overly told, so to speak. Gladly in contrast to the mainstream the club has gone quite the other way and the former players being welcomed to the pitch last week was one of many events and pieces of coverage that have nodded to the past recently, not least the kit that celebrates our one hundred and twentieth year with it’s rather magnificent badge. Anyway my “The Boy was a Larker” series which I originally started for the HCST newsletter seems to have been really well received and whether that’s by paying tribute to all time greats like Geovanni or cult heroes like Neil Mann, you, the blessed reader, seem happy to tag along with me.

Anyway… this is an awfully long winded way of saying I began to consider recently, who is below that level. The hall of very good so to speak, and lots of names spring to mind of players who had clear talent and did solid or just plain good jobs for the club, but are perhaps not likely to be inducted to the club’s official HOF any time soon. A few examples? Ahmed Elmohamady, Steve McClaren, Gary Brabin, Ben Burgess, Linton Brown, Caleb Folan, Richard Garcia for a few. Massive variation in talent there, with some way ahead of others but similar impact for City, whereas for an amount of time, they were key players and good players but perhaps lacking that X-factor in what we’d recognise as all time greats.

Then… I went a bit deeper, and thought what about the players who are the next level down? Players who had undeniable talent, who may have even shown that off elsewhere, before or after their stint in East Yorkshire, but for one reason or another, it just didn’t quite happen. What about the nearly men, who at one point we thought were destined to be really special, but their star faded and they never really fulfilled that talent with us. Well I’ve wracked the remains of my brains to think of five such cases. I hope you enjoy it and as ever, send your hate tweets to @thelikesofhull and tell me all about why I was wrong. We’ll go in order of time.

1. Daniel Batty

York City just drew a team in the same league as where I coach in the FA Cup, Biggleswade FC. Now they must have the smallest following of any Step 4 non-league team I’ve ever known. They play in Bedford, 15 miles from the town where they started and share a ground with a local team. They’ve done remarkably well to rise through the leagues, but they quite literally have around 50-100 well wishers as fans, and possibly less. So BFC vs York this month will be quite something, as York will bring maybe 1500 fans, to find out there isn’t anyone there to support the home team really. Quite odd. Also York City is also the home to one Daniel Batty, who is still only 26 years of age. I watched some highlights the other day, he’s still really very good and maybe it’s my city goggles on (a mate calls them Huggles) but I think he’s better than the national league.

When he first came onto the scene after we’d been relegated in 2016 he looked quite a talent. He was part of the all juniors team we put out against Donny in the league cup. Clever on the ball, diminutive in size but with a really good range of passing he seemed very confident and assured for someone so young. By 2018-19 he was more or less in the starting eleven mainly and the same again the next year, but this was now a sinking ship the young man was on. Too often, especially in his last year with us, 4-3-3 FC were outmanned and outgunned in the middle of the park and he seemed more and more of a shadow of his former self. As we were relegated that season, Dan was one of the players that signed a short term extension so he could play on, but after the collapse of the century and inevitable relegation, halfway through the next season in league one he quietly cut his contract and moved on to Fleetwood.

I think (prove me wrong City fans) most of us would go “Yeh, not a bad little player” when you say his name. But I always felt he didn’t quite fulfil the promise and outward confidence he first showed when he burst onto the scene. I hope the eighty two Biggleswade FC fans appreciate his talent in the next couple of weeks.

2. Cameron Stewart

We seemed for a period of time to have a very strong connection with Manchester United, I would say it was Steve Bruce, but it started before. Anoraks could probably tell me who or why it was, but City did very well out of it. Paul McShane, Robbie Brady, James Chester, Joe Dudgeon and Cameron Stewart all came in during the late noughties and early twenty tens and we were generally better off for it. Injuries did for Joe Dudgeon and you could argue they didn’t help Cameron Stewart either. But when he first came in on loan in late 2010, he was sensational. A lightning quick, direct and creative winger that counter attacked teams and lit a fire under the crowd. He was like a great winger of the past and just like Askew, or Jenkinson, the fans loved to see him take on his man.

I remember us beating Sheffield United away on Boxing Day of 2010, we’d thrown away a two goal lead but then in injury time we broke from a
Blades attack via Cameron Stewart and old glass knees himself Jimmy Bullard scored an unlikely winner. He injured his knee (he being Cameron Stewart rather than the tedious curly haired mouthpiece) in February of 2011 but we still signed him permanently in that summer. He played well under Nicky Barmby in 2011-12 after the spanner faced bag of misery Nigel Pearson went somewhere else to put 12 men behind a ball, and indeed the lemon juice slurping, never lost and deserved to, cretin came back and bid 1.5 million pounds for him. Luckily for us (or unluckily in the long run) the Allams held grudges and told him stick it.

Ironically it was when former Manchester United legend Steve Bruce came in the next year that his chances seemed to decline. He was then loaned out and you could tell that he was well thought of because of the caliber of clubs that came knocking, Burnley, Blackburn, Charlton and Leeds all had him on loan, but that spark was gone. I don’t know if it was the knee, or the confidence or both, but by the time he’d had his contract cut by Lincoln City in 2018 he was done in the game, at just 28. A very good player on his day was young Cameron, a shame he never fulfilled his promise.

3. John Welsh

Another player who you could argue was the victim of injury was John Welsh. Joining from Liverpool on loan initially in 2005, at the start of our first season back in the second flight in some 13 years, we was a fairly instant hit. You don’t come through Liverpool’s academy without talent and in what was more of a good league one squad (barring probably Nicky Barmby, Andy Dawson and Bo Myhill) he was an upgrade.

He was tenacious, his range of passing was really very good and was mature beyond his years. I still think City got the better of the deal that sent highly touted winger Paul Anderson in the other direction when we signed him permanently that winter. Peter Taylor moved on that summer and despite the poor start under old ice baths no-personality Parkinson, Welsh was still fairly present.

That was until a horror challenge by Welsh on the B and M Stephen Gerrard, Neil Mellor in March of 2007, that left him with a leg broken in two place and his season was done. I think the two are actually mates, and perhaps there was a sense of trying to get the better of your former colleague. We’ve all been there. This was the beginning of the end for John at City, I think technology has moved on so much in the last decade or so, but an injury that serious in the early two thousands was still a career changer.

He was loaned to Chester, Carlisle and Bury, and in his later years rebuilt his reputation with both Tranmere and Preston. A very good player whose injury came just before the biggest season in our clubs history, how’s your luck?

4. Gary Bradshaw

I have to admit it, this choice is based on a really small sample size. In an era where inevitably our best player would come through the youth team, we’d seen several saviours in the eighties and nineties. Dean Windass, Graeme Atkinson, Andy Payton, Adam Bolder had all donned the black and amber shirt after emerging from our youth team (Windass had a quick diversion to do some bricklaying and playing for North Ferriby obviously).

Gary was hailed as one of the next big things, and when he broke into the team in the early two thousands you could see there was talent there. Not the biggest, he played with a cut and thrust, with a cockiness and an arrogance that suggested bigger things were to come.

I’ve never been more certain that we had some talent on our hands (and been that wrong) as after we demolished Mansfield Town 4-1 in March of 2001. Brian Little had been sacked harshly as we’d drifted to the edge of the play off places, and Billy Russell saw us home until the end of the season. The win that night temporarily re-ignited the hope that we’d push to go up again and Bradshaw scored a cracker and was the chief tormentor of the opposition that day.

Unfortunately he also limped off with a hamstring injury, and we’d “Typical City” the rest of the season, winning a grand total of zero games and sinking back to mid-table obscurity. Tubby Scando Jan Molby wasn’t a fan the next year and he barely featured, then he was loaned to Scarborough shortly after Peter Taylor had arrived, so he presumably agreed with the sausage legged, short filler.

A career in non-league football ensued, and he did pretty well by the by. Helping Ferriby as they climbed the leagues and always scoring goals. I’m sure local fans would know just why Bradshaw never made it, but he actually got taken back to the football league with Cheltenham in 2005, however it was short lived, indeed he was sent off on his debut. If you just saw him that night in 2002 though, you’d be utterly perplexed as to why he didn’t play higher.

5. Ben Morley

Speaking of small sample sizes. Here’s Ben Morley, who in an era where “being alive” might have got you a game, he became one of the most unlikely success stories, overnight and then in the blink of an eye, it was gone.

Given his debut by skullet headed Mark Hateley, Ben played mainly in a wide role. He wasn’t yet 17 on his debut at Hartlepool in 1997. We didn’t have the proverbial container to urinate in during this era so youth players were frequently the only option we had.

Then came Ben’s big moment, I think (and I could be wrong) we pushed him into more of a striker’s role against Luton Town who were a division and infinite points ahead of us in the FA cup, in November of 1999. He responded with an absolutely belting goal in a highly entertaining win that day and City would go on to play Premier League topping Aston Villa in the next round.

I think then in the pure need to survive that season Ben didn’t really fit the bill. Warren Joyce brought in big Colin Alcide and played the underrated David Brown off him, subtle we weren’t… but it worked and we stayed up in a story you all know very well.

As for Ben he left in 2002, via Boston United, then Telford, he then went to play for more local non-league teams. Very pacy and a clever touch on him, like lots in this list I feel that timing wasn’t great for Ben. But we’ll always have that wonder goal in the FA cup.

Thanks for reading UTT.

As I write this my old man is 78 tomorrow. He still goes to City just like he has since he was a little boy with his brothers. He went when we were good, and also quite frequently when we were ten types of shambolic. Anyway… as he’s probably reading this. Happy birthday you old goat, lets hope the boys get a good result on your birthday to cheer you up. True story in the 2008-9 Premier League season the old man went to every single game bar one, Swansea away in the league cup. Not bad work.

Anyway, I’m not here to tell you that. I’m here to tell you another story related to my Father, one that I think all of you can tell in some shape or form… how he got me to be a Hull City fan. For some of you it’s a Dad, for some older brothers or sisters, grandparents or family friends, but it all starts with someone who took us. And that’s the reason why.. for better or worse, we’ve all got the sickness and have gone ever since.

My path into City-dom wasn’t so simple. Despite pretty much every living relative I have of any significance being from Hull, I was born further in the north east, because of Dad’s work, and so a very very young version of me had never really watched Hull City. Add to the fact that the whole of my family were geographically removed from the area, I didn’t really share an early love of the team. Most of my friends supported Sunderland, or the big names of the era like Liverpool. I just loved football and my Dad supported this. With kits of every kind, boots and endless copies of “Match” “Shoot” and “Roy of the Rovers”. I went to Roker Park and he didn’t moan, or make it a big deal. But the crafty old fox had another move up his sleeve.

When I was just eight, we moved nearer. Living in Grimsby (yes, you don’t have to tell me, it’s not the best) now we were only 30 minutes away and weekends would often be spent in Hull at my Uncle and Aunties brilliant house. At the start of 1982 we were emerging from the ashes of the Christopher Needler years and a horse riding, all in wrestling showman and lunatic was about to announce us to be the first team to play on the moon.

Slowly, slowly, I was wooed, with the odd can of tiger cola, and the sights and sounds of the glorious and utterly mesmerising Boothferry Park. I think the first game I remember going to in this era was a 3-2 win vs Bury in April of 1982. Although it doesn’t all come back to me as easily as the next two to three years would, Mutrie, Marwood and Norman were all on show and it was very easy to appreciate the team quickly. We had several stars, probably we were too good to have ever been in the bottom league and to watch them was quite something. By the next season when we’d get promoted to Division 3 under Colin Appleton, my links to previous clubs were gone and my Dad and I and often my cousin Paul would watch City regularly, with this then stretching into away games too.

Football in that era was just utterly captivating. From the sights and sounds of the standing areas, with the billows of smoke travelling up the into the air in the Kempton, and the noise amplified infinitely by the low roof above us. We’d been tuned into the Radio before and after, making the walk up to the ground from a car park that was I think a school playground (historians please confirm?) A different era then with no internet or modern devices to distract us, after the same trudge back to the car, we’d listen to James Alexander Gordon with the scores and then we’d get back to my Uncle and Aunties house and my cousin and I would wait excitedly for the Sports Mail to drop through the door, with it’s pail green magnificence and endless sources of data.

I learned to map read at an incredibly young age, I helped get us to Burnley in the winter of early 1984, only to get there and find out on the radio that the Hull Coach hadn’t and the game was off. Nissan Cherry 1-City Coach 0, apparently. It’s just the best way to grow up and spend your weekends, the kits, the chants, the scarves and the Bovril, floodlit games on a Tuesday at BP, watching Billy Whitehurst terrorise a young Mark Wright for Southampton, and listening to the radio when we couldn’t go. I still remember my Dad jumping around like a lunatic when we’d turned around a 4-1 deficit away at Orient to win 5-4 and my late Grandad Hanson pogo-ing without a care in the world after we’d beaten Derby 3-2 in the Spring of 85 at BP in what would be a deciding factor in our second promotion of the era.

My old man always believed, even in the times when we were dwarfed by the relative success of the Rugby clubs and we couldn’t so much as pay our tax bills. He’d say to me as a kid, if we get the ground sorted, and put a winning team out there, they’ll all come back and we’ll go to the Premier League. That last bit sounded like the rantings of a madman back in the day, but he never ever gave up the faith and damn it he was right, he was right three times over and four Wembley appearances over and European football over. He was right and all the tv watching, big club chasing, smug faced cretins were wrong. 1-0 Geoff.

So, in essence, can I ask you to reminisce about who first took you? If they are still around, can you thank them? If not, say a good word for them, because the Mums, Dads, Aunties, Uncles, Neighbours, Brothers, Friends and mates are the reason we all got to see some sights we never dreamed of. From Deano’s perfect strike at Wembley, to Diame’s diamond finish, from the double overhead kick to beat the League Champions to Abel rushing the away end in the play offs to give us a military salute. Thank you Pops, and thank you to all of the folks that took us to the match. UTT.

Dedicated to John Uzzell and his Dad Roy, who sadly passed away in the last few days after a brave battle with cancer. Rest in peace Roy and we all love you Uzzell. CTID.

Ask yourself an honest question. How many times have you watched Geovanni Deiberson Maurício Gómez’s goal vs Arsenal from the 27th September 2008? I’d say I must have seen in one hundred times by the end of that season and since then I’ve averaged watching it once a month. So all in all… as a rough estimate.. .somewhere in the 300 range.. in reality.. probably more.

It’s everything about it that I never get bored of, it’s the way he ghosts inside the Arsenal defender, effortlessly with the shimmy inside a backtracking defender that suggests he has eyes in the back of his head, it’s about the timing and the movement that creates the space to wind up, and then that shot, that just bends and twists away from the keeper, who at every step must imagine he’ll get there but like a cartoon chase from Looney Tunes, the ball just continues to swoop towards where he isn’t and can’t be. It’s almost as if the shot was hit by Roadrunner and the keeper is Wile.E.Coyote.

Then there’s the gravity of the moment, in reality to that point Arsenal had encamped themselves in our half. We’d bravely repelled them, but it seemed inevitable we’d get swamped and this was only underlined when Paul McShane turned the ball into his own net under pressure at the start of the second half. The game if we’re honest had 4-0 written all over it. But then, like a swooping sword of justice, the most annoying southern fanbase on the face of the planet were sliced in two by the Brazilian genius that was Geo. The energy of the game in such a moment changes and it did. The previously sure footed Arsenal suddenly seemed fallible, the roar from the away end more raucous, the entire dynamic of a game can change (and did) by such a strike of utter genius and so it would prove.

You have a small window as a new Premier League team to get that promotion uplift. Now in 2024 (as I write no promoted team has won) it seems less likely than ever, but sixteen years earlier, with a solid foundation, loud support, a bit of luck and some bravery, it seemed sides could catch the big boys out early doors. Geo was the factor that made that happen back in 2008, whilst we had good players all over the park, Andy Dawson, Michael Turner, Nicky Barmby, Sam Ricketts, Bo Myhill… we had only one that could do the most unlikely, the most other worldly things that the good people who’d stood on the terraces at Boothferry Park could have ever imagined.

Timing, timing, timing. On the first day of the season, against an established Premier League force in Fulham, we’d found ourselves 1-0 down in what was arguably the biggest regular season league game in the club’s history to that point. Geo bursts through the midfield, and hits an arrowing, bullet like strike into the bottom corner that again changes the entire direction and dynamic of a game. If Geo had a gimmick, it would be a script ripper because coaches well established like Hodgson and Wenger did everything right, they planned right, they were on top of and in control of the game, only for it all to tits up because of a five foot eight rocket footed genius, that did not respect their plans one little bit.

I think of the times I’ve supported this club and the players we’ve been lucky enough to see. As a kid, then a young person, you’d never imagine that after Dave Bamber, would come Jay Jay Okocha, or after John Moore would come Geo. I remember trying to actively soak it in, to tell myself to keep these experiences clear in my mind. When Geo scores (I think) the third at West Brom as we pagger them 3-0 away, the players and the fans, and Geo himself all seemed simultaneously as delirious as each other. We know in reality days like this can’t last forever but whilst they are here, there just isn’t any better feeling in football, and perhaps never will be.

Both my old man and my cousin insist the free-kick at Spurs that same autumn was even better. They were there in the flesh that day (I was coaching, something I find myself doing again in the last two years) and on first look, you question the Tottenham keeper to get beat from range at his near post, but it’s the final angle from behind him that really reveals it’s freakish trajectory. Fully 35 yards out, the ball seems to incredibly swerve almost unnaturally away from fellow Brazilian Heurelho Gomes, he just watches, as sure as you can imagine that this ball wasn’t about to do the conga past him from another post code, but that’s exactly what it does.

Geo was the top goal scorer that season and the team would survive a very tricky end sending known cry babies and incomprehensible language spoilers Newcastle United down. A feat that I still don’t think gets enough credit. We did what FFP seemingly can’t and dealt a killer blow to a club whose most notable achievements in modern football for me are 1. Manager rants on interview about fellow manager and 2. Fans take tops off to show their basic stupidity in winter. Perhaps nobody bar Mike Ashley ever did quite so much short term damage to the topless simpletons, and we did it on purpose.

Season two would see glimpses of the same, but never as often. He was still a joy to watch on the ball, but he picked up injuries and at times I think Phil Brown’s eye was caught by other riches. Geo would quietly leave that summer, when it became apparent we couldn’t afford a pair of sports direct socks (double Mike Ashley reference for the win) and would finish his career in the MLS and back home in Brazil.

He’s been back at the club before, you’d imagine it would be an excellent call to make that annually. But I’ll leave you with a slightly different story that underlines why the man was so damned lovable.

Phil Brown’s last game was the 2-1 loss to Arsenal, in which somehow your blog author had got tickets for the players lounge. It’s always interesting to see players off the camera and it tells you a lot about them. Anthony Gardener read the programme nagged by an extremely expensive looking girlfriend and other players mooched about. A young Tom Cairney was left out of the squad that day, despite bursting onto the scene and scoring a great goal at Everton days before. He did look somewhat crestfallen, as you’d expect. Enter Geo, with translator, who didn’t appear to speak more that the odd word of the Queens. He worked the room beautifully having pictures with fans and winding up the two young mascots like a playful Uncle. However then Geo saw Tom Cairney stood by the bar looking glum. He walked over, tapped him on the shoulder, and as Tom turned, put him in a headlock, so he could mess up his very two thousands hair with his other arm. Cairney laughed, Geo stood with him for another two minutes, the whole time with his arm around him, his translator enthusiastically passing to the young player his thoughts and support.

Not only an absolute genius, but clearly a warm and unselfish man.

Geo was the most larker like of any larker that’s played for this club, and maybe ever will. We all should consider ourselves incredibly lucky to have witness him live and that’s something nobody can ever take from us.

UTT.

It doesn’t give me much pleasure to write this blog. As I’m sure a lot of you will have felt the similar pain Friday night. I hope Tim Walter turns it around, I really do, but if (and it’s a fairly big if) he loses two or three more on the bounce, we all know he’s bang in trouble. The biggest two problems for me are that 1. We just don’t really look enough like scoring and 2. We are exposing ourselves into very avoidable counter attack positions, with seemingly very little upside in return. I’m also not sure a “big man” like Bedia up top is going to work either, with the other players and style it doesn’t (albeit at this early stage) seem like a match to me. I think we need a Craig Fagan type, a hunter of lost causes, pressing and running and being relentless. The culture change seems to have been big and I think perhaps there’s not a total buy in to TW’s philosophy at present…but as I often say here… I’m just a fan. I hope the bigger picture is that Walter now has something like the squad he wanted and it begins to take shape. He’s a likeable man, and there’s signs it’s getting there sometimes, however the fact by far our best player has been our right back (as much as I adore Lewie) isn’t a great sign. We look like an admirable runner up, which in the Championship can quickly hurt you. Alfie Gilchrist’s horrendous challenge was screaming for a “Honeyman” to get hold of him and entice the obvious red card. Walter went mad, Kasey Palmer had a moan, that was it. This isn’t the league to be either passive or naive in, and right now, we look both.

Anywho… whilst I was wondering about how long Timmy boy has left unless we pick up some big wins, it made me look at other times we’ve pressed the ejector seat before or around the end of the calendar year (during my fandom) and if it was fair, or if it lead to better things… I hope you enjoy it and as ever, send all your hate tweets to @thelikesofhull on Twitter.

Colin Appleton (October 1989, 16 games in)

Never go back…

There’s been a few players that defy that rule (Peter Skipper, Keith Edwards, Dean Windass) but no modern manager. By the time Colin Appleton came back to the club in May of 1989, so much had changed. The feel good era of 1982-85 was long past and he didn’t have the same sort of young squad who were eager to climb the leagues. Don Robinson had drummed out the brilliant Brian Horton who then wouldn’t come back after his buyers remorse and Eddie Gray proved to be no more than a sticking patch over a growing wound.

Don turned to his old friend that had overseen the first revolution after he had taken over in 1982, probably yearning for those days when anything seemed possible. After leaving City in 1984, after missing out on promotion by goal difference to the second tier, Appleton had a short stint in Swansea where he couldn’t turn around their demise and only lasted 18 games. He later went to Exeter City.

It would very much mirror the Swansea failure again five years later, zero wins in the league and one miserly league cup win later Don pulled the trigger on Colin. It was a wretched start to the season, with a string of draws (sounds familiar) and several tight defeats, some offered hope (a notable 1-1 draw against West Ham) whereas others were somewhat embarrassing like losing to Bournemouth away and being dumped out of the league cup by Grimsby Town.

Did it work?

In a word yes. In came chain smoking, tea cup chucking lunatic Stan Ternant, and City had a surge straight away, beating Bradford away and then winning 4 in a row across the festive period. When the wobbles set in again a remarkable run of six wins out of seven in April and May got us over the line. Probably an underrated turnaround, perhaps forgotten as Ternant would not repeat the feat, his awful start to the next season was to follow.

Mark Hateley (November 1998 18 league games in)

PLC. Please leave club.

Hateley wasn’t just an astonishing failure as City manager, he actually did it by spending more than the average Division 4 manager, not least on himself (who he put on penalties as he had a goal bonus) and several of his friends or contacts from Scotland who he brought in. Sure, it wasn’t all roses in the garden, but we genuinely had no right being quite as bad as we were.

Take stock for a moment that we had David Brown, who was a good finisher at that level, Neil Mann, who was arguably the best left sided player in the league, David D’Auria who had been Scunthorpe’s best midfielder for several years, Mike Edwards, Mark Greaves, the underrated Brian McGinty… we weren’t THAT bad. And boy… were we bad.

3 wins in his first 18 league games, featured a miracle to beat Peterborough at home 1-0 (they battered us in every aspect but the score) and a similarly iffy 2-1 away win at fellow spudguns Scarborough in a game the weather won in reality. His contract terms and the lazy arrogance of tennis prat David Lloyd were the only reason he survived a turgid and embarrassing season one, so the bullet was well and truly overdue by the November of season two.

Did it work?

Did it ever! Warren Joyce was transformed from empty stand celebrating Dolan-ite, to miracle worker and he brought in some heavyweight scrappers. Add the names we had to the likes of Jon Whitney, Gary Brabin, Andy Oakes and Colin Alcide and we essentially assaulted our way to safety. Just one loss from March 13th to the 1st of May would occur and by the time we beat Torquay and a very tubby and tired Neville Southall in the game before last, we were already safe. New owners the Sheffield Stealers were still seen as lovely people and we prepared for our imminent promotion the next season (mmm…)

Jan Molby (October 2002, 12 league games in)

Bye bye belly boy.

This was a strange one and a tenure which still confuses me now. On one hand Molby brought in some good players (Elliott, Green and Ashbee) he also brought in some shockers (Greg Strong anyone? Or the perma-crocked Richard Appleby) and he was another great example of not being impressed by a manager, just because they paggered us. (which he did with aplomb the year before for Kidderminster)

It just felt snake bitten, from the opening day last minute equaliser we let in against Southend, (after Ash was sent off on his debut) to the inevitable final loss against his old club, nothing seemed quite right. There was the odd flash (Shaun Smith’s wonder free kick leading us to a win at Cambridge United) but again, it has to be said, we had a ton, a real ton of talent and two wins in twelve was woeful.

Players would later talk about the big Dane’s arrogance and lack of people skills, whilst his radio interviews did leave a major clue about his character. City fans used to the honesty and humility of Brian Little did not get the same treatment from the chip munching, medal flasher. Adam Pearson had seen enough come October and off he went.

Did it work?

Yes and no. Peter Taylor wasn’t an instant success and we didn’t march up the table to any great degree (13th was about right) but he would already have the foundations in place for the success we’d see in the next two seasons. Delaney, Burgess, Walters etc were ready.

Phil Parkinson (December 2006, 21 league games in)

Ice baths weren’t nice baths.

A little like Molby, Parky got the green light because Colchester looked really good against City. A little like Molby, this wasn’t an indication he could do the same with us. Parkinson did carry the cross of taking over a very well liked manager in Peter Taylor, who had gathered a strong squad, but maybe also some strong characters, who weren’t fans of Phil Parkinson and his fitness and training methods.

Whether it was top level players like Barmby, or more traditional EFL lads like Ashbee or Parkin, they weren’t mad for ice baths or diets, and the 4 wins in twenty one reflected this. Again you could point to some good recruitment (Forster, Ricketts and Turner) but if you ever wanted to see a team that weren’t playing for their manager, seek out Colchester United 5 Hull City 1. It could and should have been 10, and the players simply downed tools and refused to do what Parkinson wanted. Craig Fagan came to apologise, Bo Myhill turned to the fans as he ignored an unmarked full back in space for the fifth time to say “I’m sorry, it’s what I’m told to do”

One more paggering by Southampton at home was enough, Parky was out at the start of December. He’s gone on to do some good things since, (promoted at Bradford and Wrexham twice) but also players have spoken about a slippery exterior to him, that’s difficult to warm to.

Did it work?

Yes, absolutely. Phil Brown took over (some might say he did an inside job getting the job in the first place) kept us up against all odds, re-signed Dean Windass, who scored at Cardiff second to last game, to secure survival, sending a small club in North Yorkshire to a level that suited them more.

Leonid Slutsky (December 2017, 20 league games in)

From Russia with losses.

Poor old Lenny. He loved Hull bless him and I’m not sure that many people could have turned around the loony bin we were in 2017. Relegation the year before, a fanbase full of anger and frustration and an ownership tone deaf to their cries.

Everyone that could be sold was (Robertson, Maguire and Clucas most notably) and in a slight defence of the club, plenty was spent to replace them (decent money spent on Nouha Dicko, Jon Toral, Jackson Irvine, Kevin Stewart etc). It just wasn’t happening. There were some fun wins (6-1 at home to Birmingham, 4-1 at home to Burton) but the expectation of play-offs was nowhere near at all. And despite an equaliser deep into injury time by Old Snakey Dawson at Massive Wednesday, the writing was on the wall. Fun Lenny would only see one Hull fair, lovely guy, but maybe not the man for what was a huge job.

Did it work?

I mean… yes to be honest. Nigel Adkins might have been about as unsexy an appointment as you could imagine, but he brought a stoic quality to what had been a very lightweight team. We’d sit comfy in eighteenth, despite shipping a whopping seventy goals, that’s also what we scored. It wasn’t a great long term vision though and delayed our inevitable demise by a year or two.

Shota Arveladze (September 2022, 11 games)

Shota to pieces.

Shota wasn’t the right man. A nice man? Probably? But he was comfortable for the new owners, as they knew him and his appointment meant that they were probably recruiting rather than him. He did ok after Grant McCann had gone and we stayed up easily. The new owners kick was in and Mr Lewis Potter was too much for anyone who wasn’t top Champ class in that run in.

Many many changes later and the 2022-23 season saw great expectations. A little like Hateley many moons before Shota’s wins were a tad on the fortuitous side. A late deflected beat Bristol City, and both Norwich and Coventry would feel short changed in tight wins that City pulled off.

Speaking of “off” at this point, that’s where the wheels went. We made QPR look like they had Pep as coach in a shambolic 3-1 loss, got bullied by Sheffield United at home 2-0 and then on Sky the worst was to come. Swansea were given goals like we’d began some sort of championship charity to save other teams and 3-0 flattered us.

Shota got the old shepherd’s crook after a 2-0 defeat at home to Luton and that was that. Lovely fella, but in all realities, out of his depth at all levels.

Did it work?

Yep. Liam Rosenior came in, sorted the leaky defence, took us to mid-table and galvanised the fan base once again. We weren’t necessarily super exiting, but we were extremely competent and no longer tried to play like Bobby Moore’s allied team in escape to victory.

Conclusion.

More cases of it being successful than not, pulling the trigger whilst the leaves fall historically. Timmy boy needs a win or two and soon, or I could be writing an appendix to this next year. Football really isn’t fair at times, in gaffers like Parkinson and Slutsky, we had some proven and established talent. It just doesn’t mean that it’s going to work I’m afraid. Timing is the biggest factor.

Let’s hope it ends well this time.

Thanks for reading UTT.