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.
- 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.