Hello everyone, I trust that you’re either still drinking, drunk or hung over. Okay, so I’m gonna tell you a story, mainly about the last couple of weeks of my life, ascertaining to my Hull City supporting “sickness“. I fully realise that this story lays me wide open to a potential troll, I’m cool with that, it’s just literally the way it happened, and I don’t really need to play my “I was at Runcorn away in the FA Cup in 1993” card just yet. So bear with me.
As many of you will know, I’ve been coaching and non league football for the past four years, it’s been a fantastic ride in terms of experience for me, three promotions and a play-off run this year, and although challenging in terms of time and energy, it’s 100% worth it. One of the forms of collateral damage, however is not really being able to see a great deal of city play live as not only do we largely play on the same day, if we don’t, we’ll train. So after averaging probably 10 to 15 games a season my whole life despite being exiled in the south this number has visibly shrank. I’ve managed to see us a few times this year in a mix of TV (live) and a couple of games too in person.
So back to the present day, thanks to my good friend from podcast days Rich Walker, @bigbadwalks on Twitter. I managed to blag a ticket for Millwall away which was as you know an absolutely incredible night. The home leg however was my clubs presentation so I checked my phone about 2000 times, which was probably more tension filled then the actual game itself. Millwall away is so underrated, a few beers by Borough market, where the atmosphere was fantastic and then the old six minute train ride to hell into Bermondsey. Contrary to popular belief the Millwall fans we met that night were sound, funny and dry and good humoured , even those I spoke to after the game.
Anyway back to the matter at hand. About a month ago, Mrs the likes of Hull asked me if I wanted it for my birthday. Now I’m not an easy person to buy for as most things that I like, I tend to get, and I’m a fussy old sod. So with the coaching off-season upcoming, I just said let’s just go away somewhere. I left it at that. Now small point of order, I think at that stage we were either sixth or seventh in the league, and on the whole playing like a bag of shit. The bookies had us at 25 to one which to be honest could’ve been more generous. So (and this is entirely on me) I really hadn’t paid much attention to playoff dates, etc.
I think we all know where this is going, in the most untypical of untypical city history we win last day at home to Norwich (we had just finished our debrief for our non-league playoff final and the other coaches were highly amused at me watching avidly on my phone) , got some help from Middlesbrough (lol) then dispatched Millwall and the inevitable happened.
The Mrs who is often a football widow had booked a flight for me at 7 pm on the day of the play-off final. Now I know a lot of you were going to say “ just cancel it or move it” but this is somebody who works around me constantly and asked me what I wanted and I told her. In retrospect of course I should’ve told her can we please fly somewhere on the Sunday, but somewhere between being overloaded with work and coaching that didn’t happen therefore when I had a very mild go that suggesting a change, my incredibly understanding and kind other half just said.” you’re bad.” which is her wonderfully understated way of saying.” fuck off you massive idiot under absolutely no circumstances this is happening unless you want to jump off a cliff.”
My fault, my lack of foresight, my idiocy, my penance to pay. I mean, I went to see the two previous play-off finals and the FA Cup so it’s not like I’ve never experienced this. Unfortunate? Yes, stupid on my own behalf? Yes, definitely. worse things happen to sea? For sure. The next part of my story would be how to make sure I watch the game in any circumstances.
So dear reader, I needed a plan. I was flying at seven and as you know we were kicking off at 4:30pm versus Southampton, then 3:30 pm versus Middlesbrough, nice and simple eh? Either way, watching a game of this magnitude whilst “travelling“ takes a military level of organisation. First of all I got there early to the airport through security and into the waiting area before three, second of all you get rid of all notifications from your phone and I mean all of them no messages no updates from apps nothing, as a stream is always going to be slightly behind and you can’t take that risk, thirdly you have to make sure you have fully charged phone, access to good internet and a mobile battery too.
I did harbour some hope that a bar at the airport might show the game and if I was in a foreign airport that might be the case, but in reality and English airport would be a bloodbath if they showed club football. So after a quick recky to reveal this fact I settled in at the aptly named Black Sheep Café. Headphones on with a coffee in hand and there I stayed largely for the next 2 1/2 hours, occasionally wincing or twitching as a few and far between chances went begging.
As we all know when you watch city play in such a game of such importance you are hugely unaware of anything else that’s around you and besides a small seating change at halftime there frankly could’ve been a mass hostage situation in the airport and I wouldn’t have noticed. The first half was a hard watch as the two teams felt their way around a game, but the way that we set up under Sergej was close to perfect for the circumstances. I would say though the second half began to open up more and I don’t think it was as bad as “experts” said. However mentally I was preparing for extra time as I’m sure you were too, and then it happened…
Yu gets on the outside of the vastly overrated, Callum Britain, the keeper fluffs his lines and you know who is Jonny on the spot as ever, as he has been all season in every moment that really mattered. Oli McBurnie, I’ve never known someone else with timing like it. Like a bad guy in wrestling hitting the ref with a chair.
At this point, I literally jumped up punched the air (I think my headphones dislodged) and shouted something along the lines of “GET FUCKING IN!!!” at the top of my voice.
Let me remind you of where I was… I’d guess that about one hundred people in the waiting area of the airport, many in families, many with kidse, all stopped dead and looked quite rightly in disbelief and possibly disgust my general direction. For the first time in two hours, I was aware that other people actually existed.
“ sorry everybody, sorry, erm… my football team errrr just scored… sorry, carry on”
Was probably the most accurate description of what I said. To be fair, most of the people just turned back around and carried on with what they were already doing. Maybe a few muttering about the strange autistic man in the corner of the coffee shop.
There was one person, however an old boy to the left of me who started to smile and gave me the old football fan’s nod. He mouthed the words.” is it one nil” to me and I nodded. Then he mouthed.” to hull?” and I nodded again. He could see what it meant, even though he sat with his kids and grandkids. I’ll get back to that in a minute.
After another seemingly endless 10 minutes or so, it ended. And this time I’m not punching in the air, or swearing at the top of my voice. The reality just set in that we’ve done it, and sat by myself in a coffee shop in an airport waiting lounge I have to be honest I just cried, I put my head down on the table and cried tears of pure relief. I had no idea that was about to happen as emotions can go but as you all know, being a Hull city fan is never easy. There’s an always hope, there’s often disappointment, there can be moments of pure brilliance, but my god they can be a long time in between them actually occurring.
You all know the people, the people who come from Hull, but support Leeds or Liverpool. The people that you work with who look down their nose that you. The jokes you’ve had to listen to when somebody asks who you support…
“Oh you’re the one are you?”
The people who never even ask about your team because in their world, we don’t matter.
Well, I hope they like apples. Because for the fourth time in in our history, we are back in the top league of this country against all odds and all predictions. So how do you like those apples?
Back to the Black Sheep Café. And my new friend, the old boy in the corner was trying desperately to catch my eye to ask if it was over. I composed myself as best as I could and walked over to him and his family to confirm that we had won. All the family shook my hand and seemed really pleased for me. The old boy himself was an Ipswich town fan who told me that he had been to the KCom in the late 2010s and genuinely seemed really made up that we had gone up.
Obviously, at this point, I checked my phone and my notifications had gone absolutely bat shit. So I made a few calls and messaged a few people including some I hadn’t heard from in sometime. I checked in with my old man. I walked around grinning like a mental patient for an amount of time and that was about it.
Oh, one more little bit that I forgot, I changed my top to put on my city shirt in true shit house behaviour. I got a few looks and a Polish guy in the Ryanair holding pen of doom gave me a smile and nod. I boarded the plane to Krakow with mainly Polish nationals on board. However, I was next to a northern couple on the flight and they were perfectly pleasant but somewhere at the back of my head. I did wonder if football wasn’t their interest, and it’s not for everyone. I’d be remiss, however, to not finish the story on this. They watched a cooking show on the iPad during the flight, and after it had finished and they were shutting down their device. I saw the background image. The Sheffield Wednesday badge. How’s their luck? Playing Bromley next season and now having to fly to Poland next to a Hull fan that’s just won the play off final. And just like that day at Wembley, they outsold our row two to one. Unlucky.
And there it is. My silly story of last week. I hope it gave you a smile and I hope this finds you well.
Thanks for reading, up the Embargo tigers and I’ll pop up with my end of season grades in a few days.
Pete