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.