A staple of the Amber Nectar fanzine site between 2011 and 2019 was Things We Think We Think, ten musings from the three site editors (Andy, Les & Matt) about Tigers current events that appeared every Monday morning. Here’s an archive of as many of those posts as could be retrieved from the Wayback Machine internet archive.
You can often tell who wrote individual entries even though the author isn’t stated, if the word ‘squalid’ appeared that was definitely Andy, if ‘however’ is used a lot or there’s a mention of kits it’s Les, and if there’s tedious lionisation of Aaron Wilbraham or Richard Garcia, that’ll be Matt.
TWTWT spanned a tumultuous period in Hull City’s history, taking in two promotions, two relegations, the Name Change Saga, the Membership scheme which removed concessions for kids and seniors, the 2014 FA Cup final and adventures in Europe (well, Slovakia and Belgium). Here’s our take on those events and more, working backwards, latest to earliest.
2015-2019
Highlights
#274 December 4, 2017 – Slutsky departs, we’ll always have Hull Fair
#264 September 11, 2017 – Premier League rule City breached rules by removing concessions
#260 August 7, 2017 – Slutsky-ball and the end of BBC Radio Humberside commentary
#256 May 15, 2017 – 2016/17 Relegation
#240 January 9, 2017 – Phelan sacked, Silva appointed
#231 July 25, 2016 – Steve Bruce departs
#230 May 31, 2016 – 2016 Championship play-off final winners
#227 May 9, 2016 – Red card protests over concessions removal
#208 December 14, 2015 – Music after goals doesn’t go down well
#192 July 13, 2015 – The FA say no to Hull Tigers
#188 May 26, 2015 – 2014/15 Relegation
#185 May 5, 2015 – Beating Liverpool and the ‘Wiggo’ banner
#178 March 16, 2015 – Airco Arena debacle – community sports evicted
Calling Time: Don’t Look Back In Amber (Nectar) – May 7, 2019
7749 days
21 years
2 home grounds
6 owners
10 managers
4 Head Coaches
1 Temporary Football Management Consultant
4 divisions
5 promotions
3 relegations
2 Cup semis and a final
4 trips to Wembley
109 different opponents
6 overseas trips
1 forum members’ wedding
3 (at least) funerals
2 lodgings at Her Majesty’s Pleasure
1 Hull City Association Football Club
Since Amber Nectar’s inception on Saturday 21st February 1998, it’s fair to say that we’ve done a bit and seen a bit.
But sadly, it’s coming to an end this Saturday, as we’re closing our virtual tavern for the final time.
AN was conceived of in January 1998 by Les and Andy (then 21 & 16), and made its debut as a paper fanzine at Boothferry Park the following month. It wasn’t very good, but we got better over the next few years, and by the time AN #15 was on sale outside the shiny new KC Stadium in January 2003 (our only non-Boothferry Park issue) we were hopefully close to being worthy successors to such publications as Hull, Hell & Happiness, Tiger Rag, On Cloud Seven and so many more.
Times were changing as the new millennium started. By the early 2000s the internet was growing in influence as connections increasingly sprang up at home and at work, and we decided to move exclusively online in Spring 2003. This meant tarting up the website that had been an accompaniment to the paper fanzine since late 1998, and making it our sole focus.
On the online revolution went, and we submitted to the lure of social media in 2011, joining Facebook and Twitter as new outlets for cuss-filled rants as they eventually took over the online space for discussion that forums used to provide.
Times changed some more, and we hitched onto the growing trend for podcasts in 2013. We’ve done over 200, and been honoured with guest appearances from fellow City fans and a healthy smattering of ex-City players. In 2017 we were thrilled to be nominated for the Football Supporters’ Federation’s Club Podcast of the Year award. When, at the subsequent posh do in London, we heard our name read out as the winner, our first thought was that we’ve overdone the free bar. Turns out that three grouchy blokes swearing in a spare room full of City shirts can do alright.
Times will keep changing. Already, City fans who weren’t born when we started are making a name for themselves: trying new things, taking on supporters’ roles, vlogging and so on. If you’re ever wondering whether to do something, to get involved, our advice is simple: do it. You won’t regret it. And that’ll ensure there’ll always be more to come by City fans, for City fans.
Only not from us.
21 years. It’s a long time; many times longer than we gave ourselves back on late-90s Bunkers, when paper fanzines blazed brightly for a few years and then folded. They’re gruelling work, after all. The internet and its greater ease of publication gave us a long lease of life, but not a permanent one.
As we pondered during a 20th anniversary rumination last year, we now have partners, kids, mortgages and grey hairs instead of youthful exuberance and an abundance of free time. We’re all just either side of 40 now. Fanzines, websites, podcasts, perhaps it’s all a young person’s game, and while young people aren’t welcome at City any more, they’ll always find a way of creeping in and making themselves heard.
We were around for a pretty remarkable period in City’s history, and as we looked back on our life and times last year, we’re proud of what we did. www.ambernectar.org offers, in our plainly biased view, just about the most comprehensive trove of fans’ views from this period. To help future City historians, the idly nostalgic or even the club themselves when they remember that history is a source of pride rather than shame, we plan to cease updating the site, but leave it online for as long as possible. That’ll cost: around £40 a month, which we plan to meet ourselves. One very last time though, if you fancy chucking in a few quid to keep our collective record of those years online and accessible to all, we’d be very grateful – you can do it HERE.
There are simply too many people for us to thank over the past two decades, and any attempt would be inevitably and unfairly inadequate. We’ll try a few though: our families, who tolerated this nonsense with remarkable forbearance. Steve Broadbent, indefatigable tech god for twenty years. JR, for TigerTube, occasional podcast appearances and pre-match games of darts. And…oh, you all know if you helped, whether it was selling or buying the paper fanzine, contributing online, writing something for us, chucking a fiver into the semi-regular appeals we’d make to keep us unfranchised and ad-free (and thus truly independent), arguing with us on Twitter, drinking with us at home, away and overseas – there’ll be hundreds and hundreds of people with whom we had contact great or small, and sincere thanks to you all.
We’re going to have one final podcast this Friday, a massively self-indulgent look back at the last 21 years. It’ll be broadcast live on Periscope at 7pm, and we’d love your company one last time.
Then, as we hope befits the way we always did things, we’re off to the pub – The Avenue, on Chanterlands Avenue, for around 8.30pm, and maybe even a curry and Piper, if our old bones are willing. Come drink with us, and talk about the past, present and future of one of the loves of all of our lives: the Hull City Association Football Club.
It’s been bloody brilliant fun. Cheers.
Les, Andy & Matt
Amber Nectar, the Hull City fanzine (1998-2019)
#334 May 7, 2019
1. It’s been a slightly doleful week in some ways. The funeral of City legend Peter Skipper at the shockingly young age of 61 cast a midweek shadow over the club and city, one that was certainly never going to be banished by an end of season dead rubber. Credit to City though, their matchday tribute to the ex-Tigers captain was fitting. RIP Skip. You entertained and inspired a huge number of your fellow Hull folk.
2. The launch event of Amber Nectar alumni Richard Gardham’s constitutive book ‘The Decade’ was a much needed infusion of ebullience however. What was vividly evident was the deep and authentic love that many people have for Hull City Association Football Club For some it’s on hold, but undoubtedly still there, and it found joyous expression on Saturday night. City fans and ex-players were in violent agreement that the club will be ours again, and will rise again, after the parasitic infection currently ailing it is finally banished.
3. You don’t own a copy of The Decade? Buy it now!
4. Sunday’s season finale was more entertaining than was expected wasn’t it? City have a historical tendency to be quite accommodating to teams that need a result on the last day, but we bucked the trend and were easily the better side in a game against a team who started the game with play off aspirations. Some of the performances of young players gave us cause for hope that next season might not be the inevitable relegation battle that this season threatened to be for a while. George Long looked assured and quasi-commanding in nets, and Robbie McKenzie looked assured and composed in his preferred full back role.
5. We can’t truthfully say we mourn the failure to make the top six this season. Of course, it’d have been amazing, and there were a couple of times when our customary cynicism found itself wobbling. Ultimately, we didn’t challenge quite seriously enough, never actually made the top six and fell short with a lack of squad depth and real top-level quality. It never felt seriously on, even if it was fun to talk about. And naturally, that atrocious start was always going to hurt – it’s still quite an achievement that this weekend wasn’t spent in a torment of relegation-based anxiety. So, 13th constitutes a real success this season for Adkins and his players, and we salute them for it.
6. However, if we don’t regret a midtable finish, the end of 2018/19 is tinged with sadness for players we won’t see in black and amber again. Jarrod Bowen is destined for bigger and better things, and we wish him well (and hope that his eight-figure sale fee is reinvested into the club, rather than funnelled elsewhere). Fraizer Campbell enhanced his reputation during his second spell at the club, and will forever command a considerable mention in the Hull City story. He hopefully has another very good move left in his career, and let us hope that he remembers us as fondly as we will him.
7. Kamil Grosicki has been divisive for much of his time here, but his best form has undoubtedly been this season, a time when he’s also looked more integrated into the group than before. It’s possible he’ll stay, though clearly unlikely. This is the last chance City will have to get a couple of million pounds for him, and his wages wouldn’t sit comfortably with an ambitious Championship club, let alone Hull City. If/when he goes, his legacy will probably the subject of debate, because his application has been so erratic. At least he saved the best until last, and his talent is a rare one at this level. We’ll miss that, if nothing else.
7a. If his final notable contribution to Hull City’s cause is flicking the ear lobe of an opponent he felt wronged by, well that’s just serendipitously beautiful.
8. It looks as though we may soon be missing Nigel Adkins, too. When City were tussling with Ipswich for possession of 24th last autumn, there was no guarantee he’d survive 2018, and little chance that the following summer he’d have the upper hand in new contract negotiations with City. Yet here we are. Adkins is able to (partly) dictate terms and demand guarantees of investment, safe in the knowledge that his overachievement with City has rehabilitated his reputation. He no longer has so few career options that staying amid the slow-motion car-crash of City is his only route to employment. It’s a remarkable turnaround, and one we suspect Ehab Allam is yet to properly appreciate.
9. The EFL’s justification to us about their decision to highlight City’s “family excellence” was something to cherish. There’s the hugely patronising assertion that capering mascots, pre-match antics and concourse adornments are why families go to football – sometimes, it really is because of a shared love of football, the atmosphere, the occasion, rather than generically identikit McEntertainment. But even if we overlook that arrant nonsense, the idea that ANY quantity or quality of extracurricular gadding about is relevant if families can’t afford to get in because the owners refuse to offer concessions is ridiculous. The EFL is a seething nest of simpletons.
9a. And what happened to the announcement about “family” discounts anyway? In its presently degenerate condition, this is a club with a lengthy history of broken promises, so another one isn’t going to spoil the summer. But it’s a reminder that the club needs an extensive clean-out off the pitch.
10. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is that for TWTWT in 2018/19. We’ll have a last match/end of season review podcast at 7pm tomorrow night; then pop back later in the week for a bit of news about the site and podcast. Thank you for being with us throughout another characteristically turbulent, eventful and sometimes even enjoyable season of Hull City AFC. Have a bloody brilliant summer…
#333 April 29, 2019
1. Four-fifths of the way through the 2-2 draw at Swansea, the most popular refrain among frustrated City fans was surely “on the beach”. City were labouring their way to a routine loss in South Wales – not an uncommon experience for those of a certain age – while the home side were enjoying a win that wouldn’t extend their season given results elsewhere, but was still a satisfactory cuffing of the English.
2. City did look as though they were slightly phoning it in, too. That isn’t to wholly detract from Swansea, who (as per the Sheff Utd debacle) were highlighting the difference between a side needing it and one not. They were pretty sharp, too much so for a City side that was oddly set up and seemed bewildered by Swansea’s inventive running and passing. But more needed doing to contend with a side we spent much of 2019 above in the table.
3. Then…we scored twice in perplexingly quick succession to burgle a draw. And hey, that’s great. The performance no longer really matters, because this side is going to be broken up, not built upon. It ended Swansea’s season, and while that doesn’t quite atone for either of the final day disgraces of 1998 or 2003, it isn’t a bad thing either. It meant a far chirpier trip home for those who’d made a long journey for a dead rubber. Having coughed up three 2-0 leads this year, it made a nice change to experience the reverse. And it gives us a chance of clinging on to a top half finish, which would still be a remarkable achievement.
4. So, well done City for nicking a point. Again, though Adkins’ tactic of pairing Bowen and Grosicki up front didn’t work, it’s hard to think it matters now. One game to go. That’s Bristol City at home next Sunday – at lunchtime, for some ridiculous reason. They’ve choked their play-off bid quite heartbreakingly too. One point from their last four games has been an ill-timed collapse for the Robins, and if they don’t win at Millwall tomorrow night, they’ll be arriving here with nothing to play for. But if they do need something, they need only watch the tape of City v Sheff Utd for tips on how to overpower a City side with knack-all to play for…
5. Nigel Adkins is persisting with his ploy of prioritising players who’ll still be here next season. It’s been inconsistently applied – Kane and Campbell missed out on Saturday, but Bowen and Grosicki started. Though perhaps that’s just because we don’t have a normal-sized squad. Anyway, it means we’ve already seen the last of David Marshall in goal, and Kane himself – but will we get to bid farewell to Campbell, Bowen and Grosicki on Sunday? It’d be nice to think so, though Adkins must also be aware that the club’s policy of selling anyone any good is best protected by shielding them from potential injury in meaningless matches.
6. Bowen, clearly, only has a maximum of one City game left. The same probably applies to Grosicki, and certainly to Campbell. We’re just about sentimental enough to want to give Fraizer Campbell a good farewell. The modern Hull City AFC story owes much to him, and he’s only added to his reputation during his second spell at the club.
7. Meanwhile, the three of them have 43 goals League goals this season, a clear majority of those scored by City. All are going, none will be properly replaced. Anyone eyeing up Norwich’s midtable finish of 2017/18 and subsequent promotion this season and thinking we may do the same is badly deluded. We may well exit the Championship in 2019/20, but it won’t be via its upper reaches.
8. Meanwhile, the furore concerning the mishandling of the Sheff Utd game has rumbled on. The Supporters’ Trust has demanded answers, while we’ve submitted a Freedom of Information request to Humberside Police, seeking to ascertain their role. Filming City fans while ignoring Sheff Utd fans isn’t what a proper police force do, while the SMC and Hull City themselves have questions to answer. Not new questions, of course – whatever they actually say, it’s always been club practice to let away fans in the home ends, but the more it becames clear throughout football that you can easily buy tickets for home stands at the Circle, celebrate goals and the worst that’ll happen is that the stewards will accommodatingly assist you into the away end, or just let you enjoy your day where you already are, the more it’ll happen.
9. The EFL, taking time out from its ghastly approach to desperate affairs at Bolton, made us darkly laugh through the week. Hull City, it turns out, practice “Family Excellence”, and were feted for this last week. Family Excellence, eh? From a club that has the most explicitly anti-family policies in all of English football. No wonder the EFL’s reputation lies alongside that of the Allams in a particularly noxious gutter.
9a. City, at their most recent begrudging meeting with fans (except the Trust, natch) promised more details about a “family deal” that’s coming soon. Funny how we still haven’t heard a thing about it. Almost as if they’re waiting for the season to be over before announcing just how pathetically limited it’ll be – members-exclusive, South Stand Upper, available June-July only, that sort of thing.
10. We’ll be podcasting tomorrow, with our special guest Richard Gardham. He’ll be kindly joining us to talk about his (very popular and very large) book The Decade: ten years that transformed Hull City AFC.
#332 April 15, 2019
1. The Wigan match superficially resembled its predecessor in many ways: trailing at the interval to ostensibly inferior opposition, only to emerge the victors. But the parallels are imprecise. City powered their way to an assured victory against Reading, but rather laboured to the same outcome against the Latics. But for a late winner from a set piece, we’d have left the game bewailing two points cheaply dropped, but not really able to contend that City had done enough to deserve the win.
2. As it was, the win was notched up, and while it was short on quality, it was at least full of character. Lots of sides in City’s position may have rolled over at half-time, the difficulty of the short-term situation and the implausibility of the longer-term goal of a top-six finish combining to produce an on-the-beach performance. Instead, despite a lack of fluency, City kept going. And still, somehow, entered the second week of April with the play-offs STILL a thing that couldn’t be entirely ruled out.
3. City v Wigan isn’t one to get the pulses racing, but in usual circumstances a crowd well in excess of 8,000 might still be reasonably expected given City’s recent home form. 18,000 would once have rocked up for this. Week by week, whatever Adkins and his admirable charges do, more and more people quietly say their goodbyes to supporting Hull City. And still the club do absolutely nothing about it.
4. Jordy de Wijs. There’s a player in there, and he’s excelled at time this season. That’s encouraging, but to see a hopeless miskick redolent of autumn’s dog days present Nick Powell with Wigan’s goal was disappointing. Consolation comes from the fact you can’t easily teach many of things he can do, but can instil greater concentration and the non-too-difficult practice of successfully kicking a football. More focus, fewer miskicks, and there’ll soon be a player good enough to cheaply sold on and inadequately replaced.
5. Because of that the result, Nigel Adkins was correct to say that City travelled to Middlesbrough with no pressure on them. That wasn’t mind games – that unbearably tedious and overhyped practice thankfully not widely seen in the Championship anyway – but just a statement of the obvious. Middlesbrough were expected to challenge for automatic promotion, and now find themselves hoping to snatch a play-off place, while City were expected to be knee-deep in the quagmire marked “relegation” by now. This shouldn’t have been a sixth-place six-pointer.
6. Sadly, all discussion of the play-offs must now take place in the past tense, for that match ended in a 1-0 win for Middlesbrough that keeps their hopes of sixth alive but irrevocably extinguishes ours. And what a disappointment it was as well. City didn’t get going at all in the first half, and their second half rally perhaps merited a point on the pattern of play but lacked conviction.
7. Middlesbrough has long been a graveyard for our dreams, and this dreary 1-0 defeat was no different. Five points adrift with four games left (five for some) means that it is, finally, irretrievably over. It’s a pity that our hopes for the unlikeliest of play-off qualifications couldn’t have survived into Easter, but then the two forbiddingly difficult fixtures we face over that period may ultimately have done for us anyway.
8. It was a fun ride though, and it’s hard to believe just what a season this has been. From a side that sat level with doomed Ipswich in the early part of the season, looking ill-equipped even for the top 21, City surged clear of the bottom three, then the places near it, then into the top half and now the top ten. This has been an impressive season of overachievement in spite of plunging attendances and off-field malevolence, and great credit goes to Nigel Adkins and his players. We live to fight another season in the second tier.
9. Last week saw the fifth anniversary both of the FA saying – for the first and most important time – No To Hull Tigers. The following day saw the fifth anniversary of Assem Allam promising to sell the club within 24 hours as a result. Now, time-keeping isn’t always easy; we’ve occasionally missed kick-off by thinking there was time for one more pint. But we’ve rarely been out by over 180,000%. It’s almost as though the man who brought us the imaginative claim that 98% of fans backed his name change idea routinely experiences difficulty with numbers. And knowing the difference between a fact and a non-fact.
10. Well done to the lads who marked the second anniversary by displaying an Allam Out flag at Allam Marine. They’ve been extraordinarily fortunate that City fans, so drained from the name-change fiasco, have let them off the hook for so long despite their practices. We wonder if that period of indulgence is coming to an end?
#331 April 8, 2019
1. Saturday was all quite enjoyable, wasn’t it? Providing you conveniently overlook the first half, of course. That isn’t easy to do; after a bright opening City didn’t respond at all to falling behind, and the game drifted from that point until the interval in a concerning fashion.
2. Still, game of two halves and all that – and the second was impressive for City. As soon as Grosicki equalised, a win always felt possible, and in the end it was delivered in far more comfortable a fashion than we could have expected even at 3pm, let alone 4pm.
3. Kamil Grosicki eh? Perhaps the highest praise he could be offered is that he no longer divides opinion among City fans – we all think he’s playing brilliantly and worthy of inclusion in the side every week. His two goals were very well taken, for the second time in a week, and while his fellow winger Bowen had a rare quiet game, he alone was too much for Reading to handle in an exhilarating second half.
4. Marc Pugh is easy to admire. A lively attacking figure who pinched the decisive second goal, his willingness to always look forward is bracing and his late runs were a menace to the Royals all afternoon. Meanwhile, Fraizer Campbell’s standing ovation when going off late was well-earned for yet another tremendously combative and intelligent contribution, and his two assists for Grosicki were transformative. Just think what we could achieve with an attacking quartet of Campbell, Pugh, Grosicki and Bowen next season…oh.
5. Wigan on Wednesday, and another winnable home game that’ll hopefully have the same outcome. They looked for a while like they’d have a decent season, but Saturday’s creditable draw against Bristol City still leaves them perilously close to the bottom three. However, we’ve seen that they can be handy: their 2-1 defeat of City in September was a chastening, one-sided affair despite the oddly close score-line. It’d be nice to get a home win to partially ease the still-sore memory of that grim evening on the wrong side of the Pennines.
6. After that, it gets hard. Seriously hard. Middlesbrough look like they’re going to blow their top six hopes, but by the time City travel there on Saturday there could still be enough time and enough points available for them to made a late recovery and nick sixth. Other than Stoke, the pre-season title favourites who now languish in the bottom half and perma-bottlers Derby (who at least had Cup fun), few would be more disappointed at not making the play-offs. They haven’t even missed out in style, grinding along at a goal-a-game under a particularly grisly form of Pulisball. Watch them beat us 6-0 now…
7. Then it’s West Bromwich Albion away, and Sheffield United at home. All of which makes getting six points from Reading and Wigan essential if the most improbable of dreams is to stay alive for another few days.
8. Another week, another reputational evisceration for Ehab Allam. This time it came from the Football Supporters’ Federation, the redoubtable body that was a fine friend to City fans during West Yorkshire Police’s infamous bubble and Assem Allam’s name change farce. So irked were they by the club’s incorrect assertion that the FSF somehow endorsed their vile ticketing policy that they felt obliged to correct them. The club’s own minutes of the meeting, at which this erroneous suggestion was made, hasn’t been altered (or an acknowledgement of their mistake made), so we can only assume the club doesn’t mind misrepresenting the FSF and isn’t concerned about misleading City fans.
9. Which, of course, rings entirely true based upon past experience. We feel for the fans who give up a lot of time to be given inaccurate statements that the club doesn’t feel the need to correct or acknowledge. But that’s all a part of dealing with the Allams. Not that it makes any difference anyway: if you still give them the benefit of the doubt, chances are that you either haven’t been paying attention or have to rely upon them for a job. If you don’t, this is just the latest in a very, very long list of reasons to abhor them.
10. Tomorrow marks five years since City fans were successful in repelling their spiteful name change idea, incidentally. They’ve caused untold damage in revenge; but we should still be very proud of one of the finest fans’ campaigns in English football history.
#330 April 1, 2019
1. City’s 2-0 win at Ipswich on Saturday may constitute the single most unTypicalCity thing ever. Away to a side destined for relegation with only three wins all season? Who among us didn’t expect a routine home win? However, City won comfortably themselves, and elevated themselves back into the top half
2. It was nice to see that awful run of form on the road come to an end. These may have been the calmest of waters in which to get the good ship Away Form back onto an even keel, but it still got done. Perhaps it wasn’t the most flamboyant performance, but City did keep a clean sheet and take a couple of chances. Just what decent sides do away from home really.
3. Both of Kamil Grosicki’s goals were enjoyable ones. The first, a rare left-footed effort that had the Pole beaming with self-deprecatory delight, the second a fine low finish on his favoured right. He was only a header away from the perfect hat-trick, but he’ll nonetheless reflect upon a handsome afternoon’s work.
4. City now have two home games in rapid succession: Reading next Saturday, and Wigan the following Wednesday. The 3-0 cuffing at Reading earlier in the season wasn’t quite the nadir of the season, but it wasn’t far off. City were wretched that day, looking every bit a side on the way to relegation. Porous defence, toothless up front, it was awful. And hey, we can’t claim that every problem has been fixed – but enough have been so that only of us is still in relegation bother. Reading haven’t looked up to much all season and it appears they’ll be looking over their shoulder for little while yet. This is one we’d be disappointed not to win.
5. In fact, many will expect six points from those two games, and not without justification. For all of City recent difficulties on the road, we’ve continued to look good at home, and the arrival of two weaker sides (even if both beat us earlier in the season) does look like a very good opportunity to secure a top half position.
6. And if we get six points – does that keep play-off hopes flickering? Perhaps it does. With seven games left, City need to win pretty much all of them, though six wins might sneak us in. Given that two of those games are trips to Middlesbrough and West Brom, it’s an extremely tall order. But the fact that this can still be discussed, albeit as a highly improbable outcome, in the month of April is remarkable.
7. It’s interesting that despite the domestic football season being close to its end, Keane Lewis-Potter and Adam Curry have both been sent out on loan – to Bradford Park Avenue and Alfreton respectively. That isn’t a vauntingly high level of football, but it should mean a few first team minutes for both. With the usual summer cull approaching, those minutes could prove useful next season.
8. Nigel Adkins has been offered a contract! And, err, conspicuously declined to confirm whether he’ll be signing it. Quite sensible too. He’s unlikely to trouble the list of top-earning managers in the Championship, but more importantly, he’s going to want to know just how meagre his resources will be for 2019/20. He seems to be enjoying things at City despite the headwinds his boss routinely provides, and he’s established an unlikely rapport with City fans. That he’s not jumped at the offer suggests it isn’t the foregone conclusion Ehab probably thought it was, and suggests that we may need yet another new manager next season.
9. City, Ehab Allam included, met a delegation of City fans on Wednesday night. The Hull City Supporters’ Trust, comfortably the largest and most representative organisation in existence, were again excluded, because the club is run by people with the maturity of toddlers. Their ongoing exclusion is ridiculous, contrary to government guidelines and in violation of the best practice suggested by multiple national fans’ bodies.
10. But we are we are. The meeting itself saw warm words aplenty in the aftermath, and we know ourselves prior to our own exclusion that the club can actually listen to concerns, even if it has no intention of acting upon them. It does seem that Ehab and Vicki Beercock have listened. But little in the subsequent minutes suggested that the owners have understood, or are prepared to act, as shown by the ongoing refusal to restore concessions next season. Nothing else – including a conditions-laden “family” ticket that’s been the source of much internal wrangling at the club this year – will suffice. Concessions. Nothing else is acceptable.
#329 March 25, 2019
1. There’s much speculation about Nigel Adkins being made to wait for a new contract from the characteristically inept Allams. But isn’t there a possibility that even if he is eventually offered one, he opts against staying? His public utterances thus far indicate a willingness to stay, but frustration is clearly mounting. He must know he’ll have a reduced budget to work with and a squad once again stripped of everyone saleable. The Allams set City up for a relegation battle this season, and it’s only because of the efforts of the manager and his players that we thrillingly pulled clear of it. But for a long time, that looked unlikely.
2. Next season will be worse. Bowen will be off to the Premier League, while Grosicki will once again want to leave. Fraizer Campbell is making dissatisfied noises about the club’s lack of interest in his retention, while David Marshall is out of contract. It’s clear that anyone of quality who may have the temerity to earn a wage commensurate with that ability is going. So we ask again: the Allams aren’t busting a gut to keep Adkins, or retain any of the tools he’ll need. Why would he even want to stay?
3. Let’s continue our thought experiment and suppose that Adkins does opt against staying. What then? There’s always, ALWAYS someone who’ll want the job, no matter how wretched the owners are and how unpromising the circumstances may be. But that isn’t a prospectus for attracting the brightest and the best. Adkins has proven us wrong when we thought he was something of a bargain basement appointment, and we hold our hands up to that. But next time we go manager shopping, it’s hard to imagine us getting anything close to his quality. It’ll be League two cast-offs, in charge of League one players. And that isn’t how you avoid bottom place. It’s almost as if the Allams’ primary concern is with driving the club into the ground, isn’t it?
4. Markus Henriksen sounds very much like a man weighing up his future options, doesn’t he? Let’s face it, Ligue 1 Bordeaux or preparing-for-a-relegation-battle-to-the-third-tier Hull City? It isn’t an impossibly tough choice to make, and the fact that City opted to extend his contract suggests the club know which way the captain is leaning. We’d certainly miss him if he went.
5. Ipswich at the weekend. They’ve won three times all season, lie an impossibly distant 13 points from safety and will be in League One next season. Even overhauling a stricken Bolton to finish in the top 23 looks a tall order for the Championship’s longest serving occupants. Do we need to brace ourselves for some world-class TypicalCity, or are we finally about to reverse this patch of poor form away from home? Hmm.
6. That leads us into two extremely winnable home matches, Reading then Wigan – 21st and 19th as we speak. They’ll both have plenty to play for, with the final relegation place still open to quite a few teams. At least it’s none of our concern any more.
7. The accounts are out! And they reveal that Allamhouse – City’s parent company owned by the Allams – has seen its profits fall markedly. That’s interesting, but not wholly unexpected. There were no major player sales, parachute payments are coming to an end and club policy is to deter supporters from attending games, so it isn’t a surprise that City’s contribution has fallen. It’ll only get worse. It was interesting to see the engineering division showing reduced turnover, however. Wonder what’s happening at Allam Marine?
8. Tomorrow is the first fans’ meeting with the club of the year, and the first in quite a long time. As usual, plenty of those with the ability to represent fans have been excluded, most notably the Hull City Supporters’ Trust. The club’s infantile approach towards the largest fans’ group is absolutely pathetic, and their attempts to spin this as somehow not their fault last week were pitiful. Until the club invites supporters and supporters’ groups who can genuinely collate concerns and feed back to the fanbase, everyone will rightly conclude that this is a pointless box-ticking exercise.
9. One side City seem certain to finish ahead of is Birmingham. They were deducted nine points last week for breaching new sustainability guidelines, which has taken from the fringes of the play-offs to the fringes of the relegation places – though in truth, they’ll probably do what they were always going to do, and stay in the division. There are also no future penalties – no transfer embargo, or fines, so they’ll start next season with a clean slate. So is that enough? Nine points sounds a lot, and many Championship clubs would suffer their loss considerably. But if you’re stuck in midtable with the season approaching its end, losing them is no big deal. It isn’t clear quite how Birmingham have been punished here.
10. No City at the weekend, so no podcast this evening. Back next Monday to review the Ipswich game.
#328 March 18, 2019
1. In many ways, Norwich was a lot of fun. A shot to nothing that ended up with City gamely contributing two of the night’s five goals (while never seriously looking like taking anything from the game), in a vibrant stadium that always looks grand under lights. Norwich is a good trip, and a narrow defeat didn’t harm our enjoyment of it.
2. The gulf between City and the very top of the league was pretty stark, however. Norwich looked a cut above City in every way, with their movement out wide mesmerising a City defence that never looked in control, while we were routinely overwhelmed in midfield. They were good, very good in fact – but there’s a lingering regret that in a game we only lost by a single goal that things weren’t made just a bit harder for Norwich.
3. Most galling was the feel of Carrow Road though. The stadium was fully and noisy, the home support was engaged and enthused and everything felt together. Of course, much of this is the consequence of being in the thick of a promotion battle. But lots of it isn’t. It was impossible not to contrast the upbeat, unified approach of the Norwich fans with ourselves on Saturday – those who aren’t boycotting sullenly trudging to a one-third full stadium that’s had the life and colour drained from it. Norwich are what we were, what we want to be once more, and what we will never be again without a change of ownership.
4. Even if we accept that the season’s probably over and we’re only playing a succession of dead rubbers until we can finally focus fully on an Ashes summer, it’s about time this dip in away form was sorted, because people are still going to spend lots of money following the team in the final few weeks. We’ve lost five in a row on the road, and while some of them were pretty stiff tasks, the fact we’ve only got close-ish in one is a worry. If those five games had yielded even one win, we’d have entered the QPR game knowing that a positive result could’ve seen City breach the top six. It’s all ifs and buts, however it’s definitely been a costly and frustrating sequence of results outside of East Yorkshire.
5. Messing up 2-0 leads is even more costly however. To do it once or twice over a whole season is exasperating, but to do it three times in three months is pretty remarkable. The 2-2 draw at Aston Villa is the most excusable, as City were away and Villa are a handy side. Doing it against Rotherham and QPR is rather less understandable.
6. Villa, incidentally, have quietly crept into the top six. We were ahead of them very recently; one team was always going to make a little run into serious play-off contention as the last six weeks of the season approached, and it’s frustrating that it isn’t us.
7. Jarrod Bowen is now on 21 goals, a truly exceptional return for a player who isn’t even an orthodox centre-forward. He’s up to 35 in two seasons, which has emphatically demonstrated that he isn’t a one-season wonder. His Hull City career surely only has a maximum of eight games left. We’d better enjoy him while we can, and hope that his summer move is a wise one that keeps him at the top-flight level he deserves for years to come.
8. An international break now beckons, followed up by three very winnable matches. It’d have been fun to have spent this interlude discussing what Nigel Adkins needs to tweak in order to make the play-offs, but that wasn’t to be. However, the plausible range of finishing positions for City this season is still quite wide, perhaps as many as eight. A top half finish would still represent an outstanding season.
9. The manager cut a thoroughly exasperated figure after the QPR match, and as the match report speculates, it may not all be down to tossing away another two goal lead. That a manager who’s considerably overperformed this season is entering the second half of March not knowing whether he’s even wanted for next season is totally unacceptable. If he walked away from City in protest at the shabby treatment he’s received, and will continue to receive, he’d probably find that his reputation has been restored enough to get a decent job offer in the summer. And who could blame him?
10. Our hearts hurt at the plight of North Ferriby United, forced out of existence on Friday after 85 proud years. Many City fans down the years will have spent enjoyable afternoons and evenings at Church Road, home of our nearest neighbours of note, and the annual playing of the Billy Bly Trophy was an enduring part of the late-summer ritual for so long. To see them fold is devastating, and however modest their support is and always was, a lot of people will be distraught. We wish their fans well in trying to create a footballing resurrection in North Ferriby, and note with foreboding the appalling consequences that terrible owners can have on a club.
#327 March 4, 2019
1. After the pretty wretched affair at Brentford, it was quite a relief to get back on track so quickly against Millwall. It certainly wasn’t a game that’ll live long in the memory. For the most part, it looked very much like a game between a side still recovering from a weekend pasting and one with every chance of slipping into a lower division. But as we’ve noted plenty of times before, this was a game we’d have lost in October, so a decent parcel of credit is owed to the manager and players for eking out a narrow win.
2. Happily, it proved to be the springboard for even better things. For if Millwall was tense and cagey, the 2-0 win over Birmingham was fluent and assured. City completely outplayed a side who remain above them in the table, creating numerous opportunities to score and restricting the visitors with ruthless efficiency.
3. Pugh’s a heck of a player. His impact is not quite Wilson-in-2018 yet, but he’s definitely making us tick better in midfield. It’s a shame his performance didn’t include the goal it deserved, but otherwise he was a joy to watch.
4. Then again, so were many of his team-mates. Henriksen’s transformation into an inspirational leader continues to astound and delight in roughly equal measure, Bowen is clearly playing his last dozen or so Championship games, Grosicki worked backwards as well as forwards (yes he did), even the much-maligned Chris Martin played solidly well as a target man. It didn’t match the gaudy heights of the 6-0 against Bolton or the epic magnificence of cuffing the Champions of Europe on their own patch, but it was a very satisfying afternoon of football.
5. What now for Nigel Adkins? It was striking that the North Stand sang his name as soon as the match began on Saturday, a loud show of support for the latest victim of Ehabbian contractual idiocy. However this season ends, it isn’t in the relegation that was possible, or even the relegation battle that seemed inevitable. He’s doing a brilliant job, and deserves better than the pathetic prevarication from his bosses.
5a. Just no-one mention the play-offs, yeah?
6. Tuesday night’s attendance against Millwall was officially 10,191. Which works out to around 8,500 when you deduct the customary 20% gate inflation. Except even that figure felt too high. Did even eight thousand souls make it to the Circle last Tuesday? It’s unlikely. The KCOM Stadium, which only a few years ago was the subject of genuine discussion about extension, now stands barely one-third full. One third. One fucking third.
6a. That’s led to some speculation that further stand closures are possible for next season. It already feels like a long time since the Upper West was needed, and with the ground less than half full even when that closed area is taken into account you can see why this would appeal to Ehab Allam. The thought of saving money by closing the ground and saving on stewards will obviously appeal to him, particularly with the added bonus of aggravating City fans. Because the simple answers – restore concessions, sell the club, etc – work only if you’re a man of reason.
7. Of course, that’s only speculation. But what’s becoming clear is that a slow-motion boycott of the club is underway. Boycotting home games until the repulsive Allam family go has long been advocated by many, though (we felt) prematurely. But what was once noisily called for is now de facto happening anyway. Membership cancellations continue to leak into the club, with anyone having acted last week avoiding summer payments. With those cancellations, the possibility of a series of dead rubbers ahead and ongoing distaste at putting money into their pockets, gates will continue falling. The boycott is already happening, and it’s gathering pace.
8. Really, what else can an agonised fanbase such as ours do? Protests haven’t worked – in truth, they could have been better, but when the owners don’t show and don’t care anyway, even a 1990s style insurrection may not have mattered. As we’ve seen from Blackpool recently, this sort of battle can be won, but starving them out may be the only route to success. That isn’t to say you’re wrong to still go to City (we do), but increasingly a wholesale desertion of home matches is going to happen. Who knows, perhaps that’s best?
9. And yes, that isn’t fair on Nigel Adkins and his team, who’ve overachieved admirably this season. But as Adkins himself knows, his employers are an utter disgrace and need flushing from this club as quickly as possible – because the challenge of rebuilding this club from the Allam arson is going to be a long, arduous one; and like every long, difficult chore, it’s best started sooner rather than later.
10. One last time: our condolences to the friends and family of ex-Tiger Bobby Doyle, who passed away last week. RIP Bobby.
#326 February 25, 2019
1. That really is that. Let’s not mention the play-offs again this season, and pretend that we never did in the first place.
2. Brentford was chastening. An early lead collapsing into a 5-1 defeat was redolent of the autumn’s dark days, not the bright promise of midwinter. Sad to say, City were awful, and gave this one up long before the end – all the more galling considering that Brentford barely featured in the opening quarter of the game.
3. What’s happened to City away from home? Three defeats in a row, shipping ten goals and not really featuring in any of those games. It’s been such a disappointment after the glittering form of December and January, and a real pity to see things go backwards so rapidly.
4. Pretty much no-one emerged with any credit, with the possible exception of the tireless Fraizer Campbell. You could lengthily dissect this shambles – as the match report starkly did – but suffice it to say, Nigel Adkins needs to give deeper thought to his midfield selections, and his side need to remember that even though the season’s ultimate outcome (a lower-midtable finish) is in no real doubt, people are still paying good money to watch them.
5. Wasn’t the terrace at Brentford great though? We make no apologies for being shameless nostalgics: proper standing terraces are just so much better than all other ways of watching football. Safe Standing is an idea whose time has come, and perhaps one day it’ll make a very welcome appearance at the Circle – but we still like old fashioned terraces, and mourn their increasing scarcity.
6. This being the Championship, there’s no time to rest. Two home games quickly follow Brentford, with the visit of Millwall tomorrow. It’d be understandable if they’re already dreaming of FA Cup glory, with a winnable quarter final awaiting them next month. However, despite their impressive win at Derby five days ago they’re only four points above the relegation zone, so they’d be unwise to neglect League duties in the meantime.
7. Millwall’s proximity to danger underlines the opportunity tomorrow: a side that the table suggests are weaker, with the potential for a wandering mind or two. Pre-Brentford, we’d have been moderately confident about this one; now, on the back of a 5-1 kicking and with our disappointing Cup exit at their hands fresh in the memory, we’re rather less so now.
8. Then it’s Birmingham on Saturday. A side whose play-off aspirations lasted longer than ours, they’ll rightly target a match against opposition who may already have little to play for. But we can rightly hope to bloody a contender’s nose. We shared six goals earlier this season, and given that both sides will probably attack from the off, we’re optimistic for goals.
9. Will the “official” – by which we mean wholly dishonest – attendance for either game drop below 10,000?
10. Holidays for some of the team this week, so no podcast tonight. Back next Monday with much to discuss…
#325 February 18, 2019
1. If you were inclined to believe that City had a chance of the play-offs, well done on your indefatigable optimism. But it’s surely gone now; the draw at home to Rotherham – both the result itself and its nature – must have quelled all hope. Teams with authentic top six aspirations don’t really fail to win when 2-0 up and cruising against a side as weak as Rotherham.
2. It all felt so cheaply handed over. City were fizzing with invention in the first half, and deservedly led 2-0 at the break. Perhaps it was premature to expect too many more goals, but the minimum expectation had to be a win. To manage neither was galling. And hey, we can’t get too angry with anyone about it. It’s February, and we may already have enough points to stay up. We’d have been happy to get enough points for survival in May. So the season has already exceeded expectations. But it’d have been nice to capture a win that would have kept us in the top ten.
3. But never mind. It’s been really rather amazing just to get into a situation where discussing the play-offs was a thing. What would be nice now would be for the season to still finish well. A top half finish would be brilliant, a serious success for Nigel Adkins given the sabotage he has to contend with from above. Letting things peter out into (say) 18th would be a shame.
4. On a brighter note, one of the best away trips of the season is approaching: Brentford away. A traditional old ground liberally adorned with friendly public houses and best of all, a terrace. An actual proper terrace. It’s the only one left in the Championship, and it only has another season and a bit of use. Perhaps one day we’ll stand on a proper terrace for the very last time, and we probably won’t even know. Chances are it won’t be this Saturday, as City and Brentford will probably both be in the 2019/20 Championship. But there aren’t many occasions left. Let’s enjoy it while we can.
5. Let’s also sort things out away from home. City have lost a little sloppily in their last two trips out of Hull, shipping five goals and scoring none. Brentford, below City in the table, represent a good opportunity to do something about it. Come on City, give us a goal or two to celebrate on that terrace.
6. A weekend without City always leads to thoughts upon the longer term. Nigel Adkins, together with much of his squad, are out of contract in the summer, and as usual the club’s policy is to do absolutely nothing about any of this.
7. Adkins first. His first season with City saw us stay up, which was the likeliest outcome, but nowhere certain enough for comfort. He met expectations. His second sees City improbably in the top half at the same time as the snowdrops are open, which is quite startling. He clearly deserves to be here for 2019/20, and to be given the opportunity to continue the gradual improvement he’s overseen since joining. That his own future is unclear is simply unacceptable.
8. Plenty of his first team, including plenty who’d be hard to replace, are also out of contract. And nothing’s been done. In this respect, propelling a hotch-potch group of loanees, free transfers and the previously unheralded into the top half makes Adkins a victim of his own success: Ehab Allam, not a man whose time in the football industry has seen him absorb any knowledge of it, will probably think that he can continue to chip away at the quality of the team and the depth of the squad with no ill-effects. He’s wrong. As usual.
9. If the season really is over, with neither relegation or promotion realistic for the final two months, we’re going to see some horrendously low crowds very soon. The cancellation period for membership is two months; if you’re a member, then cancelling now gets you off the hook for the final few dead-rubbery weeks of the season and the whole of the summer – frankly, there’s little reason to not do that. And with precious incentive on the pitch for matchday sales coupled with the retributive policy of removing concessions, it’s inevitable that the club will have to (not) announce a sub-10,000 gate before May.
10. That doesn’t mean anything will happen. Part of being an Allam is cocooning oneself from the real world and refusing to listen to people who know better than you. Crowds could dip into the hundreds and it’d make little difference. However, plenty of their employees at the club are aghast at what’s going on, from the office staff to the players and management. Gradually, distressingly, all of the hard work done between about 2002 to 2015 is being undone. Work that took a decade and more, that united the city of Hull behind its primary sporting institution, that rid our streets and our schools of other towns’ clubs’ shirts, is being destroyed. And this time, we won’t even have the prospect of a couple of promotions back to our natural second tier level or a shiny new stadium to spur a revival. All because of one bitter old man, and his thoughtlessly malevolent son.
#324 February 4, 2019
1. Prior to the Stoke fixture on Saturday, discussion centred on whether City’s cuffing at Blackburn would prove to be a reversion to the mean, or simply a blip en route to better things. We can’t know for sure, but the weekend win over the pre-season title favourites does suggest the latter – and that this startling mid-season charge towards the upper reaches of the table may not over just yet.
2. This was a different kind of win to some we’ve enjoyed lately. Not the glory of besting the Champions of the Europe in their own fetid lair, nor the slightly gaudy pulverising of poor Bolton. City had to stoutly arm-wrestle their way to a meat and two veg kind of win, but it’s no less satisfying for it. There’s little doubt that the City of autumn 2019 would have find a way to lose this type of fixture to this type of opponent.
3. Now, we seem to find ways to win. The first half was a pretty wretched spectacle. Perhaps understandably: City’s patched up defence will still have had the misery of Ewood Park at the front of its mind, while Stoke have struggled for fluency throughout a season of disappointing underachievement. The visitors perhaps still had fractionally the better of it, but City were clearly under orders to press high and hard, and it was effectively disruptive.
4. That first goal though! On first viewing, it appeared that Bowen shouldn’t really have beaten the keeper at his near post from such an angle. Subsequent replays showed a shot with unnatural curl applied, and a reminder that this young winger really does look the real deal.
5. Then – following Marshall’s highly enjoyable penalty save – City captured the points with a second half display of growing authority. The second goal came via a clinical breakaway, and after that Stoke didn’t look remotely like troubling us. So much of that is down to a defence that was considerably more than the sum of its parts, but it was also very effectively screened by a midfield that spent the afternoon engaged in a gritty battle for supremacy. We rarely relax even at 2-0, City fans never really should, but this felt different. It felt safe.
6. A word for Robbie McKenzie. He had a tough afternoon at Blackburn, one that suggested he wasn’t yet ready for the rigours of Championship football. To bounce back within a week and play as though his Ewood chasing hadn’t even happened, hints at impressive character. Young players’ development can be affected by being exposed to the first team too early, but he looked the part on Saturday. Now, just as Blackburn was only one game, so this too is only one game. But it was a strong recovery from a player who played with determination and confidence. It was a pleasure to watch.
7. Todd Kane was the sponsors’ man of the match, and there’s no real argument with that, as he was very good. Marshall’s claim was bolstered by his penalty save (and his excellent distribution – more of this please) but probably undermined by having too quiet an afternoon. Bowen and Grosicki were once again too good for middling opposition, Campbell ran himself into the ground, McKenzie was strong and Lichaj unpassable, but Stewart also had a very solid case for the award. His improvement, that begun with that improbable point against Norwich, has continued. He’s a guaranteed starter at the moment – who saw that coming?
8. And so another transfer window passes underwhelmingly. There was a school of thought that defeat at Blackburn would make the Allams less likely to support Nigel Adkins in the transfer market, as that loss suggested that our promotion prospects were rather remote. So why – from their perspective – spend money when we aren’t going down, and can’t go up? And there’s a ruthless logic to that. But the decision was made not to support the manager, and he deserved better.
9. City’s new crest is due to be launched soon. A trailer featuring Hull City Kits was trailed last Tuesday, and it seems the club are genuinely optimistic at having struck upon something that may find favour with City fans. That isn’t an easy task at the best of times, and these are not the best of times – rather than seeking to accommodate fans’ wishes, this is a club that has repeatedly sought to antagonise, and still has multiple outstanding issues that it refuses to resolve. But they’re clearly hopeful of a better reception here.
10. The crest itself was picked in a pretty unusual way, with a variety of contributors being invited to pick from a set of pre-determined options. The club also made those present sign Non Disclosure Agreements, a wheeze reminiscent of James Mooney’s ill-fated attempt to suppress the true horror of the membership scheme a few years ago. Still…we have a feeling the new crest won’t be so bad (it could scarcely be worse than the amateurish, spite-driven nonsense we presently endure), and suspect it’ll fall down the list of Things That Urgently Need Fixing At This Broken Football Club.
#323 January 21, 2019
1. Sure, there’s a tinge of disappointment in letting a two goal lead slip, and in the winning streak not reaching 7, but… Villa Park is not a good hunting ground for City, we’ve won just once there in 17 visits, and the home side are probably better than their current standing in the table suggests, so a score draw is a fairly decent result.
2. City were very good in the first half, doing a fine job of drawing the sting out of Villa’s frenetic early advances, bringing the tempo down to a pace that suited us and then exerting control. We failed to replicate that in the second 45, in which the home side were emboldened by a late first half goal to go at us and equalise and then seek a winner, while City struggled to get their foot on the ball and have a prolonged spell of possession. It’s true that we could have pick-pocketed a winner from Chris Martin, but for the letter stages of the game were largely hanging on.
3. The game changed massively when Jordy de Wijs went off injured. The Dutchman may have had a challenging start to his life with City, but he bestrode the narrow pitch like a Colossus at Villa park, limiting Bolassie, Adomah and Abraham to scraps for the first 40 minutes. The defensive reshuffle was devastating for the Tigers, as it was de Wijs’ hasty replacement McKenzie who was immediately overpowered by James Chester to half the deficit.
4. Six goals in four games (or ten in ten if you prefer) now for the Herefordshire Arjen Robben, who must be tempting Premier League sides to test Ehab’s resolve with a cheeky bid in the next ten days. Jarrod Bowen’s exponential development over the last two and a half seasons has been a joy to behold.
5. It’s a bit churlish to question Nigel Adkins’ decision making when our form is DWDWWWWWWD, but some were querying the lack of a third substitute as a claret and blue tide was rolling ever nearer our goal in the second half. Fraizer Campbell for Chris Martin seemed to be the consensus of the Tiger Nationals in the Doug Ellis Stand. Campbell might have given Villa’s underworked in the second half defenders more to do, but Chris Martin does have a knack of drawing free kicks. Martin isn’t as poor as some make out, though he isn’t a target man, judging him on how he responds to long punted passes is akin to judging a fish on its ability to climb trees.
6. Saturday’s draw had the mildly odd outcome of City rising a place to a season-high of eighth, but falling six points behind the play-offs. A top-six berth still feels a faintly implausible outcome for a City side that was in grave relegation danger until fairly recently, so falling a little further behind doesn’t unduly trouble us. That said, it’s undoubtedly a point that had more significance at the top of the table rather than the bottom.
7. Blackburn are City’s next opponents, and it’s an interesting fixture. They’re tenth, but level on points with us, and can’t have given up their own hopes of pinching a play-off position. Victory at home to fellow midtablers is the sort of thing on which top six hopes are built, and they’re sure to target this as a winnable game, one that could reignite their prospects. Fair enough, we’d do the same. But nabbing a win in this sort of game is something City are clearly capable in this run of form, and a win for Adkins’ charges would keep us in the hunt. Both sides are surely going to play to win. It could be another entertaining affair.
8. In light of his recent form, coupled with his contract expiring shortly, some of the post-match conversation after Villa focussed on Evandro’s future. At 32 he’s hardly in the first flush of youth, and his fitness is notoriously unreliable. But what’s clear is that a fit, in-form Evandro is a significant asset for City. Assuming we line up in the 2019/20 Championship, we could do a lot worse than keep him around, ideally on a contract tailored towards rewarding appearances. At his best, he’s a joy to watch – a passing in the same exalted league as Robert Koren, capable of skipping past a man à la Geovanni and the more he plays, the more influence he exerts.
9. Campbell for Martin at Blackburn? It seems an obvious choice, as Campbell has played very well this season while Martin is certainly in possession of his detractors. It hasn’t been a gloriously successful loan for the Derby man, but he’s shown a little more in the past few games, perhaps enough to make it a close call for the manager – particular as Campbell’s fitness is always a concern and it could be better to slowly reintroduce him into the first team. Competition for places, eh…
10. In case you missed it, our 200th podcast featured a real hero of ours in Justin Whittle, as we look back 20 years at the Great Escape campaign. We went to Villa that year too, but there were 91 league places between us back then and our regular opponents included Scarborough and Rochdale.
#322 January 14, 2019
1. Our minds continue to boggle at what’s happening. A season that seemed certain to feature a grim battle against relegation, whose ultimate outcome was unguessable, has transformed in the space of a few bewildering weeks to a play-off push that looks increasingly plausible. It may be the most stunning turnaround to a season…well, ever.
2. Saturday’s dismissal of Sheffield Wednesday was imperious. From the first minute to the last, City completely dominated. Wednesday’s goalkeeper Keiren Westwood timewasting as early as the fifth minute suggested they were concerned about the afternoon, and those fears were well-founded. Though the opening goal took nearly half the match to arrive, it was yet another peach from Jarrod Bowen, and it was a well-deserved end to an opening 45 that City had much the better of.
3. If the first half was City’s on points, the second was a series of emphatic knockdowns. Wednesday barely featured as an attacking force, becoming the second successive side to leave the Circle without registering a shot on target – a huge compliment to not only a defence that’s gone from porous to miserly, but a midfield that’s also gone from flimsy to all-conquering. 3-0 probably flattered our outclassed visitors, because this was a ruthlessly one-sided match thanks to a display that – dare we say it – closely resembled the sort that top six sides produce.
4. Jarrod Bowen. Surely only promotion is going to see him spend another Christmas in East Yorkshire, and that’s rather how it should be. He’s eviscerating Championship defences on a weekly basis, and deserves a chance to see how he fares in the top division. This transfer window may just be a trifle early to get his move, but a move is surely coming (barring City going up). Let’s enjoy him while we can, because his is a remarkable talent.
5. Kevin Stewart was the sponsors’ man-of-the-match on Saturday. Not an obvious choice perhaps, but that’s only because there was half a dozen strong contenders. It wasn’t exactly undeserved, because he laid a strong foundation in midfield throughout, denying the visitors any kind of toehold in the middle of the pitch. Who’d have thought we’d be in a position of not badly missing Jackson Irvine?
6. Villa next, a side who can’t have expected to find themselves below City at any point this season. There’s no knowing how long this run can continue for, because all good things have to come to an end; but the later it does end, the closer to the top six we’ll get. And if we win again, and go within a few points of the top six…what then? Just how far can City go? Can we really challenge for promotion – or will this amazing run be eventually remembered as a highly enjoyable mid-season spurt that banished relegation fears en route to a satisfying midtable finish? It’s almost pointless guessing any more, because these are strange, heady days. But we’ll travel with confidence, and who knows…
7. How we’ve missed Club Statements from City! Last Thursday was not one of the genre’s vintage, but it did supply several hostages to fortune that can be revisited when the present transfer window closes next month. That said, the claim that sales aren’t likely was carefully worded – “no intention” is not the same as “will not”. And that still wouldn’t be unacceptable, at least not in normal circumstances. A bid of over £10m for either Bowen or Grosicki would test the best of owners, while a serious Premier League club coming in for Bowen would make it hard for City to stand in his way. The problem is that owners who routinely operate in bad faith will never be trusted on this sort of thing, however much wiggle room they provide in club statements.
8. No-one’s talking about takeovers any more, are they? That wasn’t always a bad thing during the due diligence stage, but with the issue disappearing from view it almost certainly means that the ghastliness of the Allam reign is to continue. And that is emphatically a Very Bad Thing. It cannot be anything else – owners who veer between malice and disinterest are never going to end up providing long-term success for the club and its community, and it would be deeply foolish to soften one’s view of their unpleasantness just because things are improving on the pitch. For that, the manager and team deserve untold credit – it is absolutely nothing to do with Ehab or Assem Allam, whose departures from the club we continue to long for.
9. Instead, Assem resurfaces and Ehab emits a garrulous statement, and it’s hard not to fear the very worst: that these appalling, unpleasant, divisive and spiteful owners are preparing themselves to stay. There’ll be repercussions; there’s been a recent ceasefire while takeovers were discussed, but any confirmation that they’re hanging around is certain to break that. Meanwhile, the club’s death spiral – and don’t for a second let a few wins disguise the slow-motion disaster that’s unfolding – will continue.
10. There’ll be podcasts aplenty this week – tonight’s will focus on City’s remarkable present, and tomorrow night, to mark our 200th edition, we’ll have a retrospective look back at the Great Escape season of 1998/99, without whose successful conclusion none of what followed may have been possible. There’ll be a very, very special guest joining us too…
#321 January 7, 2019
1. City couldn’t quite carry their incredible league form into the FA Cup, with defeat at Millwall condemning us to an instant exit from the tournament. It looked for a while as though a much-weakened City was going to prevail in south London, but it wasn’t to be.
2. It irks. It always irks when the side is hugely changed, unsurprisingly plays less coherently than the more settled Championship side and loses. City may not be alone in treating the FA Cup with ill-disguised contempt, and this isn’t a recent complaint, but it’ll never make a lot of sense – particularly given that our prospects of staying up are now are probably over 95%, so why not have a go of things in the FA Cup? How does losing help?
3. Grumble, moan, complain. We’ll probably make the same carping comments next year as well. At least defeat to Millwall wasn’t wholly without positives. Jon Toral played well, George Long looked a reasonable understudy to David Marshall and David Milinković’s appearance showed greater promise than his timekeeping. The latter has often been touted as the sort of player who could break open a tight game; by spring, as sides up and down the land are wearying from the Championship’s remorseless grind, you’d like to think a player of his ilk could play decisive cameos. We’ll see.
4. It was also nice to see Keane Lewis-Potter make his City debut. Regular stiffs-watchers foresee big things for a boy so young he’s barely older than the Circle, and it can only have been a proud moment for him and his family. Bag some more in the ressies, young man, and if all goes to plan there are bound to be a few Championship dead rubbers when the clocks go forward with your name on them…
5. The FA Cup draw is this evening, and having despaired of our previous tie, we’ll now look forward to Millwall getting <best possible tie imaginable at this stage of the tournament given who’s left in>. Bah. Anyway, by making the Third Round’s scheduling unprecedentedly ridiculous this year, it isn’t as if City are alone in not really caring about the Cup. The FA have done more to undermine the competition this season than the Premier League, Sky Sports, BT Sport and wussy managers put together. Dolts.
6. We return to Championship action on Saturday with the visit of Sheffield Wednesday. They lie below City in the table, offering what appears – on paper – an appetising opportunity to gather yet another three points. And with the Owls leaderless while they await the arrival of their new manager, one Stephen Roger Bruce, it isn’t easy knowing what mindset they’ll possess. Bruce will either be physically present, or at least closely watching his future charges from elsewhere, and they’ll all surely want to impress their future manager. However, they could feel in limbo while experiencing this odd and fairly unusual situation of knowing who their next boss is but waiting for him to take over. It won’t be a gimme, and any sense of complacency from City fans would be appallingly misplaced. But if City do rack up another win…
7. So what now for City? The play-offs may feel tantalisingly close, but they remain seven places and seven points away. Not many teams in our immediate vicinity will be eyeing them with any more than wistful hope, and just because we’re recent arrivals to the midtable party doesn’t mean we ought to do any different. Sure, “there’s always one team” – hey, eleven years ago it was about to be us. We’re discounting nothing. But what about the club’s owners?
8. Imagine you’re an Allam. No seriously, imagine it; you can take a disinfecting bath later. Is the situation promising enough to make it worth a rare investment in the side? Are you minded to think that with just a million or two judiciously spent, you might – just might – receive a return on your investment dozens of times greater? Or does the current ultra-austerity remain? We don’t know what Ehab will be thinking. In fact, we aren’t sure that cogitation is really his thing at all. But assuming this higher-level brain function is available to him…is he sticking, or maybe just thinking about having a speculative little twist?
9. Having spent much of the season grouching, then begrudging, we’re enjoying the recent feting of Nigel Adkins. Why not – this turnaround is one of the most startling anyone can remember. City have won relegation battles before, but the way we’ve gone from desperate strugglers to midtable fancy-dans constitutes arguably the most stunningly unexpected transformation of our fortunes in a very long time. Adkins’ job is clearly secure for the remainder of the season, barring a cataclysm that even the vast cosmic force that is TypicalCity may not be capable of wreaking. And he’ll be starting the 2019/20 season with us as well. Capitalise on this, Mr Adkins: you probably have a period of grace in which to plan that isn’t often available to managers in the febrile Championship rat race…
10. There’ll be no AN podcast this evening, but back to normal next Monday. We’ve got a very special guest lined up for a future podcast as well, of which more soon…
#320 December 17, 2018
1. It wasn’t pretty to watch, and a -5 windchill rendered it a physically uncomfortable afternoon for the hardy souls in attendance, but there was a soul satisfyingly warm glow deep inside those fans filing away from the Circle after seeing City record a routine (for City anyway) victory that stretched the unbeaten run to four games and catapulted us to SEVENTEENTH in the Championship.
2. There wasn’t much finesse to Kamil Grosicki’s assist or to Fraizer Campbell’s bundled finish for the first goal, but the ball that precipitated those actions, an on the swivel, arcing pass into the path of the Polish winger by Markus ‘Superbus’ Henriksen, was a flash of loin-stirring sexball.
3. Fraizer Campbell was in the right place at the right time for his and City’s second goal too, slotting home after Brentford keeper Bentley could only parry Grosicki’s shot. With eight goals to his name this season, Campbell seems to have become a bonafide ‘fox in the box’.
4. It’s not unusual for a goal-scorer to take the man of the match award, and Campbell netted twice, so we don’t begrudge him the block of vinyl or whatever it is that men of the matches get now, but Tommy Elphick’s performance was more deserving of recognition.
5. It is, at the moment, time to pause the praise-qualifiers on the job Nigel Adkins has done of late. City were very recently four points adrift of safety; we’re now five clear of the bottom three. That’s an incredible turnaround that we simply didn’t see happening. City are in a terrific run of form, one that’s transformed the season. We remain in obvious danger and there are sure to be bad spells later in the season that may imperil us, however recent weeks give us genuine cause to believe that it could be okay. Well done Nigel Adkins.
6. As City find some form, the gate figures are getting smaller. 10,530 represents the the lowest attendance for a league game at our current home, and we know that in reality the actual attendance was in four figures. The televised visit of Swansea offers the possibility of an even smaller number and it’s dispiriting stuff.
7. City have acknowledged the problem by announcing further discounts for match card holders, but the club still stubbornly refuse to re-introduce concessions despite criticism from the Premier League, the Independent Football Ombudsman, the Football Supporters Federation, and of course fans of Hull City. The membership scheme is an unmitigated failure and must follow the Allams into the dustbin of club history.
8. People have the right to lawfully express themselves how they like at a football match, and if people wished to boo Moses Odubajo on his return to Hull then so be it. Does he deserve it though? We’re not convinced. He wanted away? Well so did Kamil Grosicki on the last transfer deadline day, spending it in Turkey trying to secure a move, and yet some of those scolding Odubajo were in the next breath cheering Grosicki. Sure, we paid Odubajo’s wages while he was injured, but that’s merely fulfilling a contractual obligation, not doing someone who suffered an industrial injury a favour. Oh and if you’re going to shout the pejorative ‘greedy bastard’ at Odubajo, then it’s time to give up shouting the same thing at Fraizer Campbell in the pretence that it is hilariously ironic and somehow honorific.
9. All we want for Christmas is new owners, but it’s looking increasingly likely that we’ll still have the gruesome incumbents in place when the calendar says 2019. Ugh.
10. “Looking at alternative options” [to the Duffen fronted bid] was how the Hull Daily Mail described the Allams approach to leaving. One option that hasn’t been talked about much since it was first announced is the crypto-currency funded initiative backed by the Supporters Trust. Geoff Bielby of the HCST joins us on the broadcast-live Amber Nectar podcast this evening to tell us more about that approach and what unclassified information he has on the Duffen deal. We’re aiming for a 7pm start, you can watch live on Periscope via a Twitter link, or later on YouTube, with the audio only version available to download on Tuesday morning.
#319 December 10, 2018
1. Another away game, another addition to our points haul. The 2-2 draw at Millwall wasn’t as impressive as the previous weekend’s 3-2 win at QPR – not even close, really, either in terms of the outcome or the result. But it’s another point, gleaned in trying conditions to deny relegation rivals what would have been a painful victory. We have to be glad about that.
2. It all looked so promising early in the game. City started rapidly and took a deserved lead, and at that stage it looked as though another win in the capital was on the cards. It’s a real pity City didn’t score what could have been a decisive second during this period.
3. However, when Millwall levelled, we ended up hanging on for half-time, and the third quarter of the game was frankly awful. That Millwall didn’t make the game safe explains why they’re also in trouble, because they had ample opportunity to do so. City were probably as poor as at any time this season between the 46th and 70th minute, and the sheer extent to which we were second best was frightening.
4. Then an equaliser was burgled, and after that neither side really showed enough conviction to suggest they’d end up winning. Overall, City’s claim to deserve a point is a little optimistic, but we’re not too bothered about that. We got the draw, even if troublingly lengthy spells of the game saw us chasing shadows.
4a. Millwall playing music after their goals was quite something. It’s like discovering that Gripper Stebson used Roland’s stolen dinner money to buy a flower press.
5. What a valuable point it is. We’re now a useful three ahead of the bottom three, and that equaliser ensured that Millwall are kept at bay rather than overtaking us. 21 points from 21 games and 19th is probably about as good as this appallingly depleted squad can do at the moment; if we have a decent return over Christmas, it’s possible that we’ll start 2019 in a handy position to avoid relegation. And if the Allam nightmare is finally curtailed and some investment made in the squad…
6. Brandon Fleming made his first League start for City on Saturday, and it must have been a day to remember for the young man. Being outjumped for Millwall’s equaliser must have been a chastening moment, but he didn’t let that unduly unsettle him. He can be proud of his afternoon’s work, and can probably look forward to more first-team action this season.
7. What a deeply dispiriting FA Cup draw. While we always crave a tick ground, at least playing someone from a different division – be it lower or higher – makes for an interesting occasion. Having a second trip to Millwall inside a month is the direct opposite of good. We can’t even pretend it’s good from the standpoint of progressing in the tournament, as home advantage alone will ensure Millwall are favourites to make Round 4. Bah, bah and thrice bah.
8. Nigel Adkins made it to a year in charge through the week. It hasn’t been a year of limitless glory, but instead has seen one relegation battle (successful) segue inevitably into another (barely surviving). Not much of that is his fault, and City’s recent run of good form has helped to establish a sneaking regard for him. He isn’t what we want in the long term. However, he’s giving himself a chance of extending that spell. Par for this season is probably 21st, given the appalling handicap his bosses are inflicting upon him. That City have a good chance of making that is no mean feat. A begrudging tip of the cap.
9. There’s been a lot of conjecture about City’s attendances this season. It’s universally believed that we’ve already had a first ever sub-10,000 League gate at the Circle this season, though the club continue to publish figures that claim we are yet to dip below 11,420 this season. Well, courtesy of a Freedom of Information request to the local authorities, we’ve been passed an official attendance for this season.
10. On 20th October 2018, 9,837 attended City v Preston. A four-figure attendance. City preposterously claimed 12,066 that afternoon, an inflation of the true figure by some 22%. That’s consistent with last season, where the club routinely added a fifth to the true attendances. And that wasn’t even our lowest this season. 11,420 allegedly made it to City v Norwich. Except, they clearly didn’t. Take off a fifth, then perhaps a few hundred more because of the shocking weather, and we’re possibly into the 8,000s. We’re not far from the ground being one-third full. For second tier League matches. What a depressing state of affairs.
#318 December 3, 2018
1. The point against Norwich was both surprising and welcome. Just three days after an emphatic home defeat, the chances of anything good happening against the free-scoring lead leaders appeared remote. Yet with a performance of honest endeavour (and a bit of fortune arriving via an off-colour Norwich and the levelling effect of the shocking weather) City churned out a point that their efforts deserved. The quality was low, but we’ve come to expect that. So diminished are our hopes that simply grinding out a goalless draw at home constituted a good evening.
2. A good evening in particular was enjoyed by Kevin Stewart. His City career has been a huge disappointment, and his enduring underachievement has produced justified despair – certainly too much for one game to wipe away its memory. But, for one match alone, credit where it’s due: Stewart produced a flinty midfield performance, with jagged interventions that made life hard for his Norwich adversaries. He did little on the ball, but then again he (in common with his teammates) didn’t see it often. But he shored up a midfield that was comically lightweight three days earlier. More, please. A lot more.
3. The atmosphere against Norwich was a surreal one. Even allowing for their lofty league position, the visitors brought an impressive contingent, but they ended up being as subdued as their team. With surely fewer than 9,000 souls in attendance on the bleakest of late-autumn evenings, it left the occasion feeling like a tie in the early stages of the League Cup. Sure, as City’s prospects of gaining an unlikely point increased, a defiant throatiness began to develop as the previously cold, wet and fed-up City fans become more engaged in their side’s dogged effort. But the vast swathes of empty seats in a ground barely one-third full spoke loudest of all.
4. But hey, QPR! That wasn’t remotely anticipated. To travel to one of the division’s more on-form sides, snaffle three goals and three points – well, we’d be despairing if a relegation rival unexpectedly did that. For City to do it was deliciously surprising. And well-deserved too. City were an authentic attacking threat all afternoon, gamely survived something of a first-half onslaught when it became 2-1, controlled things nicely when it was 3-1 and didn’t panic (err, too much) when QPR pulled a late one back. Well done lads.
5. And yes, well done Nigel Adkins too. Four points from those two games is a superb return, probably three more than we could have realistically hoped for. With 11 points from 6 games, this is actually a legitimate run of form (even if the Forest match was so awful it’s rather tainted things). We don’t have the size or the squad to maintain this automatic promotion form, but the fact we’ve fleetingly achieved it is quite something. Adkins will probably never be our cup of Darjeeling, but if he gets brickbats when we’re 23rd, he needs acknowledgement when we aren’t.
6. Like astronauts peering through the windows of the International Space Station upon the turning globe below, we marvel at the dizzy heights of NINETEENTH place in the Championship. It’s a position that hardly felt likely after the Forest faux-pas, and we know that we are but two points from 23rd and could slip back into the relegation zone soon, but for now let us take time to acclimatise and gaze upwards: A win next week and defeats elsewhere could see us in 16th place. Stellar stuff!
7. What – if anything – are to make of the disparity between City’s home and away form? Over half of our points have now arrived on the road, and if only away points were counted City would be nestled nicely in 15th. However, only two sides have obtained fewer points at home, and only two other sides join us in having more points away than at home. It may be that the ghastly experience that is a Hull City home match in late-2018 is dragging the side down, and they’re happier on the road. Or it could just be a small statistical quirk that’ll correct itself.
8. Millwall next. Its importance is obvious from the League table. The losers of this will endure a blow that could easily endure until Christmas, while the winners will enter the festive period confident that the worst may be behind them. It won’t be easy – it never seems to be there – but we have to hope that we don’t return north empty-handed, especially as they’re struggling for form. That may be made easier for Saturday’s result, which has alleviated some of the (immediate) pressure. So we’ll travel in reasonable heart. Probably best not to expect a classic though.
9. Millwall is the first of four successive games against sides in the bottom half. Granted, Swansea and Brentford’s positions may be unexpectedly lowly, but it shows they aren’t the formidable opponents they may have been earlier in the season. While City are doing well, and with plenty of tough assignments left this season, it’s important we take plenty more points this month. It’d lift us a bit clear of the relegation zone and boost morale (as well as making the club more attractive to new signings in January), and we’ll need those points if (okay, when) things get sticky again.
10. The draw for Round 3 of the Football Association Challenge Cup takes place this evening, probably at the same time as the AN podcast will be going out live. Tune in to see our disappointment at drawing Wigan at home instead of Ground Tick FC away.
#317 November 26, 2018
1. After the encouragement offered before the international break, City provided a chastening reminder that we aren’t very good and are in serious relegation trouble on Saturday. There was nothing streaky about the 2-0 defeat to Nottingham Forest – we were comprehensively outplayed for pretty much the entire game.
2. It started badly and never really improved. Forest looked a cut above from the very beginning, while City looked wholly ill at ease and didn’t figure in the match at all. Perhaps it was a formation thing (more on that shortly), or a personnel thing, but whatever it was, the gulf in class between City and a side that isn’t even in the top six was dismaying.
3. There is a popular trope among some City fans to decry playing one up front as too defensive and lacking ambition while championing the classic 4-4-2 line-up. Saturday’s game probably won’t change their rigid tactical thinking, but it should. Playing two up front got us nowhere, it simply meant that whenever Forest had the ball (and they did for 61% of the game), 20% of City’s outfield players were not involved in play. Neither Fraizer Campbell or Chris Martin are as mobile as they once were, and they don’t have the engines to be behind the ball when we’re not in possession and ahead of it when we are. One up front is not lacking in ambition, as five goals in the previous three games demonstrated.
4. Chris Martin, eh? He hasn’t impressed at all this season, but Saturday appeared to be a new low for a player whose loan spell with City is proving unsatisfactory for both player and club. He’s slow, has a ropey first touch and seems to have next to no understanding with any his teammates – particularly his notional strike partner Fraizer Campbell. None of this can be any fun for him, but it’s sure as hell not fun watching him a latter day Robbie Turner forlornly harrumphing his way through yet another non-scoring game.
5. Not that he’s alone. We’ll probably never understand what Kevin Stewart does, but even usually semi-reliable performers conspicuously failed to show up on Saturday. Marshall made a few good saves and was blameless with either goal – and that’s about it. Both full-backs looked uncomfortable all afternoon, Bowen was easily shackled, Campbell looked lost without any meaningful support while Grosicki – who did try to make things happen and was even spotted tracking back on occasion – failed to inspire. It was a sullen, miserable afternoon, typified by the grim scenes at the end as stadium was 99% empty by the time the final City player departed. Torrential rain was favoured over staying behind. Sad stuff.
6. It was better for the KCOM rafters hawk though, who again spent a City game skilfully de-feathering a pigeon (sending said feathers spinning onto fans in the North Stand) before feasting on entrails. Impressive stuff.
7. Though we remain a single victory from (perhaps) edging out of the bottom three, the Championship table continues to make bleak viewing. We remain on a points-per-game ratio low enough to probably send us down in May, and there’s little in upcoming games to take much comfort from either.
8. Norwich, tomorrow’s participants in what could be a record-breakingly low gate at the Circle, are in blistering form. The leaders have scored four goals in each of their last three games and won all of their last six. They obviously won’t retain that sort of form forever, and such glorious runs always do come to an end. It’d be a very courageous City fan who backs us being the ones to curtail it, however.
9. We’ve previously not been alarmed by takeover talk falling silent, but disquieting rumours have bubbled up in recent days suggesting that the deal’s in trouble. The reason is unknown, and the source of the rumours is unclear, but a low hum of concern is clearly audible.
10. This matters, because without a takeover and January investment, we’ll probably be a League One side next season. Some clarity would be very welcome.
#316 November 12, 2018
1. What on earth to make of Saturday’s frenetic affair at Birmingham? Both sides will be left somewhat ruing the outcome – Birmingham for losing a two-goal lead, City for conceding a late equaliser. On balance, the result was probably about right. But what a remarkable afternoon.
2. It’s impossible to let much of City’s defending go uncommented upon. After praise had been forthcoming for the notable tightening of things at the back of late, Saturday felt like September again. The two goals gifted to Birmingham before half-time were ridiculous, and had the match drifted to the sort of comfortable defeat that seemed likely at the break, it’d have been self-harm that’d have done it. No side at any level can do that sort of thing. It didn’t look or feel very secure all day.
3. Right at the very end too, City’s defending was again pretty hopeless. An air-kick presented an easy chance for Birmingham’s late leveller, and cost us two points. And goodness knows we’ve coughed up enough late goals already this season.
4. But…wasn’t the stuff inbetween quite exhilarating? Doubly so for being wholly unexpected. Campbell’s predatory brace and Grosicki’s blockbusting free-kick completely transformed the match and it looked as though a side with a long unbeaten record at home were about to lose it. It wasn’t to be, but to even come close was quite stunning.
5. It is a point gained, all considered. Most City fans would probably have taken it on Saturday morning, and definitely at 4pm. It does suggest that the players are playing for Nigel Adkins at the moment too. We’ve taken 7 points from the last 9 available, which is a very good run of form at this end of the table. It hasn’t lifted us out of the bottom three, but we’re level on points with 20th and only a result away from escaping the bottom three for the first time in a while. That there’s even hope of doing that when we were recently four points adrift is no little achievement.
6. It’s also interesting in terms of the longer-term management of the club. If we do assume for a moment that the Allam nightmare is coming to an end, a month ago many would have assumed that Adkins would have been an automatic casualty of a takeover. Now, with his side visibly improving, he can present a case for being allowed to keep control of the team and be allowed to spend whatever funds are available in January. Whether that case is a strong one or a weak one depends upon personal taste – he still isn’t quite to ours – but at least it’s a plausible one.
7. Isn’t it great to see Fraizer Campbell playing the way he is? Four goals in three games, and a constantly buzzing presence up front. He’s a different player to the one that scorched through his first period with City a decade ago, which is understandable given the passing of time. His runs are now more thoughtful than just jet-heeled, for instance. But he’s in the best form of his second spell here, particular now that he’s poaching goals, and an automatic choice up front. More, please.
8. There’s an international break now, so another fortnight in which to take stock. Then City have two home games in three days. They’re both against promotion hopefuls in Nottingham Forest and Norwich, but City have to take heart from the surprising but thoroughly merited win against West Brom nine days ago. We probably have to take something, because as difficult as those games are, the two after that are on the road.
9. With regards to the takeover, no news is at least not bad news. Like a house move, it probably grinds on quietly for quite some time, before excitingly all coming together at the end. At least, that’s what we’re hoping.
10. Let’s daydream: it’s Saturday 22nd December, Father Christmas is coming soon and City have picked enough form to have escaped the bottom three. Swansea at home, and it’s a late kick-off so there’s more scope for pre-match pubbage. The Allams have just slithered away from the club, and a bright new dawn may be about to break. Investment is promised, supporter relationships are being repaired, the club feels as though it’s being mended. The biggest crowd of the season has gathered – expectant, united, optimistic, over the drink-drive limit – and the team that once again properly and unbegrudgingly calls itself Hull City AFC takes to the field, to raucous acclaim…
#315 November 5, 2018
1. Well! Haven’t things changed? Two successive 1-0 wins, and all of a sudden this grotty season has been lent a faint but unmistakeable (and not misplaced) sense of hope. The single goal victory at Bolton was decent, but beating a West Brom side with automatic promotion hopes was authentically impressive. And not just for the result.
2. City deserved this. They absolutely did. It wasn’t a streaky backs-to-the-wall-and-pinch-one-on-the-break kind of win over a top side. City created chances, and while the lingering impression remains that we don’t convert them often enough, we did at least take one. Best of all, City then controlled the remainder of the game with rarely seen assurance and conviction. The defence and keeper will get the plaudits for another clean sheet, and rightly so. Successive shut-outs have capped off a run of seven games in which no side has beaten David Marshall twice in a game, and this defensive improvement has been vital. To stay up, a side often needs little more than to be tough to beat. Well, we’re looking a trickier assignment for opposing sides than we did six weeks ago. It could just be enough.
3. However, the whole side warrants praise for the way West Brom were repelled. Never mind that they clearly had an off-day – even at 50% effectiveness they’d have comfortably rolled us over in September. Now, we can see growing organisation and confidence throughout the side. From Fraizer Campbell’s tireless efforts up front, Dan Batty’s remarkable composure in midfield right through to a defence that is seeing inexperienced players begin to rise to the challenge – well, frankly we didn’t see it coming.
4. But let’s not get too carried away. City are still second bottom after all; these two wins have only stopped us from being hopelessly cut adrift. We’re still progressing than less a point a game and that needs fixing if we’re to survive. The key thing is that we can now start to see a way towards safety. New owners, a few new players in January to augment an improving but still desperately thin squad, and 21st could be ours. We didn’t think that a fortnight ago.
5. It also means we needn’t desperately fear Birmingham next week. They’re having a good season, just three points from the play-offs, and will start as favourites. But a match they thought was a gimme isn’t now. We hope. Any positive result will be very welcome, and may even lift us out of the bottom three. And considering that we were four points adrift of safety a very short time ago, that’d be some turnaround.
6. There was a meeting of the new Supporters’ Committee on Monday. No, we didn’t know about it either. The fall-out has been predictable though, with the club violating guidelines on club-fan consultation by barring the Hull City Supporters’ Trust after their failed – and really quite distasteful – attempts to strong-arm a fans’ group into changing its personnel. That ensured a few days of bad headlines and robust censure from the Football Supporters’ Federation, who are referring to the club to various authorities. How utterly pathetic our club is.
7. The strangest thing (beating even the comical suggestion that the OSC is “independent”) was the claim by the club on Tuesday that some of the “reps” at the meeting “prefer not to be widely publicised”. Now, we would really prefer not to be querying fellow City fans, but you can’t help wondering what the point in putting oneself forward as a “fans’ representative” is if you don’t want fans to know that you’re representing them.
8. But as usual, the real cause of the issue is Hull City AFC themselves, who bar fans from groups and organisations that DO possess a constituency and thus a mandate to represent other fans, and are also willing to do so. And of course, it’s all so short-termist. A hallmark of the Allams’ regime is how the club merely survive from one day to the next, never willing (or perhaps able) to think of anything beyond simply stumbling through whatever self-wrought crisis they’re presently experiencing. But one day, the club will be owned by adults again, who want to engage meaningfully with the fans, and some tough questions will be heading the way of those who helped the Allams spread their poison.
9. Apropos the takeover, the relative silence on that front isn’t particularly concerning. This sort of thing takes time, and much of it occurs quietly, behind the scenes. But…why was there a very slightly discordant note about the news being reported last Wednesday about the Allams “saying farewells”? That would be awfully premature if we’re still at the due diligence scale, and without a preferred bidder even been decisively identified. Coming so very conveniently at a time when the club was copping flak for their ridiculous antics with the Supporters’ Committee is interesting too. We aren’t buying it. And never forget: the Allams may love money, but they already have enough of the stuff, and also have the motivation to inflict even greater ruination of the club if they want to while planting stories about sales and takeovers to amuse themselves in the meantime. Price up the champagne if you wish; but don’t part with your hard-earned just yet.
10. Above all, we ache for the optimism and unity we’ve had before. Watching old clips of City home games at the Circle is hard when you see stands full of City fans all pulling in the same direction as the club. It’s been so long now – last week saw the fifth anniversary of the meeting Assem Allam called with City fans over the name change at which he promised not to proceed with Hull Tigers without consulting the fans (a promise he almost immediately broke). Since then, nothing has felt right. We yearn for City to be mended.
#314 October 29, 2018
1. A week that began with City in the bottom three ended with City still in the bottom three – yet, courtesy of the victory at Bolton, feels a little less hopeless than before. What a pity our brace of away fixtures began with defeat at Bristol City, with a second successive 93rd minute concession wrecking the result. City didn’t play too badly, creating enough good-quality opportunities to have taken the lead. The problem is that while last season, under both Slutsky and Adkins, City always looked like scoring, this season that sharpness in front of goal has fled.
2. Couple that with regular defensive lapses, and we’re always prone to a sucker punch. And so it proved, conceding again in injury time. The team and manager can persuasively argue that this was a harsh result, but that’s the sort of thing that happens when chances aren’t taken and clean sheets are rarities.
3. In some respects, Saturday’s match at Bolton looked quite similar – City played some decent stuff, made chances and for the most part kept the opposition at bay. But it’s all such fine margins sometimes, isn’t it? This time, we took a chance, and came up against a side who couldn’t take any of theirs. And while the 1-0 win at the poetically-named University of Bolton Stadium may not live long in the memory, there’s no disputing its value – or that City deserved a break after conceding twice in injury time within a week.
4. So, we’re still 23rd. But at least not cut adrift. Having kicked off in Lancashire a daunting four points adrift of safety, that deficit has been halved; it is – depending upon how optimistically you view the visit of West Brom on Saturday – possible to escape the bottom three with a single win. Contrast that with Ipswich, whose position of 24th may only be one worse than City, but they’re already five points from the promised land of 21st. That feels pretty ominous when you’re scuffing along at less than a point a game.
5. And 21st is probably still about the summit of our ambition this season. We’re in this position for a reason – the squad and the manager who leads it just aren’t good enough for anything substantially better. Saturday’s match report summed it up: if this season culminates with City ended fourth-bottom with new owners in charge, it will be a success.
6. Meanwhile…is that a marginally improving defence that we see? City are still conceding regularly, but not prolifically any more. Since the appalling loss at Reading over a month ago, City haven’t conceded more than one goal in a game, a spell that included all of the current top three. And yes, there’s a bit of straw-clutching going on here, particularly when we only kept one clean sheet in those half-dozen games…but if things are just tightening up a little at the back, perhaps that’ll just produce enough points over the rest of the season to keep us at least in with a chance.
7. It was a pleasure to see Robbie McKenzie make his first start in the Championship on Saturday. A player who is a full seven months younger than Amber Nectar, he’s been in the squad a lot this season and hadn’t disappointed when introduced from the bench. Forget that injuries and a gruel-thin squad may have accelerated his promotion: he hasn’t let anyone down this season, did well on Saturday, and provides the simple, enduring satisfaction of seeing a promising local lad breaking into the game. Well done young man.
8. West Brom next. They’re proper promotion contenders and are scoring loads this season, so our defensive capabilities are certain to be examined by them. Even though it would keep us in the relegation zone, a point would be very handy. Then again, they’ve haven’t won in three games or kept a clean sheet in six…
9. Away from City, it wasn’t a happy weekend for the national sport. Condolences to the friends and families of the three men and two women who lost their lives in a helicopter crash at Leicester; to the Brighton supporter who passed away after falling ill at their game against Wolves; and best wishes to former England manager Glenn Hoddle, who is gravely unwell following a heart attack.
10. Lastly, best wishes too to North Ferriby United supporters, who are facing a very familiar situation to one that blighted our recent past and whose consequences remain with us to this date. Their owners are apparently set upon renaming the club East Hull FC, and moving it ten miles to Dunswell. It isn’t a situation we’d relish, and as our nearest neighbours of consequence we feel a certain affinity to them. A petition has already attracted over 3,700 signatures – it can be signed here. Meanwhile, when considering this application, we trust that the FA will be guided by the very clear precedent it set when refusing Assem Allam’s odious attempt to foist Hull Tigers upon us.
#312 October 8, 2018
1. It’s been a week of contrasting emotions. The glimmer of hope presented by a doughty draw with Middlesbrough was extinguished in defeat to Leeds, a match that started well but ended pretty pathetically, with City completely unable to lay a glove on their opponents despite trailing only by one.
2. Nigel Adkins’ view of our Tuesday night victors didn’t make any sense. They’re good, quite good in fact, and clearly a mile better than our sorry squad. But the best Championship side in years? They’re not even the best Championship side of this calendar year, and there wasn’t much to suggest that the Hull City class of 2016 wouldn’t overcome them. Mind games to bolster his side’s fragile confidence? Perhaps. But at least make confidence-building remotely grounded in fact, eh Nigel?
3. It was an oddly listless evening. Fewer than 10,000 City fans turned up, and it didn’t feel remotely like any previous City/Leeds fixture at the Circle. When not even the visit of the Champions of Europe can fill seats and clear throats, we know the disease is deep and entrenched. City were alright in the first half, competing well and suggesting that another unlikely point was possible; but the second half response to going behind was abysmal. Sure, City were unlucky to lose Irvine (who is excellent) for Stewart (who is, shall we say, not operating at quite the same level). And they’re better than us. But for pity’s sake, don’t cough up a match like that.
4. If minded towards a charitable disposition, it’s possible to have a degree of sympathy for both players and manager following our latest defeat, this time at Sheffield United. The manager made a courageous (in the Sir Humphrey Appleby sense of the word) decision to shift to 3-5-2 and drop both Bowen and Grosicki; yet he was only 20 minutes and a penalty away from seeing it justified with a surprise point. Meanwhile, the players themselves showed tolerable application, albeit undermined by a familiar lack of quality, but they too were part of an outfit that wasn’t far from a draw against a side now 23 places above us.
5. And if you’re not charitably inclined, and are instead absolutely bastard sick of City losing all the time, then you’ll note yet another defeat, yet another unclean sheet, yet another blank, yet another slide down the table. Which is placing Adkins under considerable pressure. If a takeover is in the offing – which we’ll deal with shortly – then he won’t be sacked now, as any new owners will probably want to decide who they want taking the club forward. There’s also no prospect of the Allams spending another penny on the club they don’t have to by paying him off. So we’re stuck with him for now. And of course, it’s up for debate as to how much of this unbearable shitshow is even his fault anyway. Our view is that he’s a secondary but not inconsequential culprit. Who sometimes does our head in.
6. If Kamil Grosicki is fit and not acting the idiot in the dressing room, he has to play. He is by some distance our best footballer, and dropping him against a side who had eyes on the top of the table, in tandem with our form goal-scorer (for what that actually is) in Jarrod Bowen, was a batty decision. Adkins doesn’t have enough league points nor brownie points to be making calls that lend credence to the idea that his ego is getting in the way.
7. We suspect that when Ehab Allam recently asked the Guardian newspaper “How is this club decaying?” he was being rhetorical, but everyone else but him knows the answer, because they know what recent home attendances have been, and they’ve seen the current league table.
8. It’s takeover gossip season again. Except…are we genuinely close this time to the Allam nightmare ending? The midweek document unearthed on Company’s House, plus seemingly categorical statements about bids, interested consortia together with names and nationalities bodes well. We’ve been here before of course, and a man like Ehab Allam would no doubt regard raising the hopes of a city only to destroy them as a worthwhile use of his time. So, the champagne isn’t yet bought, let alone transferred to ice – but we may begin pricing it up soon.
8a. Of course, if Paul Duffen returns, we may downgrade to just fizzy wine. The former City chairman would return with considerable baggage, much of it decidedly unappealing. His fingerprints were all over the descent into financial doom that brought about the Allams in the first place. Of course, we’d take him over Assem and Ehab, in the same way a particular nasty dose of ‘flu is preferable to a right good Novichoking. But that isn’t to say that his comeback will be a cause for unrestrained celebration. He’d better have learned a thing or two about responsible housekeeping.
9. But hey, it might not be him. Or it may not happen at all. So we’ll just wait, and hope. There’s no point appealing to the Allams’ better nature to sell, because their nature is purely about money and spite. But at least it means there is a language they understand. So come on, someone. Take a punt on a broken club, because the world has seen what we can be, and could be again if handled right. Get kids and old folk back in; treat disabled fans properly, open the Upper West, call us by our bloody name, make Hull proud of its foremost sporting institution again. You won’t regret it.
10. Bit of housekeeping: two thirds of our editorial team are moving house at the moment. Bear with us while posting is light, and excuse the lack of a podcast this week (KCOM are partly to blame here, if you can possibly imagine that). Back after the international break.
#311 October 1, 2018
1. A point against Middlesbrough on Saturday was very welcome, and means that City have already exceeded our low expectations for the horrible trio of games that we’re one-third of the way through. We’d have remained outside the bottom three even with a loss, but with an ever-worsening points-per-game ratio, and it really was tough to envisage anything other than a loss – after all, Middlesbrough would be top if they’d won – so we have to be pleased with a draw.
2. City weren’t bad value for it either. It was a decidedly low-quality game, with Middlesbrough weirdly unwilling to shift from their new, direct style of play even when presented with opposition as accommodating as City. That meant that providing City could stand up to Middlesbrough’s unsophisticated style, they could stay in the game – and they did. And that’s to their credit, as City folding under repeated bombardment hardly required a feat of mental gymnastics to imagine.
3. However, stand up to it City did, and on this occasion we didn’t see the sort of pathetic collapse when going behind that scarred the trips to Wigan and Reading, so a slightly less feeble mentality is welcome. And however streaky the leveller, by the end of the match Middlesbrough hadn’t done enough to deserve victory, and City had done enough to argue their case for a draw, particular given the elevated standing of the visitors.
4. Two men emerged with particular credit. Eric Lichaj is quietly becoming the standout purchase of the latest summer of self-harm, partly due to his apparent flexibility at the back. When Jordy de Wijs limped off in the first half, Kingsley replaced him and moved to left-back, requiring Lichaj to move inside. He acquitted himself well, and has done so since joining. He seems to relish a scrap, often looks to move forward when in his regular full-back berth and in a side conspicuously lacking on-field leadership, he doesn’t go missing.
5. The other is David Marshall, probably our player of the season so far. Middlesbrough offered surprisingly little threat to his goal, and but we’d have lost the point at the end if not for a superb low save. Diving to his right, he showed superb reflexes and crucially, a strong hand to deflect a very good header wide of the goal. That sort of header so often finds a way to get past even a keeper who gets a hand to it, and it was a tremendous save. We’d be clamouring to acclaim such an intervention by Myhill/McGregor/etc, and we should do it for Marshall too.
6. This brings us to Leeds. Despite having been presented with the Championship trophy several weeks ago, the fourth time in a row they’ve won the division before the barbecues were put away for the winter, the Champions of Europe have had just the faintest wobble lately, winning only one of their last five. Problem is, they really have looked the real deal at times this season – back in the days when the balance of footballing power in Yorkshire was shifting from West to East, this’d have been a game to relish. The ground would be a sell-out, and we’d have looked forward to it for a while. Perhaps not so much now. There obviously won’t be a sell-out, and if Leeds turn up they could win easily. A queasy notion.
7. It’s up to City to stop that happening. And while that’s easier said than done when there’s an obvious difference in class, if they at least make a tolerably good game of it, we’ll have to make do with that. The same mentality that was on show at the Madejski Stadium could see a massive home defeat inflicting. But the sort of quiet application that existed when grinding out a point on Saturday? And hey, we’re unbeaten in two home games and they haven’t won either of the last two away…
8. Alright, enough. The likeliest outcome is a Leeds win, and then a Sheff Utd win on Saturday, by which time we’d very possibly be back in the bottom three. The problem is that we’re in too much of a predicament to be giving away the hard games and looking at the easier ones, because we’re perfectly capable of losing those too. Give it a go, City.
9. Have you read Jon Parkin’s autobiography? It’s an extremely graphic tale of football, drinking, legal difficulties and defecation, and not for the easily grossed out. The big revelation in the one chapter on his eventful spell at City is that it was obvious from the moment Phil Brown as an assistant to Phil Parkinson that he was after the top job himself, something which may not surprise us but has never been boldly claimed by anyone before. The chapter does not flatter Brown (the author hates him) nor the first team coach, the unrelated Steve Parkin (the author really, really hates him). The candour shown by Parkin as far as his failings are concerned make us rather like him again, and a most astute observation was that on meeting Phil Parkinson for the first time, he deduced that the new gaffer for the 06/07 season wouldn’t be around for long … because he was holding a clipboard.
10. We won’t be podcasting this evening, but will be aiming for Thursday night instead, taking in both the Middlesbrough and Leeds home fixtures.
#310 September 24, 2018
1. Wigan first, if only because a timid and deserved defeat at a newly promoted side was the stand-out highlight of the week. This was a messy and cheap defeat. City started well, failed to capitalise and capitulated when falling behind, being fortunate not to find the game irretrievably lost. Then, when a goal that halved the deficit arrived to stun everyone, our attempts to wrest a point back to East Yorkshire were quite pitiful.
2. Everything about this game worried us. We aren’t going to enjoy many periods of relative dominance this season, and it’s vital we score when they do arrive. However, for all that City started brightly, and for all that Nouha Dicko is a tireless forward runner, neither looked particularly likely to score – and so a strong beginning was wasted.
3. If that was annoying, what followed was disastrous. When Wigan gained the lead, City’s reaction was frankly contemptible. The Tigers’ conspicuously non-leading captain Markus Henriksen bemoaned the stressful nature of this, but any distress the players felt was nothing compared to the ghastliness of watching. Wigan – a good side playing well – were given total freedom to run the game how they saw fit, with no-one in black in amber looking remotely willing or capable of altering anything. It was a dismal response, and it was a miracle we didn’t end up 4-0 down at half-time. Not that it mattered, because when City did pull it back and make the game (theoretically) a contest, Wigan were hardly troubled in a woefully lifeless second half.
4. Questions about Nigel Adkins’ team selections rightly featured in the post-mortem. Five changes from the side that beat Ipswich to give us a degree of hope raised eyebrows. Sure, the Championship’s Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday grind requires squad rotation. But we don’t have a squad, and while that’s the fault of the owners (and we are most definitely not forgetting them today), acting as though we do have one when we don’t isn’t wise.
5. And that, remember, was the highlight of the week. Because if Wigan was poor, the 3-0 kicking at Reading was disgusting. A revoltingly soft goal from a set-piece was gift-wrapped for the Royals – previously pointless at home, remember – and from then on the direction of the match was set. Tackles were routinely shirked, blue shirts were ignored and accommodatingly stood off from, passes were misplaced, runs were half-hearted – it was a gutless offering in the first half.
6. AND IT GOT WORSE. A farcical second half saw City defend like a Hull Sunday League side rueing their midnight decision to go to Piper instead of getting cheesy chips and at least a few hours of sleep. It was a wholesale surrender, the sort of loathsome and deliberate dereliction of duty that costs careers, and deserves to.
7. There’s loads of blame to dole out, and few deserve to escape it. The players may not be good enough for anything but a grim scramble to 21st, but this week still hasn’t been remotely good enough from them. We look an incoherent, disinterested mess, and a huge improvement in their collective endeavour is urgently needed.
8. The manager is probably not good enough either, and though he got us to safety last season, that increasingly looks more down to Harry Wilson and Abel Hernández than his managerial acumen. In the aftermath of the Reading debacle, his future is being questioned too. Deservedly so; we didn’t expect a great deal this season, but the manner of the defeats is as worrying as the increasing frequency of them.
9. But really, what would sacking him accomplish? With the Allams openly running the club into the ground, the idea that they’d pay the necessary severance fee and then spend enough money to secure a suitable replacement is nonsense. Let us never, ever forget: THEY are the reason this club is in a death spiral, not the players or the manager. The Allams are murdering the club, they are the ones responsible for all of this.
10. It isn’t likely to get any better. Upcoming fixtures against Middlesbrough (2nd), Leeds (1st) and Sheff Utd (4th) don’t have a points-laden feel to them. If we lose all three, we’d be on seven points from 12 games. Avoiding relegation after such a start would be a tall order. At the moment, it’d be a surprise if we aren’t in the Checkatrade Trophy next season.
#308 September 10, 2018
1. In a week uninterrupted by City playing, Ehab took it upon himself to provide the entertainment, with a comically self-pitying self-justifying soft-soap interview with The Guardian. We won’t waste much time on it; it was vacuous drivel for the most part from a man whose separation from reality is almost certainly irreversible.
2. The most interesting thing was the scornful reaction from City fans. With few exceptions, the attempt to pacify us with talk of a possible takeover was ignored. The club is perhaps up for sale, but only in a purely theoretical sense. Ehab’s here, he’s clearly enjoying his stranglehold on a community asset, and the idea that he’d sell before the final parachute payment arrives is preposterous anyway.
3. Still, Harry Maguire’s new long-term contract at Leicester means there’s less chance of a £10m+ sell-on fee arriving at City. Ordinarily we’d be salivating at the prospect of an eight-figure sum heading our way, but that seems pointless under the current regime. The reduction in the prospects of that occurring at least removes an incentive to cling beyond the final parachute payments arriving.
4. Meanwhile, the takeover rumours seem even more far-fetched and desperate than ever. We remain acute admirers of Adam Pearson, but it really is time to let it go now – he left a long time ago, his commitment to one of the local egg-chasing franchises is a puzzle but appears quite sincere, and he isn’t coming back. Which leaves what? Paul Duffen and mystery consortia, other egg-chasers…let’s face it, we’re stuck with the Allams for the foreseeable future. Whatever division they end up depositing us into.
5. It’s been quiet on the protest front this season, with apathy yet to sublime into anger. What could change that? Things on the pitch have been poor without quite being ruinous, though City’s home form has been shocking. Ehab’s latest interview is merely reaffirmation of his low-wattage nature rather than especially infuriating. What is it going to take?
6. City’s latest act of dopiness won’t tip anyone over the edge, but will certainly have created plenty of furrowed brows in East Yorkshire: you now need a Match Card to attend U23 games. A Match Card that costs £12, and was offered free for less than two days in the summer. U23 attendances are obviously modest and few will be affected, but this is just another pointless, petty little aggravation.
7. This is one of many issues the club is refusing to discuss with supporters, with all structured dialogue with fans’ groups apparently severed, despite dishonest contentions to the contrary – though we did very much enjoy the recent assertion that the Official Supporters’ Club is “independent”. Yet still the FA and EFL refuse to act. The former did at least intervene decisively on the name change idiocy; the latter have been pathetic throughout – and not just with us either, as the despairing fans at Blackpool, Charlton et al will testify.
8. Alright, football. After the international break, it feels like a pivotal week or so coming up for City, with games against two of the sides actually below us in the table sandwiching a trip to midtable Wigan. We really had better get something fairly decent from those three games, because the three that follow are against the current top three.
9. City always seem to do well at home to Ipswich (providing Danny Coles isn’t playing), and terming it a must-win match isn’t a hopeless mis-application of the phrase. Something has to give on Saturday: we haven’t got a point at home yet, they haven’t got a point away. A win would put City back to a point a game average, which will always give you a good chance of staying up. The prospect of slipping three points behind that run rate isn’t a happy one, however.
10. Anyone missing the animated gifs yet?
#307 September 3, 2018
1. After a midweek pummelling in the League Cup, losing “only” 2-1 in the League match that immediately followed almost felt like a moral victory. And it wasn’t bad, at least not by the hugely reduced standards that now apply to this ravaged squad. After the pitiful non-performance against Blackburn that garnered a crop of boos at full-time, the defeated Tigers were at least applauded from the field this time. Straw-clutching maybe, but everything more valuable than a straw has been sold, so we’ll take what we can.
2. City started the game well against Derby, so to concede yet another absurdly cheap goal was maddening. From the off, we looked a yard sharper than at almost any time this season, and we were just beginning to wonder if a rare home win might be ours when Jordy de Wijs continued his rotten start to life in England with another witless episode. Hanging out a leg with no imminent danger is just ridiculous, and he absolutely must sharpen up if he’s to remain in the side.
3. It wasn’t an enormous surprise that City wilted afterwards, with a flurry of shots raining down on the (once again very good) David Marshall. Had we gone 0-2 down it could’ve got as ugly as last Tuesday. As it was, the equaliser was a surprise, but also the result of an elegant and sweeping piece of play.
4. What a pity it couldn’t be held onto. Derby’s winner hadn’t really looked like coming, but City are always a side capable of coughing up a cheap concession, and this was yet another example. It’s impossible to imagine any team that defends as ineptly as ours staying up. If you need a couple of goals every week just to get a point, no way are you surviving.
5. We’re largely unmoved by the arrival of two last minute loanees on Friday. Those who did arrive are actually better than we expected, and they’ll bolster the side and the squad. But it’s too little, and as usual, too late. That the latest summer transfer window would be a calamity carries the same surprise as the sun rising in the east. It’s a faithful implementation of club policy as directed by the Allam family, and while the annual ritual of managers publicly railing against it illustrates its folly, it hasn’t changed this year, and we can expect this to continue until a change of owners occurs.
6. Are City now equipped for this relegation battle? Maybe. We’ll need a bit of luck with availability, because the chastening 4-0 ragging by Derby in the League Cup illustrates that however commendable our young Tigers are, they’re best off accompanying established players rather than replacing them. A biting injury crisis and/or a rash of suspensions will make the long hard winter that looms even harder. Add to that the sale of anyone good in January, and we could be done for. But we aren’t gone yet, and we have to just hope that enough breaks for us between now and May to ensure it’s a second tier club the Allams pretend to sell.
7. Following the bizarre breakdown of his proposed move to Bursaspor, Kamil Grosicki must now put up with us until the New Year; and we must put up with him. A player with abundant talent but cursed with a foul attitude, it’s hard to see him being an asset between now and the next transfer window. No-one is happy with his continuing employment at City – and while it’s plainly daft to say he’s City worst ever player (there are scores of strong candidates for this non-accolade) there can’t be many whose natural ability and actual achievements are so far apart.
8. Is it fair to say that Adkins doesn’t fancy David Milinković much?
9. We now have an international break. On our return, and it’s faintly ludicrous to say this, we have a game against bottom side Ipswich at the Circle on September 15th that actually has a six-pointer feel to it. Yep, ludicrous.
10. We certainly daren’t lose any more home games. City have lost their last six matches at the Circle, a dreadful record that isn’t greatly alleviated by being split over two seasons. Being easy-beats in your home matches is a good way to ensure relegation before May, and while we sympathise with the manager and players for having to play in a three-fifths empty stadium in front of balefully unhappy fans, that’s the fault of the Allams, not us, and they’re somehow going to have to get used to it and start getting some points at home.
#306 August 20, 2018
1. A weekend horror show can often render an earlier midweek fixture oddly distant in the memory. The Blackburn débâcle means that the penalty shoot-out victory at Sheffield United just six ago feels an event a month behind us. But it happened, and though we won’t be wasting energy on straw clutching any more, when viewed in isolation it wasn’t a bad night. A very young side acquitted itself well, and kept its nerve during the (admittedly low-pressure) series of spot-kicks at full time. A successful evening.
2. Not that Derby at home is a just reward for it. But that fixture itself ties into the calamity against Blackburn. Just what sort of attendance can we expect for that?
3. We’ll take Oliver Norwood’s comments about signing for Sheffield United with a pinch of salt. He’s hardly going to express sadness at having signed for his new employers, and anyway, if he wasn’t keen on joining a club that didn’t value him highly enough to meet his valuation and that’s notorious in professional football for being a complete basket case…who can blame him?
4. Not that his decisive penalty miss didn’t elicit a small chuckle, however. Though it does raise the probability of him scoring the winner in a League game this season to something approaching 99%…
5. Blackburn. Oh dear, Blackburn. A pitiful non-performance from a side that isn’t good enough to survive at this level, managed by a man who knows that and has realised (too late) that desperately-needed support will not be forthcoming.
6. City were abject. The goal was another comically soft concession from a defence that no more looks like keeping a clean sheet than a 14 year old boy who’s just prised open the parental lock on the domestic wi-fi. Even more alarming was the response, which was hopeless. And yes, we know this side isn’t good enough, and that the bench offers little, but even taking all of those allowances into account, it still wasn’t acceptable. Not by a distance.
7. To have Nigel Adkins starting to ponder his own future before August is even through is quite something. A man of garrulous optimism whose cathartine rubbernecking of Leonid Slutsky’s ill-fated spell will always grate now wonders if it was all worth it. He’ll almost certainly be back to normal very soon, posting on social media about wholesome breakfasts, but frustration at the owners’ negligence is breaking through more often.
8. We have around a dozen days to perform emergency surgery on this squad. It probably depends on finding someone willing to spend lots of money on Kamil Grosicki, and even in the present day market there’s no guarantee anyone’s going to be that unwise. And even then the manager may not see any meaningful assistance. We’ll probably cobble together a loan or two from Premier League sides for players they haven’t yet managed to offload – but as usual, it’s all too little, all too late.
9. The club no longer has the guts to announce its inflated attendances during the game, but it emerged after the match that it was officially 12,233. We know they are usually around 20% fewer people there than claimed, which gives us 10,200; and a rumour that it was 10,002 has been widely spread. Both of these figures feel about right. It’s only a matter of time before the first sub-10,000 actual attendance, and we wouldn’t rule out the club having to announce one even with the 20% addition. Three-fifths of the stadium lie empty, and the club refuses to change the despicable policies that are ensuring that. It’s a disgrace, and a tragedy.
9a. Facilitating contactless payment at stadium food and drink kiosks would be a low level plus point at a normal club, but while City persist with a concession free membership scheme (that if a Tweet this weekend is to be believed, sees the deceased threatened with legal action) and a policy of weakening the squad one transfer window at a time, it’s all a bit ‘polishing the brass on the Titanic’.
9b. Oh and it didn’t work.
10. So let us be absolutely clear: this club is in severe difficulty, but it isn’t dying, it’s being killed. Assem and Ehab Allam are the killers, and they have brought shame upon their family name. They probably don’t give a toss – for too long we’ve believed the old man’s pious claims to regard his legacy as important, but we don’t believe that any more. The only – ONLY – explanation for any of this is revenge. Pure, callous revenge. And we despise them for it.
#305 August 13, 2018
1. The only surprise about the final day of the summer transfer window is that some people were surprised by Hull City’s lack of activity. It should be obvious to everyone by now that beyond merely ensuring that there are enough flesh units to fulfil fixtures, the owners don’t care about the quality of the squad, because doing so would impact how much money can be taken out of the club.
2. Nigel Adkins may be one of the surprised ones though… his quotes about signings went from reiterating the need to do more business (“We are not as strong as we need to be” and “We’re trying to make permanent signings if we can”), to being sanguine about failing to bring relatively inexpensive players in such as Brighton’s Oliver Norwood who had a £1.5m valuation (“They have a fee they don’t want to move on, there’s not a big gulf”), to convincing himself that the loan market might save us and that’s just fine (“We talk about the transfer window finishing, the permanent one, but the loan window is still open for the rest of the month”). Perhaps we should feel for him, but it’s hard to believe he didn’t know what he was letting himself in for.
3. Some people may have groaned when Nigel Adkins said Jordy de Wijs and David Marshall, poor on opening night against Aston Villa, would start at Hillsborough, but there is little value in throwing a new signing adapting to his surroundings and our most experienced goalkeeper under the bus. The votes of confidence paid off too, as both played well at Sheffield Wednesday.
4. City themselves did, well, alright at Hillsborough. When it came, the lead felt merited, and there were opportunities to extend it. There were good spells against Villa too – only one point may have been taken so far, but in general play we haven’t disgraced ourselves. Now, playing well outside both penalty areas only gets you so far, but in these desperate times, it’s a straw to clutch at.
5. Alas, the lead wasn’t capitalised upon with a second goal. Carrying on from last season’s comical capacity for conceding penalties was maddening (and it was a penalty), and as soon as we coughed up an equaliser then – as per Aston Villa seven days ago – it felt as though there was only one side likely to win it.
6. We just don’t feel as though we’re going to keep many clean sheets this season. That was the case last season, though City’s leakiness was matched with uncommonly effective goalscoring. It’s hard to imagine us scoring enough to combat an equally poor goals-against column this season, so if we don’t tighten up, we’re in trouble. But that takes us to the Allams’ refusal to assemble a proper squad…
7. Sheffield United in the League Cup tomorrow night; there is little imagination in such a draw, but we do have a history (and quite a long one) of some fair old ding-dongs at Bramall Lane. In this more sanitised age, it’s nice to think a match so far back in the chain of importance will still produce an atmosphere and a fine game of football.
8. And we follow that with a home game in the Championship against Blackburn Rovers, who are starting to respect themselves again after a few difficult years, and have a proven manager at this level in Tony Mowbray. A first league win should be more than doable against a side who were in League One last term and have started this campaign with a brace of draws, but there’s only one team evidently on the up in that fixture, and it ain’t us.
9. It’s hard to know if the Head of Marketing and Communication was being hopelessly naïve or was wilfully antagonising supporters when they boldly proclaimed the business side of the Club had been ‘Hull City Tigers’ since 2001 on Twitter. We’re hoping it’s the former.
10. They have overseen the reversal of the pointless ‘Hull Tigers Academy’ rebranding on Social Media after all, so hurrah for that.
#304 June 11, 2018
1) Farewell then, David Meyler. It’s been on the cards for a while, ever since the player himself disclosed that no new contract would be forthcoming. It’s still immensely sad to see him go. He was a mainstay of so many of the good things, and he leaves a sizeable hole not just in the midfield, but in the character of the City squad. An engaging personality on Twitter, a courageous player on the pitch and a (belated) cult hero in the stands, he’s left to join another former fans’ favourite at Reading. Best wishes, David. And thanks for everything.
2) Abel Hernández signing a new contract with City never felt remotely likely, and so it proved. An accomplished goal-scorer in the Championship, Premier League and at international level, who cost £10m, leaves on a free transfer. Such colossal ineptitude is par for the course, and we’re largely immune to it now. Again, we must just offer best wishes to a player who often surprised us with his work-rate even in unglamorous surroundings. Even if we were going to try to replace him, it’d be difficult and costly. However, we aren’t going to.
3) Also departing is our club captain Michael Dawson. We also won’t be trying to replace him, not when there are plenty of mediocre, parachute-payment-non-disrupting loanees out there. On the field, he might not actually be impossible to replace, for it’s impossible not to have seen his decline this season. If their scouts have seen what we’ve seen, Nottingham Forest cannot possibly hope to still be fielding him in their first team towards the end of his two year contract. Still, it’s a nice story for him to return to his boyhood club in the late-autumn of his career, and who could blame him for wanting to leave us anyway? He’s clearly a model professional, evidenced by the fact that his best football of a decidedly patchy season came after he was declined permission to leave in January. So many players would have sulked; he resolved to improve. We’ll miss his leadership, which was understated but effective, and he leaves us with thanks.
4) On and on the exodus goes. Allan McGregor has re-joined Rangers, where he started his career 20 years ago. A big earner who had a big season, the presumed negatives of the former were always going to outrank the latter with the price-of-everything-value-of-nothing cretins who are befouling our club. And he too leaves with nothing to prove, having amassed a fine body of work while at City. Pointing to his occasional errors is a fool’s errand; all keepers make them. A combative attitude coupled with a capacity for remarkable shot-stopping make him a legitimate contender for City’s finest post-war keeper. We’ll miss him.
4a) It leaves City in need of a keeper, too. At the end of 2016/17 we had three: McGregor, Marshall and Jakupović. The last of these opted to become Leicester’s third choice after an insulting contract offer, while it hasn’t remotely worked out for Marshall here. However, yachts aren’t cheap, so we’ll have to assume that we’re just going to have to make the best of it with Marshall, presumably with a yoof on the bench – and, in the event of injury/suspension, in the first team too.
5) Overall then, summer has gone largely as expected. No attempt has been made to retain senior players, and obviously replacements haven’t arrived. Not only do we presently have a squad a long way from being able to stay up next season, we’re not likely to either. Little wonder City’s odds of relegation have halved in the past few weeks.
6) It won’t get any better, obviously. Grosicki will probably be next, while anyone else with the acute misfortune to have Ehab Allam as their employer must be instructing their representatives to explore other options. It may be cricket and World Cup weather, but a chill wind assails the Tiger Nation. Already, the good times that were bookended by Peter Taylor and Steve Bruce are fading in the memory, like teenage romance a dozen summers ago.
7) Still, City have probably made football history this summer. With the announcement that prices for next season will not be confirmed until October, they have surely become the first club ever to wait until AFTER a season has begun before confirming the cost of going. We’re not laughing, and we’re not crying. We’re just numb.
8) Given the toxic miasma that envelops Hull City, it should come as no surprise when almost everything that is associated with the club is regarded with cynicism and disdain. However, the launch of the 2018/19 primary kit by Umbro was pleasingly free of negativity: it was executed well, the club’s name was used prominently in marketing (even if it is ludicrously absent from the kit itself) and as for the new shirt, shorts and socks, they appear to be widely admired.
9) No wonder. Umbro have delivered another doozy of a kit. Stripes have been retained, but given a modern and fresh look. There’s enough of a field of amber to prevent black raglan sleeves, used in concert with black stripes, from making the shirt and kit overall look dark.
9a) Consider us big fans. Sure, we don’t like what the 1 904 crest represents, and TIGERS on the back of the neck shows that the club are so inept at marketing that they break the branding guidelines they claim to work to. Neither of these things can be laid at the feet of Umbro though, the brand with the double-diamond are doing an exceptional job of making Hull City look good in an aesthetic sense, even if everything appears to be falling apart.
10) Amid the stark contrast of City plumbing sub-subterranean depths and the growing excitement of seeing whether our attempts to navigate the World Cup betting odds were successful, there came an unexpected glimmer of good news. Sports Minister Tracey Crouch, widely criticised for ignoring the obvious appeal of safe standing earlier this year, now appears open to it. Well done to her for having the courage to admit her original stance may have been wrong, which is probably not a common trait among politicians, and of course to the tireless campaigning of the FSF.
#303 May 14, 2018
1. Eight days after 2017/18 sidled to its conclusion, the overriding emotion remains relief. It’s a sentiment that’s two-fold. Relief, of course, that the season ended with City avoiding a relegation that (for a time) seemed quite possible. As Nigel Adkins turned Leonid Slutsky’s free-scoring chaos-merchants into grimly dull loss-accumulators, the fate that was befalling Sunderland appeared ours too. It’s scandalous for a side with the distorting benefits of parachute payments to be anywhere near relegation, and this season will be remembered, if at all, as being an atrocious one. But it could have been worse.
2. Therefore, our relief is also for it being over. Never mind the occasional highs – pulverising Birmingham in September, the customary win at Nottingham Forest, the 0-5 and 5-5 insanity of April – this was mostly a season of gruelling inadequacy laced with regular off-field malice. 2017/18, goodbye and good riddance.
3. We said farewell with a 1-1 draw at Brentford that was actually one of the better days of the season. A hot day, a proper terrace, affable surroundings and a non-defeat all made for a better send-off than the campaign as a whole probably deserved. And it was a useful reminder that whatever else the Allam family are stripping away from the club, our fundamental spirit remains. Seeing City fans cavorting on the Griffin Park concrete well after the final whistle was an uplifting experience to take into the summer.
4. Already, the exodus begins. We’re fortunate that in the Allams we have owners who know better than to treat employees correctly and persuade them to sign new contracts; and so, another summer in which the first team – not that great to start with – is dismantled. Nigel Adkins is making brave little noises about doing our business early, but that won’t happen. We’ll sell or release anyone who’s any good or who may have the temerity to request a wage befitting their skill and experience, and stuff the squad half-full of mediocre loanees in late August. There’s no point in pretending anything else will happen – it’s the Ehab Allam way, and just because it’s pathetically failed twice doesn’t mean he’s anywhere near bright enough to have spotted a pattern yet.
5. As we’ve already touched upon, it isn’t a great first team that’s been dismantled, though it’ll probably end up being better than what replaces it. But among those leaving is a genuine star of the past decade, and someone who deserves to be recalled fondly in years to come: David Meyler. Long-term possessor of a few obstinate detractors, he won everyone over towards the end of his time here, and participated in so many of the famous achievements in our recent past. A player of unswerving commitment, under-rated ability and unerring courage, he’ll be greatly missed. Thanks for everything David, and best of luck for the future.
6. It isn’t just first teamers going – as always at this time of year, youth team players judged not to have made the grade are being released. That’s always pretty sad, and we hope that as many of them as possible make it elsewhere. However, it was galling to see a common thread running throughout the departing comments of so many early 20s players: that they were never given enough time on the pitch to prove themselves. It’s understandable that opportunities in City’s first team have been limited given our recent Premier League past, but why were so few sent on loan instead of being abandoned in the U23s? Now past the first flush of youth, they’re having to find new clubs with younger prospects already coming up behind them and virtually no first team experience on their CVs. That’s epic, tragic mismanagement.
7. The club is going to meet with the FSF and SD over concessions. We hope those two fine organisations are ready for the full technicolour horror of meeting an Allam, because even though they’ve been extensively warned, there’s nothing like the real thing to make you realise just how unqualified they are to run a football club. Meanwhile, City continue to haemorrhage members and we still no fixed prices for next season.
8. A new crest! That we get a say in! You can see why this looks superficially good. However, the mechanism for selecting it is ridiculous. Phase 1 (yes, there are phases) requires fans to choose other fans, who’ll then sit alongside “community voices” and “influencers”. The issues are so widespread here we’re staggered (or perhaps not) that no-one’s thought of them. But just in case they haven’t: “community voices” doesn’t even require one to be a City fan. Therefore, some Leeds or rugby supporting bell-end could actually end up having a say on our future crest. And that won’t end well. As for “influencers”, the club has managed to alienate pretty much all of them anyway, from ex-players to local media. So, that’s phase 1, with fan nominations, non-City fans and uninfluential influencers, all to be revealed on (naturally) an unspecified date. So far, so shit.
9. Phase 2. Another sodding vote, on “crest elements”. Presumably they’ll be shortlisted by either Ehab or whichever stooge is doing his bidding at the moment, in order to avoid anything remotely good. Then we can choose a tiger (seriously). Then the “creative panel” will meet twice with the club to decide things, which appears to arm Ehab with a right of veto anyway in case the whole pointlessly torturous process has resulted in anything non-terrible someone sneaking through. And good designs don’t happen by committee anyway. Then there’ll be a BIG REVEAL at another unspecified date next year…all announced on a page that finishes up by calling us Hull City Tigers. What a joke.
10. That’s us done for a bit. We’ll pop up occasionally during the summer, chiefly to despair about whatever idiocy that family inflicts upon us next, but like you, we need a break from the whole circus. Enjoy the World Cup, the summer’s cricket and whatever else it is you do away from City, thanks for the comments/criticism/insults/reading/listening to our exasperated output, and we’ll see you in August.
#302 April 30, 2018
1. Thank God it’s almost over. A season of wretchedness on the field and malice off it had a fitting finale on Saturday, as City crumpled to a characteristically scruffy 2-0 defeat to a dour but organised and motivated side. It had everything that’s made 2017/18 an ordeal: flickers of promise, a pathetically cheap goal conceded and a pitiful response thereafter. City were crap, and got exactly what they deserved from the game.
2. A dead rubber at Brentford aside for those of an especially masochistic bent, the ghastliness is at a close. We’ve hated this season, and while a summer without City is usually a cause for sadness, we’re frankly glad we don’t have to put up with them for a few blessed months.
3. The class of 2017/18 has been deeply uninspiring, and even if its major deficiency has been quality rather than application, it’s been hard to warm to them. That’s part of the problem with mediocre loanees signed in a panic at the end of the transfer window – apart from not being especially good, their transient nature makes the fan-player bond harder to establish. And sure, there are exceptions, but generally speaking a player who’s only here for a short, defined period can’t create the same supporter relationship as one whose service spans years rather than months.
4. That didn’t make the “lap of honour” any less tragic. Barely 3,000 can have stayed to witness the limpest of mutual appreciations, and on one level we feel a bit for the players – it must have been quite embarrassing for them, and goodness knows they aren’t the real reason the club is a total mess. Players like David Meyler, Abel Hernández, Allan McGregor and Michael Dawson, sturdy servants of the club, probably deserved a heartier send-off than this.
5. But how can anyone blame City fans? After a dismal defeat at the end of a rotten season, why on earth stick around to insincerely acclaim those who are, in part, responsible? We’d like to think that the near-empty stadium for the post-match trudge would worry those in charge. But we know they aren’t listening, and don’t care anyway, so to them and the despicable handful of remaining apologists it’ll just be our fault anyway.
6. Which leads us nicely onto the latest sham ballot. It’s causing considerable consternation inside the club, with no-one knowing what on earth to do about it. Needless to say, turnout was reduced from the previous vote, with City fans rightly boycotting a poll when the previous one had been disregarded on account of an inconvenient result. That Ehab is completely clueless about how to proceed will surprise no-one, but his subordinates are suffering equal paralysis and the mood is not good.
7. It means that at the time of writing, City aren’t especially close to even announcing whatever the result of the second ballot is, and don’t expect them to announce the turnout either (or at least truthfully announce it – though there’ve been enough complaints raised to the Supporters’ Trust to render the whole enterprise highly suspicious anyway). Which means that on the final day of April, no-one has a clue what a 2018/19 season ticket/membership will cost or whether concessions will be reintroduced. The rest of the Championship is eagerly imploring its fans to sign up; City can’t even tell their fans the basics about next season’s costs. It’s a joke, and those responsible should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.
8. Brentford next. It means nothing, to both clubs. Let’s just stand on a terrace (which worked out alright last time, and, Sports Minister, no-one got hurt), drink some beer and try to remember that while the club is presently stricken with a particularly vicious disease, it won’t last forever.
9. Sunderland, of League One and also very much of the north, have just been taken over. It’s almost as though the notion that non-Premier League clubs who aren’t near Heathrow Airport don’t attract buyers is a total fucking lie, isn’t it?
10. City are off to Kenya, which is all very exciting. But with a familiar tin ear for the requirements of fans, a match that would require a significant outlay, very short notice travel to the southern hemisphere, time off work and so on hasn’t even seen City confirm whether tickets are going to be made available. Come on City, this sort of thing really isn’t difficult.
#301 April 23, 2018
1. What an utterly preposterous football club we support. Not for us the usual pattern of sublime-to-ridiculous that lesser claimants to ludicrosity may submit; in the last three games we’ve gone sublime-to-shit-to-ridiculous. 5-0, 0-1, 5-5. It’s the kind of scoring sequence you’d associate with pre-war Division Three (North), not the ultra-professional 21st century Championship.
2. Days after the biggest away win in a century, City served up utter dross against Sheffield Wednesday and followed that up by sharing ten goals in Bristol. Our first ever 5-5 draw; the first time both sides have scored more than 4 in a City game, and so on. It was a crazy afternoon of football.
3. It didn’t look as though that’d be the case until the end. 2-1 at half-time rarely begats 5-5, and for long spells of the game City looked set to offer up another dispiritingly slovenly defeat. Some of the defending – in fact, almost all of it – was farcical, genuine pub team stuff, and that was before the goals started raining in. If Nottingham Forest are still preparing to offer Michael Dawson a contract in the summer, he’d better hope their scouts were elsewhere on Saturday; while he was offered scant support as City were wide open in midfield, on the flanks and indeed practically everywhere. Given the way the first half ended, it wasn’t a massive surprise that City ended up shipping five goals.
4. It was far less predictable that we’d score another four, but with Harry Wilson and a point-to-prove Abel Hernández, we do have a goal or two in us. We have throughout this grim season in fact, with 69 and counting, something no side outside the top four is likely to match. However, those two are clearly far too good for this level, and it’s really shown in recent weeks.
5. Wilson in particular has raced through the grades of appreciation, from promising loanee to highly effective loanee, and he’s probably now entering the “just enjoy him while we have him” stage. He won’t be here next season, and that isn’t even necessarily a slight on City – if Liverpool decide he isn’t quite ready for their matchday squads then he clearly merits a season-long loan in the Premier League instead. He’s got two more games with us. Best to make the most of them, and spend the next decade telling anyone who’ll listen that his time with City is what made him what he’ll become – which is clearly outstanding.
6. Those two games are now dead rubbers, with safety mathematically assured by Saturday’s draw at Ashton Gate. Credit to Nigel Adkins: for a long time survival itself looked far from certain, so to have it officially determined with two matches to go (and, effectively, with four remaining) is more than we’d hoped for. He isn’t a stellar name, and he doesn’t inspire us, but his overall work with City has exceeded our modest expectations, and he’s sure to be here next season. So be it.
7. With survival now guaranteed, we now have the opportunity to knack things up a bit for clubs with loftier goals. We’d ordinarily applaud what Cardiff have done this season, but Colin is their manager and he’s every bit as detestable as ever, so while we wish the Bluebirds no particular harm it’d be fantastic to ruin things for him. It’d also be nice to beat a side in the top six this season, and end the home season with a decent performance and result – goodness knows we deserve it.
8. Then it’s Brentford, who could need a result to pinch sixth place, and the chance for another terrace – and then that’s it.
9. Thank God. Summer beckons, and exhaustion racks the Tiger Nation. The bitter feud with the rotten Allam family won’t end until their reign is over, while gates fall, membership votes are the subject of untruths and pathetic bribes, and the club remains as hopelessly fractured as ever.
10. There’s no point in hoping for anything but big talk about our close-season plans followed by a clear out and hasty loans in late August, all as a precursor to another season of struggle. The future is bleak for now, and there’s no point pretending otherwise. All we can do is enjoy a few more goals before the torrid 2017/18 finally ends, and we can look forward to the World Cup, an interesting Test series with India and the chance to half-forget what’s been done to our club.
R.I.P Edwin Huitson “Eddie” Blackburn, former City apprentice who made 75 appearances in goal for the Tigers between March 1975 and January 1980.
#300 April 16, 2018
1. After scoring nine without reply in two games, we felt like we could touch survival in the Championship for another year, something which rarely felt anything close to inevitable since the turn of the year. As we approach the last triad of matches and shut the door on a pretty wretched campaign, we can at least regard the culmination of the season as successful and entertaining.
2. Well, that was the case until Sheffield Wednesday rolled into town at the weekend. They and their six billion supporters are nothing special at all, yet City’s infuriating apathy against them made for a brutally unwatchable afternoon at the Circle. Defeat when safety was ready to be assured is frustrating; a total lack of commitment after such an enjoyable couple of weeks of vibrant, flowing football is something approaching unforgivable.
3. Still, we ought not to dwell on defeat to the World’s Biggest Club for too long. Firstly, it might give their supporters undue belief that we give a toss; beyond that, we have a much more fun occasion from the last seven days to look back upon – namely, the jolly at Burton Albion.
4. A ground tick, of course. And we got to stand on a terrace, a rare treat indeed (and with the Government this week short-sightedly claiming nobody should want to do this at a football match any more, timely and apt – more on this shortly); and then we saw City tear apart the minnows of the Championship with an incisive, positive performance that contained some fine goals and seemed to allow for a re-connection between fans and players that hasn’t always been prevalent in these turbulent times for our club.
5. It was quite the evening for Kamil Grosicki. He scored two fine individual goals, hit the post and did a quite ludicrous dive in the area towards the end that got him a yellow card. Widely regarded as our best all-round footballer, he is nevertheless capable of acts of amateurishness that possibly contribute to the reason for his lack of suitors earlier in the season. But if we are to rise from the lousy troughs of this season under Nigel Adkins, you can imagine he’d quite like a focused, professional Grosicki to be at the forefront of it.
6. Meanwhile, Adkins has declared that he wants to keep Allan McGregor at the club, while there is strong rumour in circulation concerning an about-turn on David Meyler’s future, and he will be offered a deal. Of course, what the head coach wants and what the hierarchy are prepared to offer are likely to be a million miles (or a few thousand quid, or a year or two, apart) so we’ll take the prospect of the last two survivors of our FA Cup final squad remaining at the club next season with a few shovelfuls of salt.
7. It’s now mid-April, and City are still dicking around with votes no-one wants on an issue everyone’s already in agreement on. To re-iterate: City lost the original vote heavily, and are now resorting to offering “unique prizes” in the second poll in order to get turnout into double figures. It doesn’t appear to be working, though that means that City will invalidate the first vote on the spurious grounds of turnout while refusing to disclose the result; then declare concessions “unwanted” on the second vote while refusing to disclose both turnout and voting figures. This, we imagine, will all seem terribly clever and funny to Ehab. Which explains why his family’s reputation is in the gutter.
8. The club also promised it would start calling itself Hull City by now. Another broken promise, another lie from a club that seems institutionally incapable of being straight with supporters.
9. Ehab isn’t the only apparently uncomplicated individual who’s had a rotten week. Step forward Sports Minister Tracey Crouch, Hull University alumnus and MP for Chatham and Aylesford, who inexplicably contends that the desire for safe standing is the preserve of a “vocal minority”. She doesn’t even have the excuse of former Sports Ministers, who’ve been elevated to the Cabinet with no apparent knowledge of sport – she’s actually an FA coach. So her ignorance is positively inexplicable. But it may actually be useful in the long run. The backlash has been loud and sustained, and has galvanised afresh the overwhelming majority who favour safe standing as an option. Quite why this, or any other Government, feel they have the right to bar football fans from watching their chosen event in a way that virtually other sector of society is permitted to is beyond explanation – but, Minister, safe standing is an idea whose time has come. Probably better to get on board now.
10. It has been announced that Greg Abbott, a stalwart at City during rotten times in the 1990s, has had to step down from his behind the scenes role at Bradford City in order to start treatment for prostate cancer. Naturally, we wish a man who gave us great service a very speedy recovery.
#299 April 9, 2018
1. Is that everything sorted out then? Two draws against two of the leading lights of the division was impressive and encouraging, but it was the QPR and Burton games we were really looking at for a decisive result. And this was a decisive result, decisively arrived at.
2. As we mused on Wednesday, QPR are close to ideal opponents for anyone at this stage of the season. Lower-midtable with nothing to play for, a collection of players scarcely better than our own, an uninspiring manager and the sort of ethos that suggests they’ll gladly roll over for northern opposition on a day such as Saturday. And so it proved.
3. What was richly satisfying was the way City continued to press after taking the lead, scoring quickly after the gaining the opener and making the game safe in the second half rather than giving the visitors the opportunity to create an anxious finale. To have the points won with half an hour left was a credit to the side and manager.
4. There were a lot of strong performances, and Abel Hernández’s was perhaps the best. This could be one of his last appearances at the Circle, and it was clear he was a class above most on the pitch. There was plenty of good fortune in City’s second goal, but his pass (for Wilson’s deft finish) and his predatory concluding of a smart move for the fourth made us wonder just what might have been had he been fit all season. One player doesn’t make a team, but a good striker can certainly make a difference.
5. Harry Wilson looks like a player with a fine career ahead of him. It’s something of a surprise that he’s played so few first team games at his current age of 21, just 15 to date. However, some players reach maturity after others, and even if he’s starting a little late it’s clear he’s got plenty of talent. His touch is as exactly as assured as you’d expect from someone who’s spent a long time at an élite club’s academy, but he has a refreshing willingness to play simple balls when the situation demands, he can find (and use) space and we’ve seen that he can take a chance. We have no chance of signing him permanently for next season, but if we can persuade both player and parent club that another spell in a Championship club’s first team is in his best interests, he’d be very welcome.
6. So, Burton next. Depending on how you count these things it’s probably a tick ground, and the rare treat of a proper terrace too. A big game for both too. City are already as long as 200/1 to be relegated, though the mathematics aren’t certain yet and it’s likely we’ll need a point or two more than we currently have. For Burton, their chance to scramble to safety probably went when they failed to hang on at Birmingham on Saturday. Failure to beat City – a winnable game for them, remember – will effectively seal the deal.
7. The hope must be that City don’t relax, because the last time complacency set in we lost pitifully at Birmingham. A repeat would be unwelcome, because even if it may ultimately not have too much effect, this has been an awful season and we deserve at least a spirited end to it. And there’s nothing better than celebrating a City goal on a proper terrace, is there?
8. Nigel Adkins. Let’s assume City are going to be okay. He’s done well hasn’t he? He’s got a lot to do to convince City fans that he’s worthy of a long spell at the club, but his immediate remit was to ensure we line up in the 2018/19 Championship, and we’re about 95% of the way towards that. He deserves credit for that. Hell, we’ve even started to play a bit following the unwatchable dross that pockmarked his early weeks.
9. And hey, exactly 11 years ago Phil Brown was patchily guiding City to Championship survival while not really expected to achieve anything else. We can’t see it, but Adkins keeping City up and then doing well with us next season certainly wouldn’t be the most ridiculous thing we’ve ever seen.
10. That stupid sham vote continues, with the club resorting to offering prizes for voting. We aren’t falling for it. Boycott the poll; and City, it’s April for crying out loud, get season tickets with proper concessions on sale, right now.
10a. Lastly, a very happy No To Hull Tigers Day to everyone.
#298 April 4, 2018
1. City’s rather prolonged Easter is over, and as expected we have a much clearer idea of whether the season will end in the calamity of relegation. Less expected is that it’s gone quite well. Play-off certainties Aston Villa and champions-elect Wolves constituted a daunting pair of fixtures for a struggling City. We’d probably have taken a point. We’re delighted at two.
2. Villa first. After a dour opening 45, City were undoubtedly the likelier winners in the second half, pushing the visitors further and further back as the match wore on. It wasn’t a streaky point – indeed, but for some sharper finishing (a familiar refain) and/or some more observant officiating, we could have been toasting our first win of the season over top-six opposition.
3. As it was, there was a degree of contentment in the result, and the way it came about. Villa are a good team with (obviously) a superb manager, and it was very much a point gained. It was easy to let Birmingham’s win earlier in the day make it feel a little more disappointing, but we can’t do anything about them, and taken both in isolation and in the broader context of the relegation scrap, it was a good afternoon’s work – even if nil-nils at home aren’t what made you fall in love with football.
4. That took us to Wolves. Eventually, if you were unlucky enough to be caught up in the ghastly traffic en route. We’ve no idea what Nigel Adkins was thinking with his line-up, making six changes to a side that’d done well at the weekend. Only one thing really made less sense all night: the result.
5. Well, managers live and die by their results, so when they get them it’s disagreeably churlish to deny them a tip of the cap (even if we suspect Adkins is probably always going to grate slightly). It was an even more impressive point than Villa, showing the fortitude to recover from an early deficit at the league leaders to pinch a lead ourselves, and then hold out for a point at the end. You may justly wonder why a side that has come within an ace of defeating a member of the 2018/19 Premier League can still serve up horrors like the 0-3 at Birmingham. But just occasionally, this City side can impress.
6. So, 41 points are ours, seven more than anyone in the bottom three. Now eight points adrift, Sunderland and Burton look irretrievably doomed. Barnsley may have a game in hand but they’re five away from anyone. It’s ever so tempting to hope that the present bottom three may just be able to detect the stench of death about themselves.
7. Two extremely winnable games now present themselves: QPR at home and Burton away. We know what epic wusses QPR are capable of being, and with nothing to play for they’re precisely the sort of side you’d crave playing at this time of season. Meanwhile, Burton are palpably a class below most of the rest. A win from either will surely do it. This time next week…
8. Can anyone remember Hull City specifying a minimum vote threshold for the recent poll on whether there should be concessions next season? Exactly. Because there wasn’t one. Until the vote – which, incidentally, went in favour of concessions by a very wide margin – was finally counted. At which point the Allams decided to have another vote, making the options even less attractive than before, while continuing to propagate the baseless untruth that it’s all because of widespread fraud by City fans (something that every other professional sporting club in the land somehow manages not to fall victim to).
9. We aren’t sure we can be arsed playing Ehab’s pathetic little games any more. The club lies that it wants to listen to fans, is delivered a clear message, lies again that it wants to listen and proceeds to do the exact opposite. So while it’s up to individual City fans, we probably wont bother this time around. The club, excoriated in the national media over the weekend for its repulsive pricing policy, already know what we and every other civilised football fan in the nation requires. And if the next vote has a lower turnout, what then? Another vote? Concessions, or retinal scanning by fluorescent jacketed oafs wielding biometrics-discerning equipment? Concessions, or the mandatory slaughtering of all firstborns? Concessions, or spending thirty minutes locked in a room listening to Assem Allam talking?
10. In the meantime, on the current “options”: prices rise? Fuck off. The mere threat of no concessions? Fuck off. Photo ID? Fuck RIGHT off.
#297 March 19, 2018
1. Just when you think City are turning the corner, they actually execute a startling U-turn and head back towards the shit-heap they’d deftly extricated themselves from with back to back wins. Gah!
2. As a season unfolds, individual games become part of the wider, campaign long context. What to make of the Norwich and Ipswich wins after the abominable snow-game at Birmingham? A week ago we’d been willing to consider that Adkins was finally having some impact, but when he admits after Saturday’s game that he didn’t see it coming and isn’t sure what happened, it’s harder to leave the credit for the wins with him. Could it simply be that the enthusiasm of Abel Hernandez and Harry Wilson, two men just desperate to play some football, positively infected the rest of the side in the games won, rather than it being down to Adkins words and tactics?
3. When he leaves Hull City, the Michael Dawson we’ll remember is the inspirational captain of the 2015/16 side, exultant and holding aloft the Championship play-offs trophy at Wembley. What we are currently witnessing is a pastiche of that man. It’s understandable that the 2018 version of Michael Dawson won’t have the athleticism of the 2016 edition, but what is unfathomable is risible decision making that sees him charging out of position, missing challenges completely and leaving a forward with a largely unhindered route to goal.
4. Not that he was alone in this on Saturday. His partner at the centre of defence, Ondrej Mazuch, was guilty of giving away free kick after free kick at Birmingham. Our centre-backs do not have the pace or technique to attempt playing a high line. The head coach needs to knock this unhelpful trait out of them.
5. While those two were unimpressive, that cannot be said about Allan McGregor, whose performance between the sticks kept the score-line moderately respectable, and not an aggregate draw after our six goal haul against Birmingham earlier in the season. Not having McGregor already tied down with a new deal is wanton stupidity, but or front office has form in that regard.
6. It felt like a really up-and-down week, as you may expect with a three-nil that goes your way and one that goes against. A gap of six points became nine points, only to revert to six. That’s probably just the nature of a relegation battle. Six points remains a healthy lead, and there aren’t many games left now. Our position is one that a few sides would certainly envy.
7. The problem lies in the nature of the next two fixtures. Easter Eve sees Aston Villa visit the Circle for what’s likely to be a fraught evening. Steve Bruce returns, and the contrast between the unique achievements of arguably our best ever manager and our present predicament is a stark one indeed. Meanwhile, throw in the fact that if results go against us earlier in the day the pressure will really be on, plus the possibility of further protests for the Sky cameras if the club haven’t kept their promises, and a tense affair is easy to foresee.
8. It’ll be interesting to see what reaction Steve Bruce gets. The fans are sure to deliver deserved acclaim, but will City themselves be big enough to offer a warm welcome to the man driven out by Ehab’s incompetence?
9. Then it’s Wolves away. Ew. Even the optimists may struggle to see our six point cushion surviving a very difficult Easter.
10. We just want this season over now. There’ve been flashes of fun, chiefly in Slutsky’s earlier days and occasionally under Adkins. But for the most part it’s been a real chore, with poor football inflicted upon dwindling, disinterested crowds. Let’s just stay up, fuck the Allams off and begin the long process of repairing the fractured soul of this club, in the hope that 2018/19 can offer some enjoyment.
#295 March 5, 2018
1. Tuesday night’s draw with Barnsley illustrated perfectly why City are in serious relegation trouble, and why there’s no guarantee we’ll survive. Just as we followed up an impressive win at Nottingham Forest with a dismal no-show at Middlesbrough, so the encouraging victory over Sheffield United was conspicuously not built upon with a decidedly crummy draw against Barnsley. At no stage this season have City ever threatened to create any momentum or put together a string of good results. It’s precisely what teams who get relegated do.
2. That Barnsley are a poor side was obvious enough when we laboured to victory at Oakwell. They haven’t noticeably improved since, but neither have we. Perhaps it wasn’t a great surprise that the two sides who put together such a dire game in October should do it again – but even so, it was truly dreadful.
3. Granted, it’s a relief that City spawned a point in the end, even if we have little intention of “respecting” a disappointing outcome so disappointingly arrived at. It did at least prevent the blow of City slipping behind Barnsley in the table. But really, it’s hard not to look back at the entire evening wondering quite why City were so utterly sub-par. No intensity, no urgency, inadequate organisation – the whole thing was just utterly bab.
4. There weren’t many positives. Larsson played tolerably well, though it was his least effective match for a while – and he’s been one of the most impressive figures in 2018, so we missed his influence. Irvine looked cold and subdued, while Diomande in particular spent a thoroughly unproductive evening emboldening only his detractors. Meanwhile, if you hadn’t spotted Toral by the time he was hooked in the 53rd minute (of the first half), you may not have been alone – he was almost wilfully anonymous.
5. We enjoyed the claim that 14,000 were in attendance though. It’s so far from the truth as to be comical.
6. With Ipswich falling victim to the weather, we’re now halfway through four successive home games, rather freakishly following on from four successive away games. Next up are Millwall and Norwich, both treading water in the impossibly distant glory-soaked promised land of midtable. City are still labouring at under a point a game, which won’t often be enough for survival. Setting points targets from a brace of games in March is a little artificial, but if City haven’t moved to more than a point per game by 5pm on Saturday, that would be very bad news indeed.
7. David Meyler said a while ago on Twitter that his future at City beyond this season was in doubt, but now he has willingly and wilfully let the cat out of the bag. He’s off this summer, with the club choosing not to take up their option on a further year, and he’s evidently not happy about it. Neither are we. Yes he has limitations and bad games, and he is called out for them when they occur. He also has experience, an apparent affection for the club, a natural affinity with how supporters feel and unquestionably a sensible awareness of his own contribution over the years, and it’s quite obvious that personality issues have prompted his exit beyond any footballing decision. And isn’t it remarkable how the club can decide in ample time to not take up a further year on a player’s expiring contract, but leave it far too late when they decide to offer a player a fresh deal? Meyler did well out of City and we hope he leaves with more sweet memories than pangs of bitterness.
8. The Allam family state, in absentia, at the rearranged Supporters’ Committee meeting following the one they stroppily cancelled while issuing false claims about the Supporters’ Trust making threats, that things may be about to change. Hull City will start calling themselves Hull City again, while concessions and a proper club crest will be consulted upon. Now, we’ll believe this when we see it. Anyone familiar with the Allam family knows to judge actions, not words. It’s good news if so, but them selling the club “for a pound”, “within 24 hours”, “consulting fans before changing the name” was also good news, so forgive us for not celebrating just yet.
8a. And isn’t it pathetic that they didn’t dare face up to the Supporters’ Committee in person with this? They left others to issue what they probably regard as a humiliating climbdown for them.
9. If you disagreed with the protests on the grounds of their effectiveness, events have not validated your argument. Protests against Nottingham Forest last year brought the Allams to the table, and the prospect of them continuing and escalating achieved these promises. That’s a vindication for those who took a stand during matches. And what else could have been done? They won’t listen, so there’s no point in politely speaking. And they’re unreasonable, so what’s the point in using reason? Well done to anyone who’s raised their voice against the Allams during games.
10. Even if they do implement everything they’ve promised, we’re still Allam Out.
#293 February 19, 2018
1. Defeat and – eventually – little disgrace at Chelsea. City didn’t help themselves, but Chelsea have spent hundreds of millions of pounds to ensure that contests such as this are acutely unequal. And the first half was as unequal as you could hope to not see. For all of City’s brave talk, the first half precisely resembled a poor Championship side away to Champions League participants. It was tough to watch.
2. Perhaps we should allow limited credit to City for ensuring that a hammering didn’t become a record-breaking rout. Chelsea, aware that Barcelona visit next, didn’t seem too bothered about adding any more goals but City did also smarten themselves up a little, and while drawing a half isn’t an achievement, it was at least an improvement. It was a desperately poor tie to have been given anyway.
3. Elsewhere, our absence from league duty didn’t cause undue harm. Four of the bottom six were in action on Saturday, and none won. City remain outside the bottom three, with a home game in hand on most of them. We may be out of the Cup, but in terms of the Championship it wasn’t a bad weekend.
4. It’d be great to build upon this by taking something from Middlesbrough tomorrow evening. The pre-season title favourites have underachieved this season, but with only five points separating them from sixth place, they won’t have given up just yet. It won’t be easy. But the assured performance at Nottingham Forest nine days ago suggests that we haven’t given up just yet. A point would do just fine, even though unwanted results elsewhere could still see us draw and drop back into the bottom three. But imagine the transformative effect that a second successive win could have…
5. Then it’s Sheffield United. The match first, then the rest. Since cuffing City 4-1 in November their season has gone a little awry, and while we’d gladly swap places with a side in eighth, they must have hoped for more at this stage. It’s therefore a presentable opportunity for three points, three we’re sure to need whatever happens at the Riverside tomorrow. City’s heads may just be above the water at the time of writing, but they’re deep and choppy waters. It’s going to be a big week on the pitch, and by 10pm on Friday we’ll have a good idea of our likely fate.
6. It’s going to be fascinating to see what happens off the pitch as well. Anger at the mismanagement of the club continues to swell, and rumours about serious and sustained protests in the forthcoming Sheffield United fixture have grown. Ehab Allam claimed to be in possession of intelligence (yes, we know…) pointing towards a whistle protest during the game, akin to the one Brighton implemented at the Goldstone Ground when City visited in the late 1990s. It’s a cracking idea from a man few ordinarily associate with understanding football fans, and it’d certainly be effective.
7. The big question is whether it should happen. It’s proven predictably divisive. And we absolutely understand why some City fans don’t really fancy it. It’s a bit confrontational, it could interrupt the night’s football – or potentially even terminate it, it’s just all a bit too much. But we’d urge those wavering supporters to look at the paucity of options now open to City fans. Talking to the Allams doesn’t work, because they refuse to listen. For years they’ve been told what we want, and they haven’t acted. You cannot reason with fundamentally unreasonable men. We can’t even trust their promises to begin a process of meaningful change, because Assem Allam repeatedly promised not to try to change City’s name without consultation, only to renege upon this pledge within days. However, we know that protests affect them. The stress balls against Forest earlier in the season dragged them to the table. So why not?
7a. There are two arguments you can summon against it, and neither really stack up. Firstly, it affects the team. Except that no evidence exists for that. Lack of investment in players affects the team; fans driven to desperation by negligent owners does not. And the second argument is that City will be harshly punished for a disrupted game. And again, that isn’t supported by facts. Coventry City, Leyton Orient, Blackpool, Blackburn Rovers and Charlton Athletic have all staged in-game protests in recent times. Can anyone remember the sanctions handed down to them? Exactly. Ehab’s suggestion of points deductions and/or games being played behind closed doors is ridiculous scaremongering designed to suppress dissent, because no precedent exists for such drastic punishments.
8. So on balance, we have no issue with protests on Friday. Something needs doing – we cannot simply let the Allam family drive this club to the wall. Those planning the protests should still tread carefully, if only for their own sake. But if they want to proceed, then so be it.
9. It’s truly astonishing that the mere prospect of supporter protest led to Ehab seriously considering not selling tickets for the game, and only yielded seven days before the fixture itself. What the hell kind of dysfunctional football club genuinely ponders not selling tickets for its own fixtures? The Allams have done a lot of incredibly stupid things, but this could have been right up there.
10. There’ll be no Amber Nectar podcast tonight – we’re going to leave it until Wednesday to incorporate the Middlesbrough fixture instead. Meanwhile, we’ve a bit of an anniversary coming up on that day as well – stand by for a trip down memory lane…
#292 February 12, 2018
1. Saturday’s 2-0 victory at Nottingham Forest was acutely unexpected. Hardly any of those travelling can have done so with anything but trepidation. Yet here we are, basking in the glow of an exceedingly rare away win and with our foray into the bottom three already ended.
2. That climb into the top 21 may prove to be temporary rather than permanent, for City obviously remain in serious trouble of relegation. It’s just heartening to see something finally being done about it. In much the same way as Sunderland were recently rewarded against us for picking a young side, so Nigel Adkins was at the City Ground.
3. Even the most reality-averse Forest fans (and we’ve been surprised at the quantity of those in 2018) cannot begrudge City the win. Apart from the striking of McGregor’s post, they didn’t threaten City once and during a second half that was a professional exercise in calm containment, they were frankly terrible. But citing their tepid awfulness as the reason for victory does a disservice to Adkins and his players – the former changed things in search of inspiration, the latter made it work.
4. 2-0 didn’t flatter us either. It was close to the complete away performance, raiding with purpose and skill when in possession and retaining a disciplined shape without it. It’s worth noting again that this was hard to see coming, but now we know City do still have it in them, hopes and expectations will naturally rise. Perhaps, despite the best efforts of the Allam family, this season is not lost after all.
4a. That’s now five wins in a row at the City Ground. It’s a freakish sequence for which similar runs in the past don’t readily occur. Four in a row at Halifax were racked up between 1999-2002, but we trust the Shaymen will not be unduly offended if we suggest that rather pales in comparison.
5. Chelsea on Friday. Even with their much-discussed troubles at the moment, a Cup shock of vast proportions continues to feel incredibly unlikely. A gutsy, creditable defeat that doesn’t dent our post-Forest confidence and incurs no injuries feels the best we can hope for.
6. Matty Fryatt retired this week at the age of 31, unable to shake off an Achilles injury after years of surgery and abortive comebacks. For City, he was a reliable and predatory goal-scorer with an excellent record and to see him score in the Premier League and especially our historic FA Cup run after spending a year out with another injury was immensely gratifying. We wish him great success in his future endeavours and assure him that his efforts in black and amber will always be appreciated, a fact proved by the throaty singing of his name by City fans at the City Ground at the weekend.
7. If you organise meetings with supporter groups with the explicit intent of heading off protests, then it isn’t out of order to note that protests remain a possibility when after several meetings there has been no action and only words. Supporters aren’t giving up their free time for the privilege of chatting with Ehab, they attend to effect change, and those changes are not difficult and could have already been implemented. We’ve heard enough unfulfilled promises from the Allams to know that their talk is cheap
8. To end a meeting as it begins, wasting people’s time, and spuriously claiming threats have been made, is frankly pathetic and shamelessly manipulative, and further reinforces the belief that the Allams are disingenuous, merely box ticking and creating the illusion of fan consultation that doesn’t exist in reality.
9. HCST’s decision to present scarves on behalf of a group not in attendance was unwise, and cedes a tiny portion of the moral high ground that the Trust has worked hard to justifiably inhabit. However, given that Ehab said in a statement on the official website that he too is ‘ALLAM OUT’ (capitals his), and that meetings have taken place since the scarf offering, it simply isn’t a big deal.
10. We discussed Ehab’s psychological gymnastics to maintain the self image of competence and credibility last week, and he gave a great example in the Radio Humberside interview, stating “I always try to blame myself first before someone else” before shifting the blame for a failure to sell the club and the club’s league position on the fans. Uh-huh.
#291 February 5, 2018
1. Another Saturday, another defeat. 2-1 to Preston this time, all with a demoralising air of inevitability about it. Even when City surprised us, and themselves, by taking a first half lead. In the same way that Ehab Allam’s fucktarded approach to transfers is easy to work out in advance, so Hull City’s capacity for finding a way to lose a winnable fixture counts second only to the sun rising in the east for predictability.
2. Preston aren’t especially good. You don’t need to be any good to beat City any more – in fact, as Sunderland showed recently, you can be really rather terrible and still expect to collect something at full time. We’re the ultimate easy-beats.
3. As much as the club’s death spiral ultimately rests with the despicable Allam family, there’s a degree of culpability also lying with the players – who are better than 22nd – and the manager, whose abilities are completely escaping us at the time. It may sound harsh, but it isn’t easy to feel a great deal of sympathy for Nigel Adkins. His post-match utterances are already beginning to significantly grate, his cathartine loitering in Leonid Slutsky’s tortured final days was quite unsettling, he knows (or should know) that the Allams are irresponsible owners and he has no evident plan for survival.
4. Not that there’s any point whatsoever in dispensing with him. Hiring someone with the capability of keeping this doomed side up would cost money, and yachts cost money too, so we can forget that. Instead, our flimsy hopes rest with the players themselves. They’re capable of finishing in the top 21, after all. Unfortunately, the principal leader has had his head turned, but it’s probably now with McGregor, Meyler, Larsson and Campbell – notionally the senior pros – to chart and then traverse a route to safety.
5. It feels unlikely though. It’s tough to find a City fan who doesn’t think we’re doomed to successive relegations. The club feels broken, and repair will not come until its current owners go. And that cannot happen too soon. Let’s assume for a moment that this season is already lost. Let’s not pretend that we’re suddenly going to prosper in League One next season, because under this parasitic regime we won’t. There’s no limit to how far we can fall. Others have fallen further than we’re about to. The longer they stay, the further we fall – it’s absolutely that simple.
6. So, we must protest, and protest hard. It may be in vain, but let’s not have to explain to City fans yet to come that we sat back and did fuck all while the club was deliberately shovelled back into the lower leagues we worked so hard to rise from. Sheffield United on Friday 23rd February is on Sky Sports. Let’s do it.
7. The mental gymnastics Ehab Allam has to perform to maintain the delusion he is a good steward of the club would have Louis Smith’s psyche gasping in approval. His latest psychological somersault, performed in the Yorkshire Post, is to use the analogy of the housing market a few years ago, with people not selling because they expect the price of their asset to rise in the near future, as an excuse for City being less ambitious in the winter transfer window than bottom club Burton Albion.
8. “When you are only outside the bottom three on goal difference, it is a hard job to bring players in.” Hmm. The two clubs below us brought in nine players between them. Maybe the problem stems with you Ehab, and even if you deflect the blame onto Lee Darnborough, well who was responsible for his appointment?
9. Pathological lying is described as a habituation of lying, when the individual lies even when there is nothing to be gained from it. Nobody believes Ehab any more, the Yorkshire Post are content to publish his words without question, but then they just need to fill space to make it look like they don’t only care about Leeds, so even then belief isn’t an issue. Ehab could just tell the truth, that his family are bleeding every penny out of the club possible while still keeping it functioning, and when the parachute payments have gone they’ll discard the club like a mattress in a lay-by, but he just doesn’t seem capable of it. The truth would shatter his best run club in the League delusional construct.
10. Everybody wants job security, and being well paid doesn’t create an exemption, especially when your career is relatively short and your earnings will need to finance the rest of your life. So when you’re in the last knockings of that career, out of contract in the summer, able to field offers from other employers from January, having no certainty that your current employer will exercise the one year extension option they have but won’t activate till May when the employer’s status is known, and that employer is notorious for taking a Victorian mill owner’s approach to employee relations, you grasp that offer of security like a drowning man grasps a rope. We don’t blame Michael Dawson for wanting to move to Nottingham Forest on deadline day.
If you’ve been affected by the topics discussed in TWTWT, you can call the Samaritans free any time, from any phone on 116 123.
#290 January 29, 2018
1. That wasn’t expected. Before Saturday’s Cup tie, it was easy envisage another morose gathering at the Circle quietly suffering as 4,000 Nottingham Forest fans loudly enjoyed their victory. It required considerable optimism to expect the Midlanders to be the ones suffering as City’s unexpectedly effective display took us to a deserved win. But that’s what happened.
2. Ignore the score-line. City 2-1 Nottingham Forest was more emphatic than that. Multiple opportunities were missed to score a third goal, and City were all over Forest for pretty much the whole game. It was a terrific performance, coupled with a really spirited attitude. And that’s the most encouraging thing: from the first minute to the last, there was a battling mentality in the side. We’ve wondered aloud if this side is up for a scrap. We know now that they can be. Replicating that in the League is now essential.
3. But let’s enjoy this win a little longer. There were many fine individual performances. Max Clark looked mature and assured at left-back, Aina continued to look a threat on the right, while the way in which Bowen has maintained his fine form throughout the season suggests he is the real deal (and his suitors grow in number). Dicko was tireless up front and a constant nuisance, capping it off with a goal, but the star was arguably Jackson Irvine. He’s taken a little time to really embed himself in the side, but his was a buccaneering midfield performance. Full of energy, he tracked back tenaciously, ran forward determinedly and used possession intelligently. More, please.
4. It was a treat to leave a match feeling uplifted at what had gone before. City’s combative approach – aided by an indulgent refereeing performance that Forest should have mimicked instead of whining about – genuinely elevated the spirits. It’s just nice to see goals and victory again. It’s been a rare feeling for too long.
4a. Rarer still must be the same post being struck five times in one game – twice en route to City goals, then acting to deny Forest twice and City once. Bizarre stuff.
5. We’d like to feel sorry for Nottingham Forest fans, who cannot have enjoyed Saturday’s events. However, the way too many of them acted as though they were the first football team in history to take a large following anywhere and so cockily predicted an easy win means we’ll swerve the pity.
6. So, we’re in the Football Association Challenge Cup Fifth Round. This is nothing to be sniffed at – especially when we consider that repeating the achievement next season may require winning four ties if things don’t improve in the League. The draw is this evening, and there are enough non-elite sides left in the competition for us to think a way to the Sixth Round isn’t out of the question. Whether it brings a tie that City are favourites to win or a mission impossible, it’s exciting to be involved.
7. It goes without saying that this now transferring to the League, where the situation remains grim. One of the major issues in recent fixtures has been starting games so weakly. Well, if Nigel Adkins can’t get his side up for the visit of Leeds tomorrow, three days after a stirring victory that owed much to a fast start and an emboldened approach, we have a problem. It’s perhaps pushing it to describe this game as “must-win”…but then again, we need at least seven wins from just 18 games to have a chance of surviving, and this is a home match against a side in 9th. If not now, then when?
8. We are not remotely surprised that City haven’t done a single thing during the transfer window so far. The approach was easy to deduce in December: sign no-one of note and spend no money, then get someone, anyone, into the squad in desperation on the final day, preferably on loan. Not that Ehab Allam’s mismanagement being predictable needs to stop us despairing at this wilfully damaging approach.
9. With two televised fixtures approaching, home matches against Sheff Utd and Aston Villa in February and March respectively, there’s no doubt that failure from Ehab to act in three major areas will see significant and justified protests. Those areas are easy to identify, and equally easy to rectify: strengthen a paper-thin squad, reintroduce concessions, and start calling Hull City Hull City. Otherwise, the protests will restart, and quite rightly so.
10. A spot of housekeeping: we’ll be podcasting on Wednesday evening this week, recapping the Cup win and tonight’s draw, plus Leeds and whatever City have (or more pertinently, have not) done in the transfer window.
#289 January 22, 2018
1. What a putrid afternoon at the Stadium of Light on Saturday. City’s 1-0 defeat at Sunderland confirms – if you didn’t already know – that City are in grave danger of being relegated for the second season in a row. And worse still, it suggests there isn’t much hope of this fate being avoided.
2. The first half was unutterably supine, with City again showing a frightening lack of urgency in a game of obvious importance. That scares us, hinting as it does at an inadequate mentality among the players. The situation is dire, but the way matches are started is redolent of end-of-season dead rubbers. How is this possible? Why does it keep happening?
3. Nigel Adkins is not impressing us. It’s easy to mock the claim advanced in mitigation that we “warmed up well”, because you can sort of see what he’s getting at: that the preparation is right, and it’s the execution that’s lacking. But he isn’t executing either. Why do the players continue to look so half-arsed at the start of critically important fixtures? Why can’t we play with two strikers? Why do substitutions act to continue unsuccessful formations rather than alter them? And why on earth have we so completely stopped scoring?
4. Okay, we’re trying to tighten up and maybe nick enough 1-0s to scrape 21st. Fair enough. But it obviously isn’t working, and we’ve gone from a fairly free-scoring and even occasionally entertaining side to one that’s almost unwatchable, and actually amassing fewer points per game than under the previous manager. It’s godawful stuff, and even though he hasn’t been here a long time, a few stiff questions need putting to Mr Adkins.
5. That some City fans were still incensed enough to sing “you’re not fit to wear that shirt” is ominous. That’s not necessarily unfair – while the ultimate responsibility lies solely with the Allam family, this also isn’t a side that ought to be plunging towards relegation. It wasn’t a majority, but enough to be heard amid a severely angry full-time reaction, and suggests that the fans/players relationship that’s broadly survived our descent down the table is close to fracturing.
6. With a less kind turn of events following the FA Cup third round, we could have found ourselves bottom of the Championship by this weekend while we’re in fourth round action against Nottingham Forest. Mercifully, neither Sunderland nor Burton Albion are among the eight clubs playing their scheduled Championship fixtures, while Birmingham are in FA Cup action themselves. To be playing Leeds on January 30th as the 24th of 24 would have been a horrendous piece of footballing symbolism. Their fans don’t need much excuse to come to the Circle and take the piss, but to do so while we languished at the very foot of the table would have been unbearable.
7. That FA Cup tie in itself feels insignificant right now, but maybe it’s the sort of break from the lousy, rotten freefall we need. Not that beating Forest will be any kind of cakewalk; they’ve just dumped the FA Cup holders Arsenal out of the competition and have also played us off our own park once this season.
8. Marco Silva has been sacked by Watford. This shouldn’t be surprising, given the Watford hierarchy’s notorious impatience with head coaches in recent years. And it’s true that Silva was on a bad run and seemed to have been distracted fatally by interest shown in him by Everton a few weeks back. Yet we know he is quality. And with two weeks of the transfer window left and 18 games of the season to come, what would we give for him to be parachuted back in and asked basically to repeat the revival he instigated when all seemed to be lost little more than a year ago? Yes, we still got relegated under him, but without him we’d have been relegated in March. Our squad is not without talent, and Silva is not without the charisma and the character to do a persuasion job on Ehab Allam in a way akin to that regularly done by Steve Bruce on Assem. It’s doable in theory, but of course, not in practice. It will remain a mere pipe dream – not only will the Allams not entertain the idea of sacking Adkins so quickly after appointing him, but we can’t imagine they have high regard for Silva after he dared to see greener grass than that which they supplied for him at the beginning of 2017. On top of that, Silva will not have a lot of enthusiasm for coming to a club trying to avoid hurtling through the club’s second tier, and even a man of his self-belief won’t like risking two straight relegations on his CV with the same club, even though neither of them would be his fault. He’s better than us now – or, at least, he’s better than what we represent under the toxic regime of the Allams.
9. It’s not been a good week for ex-City gaffers. Phil Brown is also on the way out of his job, though in a familiar turn of events, is currently on gardening leave while Southend United tries to find a way of reaching settlement with their manager of the last five years. We can’t comment on the wisdom of the decision, of course, although seven defeats in eight does look rather ominous, but we hold plenty of affection for the first manager to take City to the top flight in English football and we wish him well. If we do end up in League One, you can imagine him crawling over broken glass to rescue us. In fact, you can imagine him doing that right now.
10. Our discussion with Sunderland podcast Roker Report last week made it evident, well, more evident, that fans of other clubs are aware of the wilful damage being inflicted on our club by the Allam family. Incredibly though there are some Hull City fans who still defend them, who still support them and attempt to paint them as victims of the actions of supporters determined to thwart their good intentions. It’s a dwindling band for sure, but it’s hard to fathom how they can do it, Stockholm Syndrome maybe, or a Vichy France-esque subservience fuelled by self interest, who knows. But let’s say it plainly… if you still support the Allam family, you actively support their wilful damage of Hull City AFC. You can be certain that these people will, when the ghastly Allams eventually move on leaving the club little more than a husk, say “it won’t be long before new owners have ‘so called fans’ at their throats” or similar, in an attempt to deflect from the fact they cheerleaded as the Allams ripped apart the club they claim to support.
#288 January 15, 2018
1. Where on earth to start with Saturday’s appalling spectacle? City and Reading served up about us dismally tepid a fixture as you could ever want not to see. If we’ve seen a worse game of football in the past decade, then mercifully our minds have erased it. It was truly, almost memorably awful.
2. City did show at least a modicum of attacking intent, unlike Reading. They should be absolutely ashamed of turning up to a side as poor and off-form as ours and sitting back for a draw – and no, two first-half injuries aren’t an excuse for that. They were pathetic, and if that negativity comes back to bite them on the arse in May, good. It deserves to.
3. That City couldn’t break down a side – a poor side – with no particular interest in moving forward is damning. Nigel Adkins may have sorted out the defence, as two successive clean sheets indicates, but it’s coming at a high price. We need wins, quite a few of them, and rather quickly; but this cautious approach doesn’t suggest they’re coming any time soon.
4. We go to Sunderland this weekend, and if they beat us, we could end the day joint bottom of the Championship, spared the immeasurable ignominy of 24th place only by our deceptively superior goal difference. This is a worst case scenario, as both Burton and Birmingham have to visit sides in the top ten of the Championship, but let’s not rely alone on City to actively avoid it – after all, Sunderland were bottom of the table when they all too comfortably beat us twice in the Premier League last season and for all their troubles, are equipped enough to do it again.
5. Meanwhile, there were almost certainly fewer than 12,000 in attendance on Saturday. How long before our first 11,000 crowd? And relegation or not, could 2018 see the Circle’s first four-figure home attendance for a League game?
6. Sky Sports – who may be regretting this decision in light of the Reading non-event – have chosen to televise our home game with Sheffield United next month. The Nottingham Forest fixture earlier this season saw many take the opportunity to broadcast our distaste for the Allams’ abysmal behaviour to the nation. If they refuse to act properly during the present transfer window and refuse to restore the club’s name and concessions, it’s easy to imagine a repeat, and very possibly on a larger scale. Their move.
7. City have tabled a bid for Aberdeen’s Scott McKenna to the tune of £800,000, which the Scottish side has turned down. Reports now say that City’s follow-up offer is valued at, er, £800,000. Presumably while stifling laughter and shrugging shoulders, Aberdeen have not surprisingly rejected this too. In what world does Ehab Allam live in whereby he thinks he can persuade any party to give him what he wants without actually spending the requisite cash? Aberdeen must think we’re run by an idiot. And maybe, just maybe…
8. What odds on him offering one final bid of £400,000? How long before Nigel Adkins realises he’s been taken for a mug?
9. Forest at home in the FA Cup. It’s often the case that an unexciting draw leaves one scrabbling for positives. And here’s ours: it’s winnable, and means we’ve a chance of making the fifth round. That’s about it though.
10. Have you seen the state of the ‘branding guidelines‘ supplied to HCST by the club? One page of hopelessly amateurish nonsense dated 2014/15, that has taken them months to provide. It does confirm a few things we already suspected though: 1) The now departed Tom Rowell’s assertion that there was no standing directive to not use Hull City AFC was a flat out lie. 2) The current round of fan consultation is an exercise in futility. 3) Ehab Allam’s self image does not correspond to reality. He clearly thinks he’s a brilliant, leftfield thinker, yet has no insight into how stupid he looks with each action or utterance. When you acknowledge that the ‘Governing Bodies and Media’ don’t use your inconsistent preferred branding, you’re acknowledging your own failure and lack of business nous.
#277 January 8, 2018
1. A weekend of positives! Sure, the magnitude of those positives depends upon the value you assign to the ailing FA Cup, and the significance of beating lower league opposition. But even the churls among us would struggle to pinpoint a bad side to the weekend – and how often have we been able to say that lately?
2. A 1-0 win at Blackburn Rovers in the FA Cup has only limited pulse-quickening properties – but look at that sheet of perfect cleanliness! Marvel at that win in a place not called Kingston-upon-Hull! Rejoice at not leaving a game beset by despair. Clutch those straws, Tiger Nation. There’s little else to do.
3. In these grim times, we need something to hold on to. The players do, too. We cannot hope that this solitary victory transforms a wretched season, but it isn’t too much to wish for at least a modest uptick in our fortunes as a consequence – and that may be just enough to see us survive relegation.
4. It was a bold move by Nigel Adkins to field a fairly strong XI. He must have been tempted to card a lesser eleven, and protect his miserably thin squad for upcoming League fixtures. The calculation must have been that a strongish side would have enough to beat Blackburn, and lift its own morale – and so it proved. An interesting, and vindicated, roll of the dice by the manager. Well done to him.
5. Not that it was entirely straightforward. A dour first half and unconvincing late desperation sandwiched City’s best spell of the game, which brought Ola Aina’s first senior goal, and if you do fancy a bit of churlishness, its the difficulty we made in overcoming League One opposition.
6. But we are in the hat! Round Four beckons, which isn’t something we’ve always been able to say, and if Ehab Allam’s calamitous misrule does culminate in successive relegations then it’ll appear a distant prospect in 2018/19. But however diminished the Cup is these days, there’ll still be a frisson of excitement this evening when the draw is made and we dream of a tie away to FC Tick Ground. And at least Arsenal are out.
7. A marked improvement in City’s corner routines was evident on Saturday, so it wasn’t surprising when Nigel Adkins said post match that set pieces had been worked on in training. We’ve not seen a massive change in league form beyond goals drying up in order to shore a leaky defence so such attention to detail is welcome.
8. The ’15 years at the KCOM’ videos on Social Media are beautifully designed. Tip of the hat to whoever is responsible.
9. It isn’t just first team managers that City are working through at the moment, there’s another vacancy for media and marketing manager. James Mooney’s departure to a lesser club elsewhere in Yorkshire brought in Tom Rowell, for whom supporter liaison wasn’t excessively prioritised – and now he’s leaving for pastures new. Good luck to the new boy or girl who has to present the Allams’ dopey ideas to the Tiger Nation – you’ll need it.
10. Meanwhile, with wearying predictability, rumours now surface that the Allams may be close to selling the club – which is a far more reliable indicator that the transfer window is now open than any mere calendar could hope to provide.
#276 December 18, 2017
1. On the face of it, a 1-0 loss at second placed Cardiff isn’t a calamity. A side that’s closer to a relegation battle than it cares to admit away to a team challenging for automatic promotion would probably be expected to lose this sort of game, and so it proved.
2. The match was settled by a single goal – offside, if you scrutinise the television replays closely enough, but such a close decision we’ve no real right to furiously rail against it. In real time it was almost impossible to be sure, and it must be correct that attacking players receive the benefit of any doubt in such situations. It’s understandable that the City manager and players are frustrated to lose to a goal that could’ve been chalked off, but if you need slow motion replays to be certain, it’s clearly a tight call.
3. After the (relative) excitement of winning by the odd goal in five against Brentford in Nigel Adkins’ first game in charge, this was a far dourer approach. We hope it was done with the quality of the opposition in mind, and not an indication of the way the new manager hopes to avoid relegation. It was a dreadful match, low on creativity and invention, played at a weirdly consistent half-pace throughout.
4. Positives. Er, well, City looked a little more assured defensively than of late. There was a degree of compact coherency to the performance, even if it came at the expense of any creativity. We weren’t blown away, and given that our ambitions have shrivelled from advancement to mere survival, that sort of approach could be enough to see us stumble into a safe high-teens position. But it’d be godawful to watch us do it this way.
5. But maybe it was just for Cardiff. For all of the faults that this weakened, imbalanced squad possesses, the ability to score a few goals isn’t one of them. It’d be a mistake if Nigel Adkins sacrificed one of his side’s few qualities for greater defensive stability – besides which, Adkins arrives with a reputation for coaching, so with luck he can fix the defensive issues without unduly hampering the goals. There’s also a lengthy injury list, which would have challenged a properly assembled squad. It could be that we must wait until the New Year before discerning the Adkins master plan.
6. Blackburn away in the FA Cup. It’s a chance for a trip out to a ground we wouldn’t have expected to visit this season, and as they’re also blighted by abysmal owners, might there be the opportunity for the two sets of supporters to get their heads together and make a bit of noise about our predicaments?
7. The Christmas fixtures now loom, with an air of menace. Leeds away isn’t a match you could reliably expect City to get much from, while the visit of fourth-placed Derby on Boxing Day – who’ve already smashed us 5-0 this season – feels uninviting. Still, there’s there the visit of midtable Fulham and a New Years Day trip to bottom placed Bolton, so there are chances for points too. With only 22 gained from 22 matches, we’re only just up with the overall run-rate for survival.
8. It was disappointing though completely unsurprising to hear from the redoubtable Hull City Supporters’ Trust that no progress has been made from their latest meeting with the Allam family. It didn’t bode well that the club had reneged upon its promise to share their brand guidelines before the meeting, the ones that fans have previously been assured do not exclude use of the never-used term “Hull City”. And so nothing was resolved, save for an Allam promise – not the world’s most valuable currency – to look again at the badge. Which is pointless anyway, when the previous one was popular.
9. Ehab’s drivel about adults misusing concessionary tickets was again produced. It’s been rebutted often enough, but he clings to it as a defence of the malicious and ruinous membership scheme. Perhaps he even believes it. It does make one wonder how every single other professional sporting club in the country manages. Had he ever thought of doing even a bit of perfunctory research? Or was the temptation to wreck the club’s future as well as its present simply too attractive?
10. The one interesting detail to emerge was that if no buyer is found for the club by the summer, then it will managed by a third party. We can’t wait for Paul Duffen’s return. Honest. In the meantime, it’s clear the Allams aren’t interested in resolving any of the issues the club faces. Mostly because they’ve caused them, but the lack of willingness to budge an inch on anything proves they’re not bothered, and that these meetings are probably just a box-ticking exercise to placate disinterested authorities.
#275 December 11, 2017
1. Before the game, the managers. The sad situation of Leonid Slutsky’s departure will always carry a bitter taste, even if his going had seemed inevitable for weeks. A good man who tried his best for the club was left with an impossible situation by people who are not good and do not try their best for the club, and that’s always going to rankle. Once again, we thank Leonid for his efforts and wish him well for the future.
2. We were talking to a friend of Slutsky’s in the week. That friend, and apparently others, urged him not to take the job because of the toxic nature of the owners. That he took it on anyway, having been warned about the Allam family, suggests both foolhardiness and courage. Though it’s interesting and gratifying to know that the Allams’ nature is so widely understood throughout the game.
3. If Slutsky’s departure was widely expected, the identity of his successor was equally predictable. Nigel Adkins, a moderately garrulous individual with some (though not limitless) success at this level had been a recent attendee at City games, and no other contenders felt plausible. Given that few managers want to work with the Allams, he’s probably about as good as we could hope for. Nonetheless, we hope he doesn’t take the lukewarm reception personally; this is a club his bosses have drained of enthusiasm.
4. The first half of his first game was as dire as we’ve seen in this grim season so far. City were disorganised and lethargic, shorn of urgency and invention. It was utterly wretched stuff, and the 12,200 or so present sat cold and mute before sloping off for warm drinks at the interval with barely a peep raised. Which made the second half all the more remarkable. But not before a real team calamity gifted Brentford a lead. Clark’s woeful miskick, the dismal tracking of Brentford runners, Meyler’s clumsy steering of the ball into his own goal – it was farcical stuff.
5. Yet we roused ourselves in a way few of the thoroughly fed up home fans could have expected. Much it came from Kamil Grosicki, perpetually frustrating but abundantly gifted. His goal was a magnificent strike, not his first of the season, and was a moment of inspiration few of his harder-working but more limited team-mates could muster. That Seb Larsson’s goal wasn’t the best of the afternoon is testimony to its excellence.
5a. But back to Grosicki’s goal. Sometimes, it only takes a moment to change everything. As soon as Grosicki scored, confidence surged through a previously lacklustre City side. Gone was the dismally cautious and slow-paced football from the first half, and the Tigers began playing with rare vigour and attack. When Jackson Irvine scored the third goal, the Circle reacted with a joyous fervour we’ve been starved of for so long. It was a genuinely feel-good moment.
6. One of Slutsky’s main failings was an inability to positively change the game with substitutions, but the introduction of Jon-Miquel Toral early in the second half against Brentford transformed the game. He floated around in midfield like a Tesco Value Iniesta, always open to receive the ball, and bringing colleagues into the game with a range of delicious passes such as the one for Jackson Irvine’s first City goal. Granted, the decision to start Aina on the right wing and then send him to left back to make room for Toral was odd (as was playing Luer as a substitute right back), and fairness to Slutsky demands noting that Toral was unavailable to him in November, but it doesn’t change that Adkins made a player interchange that had wondrous results.
7. Okay, it’s only three points. It’s very premature to suggest that we’re suddenly safe this season, although the six point cushion does feel encouraging. And Nigel Adkins has a lot to prove and – as he’ll discover in January – abysmally thin resources with which to do it. But in a season of almost unremitting misery, that second half was a rare but authentic high point.
8. Amazing that the ‘best run club in the league’ had to postpone an under-23 game because it can’t fulfil three fixtures at different age levels in a weekend, isn’t it?
9. Bubblegate at Huddersfield is over 4½ years ago, but an interesting post-script arrived over the weekend. Chief Superintendent Owen West from West Yorkshire Police told City fans on Twitter that his force’s appalling conduct was “wrong” and “shouldn’t be repeated”. Refreshing stuff, and indeed WYP have been significantly less inflammatory on our last few visits to their area, hinting at genuine rather than cosmetic change. There’s a long way to go with policing football, and too often fans are still treated in a way that no other section of society could experience without a huge public outcry, but one day we’ll get there.
10. Thank you to everyone who’s said nice things about us winning the Football Supporters’ Federation’s Club Podcast of the Year in London a week ago. We’re touched that people listen to and watch our semi-coherent Monday evening offers, and appreciate everyone who participates as a guest, listener or viewer. So please, join us at about 7.30pm this evening…
#274 December 4, 2017
It’s never mutual consent is it? One side makes a decision that the other side has to live with. The term, in a sporting context, euphemises that either someone has walked away from their job or they’ve been sacked, and in this case it’s the football club who most need the appearance of being part of the decision making process. After all, the now departed Leonid Slutsky (a man who can’t be any good at poker since he wears his heart, liver, kidneys and bladder on his sleeve) was openly stating he was considering his position while Ehab was on his yacht on the Côte d’Azur.
2. Leonid Slutsky had his failings: His team selections confounded, there was a sense that the players didn’t quite grasp his philosophy and his substitutions were often ineffective, sometimes deleterious. There remains however, the belief that he was sold a lemon, trussed up like Houdini and expected to make silk purses from an array of manky sows ears found discarded in a tenfoot. Slutsky was a deeply personable and likeable man, who showed more deference to the club’s history and identity in 177 days than our owners have in 7 years. His tenure has ended in failure, but there’s no rancour here, we wish you well Slutskisha.
Ты заслуживаешь лучшего чем Ehab. Удачи в будущих начинаниях.
3. “[Slutsky] has acted with complete honour” said Ehab. If Nigel Adkins has attended the last few City games after being sounded out by the club, then Ehab should not talk of a quality he knows nothing of. One wonders if Ehab even cares about appointing a manager capable of avoiding the drop or if he is just seeking to fill a vacancy, caring only for parachute payments, which come in regardless of our current standing in the league. If he did care you’d suspect head of recruitment Lee Darnbrough would be departing at the same time as Slutsky and head of strategy Oleg Yarovinsky, after a summer transfer window that has been disastrous in terms of giving Slutsky the tools to do the job. If however, assembling a squad of kids, frees and loans that will struggle to be in the top 21 of 24 Championship clubs while selling any playing asset of value, leaving parachute payments unspent and trouserable is your goal, then you’re probably satisfied with the head of recruitment’s work.
4. In a parallel universe, Ehab Allam is a decisive man. He makes bold decisions based on unmatched football knowledge that stand the test of time, creating the sort of stability at the football club that justifies the statement “I think we’re the best run club in the Football League and arguably one of the top six in English football.”
But what of the universe you and we inhabit? Let’s open the box containing Schrödinger’s club (who exist in a state of being well run only until actually observed): Hull City are searching for their fourth manager/head coach in just 530 days. You’ll remember that Ehab passed the buck for Mike Phelan’s appointment onto prospective new owners and the fans who he was merely placating. That is of course an interesting interpretation of events soon after Steve Bruce’s mic drop, when anyone perturbed that we were beginning a Premier League season without someone to pick the team thought, perhaps hastily, that having such a person would be a good idea.
5. It’s hard not to look back at the tenure of our last ‘manager’, Steve Bruce, and not be in awe at his management of Assem Allam. He knew exactly how to get what he wanted from the old man, a skill that eluded Nigel Pearson and Nick Barmby before him, and used it to deliver a period of unprecedented success. It all went wrong though, when Assem’s ill-health increased Ehab’s influence, and Bruce clearly could no longer stomach working with him. Since then we’ve had ‘head coaches’ with limited influence on transfers, and look where that has got us, with a head coach walking away, hamstrung by Ehab, who marvels at his own inadequacy.
6. The 2-2 draw at Sheffield Wednesday followed, almost, a familiar and dispiriting template. Play okay. Take the lead. Fail to build upon it. Chuck it away. Concede late. The only thing that spoiled it was Michael Dawson’s faintly surreal equaliser, which took an eternity to travel the ten yard from the outside of his boot to the inside of the post and in. Even so, the late point gained felt more like two dropped after leading at the break and seeing just how awful the home side were.
7. And this is where the players have to take a bit of responsibility. Sure, the side isn’t good enough and the squad isn’t deep enough. That’s Ehab’s fault. Team selections and tactics, those lay with Slutsky. But this ridiculous propensity for throwing points away by conceding late goals is hard to pin on anyone but the players themselves. Late goals happen as bodies and minds weary, we all know that. But why are they usually things done to us instead of by us? It’s infuriating, and as we glumly survey the league table, costly too.
8. The reaction to our revelation of City’s actual crowds this season was interesting. We hope it served to highlight the epic and frequently deliberate mismanagement of the club by Assem and Ehab Allam by explaining the true state of our pitiful attendances this season – and remember, next time City declare a crowd figure, knock 20% off and you’re about there.
9. Apropos crowds: City haven’t really played at home to anyone this season who’d bring a large following, but we will before too long. Leeds, the reigning Champions of Europe who also memorably won this division in mid-September, have never failed to sell out an allocation here. Are City really going to leave thousands of seats empty while they bitch about only getting 2,500? What’ll happen when Wessies try to get in the home end? Will the Upper West lay empty as a contrast to an oversubscribed away end? Ditto Sheffield Wednesday, the planet’s best-supported club. City had better be thinking about this already.
10. There’ll be no podcast this evening. That’s because we’re travelling down to London today on account of being shortlisted for the Football Supporters’ Federation’s award for Club Podcast of the Year, and the awards ceremony is tonight. Though surprised and honoured to be shortlisted, we’re up against stiff opposition – but there’s champagne and a meal, so in TypicalCity fashion we’ll just enjoy a day out and not worry too much about the actual result. We’ll try to squeeze a podcast in at some point this week. In the meantime, thanks to everyone who’s said kind things about our nomination.
#273 November 27, 2017
1. Another wretched week for City. A tepid 0-0 draw at the Den and a startling collapse on Saturday garnered just a point, while neither performance offers much cause for optimism. If we were still in denial about being a relegation battle last week, we’ve been firmly disabused of that notion now. We’re in a lot of trouble.
2. Match analysis shortly, but how City cope with the realisation of being in a survival battle will be interesting. We can’t pretend to be optimistic. Entering this sort of battle with an incompetently assembled squad of moderate loanees, a porous defence and a soft, fat underbelly doesn’t fill us with hope. The best that can happen is that following the absymal capitulation against Bristol City is that the manager (whoever that ends up being) and the players quickly realise the gravity of our predicament and collectively readjust their sights. Pretending we aren’t in a serious situation until the New Year is no good. We need to start fighting now.
3. And yes, “whoever that ends up being”. The circumstances of this specific defeat, plus the general wretchedness of latter performances, have brought Leonid Slutsky’s own position under the spotlight, not least by his own candid interviews in which he has tried to be dignified and honest and has sometimes looked consequently like he has located his own sword to fall on. Maybe it’s clever psychology from Slutsky – after all, a manager who dares his chairman to sack him may risk not being given the satisfaction and could prolong his spell as a result. If he really thought he deserved to go, he’d just resign. He seems an honourable man, and we’d like to think it’s not about the payoff he’d sacrifice if he just quit, so maybe putting the feelers out about his own precarious position could, by contrast, strengthen his stance within the club. We will forever feel that he has been dealt some truly rotten hands by the Allams, who sold all his best players from a very useful inherited squad, replaced them only partially, and on the cheap at that, and then told him to get on with it. Tactically there are questions to be asked, of course, but the abysmal way the club is run clearly seeps down to the coaching staff and the squad. Slutsky is culpable when a team he picks and schools chucks away a two goal lead at home to an ordinary side, sure, but some of the other defeats and drab displays have been telegraphed from the first minute and as such have not been about him nor the players, but about those in the hierarchy who apply the binds and gags in each transfer window.
4. And really, whether he stays or goes feels irrelevant. For as long as the Allams cash more cheques than they sign and continue to claim that City are the best run club going despite a weak squad, a befuddled, betrayed manager and a half empty stadium in a one-club city that has recently enjoyed Premier League football, an FA Cup final and a European campaign, it really doesn’t matter who the manager is. If Slutsky goes, it’d be to save his own sanity because his reputation isn’t shot. Football people know the true incompetents here, and they don’t wear boots or tracksuits.
5. We were probably indebted to Allan McGregor for the point at Millwall six days ago. Along with Jarrod Bowen, he’s been a rare success this season, and he made a string of saves you can’t guarantee will always be made. It ensured a point for City that wasn’t pretty, but wasn’t wholly without use – even if it did leave to a near-death experience for poor old Leonid, whose job seemed unlikely to survive the result.
6. Whether it does survive the Bristol City disaster is anyone’s guess. And yet it wasn’t entirely hopeless. After a dour arm-wrestle at the beginning, City assumed control from about 20 to 65 minutes, assuming comfortable dominance of possession and even creating a few chances with it. When the second went in, the match really did seem secure – Bristol had offered vanishingly little and while it hadn’t been convincingly, the Tigers had deserved the lead.
7. But when the visitors pulled one back, the panic was palpable. Shorn of any semblance of leadership and with Slutsky making a rotten pair of substitutions, an equaliser (probably from a set piece) always felt likely. And so a filthy leveller duly arrived. At which point the usual late goal to lose a game always felt likely, etc etc…
8. Although the detail from the meeting between the Allams and selected supporters is a bit scant, we have hope. The Supporters Trust is represented, and they have been trying to acquire reasonable dialogue with the Allams since formation, and this is the first time it has happened. While the Trust is involved, there is hope that a) City fans will be afforded some respect again; and b) the minutes of these meetings will be accurate and conclusive. For now, we should let the process take its course and see what emerges.
9. Not that attending their first meeting since November 2013 means anything just yet. Just turning up doesn’t guarantee that they’ve listened to or understood anything they were told, let alone decided to act upon it. Merely attending a meeting of carefully selected individuals is nowhere enough to consent to an “amnesty” of protests. Even righting a few of the grievous wrongs they’ve inflicted upon this wounded club is may not be enough. For some, there will be no amnesty until they’ve gone, and the long slog of repairing the damage is begun.
10. Finally, City declared an attendance of 14,762 on Saturday. Home crowds this season have been much discussed this season, with official announcements not always corresponding to what fans have seen this season. Tune into our podcast on Periscope tonight from around 7.30pm, we have some interesting numbers to share…
#272 November 20, 2017
1. What’s more frustrating: poor concentration and sloppy defending leading to a goal conceded early on, or late in the game? City treated us to both against Ipswich on Saturday, chucking away three points that seemed to have been secured by Allan McGregor’s spot-kick save heroics. Victory would have propelled us to the dizzying heights of 18th ahead of a midweek trip to Millwall (and The Den is rarely a house of fun for us), instead we remain in 20th place. It can’t just be chalked up to bad luck either, we’ve developed a deleterious habit of letting in late goals.
2. The first half of the first half was pretty rancid, not just from a City performance point of view, but also as a spectacle. Indeed, there was more entertainment to be had watching a bird of prey in the North Stand rafters kill another bird and skillfully de-feather it (with feathers, but thankfully not entrails, falling onto fans) than contemplating the grisly fare unfolding on the field.
3. Somehow though the game transmogrified into an absorbing encounter, with City willing themselves back into the game and scoring through the ever impressive Jarrod Bowen (after a good cross from Grosicki) and the decent-in-this-game-despite-generally-woeful-supply-from-the-midfield Nouha Dicko. The Tigers had robbed Ipswich of belief, leaving them a tad petulant and niggly, but foolishly, generously City gave them hope again with a silly challenge that led to the penalty award. McGregor’s save inspired the biggest cheer of the afternoon and that might have inspired City to see out the win, but Ipswich remained energised and moonwalked out of the KCOM with a perhaps unwarranted share of the spoils.
4. Over the top criticism seems just to be the way things are nowadays, and several members of the current squad have been on the scapegoat rota this term. However, it’s fair to say that Markus Henriksen did little to silence his detractors on Saturday, with a foppish, nay fadge-like display that was exemplified by turning away from the ball as he ‘contested’ a header as we defended a corner.
5. Who says that protests don’t work? Rattled by the the stress balls and pre-match march against Nottingham Forest and alarmed by the prospect of dissent during the Queen’s visit to Hull, the Allam family have organised a meeting with fans’ leaders (well, the ones they can trust to say the right things, plus the Supporters’ Trust) – and pretended they want to compromise on the squalid removal of concessions. None of these things would have happened if we’d meekly sat on our hands while the club is dismantled around us.
6. So, there’s to be a meeting. It’s supposedly for “fans group leaders”, though it isn’t really. Amber Nectar and City Independent, present at various incarnations of Fans’ Liaison Committee meetings for over 15 years, have been disinvited in recent times, while the new Hull City Action For Change group is also not welcome. And hey, that’s the Allams’ prerogative – if they don’t want to hear independent views that reflect the wider fanbase, that’s up to them. But we worry that only the Supporters’ Trust will actually represent the fans.
7. It’s a bit reminiscent of November 2013, when Assem Allam – unsettled by dissent over his imbecilic name change idea – summoned fans’ groups to the Circle for one of the more surreal 3½ hours we’ll ever have back. He didn’t listen, or even show the faintest comprehension of the issue. Nothing that he and his son have said in the intervening years suggest they’ve developed an understanding of City fans.
8. Then, as now, a meeting was preceded by Assem Allam criticising supporters in the press, suggesting a lack of good faith going into ‘supporter consultation’. He laughably claims that ‘militant’ fans are putting off potential buyers, which shows a startling lack of self awareness and conveniently absolves himself of any responsibility. Let’s face it, Assem and his son are legendary in this city for being difficult to get along with, there is a wasteland of fractured relationships surrounding them and that can’t be pinned on anyone else. The fans didn’t drive Peter Grieve and others away, the Allams did that.
9. The reintroduction of concessions isn’t anything to be lauded, it doesn’t show the Allams to be reasonable as suggested by their dwindling band of self-serving sycophants, since the club had to be censured by the Premier League for the mere righting of a wrong to be considered. Adult prices going up is all good, the whole point is that discounts for children and seniors are subsidised by those paying full price, but failing to reduce the current prices for those who do qualify for concessions shows a (likely deliberate) lack of understanding for the issue people have with the Membership Scheme.
10. Everton are prepared to give Watford £12m to secure the services of Marco Silva as their head coach. Not bad a for a bloke of whom it was asked “what does he know about the Premier League?” and whose appointment at City in January was “astonishing…when there are a lot of people out there who know the Premier League…he’s not got clue.” Whether Silva goes to Goodison Park or not is irrelevant outside of the two clubs vying for his services, but the fact that he is now so sought after by one of the greatest names in the English game may just prove a turning point in the way lazy, xenophobic pundits are permitted to use nationality alone as a reason not to offer gifted football men employment in our game.
#271 November 6, 2017
We could attempt to dissect the last two defeats where admittedly decent teams didn’t have to work hard to put seven goals past us and take all the points. We could attempt to articulate how we feel about the impact of the close season retention policy of ‘if there’s an offer he’s gone’ and a recruitment policy of ‘screw what the head coach needs or wants, it’s about freebies, loans and kids so parachute payments can be trousered’. We could register our contempt for the ongoing process of wrenching a community asset out of public hands and into the grasp of two selfish, greedy egotists who claim to be philanthropic yet act entirely out of self-interest.
Why though? It’s a waste of words and emotion, a two word hashtag says it all: it addresses who is responsible for the humiliation of our club, highlights the single causal factor for Hull City’s current league position, for the disintegration of the club/fanbase relationship and disenfranchisement many lifelong supporters feel, for the risible and needless battle with the people who built and own the ground that was a huge factor in our rise from Division Three to the Premier League. It does all that, but perhaps more importantly it identifies the one pivotal future event that will bring about positive change, a resuscitation of hope and the detoxification of a club that has been wilfully poisoned by poisonous people.
We’ll be more erudite on the podcast, we hope, but here’s a ten point distillation of what should fix every ill befalling #hcafc
1. #AllamsOut
2. #AllamsOut
3. #AllamsOut
4. #AllamsOut
4. #AllamsOut
5. #AllamsOut
6. #AllamsOut
7. #AllamsOut
8. #AllamsOut
9. #AllamsOut
#270 October 30, 2017
1. After the gritty win at Barnsley that entertained few but at least knocked a hefty monkey from our collective backs, City failed to build upon it on Saturday. Defeat to Nottingham Forest, fellow mid-tablers, was sloppy and unnecessary, and indicative of a side that’s going nowhere this season.
2. Forest are a capable but unspectacular side who unquestionably deserved to win. A 2-3 defeat may sound modestly creditable and even a little exciting, but the truth is frustratingly different. City were poor, and the narrowness of the score-line is probably flattering.
3. Team selections cause all too many eyebrows to be raised this season, even allowing for the thin pickings Leonid Slutsky has been left with. However, those picked didn’t do enough. David Meyler, who we unconditionally adore, had a rare howler, and his rotten teatime was sadly far from unique. We looked shaky at the back, overrun in midfield and (Bowen apart) weak up front.
4. In fact, Bowen was the only outfielder who impressed. He’s a class act who many good judges thought would make the first team before long, but even his most ardent admirers couldn’t have foreseen just what a stellar impact he’d have made this season. He’s been a sensation. And increasing in value every week. Oh bugger.
4a. An honourable mention to Allan McGregor too. Like refs, you often only notice keepers when things aren’t going well for them. Well, McGregor’s not grabbed too much attention this season – but in a good way, and he had another solid afternoon on Saturday, even though he saw three goals fly past him. We aren’t missing Leicester’s third keeper at all.
5. What an anomalous player Markus Henriksen is. There had been some signs of improvement recently, a well taken goal and an assist made people wonder if we are finally going to share sight of what City saw in him in August 2016. His selection on Saturday was mystifying and his performance woeful. Players have off form games, sure, but what was more worrying was the lack of awareness and appetite when Bowen went on a stunning solo run and was setting himself up to centre the ball, all Henriksen had to do was be there to get a tap in, but instead he spectated yards away.
6. Any hopes that the Barnsley win represented a watershed moment in City’s fortunes were pulverised against Forest. There’s still a sense that if Leonid Slutsky has a philosophy, then he’s yet to fully impart it. Yes he has been treated risibly since tricked into taking the job, it was hard to disagree with his claim that he was still doing pre-season work after the closure of the transfer window, but with November upon us you would expect by now to be seeing the fruits of what the gaffer has sewn in the minds of players. Is communication an issue? Who knows, but what we saw late Saturday was an incoherent mess.
7. As usual, we cannot avoid off-field matters. The protest march first. It left the William Gemmell on Anlaby Road at 4.30pm, attracting a few hundred City fans and was well handled by all. Humberside Police provided a sizeable but unobtrusive escort, temporarily closing roads to permit a smooth journey to the West Stand, while the City fans made themselves heard forcibly but peacefully. Congratulations to Hull City Action For Change for its inception and execution.
8. They’re not the only ones ramping up the protests though. Separate to that organisation, a reprise of the 1998 tennis ball protest at Bolton (that remains one of our proudest moments was organised by others), with hundreds of vividly yellow stress balls raining down on the pitch at 19’04” to halt what was a televised game. Not all agree with it, but two things seem clear: it’s been effective, with the abysmal conduct of the Allam family that prompted it receiving national attention. Secondly, it’s absurd to suggest that City’s lousy performance was a consequence of it. It removes agency from the players, who – though limited – are generally honest triers and it’s insulting to suggest they can be so easily distracted (and why were Forest’s XI miraculously unaffected?).
9. Middlesbrough at home and then Sheffield United away, over the next few days. Even when the fixtures were announced it looked like the most appetising week of the season, taking on two sides with whom we have always encountered a bit of needle. Given that Boro are starting to show some fight for this division after a slow start, while Sheffield United top the table proudly and rather smugly after doing over Leeds United at the weekend, it’s not just an appetising week ahead, but a fairly pivotal one. Though as they are known as Boro and Blades, obviously we should beat the pair of them, shouldn’t we?
10. The tribute to Les Mutrie, courtesy of a banner, the big screens and a minute’s thunderous applause, was much appreciated by members of his family, who were present at Saturday’s game. We remain quite fortunate that unlike other clubs, we haven’t lost many of our modern day, colour telly heroes as yet, so when one genuine City legend does leave us, it’s gratifying to know we can celebrate his contribution to the club and his life as a whole with class, style and respect.
#269 October 23, 2017
1. An away win! A win, away! At an away ground! After well over 400 days of waiting, of fruitless journeys and dismal displays outside of Hull, City have finally won an away game!
2. It’s as much a relief as a source of jubilation. After drawing so many blanks in the Premier League, seeing that wretched run continue in the Championship was becoming a major source of concern and exasperation. Thank goodness it’s now at an end, if only because we were probably all sick of talking and thinking about it.
3. However…amid the glee about winning on the road, would it be excessively churlish to note that it wasn’t exactly a sparkling performance and that the points were not comprehensively merited? If so, then we’ll have to be churls, because the display left an awful lot to be desired – at one point, the away end sang “we only want one shot”. And while there are mitigating circumstances – foul weather, the nerves engendered by that run and so on – we doubt that Leonid Slutsky will have failed to notice that there’s room for improvement.
4. Still, the clean sheet was nice. City have kept too few of these this season, and while a better side than a fairly mediocre Barnsley may have found a way to puncture the Tigers’ iffy defence, nilling someone was nice. And it isn’t just with the benefit of hindsight that we observe that Barnsley didn’t really look like levelling – City closed the game out well and deserve credit for doing so, particularly after losing a lead so late just a week earlier.
5. So, there are some positives to take beyond just the points. City coped better without David Meyler than many may have expected and despite the lack of fluency on show there was no shortage of commitment either. A 6.5/10 sort of effort.
6. It leaves City 14th, as many points clear of the bottom three as behind the top six. Which feels broadly accurate as a snapshot of the season to date, and also a likely final outcome for 2017/18. We don’t feel good enough for a promotion push, but probably have too much to have any serious concerns about dropping another division. Given the calamitous incompetence we saw in the boardroom this summer, what else could we expect?
7. Apropos boardroom dolts, wasn’t Ehab’s interview with the Hull Daily Mail every bit an exercise in snivelling, blame-dodging fact-free drivel as we’d expect from one as unimpressive as him? There were some unintentionally revealing bits though. Ehab’s detestation of City fans was obvious, and him considering not selling City just to spite us is a fascinating insight into his sub-standard character. It’s fairly obvious that the club isn’t for sale in any meaningful sense anyway, and this grim stand-off between the reviled Allam family and the people of Hull isn’t going to end soon.
8. We hear, from multiple sources, that City tried to instruct the stewards at Barnsley to remove anti-Allam flags in the away end at Oakwell. We aren’t surprised that free speech isn’t awfully popular among the hierarchy at City, but even for them this would be pathetically thin-skinned.
9. Forest next on the telly. It’s a chance to show the world how much we hate our owners, but also a chance for City to inch closer to a top-half place. Will Slutsky keep faith with those who laboured to victory on Saturday – or has Campbell earned a start and will Meyler return? Interesting questions for the manager.
10. The impending visits of sides in 12th and 13th should give us an idea of whether we can improve upon the mid-table finish we expect. Forest look nothing special, but Middlesbrough’s comparably lowly standing is a surprise. They’ve plenty of time to put things right, but it’s possible we could catch them at a good time. And who knows, six points from these two home games….
#268 October 16, 2017
1. Bollocks, bollocks and thrice bollocks. Are we ever going to win an away game again? If we can’t hold onto a lead in the very final minute of a game against the side who accommodatingly ended our last nightmarishly long run of away failures seven years ago, it’s tough to see us ever succeeding on the road any time soon.
2. It’s tempting to look at what City did wrong, but let’s firstly look at what they did right. Norwich are no mugs – they’d be in the play-offs had they beaten City – but we led for a long time. That was courtesy of a very nice goal that featured a gloriously weighted pass by the much-maligned but also improved Henriksen and a cool finish by Dicko.
3. City also held on for more than half an hour following David Meyler’s sending off, taking the match into the very final minute. A bit of luck was ridden, but a fair few sleeves were also rolled up and the lads competed well in challenging circumstances. As frustrated as we all are, it’s also possible to feel for them a bit. Twice now, at Reading and Norwich, we’d led in the final stages and fallen short. It hurts.
4. But…that equalising goal. Firstly, the throw was obviously foul. But it didn’t have a great bearing on the goal itself, which was heartbreakingly soft. A long throw, a flick, a late runner sweeps it home. It’d be a crap one to concede in the 17th minute; in the 96th, it’s going to dismay us all week long.
5. By common consent, Mr Stroud didn’t have a great afternoon with the whistle. By far the most contentious and significant decision came with the dismissal of David Meyler, which probably stymied any hopes we had of adding to the lead and left us holding on for over a third of the game. It’s possible to understand his thinking though. Meyler clumsily bundled a player over (in his view), and with Norwich breaking dangerously, the caution that followed was almost automatic. It looked soft. A few replays don’t alter that perception, but Meyler himself didn’t quarrel with the official’s verdict and it’s hard not to conclude that we’ll see greater injustices (for and against) this season.
6. This away thing. It now stretches over 13 months, and it’s becoming a serious handicap in a season already hobbled by Ehab Allam’s summer antics. Granted, most of those were in a Premier League relegation season, but we’ve already had six attempts this season and still the run continues. It just has to be a psychological thing now, and combatting that isn’t going to be easy.
7. Which takes us to Barnsley on Saturday. A big following is likely for the first Yorkshire derby in the League this season, and expectations are going to be high – that’s no slight on our hosts, despite their lowly position. However, we really have to be winning this game, simply to regain a little bit of belief on the road. They’ve had a funny sort of season, and won’t represent the stiffest test we’ll encounter. Come on City, send us home happy for once, yeah?
8. Back to David Meyler, who’s certainly in the headlines right now. It was highly enjoyable to see him captain Ireland to qualification to the World Cup play-offs, and we’d love to see him feature at Russia 2018. We’ve always loved Meyler, and it’s great to see him get the recognition he deserves.
9. There will be a tribute to Les Mutrie at the Nottingham Forest home game on 28th October, and quite right too. City fans of a certain age will always remember him with immense fondness, and his passing at the age of 66 was a cause of considerable upset. If you missed it during the international break, here’s our little tribute to Sir Les.
10. Ehab Allam called someone childish when discussing gategate, his family’s latest gift to the community. Still, no-one ever thought he possessed an ounce of self-awareness.
#267 October 2, 2017
1. We’re now 11 league games into 2017/18, a season so far characterised by periods of melancholy and negative outlook, passing into euphoric episodes of hypomania. This iteration of Hull City it seems, are bipolar.
2. There’s little positive to take from the Preston game. The visitors looked alarmingly better than City throughout, and though we had a decent period in the second half following the equaliser, we can’t really claim to have deserved anything. Preston aren’t a bad side, but they’re also not a strikingly good one (certainly not a patch on Wolves), and to lose rather feebly to them was pretty rotten.
3. There was an acutely disjointed feel to City six days ago. The players seemed to have little idea of their roles, the formation was either unclear or not implemented and the side drifted in aimless confusion. Preston harried well, and because no-one seemed quite sure what they were supposed to be doing there was no answer to it. Subsequent events may have restored a little faith, but for the first time it was easy to find City fans questioning the manager.
4. Birmingham were astoundingly bad, but that’s no reason to not marvel at City’s attacking purpose, fluid movement and ever so pleasing ruthlessness. Great performances were legion: Fraizer Campbell’s early drive and intent set the tone, Jarrod Bowen’s hunger was sated and Kamil Grosicki’s motivation rekindled by a freedom granting formation and submissive opponents. Jon Toral put in his finest shift to date, acting as a conduit between wide men and front men, and even those who have been maligned of late impressed in a complementary formation, goals for Seb Larsson and Markus Henriksen should do wonders for their confidence.
4a. That fifth goal, just how pornographic was it? We’ll tell you. It was so sexually explicit that Tigers TV ought to put an 18 rating on the highlights video. It’s a good job Channel 5’s Championship highlights show is aired post watershed. Sexball.
5. Billy Dickinson, Arthur Cunliffe, Cliff Hubbard, Dai Davies, Charles Robinson, George Richardson – finally, after 78 years and nine months, the pressure is off you guys. Finally, another Hull City game has yielded six different goalscorers. Mind you, it may be a while before a City side equals the 11-1 win that you lot managed over Carlisle in 1939…
6. Given that the switch to 4-4-2 against Birmingham was less of a choice and more of a necessity after Stephen Kingsley went off injured against Preston, it will be interesting to see what formation Slutsky goes with when Kingsley is available again. Three central defenders and wing backs is clearly the Russian’s favoured set up, but the personnel brought in of late (with seemingly little input from Slutsky) are a bad fit for that system, one that reduces the potency of Kamil Grosicki and Jarrod Bowen, isolates the lone front man and befuddles everyone else. The difference between the Preston and Birmingham games was stark, and the formation was undoubtedly the biggest factor. Slutsky has been dealt a bad hand, but he still has choices about how he plays it.
7. It’s hard to imagine this season culminating in any great drama. City are 17th, but look to have more than enough to avoid a serious relegation scrap. Nonetheless, the top six feels an even more distant prospect. It’s possible that the January transfer window could shake things up (and if the Allams’ chokehold remains in place, that won’t be in a good way), but a quick check of the odds from all the best bookmakers makes for sobering reading: 22/1 for promotion, 25/1 for relegation. Midtable mediocrity, here we come.
8. City claimed two attendances in excess of 15,000 for the two home games last week. We appreciate that the reporting of crowds needn’t reflect the actual number of people in the ground, and it’s a fairly standard practice throughout football. Nonetheless, the official figures don’t remotely indicate just how much the Allam family’s spiteful policies are driving people away. It would be fascinating to have the actual attendances.
9. Saturday saw the first public meeting of a new group, Hull City Action For Change. They did well too, attracting a healthy turnout in the William Gemmell Club. Speakers from Supporters’ Direct and the admirable Hull City Supporters’ Trust turned up, multi-award-winning journalist David Burns was on hand to witness the group’s efforts and the whole event passed off successfully. We will wait with interest their detailed plans to hasten the exit of the lamentable Allam family, and support their endeavours wholeheartedly.
10. Also on Saturday, three plaques commemorating the lives and contributions to Hull of City icons Raich Carter, Billy Bly and Andy Davidson were unveiled at the Tiger Rags exhibition at the Streetlife Museum. Overall, other cities do a better job of honouring their footballing legends, but our fair burgh is cottoning on. Hopefully this sort of enshrinement and public acknowledgement of the importance of Hull City to the city of Hull will become the new standard, and not just a singular spectacle.
#266 September 25, 2017
1. Being a City fan on the road is always going to have its difficulties, but it feels especially grim at the moment. Reading was the about the closest we’ve come to a first League success outside of Hull in 13 months, and to have it snatched away late in the game feels rather cruel.
2. Cruel, and careless too. It was a scruffy game between two sides with little chance of troubling the top six, but an unhappy season would’ve been briefly lent a little lustre if we’d finally won an away game. Whether we deserved three points isn’t a moot point – we’ll get onto it shortly – but when you’re that close to a win against deeply mediocre opposition, it’s desperately disappointing to let it slip with five minutes left.
3. Reading ‘enjoyed’ 74% of the possession on Saturday, a statistic that is, on the face of it, quite damning for Leonid Slutsky and the Tigers. However it is unlikely that many Royals fans enjoyed it, given that Jaap Stam’s side rarely did anything with the ball: there was no purpose to their passing and remarkably few real goalscoring chances fashioned. Their pointless possession didn’t reflect badly on City, it suited us.
4. Seb Larsson’s City career has had a patchy start, but he was involved in most of City’s best chances at the Madejski Stadium. His through ball for Fraizer Campbell’s goal was sublime, perfectly weighted and taking two Reading players out of play, and he was unlucky not to score himself from two direct free kicks. The first struck the crossbar, and the second caused Vito Mannone some difficulty when it deflected off the wall. One game doesn’t make a season, but there are signs that Larsson can make a meaningful contribution this year.
5. As for Campbell, it was gratifying to see him notch his first City goal in 9 years, 4 months and 28 days. He showed great awareness in anticipating Larsson’s through ball and carefully placing his shot beyond both the ‘keeper and covering defender.
6. This week sees a pair of home fixtures, and a chance to speedily add to our worryingly thin points tally. Preston visit on Tuesday, and will do so lying in an unexpectedly elevated position. They certainly weren’t among the pre-season favourites, but they’ve started well – a match that may, two months ago, have seemed among autumn’s less testing assignments doesn’t feel that way right now.
7. Then it’s Birmingham. They’ve just raised a smile by ending Harry Redknapp’s career, but that does mean they could well have a new manager by the time they travel to the Circle in five days. Having picked up a handy point at Derby on Saturday, their present position of 23rd is possibly a false one.
8. But never mind all that…it’s two home games, and although you’d have to be either overburdened with optimism or untroubled by rationality to envisage City as automatic promotion candidates, even a side aspiring for a respectable and stabilising top half finish needs to be amassing no fewer than four points from these two games. Right?
9. Saturday sees what may potentially be an escalation in the attempts to rid ourselves of the Allam scourge. A new group named “Hull City Action For Change” (HCAFC – geddit?) are holding a public event on Saturday before the Birmingham match in the William Gemmell on Anlaby Road. We look forward to seeing what they have to say and their learning their plans to bring about a fresh start for the club.
10. It was interesting to see the Football League’s response to AFC Wimbledon referring to MK Dons as just MK on the scoreboard and not at all on the matchday programme this weekend. A League statement read: “The failure to recognise MK Dons in the correct manner causes reputational issues for the EFL as well as creating the potential for unrest amongst MK Dons supporters and, as such, is of concern for the EFL.” Strange that the League have said nothing about our club’s repeated failures to recognise the name Hull City, nor the unrest among supporters created by inconsistent branding, since both cause reputational issues for the EFL, right?
#265 September 18, 2017
1. Another poor week on the field for City, for whom little is going right. Defeat at Fulham wasn’t shameful, unlike the catastrophe that preceded it, but it extended City’s winless run of away league games to 21. There’s a real psychological issue with the side – it doesn’t look remotely as though it’s confident of winning any fixture outside of East Yorkshire, and this mental timidity is sensed and capitalised upon by streetwise Championship opposition with disheartening ease and regularity.
2. We weren’t bad at Craven Cottage. Just ordinary, and prone to fatal lapses of concentration at the back. And though City roused themselves well from the first concession, there was rarely a sense that the second could be repaired. Again, it’s mental frailty. We don’t do adversity well on the pitch, which is particularly unfortunate given that we’re a club beset by it right now.
3. Sunderland followed an approximately similar pattern, though with a moderately happier outcome. When we conceded (miserably cheaply), heads plunged and took a long time to recover. And look, it’s hard when things are going bad and you concede. Footballers are human and they experience human emotions. But there also needs to be a greater resilience at times. Some of the stuff City played in the first half after Sunderland scored was frankly shocking.
4. Much of that came from a midfield that was really quite pathetically weak. Henriksen and Larsson must surely have attributes that have propelled them a long way in the professional game, but it was difficult to discern what these were at times. Neither seemed awfully interested in tracking runners, making a tackle, receiving or using possession, and as a result we were overrun by a deeply mediocre Sunderland side. You cannot hope to prosper with such a flimsy central midfield, and it’s hard not to wonder what on earth Leonid Slutsky was thinking by deploying it.
5. Whenever City played the ball out of defence in the first half it was invariably to one of the wide men, where momentum stalled. The formation took Bowen and Grosicki out of the game as Sunderland were able to contain the wide player with the ball and still have both Bowen and Grosicki tightly marked.
6. Why do City look so bereft of purpose and understanding at times? Well, Slutsky’s post match interview revealed that the Russian feels he’s still in pre-season mode, still explaining his philosophy to the players eight games into the season. With that we can sympathise. Remember Ehab saying how transfer business would be concluded early?
7. Slutsky said David Meyler didn’t start the game as he is managing the Irishman’s fitness, an understandable mindset when you consider the players we’ve lost to injury playing them when below peak fitness. Meyler’s introduction changed the game though, and saved City from defeat.
8. Which brings us to that risible chant. Stop that shit.
9. Without garnering much attention, Allan McGregor is making a lot of good saves at the moment. The first goal he conceded at Derby is a reminder that he has his flaws, but he’s also been stopping a lot lately. In these generally unhappy days, it’s a rare bright point.
10. Let’s not go overboard on penaltyspotgate. It’s clear that someone somewhere forget to properly daub a splash of paint twelve yards from each goal, and equally plain that the referee didn’t notice that penalty spots were not visible to the fans. It happens. It was poor timing with the SMC choosing over the weekend to publicly defend their decision to sack the previous ground staff, but never mind. It’ll make a great Hull City trivia question in years to come.
#264 September 11, 2017
1. Where on earth to start with the Derby debacle? Oddly enough, it wasn’t that bad for the first half hour or so. City trailed, with Aina and McGregor about equally to blame for Derby’s opener, but we were in the game. Until Larsson missed a penalty. How does a professional footballer, whose actual job it is to direct a football in a particular direction, MISS a penalty? Having one saved is almost understandable, though still unimpressive when there are parts of a goal that a keeper cannot reach available for the taker. But to fail to steer a stationary football with no accompanying opponents into the available 192 square feet from a mere twelve yards…it’s baffling.
2. There are no excuses for what followed. 1-0 down having just missed a penalty isn’t a great situation. 4-0 down at half-time is impossible to salvage, yet that’s what City’s total capitulation following Larsson’s error ensured. It was as appalling a quarter-hour as you could ever wish to see at this level of football.
3. But how? Well, Leonid Slutsky erred with his team selection. Unless David Meyler was either injured or exhausted following international duty, his benching was a decision that’s tough to understand. So is the inclusion of Markus Henriksen, who offers disappointingly little when things are going well and virtually nothing when they aren’t. City were often overrun in the first half, and the team selection needs questioning as much as the application of those who were selected.
4. Kudos to Curtis Davies for not celebrating his goal (though we’re not fragile or juvenile enough to be emotionally scarred forever if an ex-player larges it a bit when putting one over on us) and bigger kudos to Davies and Tom Huddlestone as well for making a point of applauding the 1,054 City fans who made the journey. They never got chance to say goodbye; and neither did we. And they deserved applause back because they were and are excellent footballers and good professionals, and worthy of our continued respect.
5. Two big games this week. Going to Fulham is aesthetically pleasant but seldom easy; playing Sunderland at home is often vociferous and not always pleasant. It’s about time City decided what they are going to be – capable of swatting away distracted opposition at the Circle while grinding out agreeable performances and results on their travels? Currently it’s one and not the other.
6. And the Derby horror show reminded us of just how awful we have actually been away from home for a very long time. It’s not new territory, of course; our first relegation from the Premier League was aided emphatically by a winless season away from home, and there was joy and relief usually associated with last day escapes when that came to an end a few games into the next season at Norwich. But being so dreadful on our travels is embarrassing and must come to an end quickly.
7. We wouldn’t ordinarily concern ourselves with Ehab Allam’s utterances on Friday. They’re as banal, wrongheaded, self-serving and cretinous as you’d expect from him or his father. But…wasn’t it interesting that the club issued them on Friday, a day when the club was being lambasted by two different football authorities. It could be coincidence rather than distraction. Or it could not be.
8. Either way, having already secured for themselves a place in the gutter, it’s clear that the Allam family are now intent on establishing an even more subterranean position for their shattered reputation. Firstly, the club was censured by the Premier League for failing to offer concessions last season. The club misled us when saying concessions still existed, and have now been reprimanded for not doing so. Furthermore, City’s assertion that the rules were “ambiguous” is not true. They’re explicitly clear. City were unaware of them when acting to spite their own fans, and when the magnificent Hull City Supporters’ Trust began their determined campaign to reverse this assault upon our future fanbase, they simply hoped they’d get away with it. That’s evidenced by their refusal to implement concessions even now that their malpractice has been exposed, and as the Upper West Stand lies empty, no-one with an ounce of integrity or intelligence could contend that they’ve had a positive effect.
9. Friday didn’t get much better for City, when the Independent Football Ombudsman issued scathing criticism of the club for having chosen “not to co-operate” with an investigation into alleged mis-selling of these godforsaken memberships. It was, in their view, “unacceptable and unprecedented” for a club to not co-operate. Just think about that. It is literally without precedent that a professional football club in this country should choose not to assist into an investigation launched for the benefit of one of their own fans. It’s a squalid new low.
10. But it’s explicitly the wishes of Hull City AFC. The owners enact policies that intentionally harm the supporters of the club, which are then carried out (with varying enthusiasm) by employees at all levels. Be in no doubt: our owners viscerally loathe City supporters, and haven’t bothered hiding it for some time. Well, it’s mutual. But don’t for a second think you’re going to win, because you aren’t.
#263 August 30, 2017
1. The Hull City soap opera took plenty more turns during the past week, and not exclusively awful ones either. Defeat at Doncaster eight days ago – a comfortable loss to a side we were three divisions above last season – won’t have looked too clever to the uninitiated, but the mitigating circumstances were so substantial as to render this immediate League Cup loss oddly uplifting.
2. To see so many youth teamers eagerly snatching their chance of first team football, and playing with such determination and skill, made us feel a peculiarly paternal sort of pride. They were simply terrific, applying themselves with courage and enthusiasm. It appeared, briefly, that Doncaster’s much more experienced side may inflict a cruelly sizeable defeat when they took a 2-0 lead; to avoid that was impressive.
3. The City fans that night were magnificent too – loud, angry and passionate. There have been plenty of grumbles about the supposedly cowed nature of the Tiger Nation in recent times, which has always struck us as an exaggerated complaint – there was none of that in South Yorkshire, as we bellowed defiance to the Allams and their serial misdeeds. There’s loads of life left in us yet.
4. Not quite as vigorous was Leonid Slutsky. While not quite the suicidal-sounding incarnation that greeted radio listeners after the defeat at QPR, he continued to cut a forlorn figure after the League Cup. So it was impossible not to be delighted as much for him as for ourselves when City paggered Bolton three nights later.
5. City plundered four but could have had far more on Friday night. Kamil Grosicki’s performance was his most effective since he joined the club, setting up two goals and scoring himself. It’s a shame that such a display comes in the last game before the closure of the transfer window, as it makes it hard to shake the notion that the Pole is playing for a move away rather than for the City cause.
6. He wasn’t the only one to impress of course. Jarrod Bowen is looking like the real deal and is carpe-ing the shit out of the diem. Seb Larssson is proving to be a useful acquisition, always offering a passing option for colleagues and using the ball wisely.
7. Whatever fears City fans hold about not being able to compete for promotion this season, the Bolton game demonstrated that any fears about relegation are unjustifiable. Bolton were staggeringly bad, playing like an easy level video game opponent that offer no threat going forwards, surrender possession as soon as they go over the half way line and don’t even put up that much of a fight to contain attacks.
8. Welcome to Nouha Dicko, who joins from Wolverhampton Wanderers. A mixture of injuries and a Portuguese influx seems to have limited Dicko’s recent opportunities in the West Midlands, but he’ll have plenty here with Abel Hernandez out for 8 months. City songsmiths, you have a unique opportunity to craft a chant with dicks and sluts in it, have fun.
9. Inevitable that two games for Leicester City would prove sufficient to persuade Gareth Southgate that Harry Maguire was good enough for an England call-up, when he played last season for City just as convincingly and was evidently better than Ben Gibson, the Middlesbrough defender whose uncle gave Southgate his break as a manager. We’re aware that we’ll be easily accused of bitterness, and we’re also aware that Southgate, a decent man, has stated Maguire would have been summoned last season but for ill-timed injury, but even so, his call-up just after the ink dries on his Leicester contract feels as Typical City as it’s possible to be. That doesn’t mean we don’t wish the big man well, of course, and we hope beyond all hope that he is picked for at least one of the two qualifiers for next summer’s World Cup which England have to negotiate over the next week or so. His arrival at England HQ clutching a bin bag, like an undergraduate arriving home for the weekend with a sack of dirty washing, endeared him to the country in a way that he endeared himself to us over the last couple of years.
10. Maybe we’ll see Sam Clucas in an England shirt before long too? Certainly now that he has joined Swansea City it seems instantly more likely, just because, well, they’re not us. But beyond that, he’s another player whom we don’t blame for leaving and who can look back at his time in City colours with nothing but great pride and satisfaction. For all the poison at the very top of our club, we do seem to have employed some upstanding, agreeable young men in our first team squad in recent times.
#262 August 21, 2017
1. What a dismal week. There’s no shame in defeat against Wolves, though it starkly illustrated why we aren’t likely to serious challenge for automatic promotion. They were excellent, aided by City’s hesitancy both on and off the ball, and looked comfortably better than us throughout a sobering evening. Fair enough. We didn’t really expect to be competing for the top two anyway.
2. However, an unhappy result was lent a disastrous air by the news that Abel Hernández will now be out for most of the rest of the season. He’d already plundered a hat-trick against Burton and barring injury or the club cashing in, he’d almost certainly have ended the season as our leading scorer. He’d be extremely difficult to replace even if we tried; however, we probably won’t.
3. That sent a thin XI to QPR, with negligible support on the bench. Now, QPR are a fairly rotten side, much likelier to depart the division via its trapdoor than its ladder. To feebly lose to them really does not bode well for this season, and the early promise of Aston Villa and Burton feels quite distant.
4. And more injuries too. Campbell and Stewart will be unavailable for the foreseeable future, with Leonid Slutsky grimly forecasting more as he’s forced to call upon half-fit players. It’s a disgusting state of affairs to have the new manager so constrained by his employers, who’ve very clearly sold him down the river. Barring a very considerable change in policy from Ehab Allam, we are certain to be hopelessly unprepared for the long season ahead.
5. That isn’t likely to improve with the sale of Sam Clucas this week. £12m is a lot of money for a player who cost barely a tenth of that, but he can’t be replaced either, and it makes a mockery of the manager’s insistence that the supermarket was closed (that not his fault, obviously). We wish him well, as he’s grown to be an authentic Premier League player and his back story is an inspiring one.
5a. If Clucas, awaiting a move away, had really refused to play at QPR, why was he dressed in City apparel watching the game? It doesn’t compute and the player himself has denied it. It seems more plausible that he was made unavailable in order to protect the impending transfer fee.
6. Leonid Slutsky’s crestfallen post-match interview with a sparky David Burns was a tough listen. Well done to the BBC man for asking some tough questions, even though the man who should be answering them doesn’t have the guts or the decency to do so. Slutsky sounded thoroughly deflated and disillusioned, as all football managers who worked for that wretched family seem to become. His foray into the English game, for which he worked so hard, is not going how it should be. On a human level, we feel for him and the betrayal he’s experiencing. City fans: among the entirely justified loathing for his employers, let’s show him a bit of love this week, yeah?
7. To Doncaster, and it seems many are making this unglamorous journey with dissent on their mind. Bollocks to any equivocating this “get behind the team” and “it doesn’t help the players” drivel. What doesn’t help the team is having half of it sold every summer and not replaced. We’re going the way of Leyton Orient, Coventry, Blackpool et al, and while on-field success has helped to mask some of this, that’s no longer the case. It’s time for the protests to be ramped up and for the Allam family to know that their intentional mishandling of the city of Hull’s football team is not acceptable to the people who live in it.
8. Ola Aina. Already he’s causing a mild division of opinion. It’s clear that he’s a strong player, comfortable in possession and inclined towards attacking. But, the naysayers cry, what about the defending? Well, it’s a valid point. The (very early) evidence suggests that it isn’t his strongest point. We may just need to get used to that. The specialist full-back who rarely ventures beyond the halfway line is a dying breed, harking back to a time of greater specialisation but less flexibility – and of fewer players being capable of attacking. Like the specialist wicketkeeper, the out-and-out full-back may soon be only a memory of football from a different, slower and less versatile age – and Aina appears to embody this evolution in the game.
9. It’s temporary pleasure, but we did enjoy Ehab falling for the “give us a wave” trick at Loftus Road. The man really is devoid of self-awareness or shame. Still, from the brief joy of being able to call him deservedly rude names in response we then clock the mysterious besuited figures sitting beside him and wonder, hope, implore, beg even, that he is about to relinquish his responsibilities. Not that he has discharged these responsibilities with any element of, er, responsibility, obviously.
10. Harry Maguire played a blinder and scored a goal on his home debut for Leicester on Saturday while Andy Robertson turned in a fine display on his bow for Liverpool. We got £25m for those two, players who were then analysed at length by Match Of The Day, leading Gary Lineker to ask how we got relegated last season. Well Gal, it’s a hell of a story, so pour yourself a strong one and settle back…
#261 August 14, 2017
1. Satisfying stuff on Saturday from City. Circumstances assisted in the 4-1 win – Burton’s limitations, red card and submissive willingness to back off in the second half – but there was some truly terrific football played and we looked utterly comfortable.
2. Abel Hernández missed the easiest chance of the game in the first half – we don’t count any of the flurry of opportunities somehow blocked by Steven Bywater after the break – but nonetheless took his three goals with aplomb. Given the unrelenting departures of the summer, it’s a slight surprise that the Uruguayan is still with us, but with displays like that, we can be most grateful for it.
3. Other notable displays – Jarrod Bowen looks like he belongs at this level and his confidence is only going to grow, while Max Clark looked less of a square peg as an attacking left back, and actually crossed the ball on the overlap accurately and fiendishly on a good few occasions. Michael Hector’s assured and slightly cocky display at the back also hints at a performer of real class who could stroll through this division with a fat cigar on.
4. There was a moment in the first half when Ola Aina got a bit too complacent and lost the ball. City got away with it, just, but the terrific dressing down he took from Michael Dawson evidently had an effect because in the second half he defended stoutly and, as interest in attacking from our opponents dwindled more, he showed what a supreme athlete he is with shinpad-exposed runs with and without the ball that further burnt out the overworked Burton left side. This boy can play – and clearly he is capable of learning too.
5. Fraizer Campbell’s not fully at it yet, is he? Just like last week at Aston Villa, he didn’t look sharp enough, but only perseverance and hard minutes on the pitch will assuage that. We don’t recall him having a chance to score on Saturday but he put in an unselfish shift while his strike partner took the glory, and his time will come.
6. Maybe it’ll be when Wolves to come to town on Tuesday night. Leonid Slutsky removed Hernàndez, Kamil Grosicki (nice headed goal) and Sam Clucas against Burton, suggesting he wanted them as fresh as possible for hardier tests coming this week. A trip to QPR, rarely something that fills City fans with lip-smacking anticipation, then awaits at the weekend.
7. Slutsky told the press after the win over Burton that his highlight of the game was being asked to wave by the City fans. We could easily be in love with this guy already.
8. Doncaster away in the League Cup. Nearby, eminently winnable, and the prospect of big numbers travelling on a (hopefully) sultry mid-summer’s evening. And whatever number of Hull City supporters is announced that night, at least we know it’ll be accurate, eh?
*SOAPBOX TIME*
9a. If you find the actions of the Allams repulsive, and after careful consideration cannot in good conscience put money in coffers administered by them, so do not attend home games, then good on you. Understandable.
9b. If you find the actions of the Allams repulsive, but after careful consideration have decided that you’re still going to attend games to cheer on the team (because you were a City fan long before they came along and you’ll be a City fan long after they’ve sold up) and you’ll be damned if those two are driving you away, then good on you. Understandable.
10. If however, you’ve decided that your decision is the only decision that can be made and elect to berate other City fans on social media or in person, then to quote a colloquialism, ‘give your head a wobble’. The Allams and their dwindling cult of apologists are the enemy, not people who broadly agree that a pair of perfidious egotists must go quickly for the good of Hull City AFC. Divisiveness is clearly their goal, so don’t fall for it.
#260 August 7, 2017
1. Football is back! And if it was possible to be decidedly underwhelmed at the prospect of another season labouring under the ghastly Allams on Saturday morning, events in the early evening in Birmingham did at least make it feel less daunting.
2. Not that we can easily gloss over the first half. For much of it, City looked worryingly frail and disorganised. A side sharper than Aston Villa could easily have settled the game in the first third, and that really would have left us shuddering at the prospect of another 45 games. As it was, we’re back in the Championship, and spells like this are going to be ridden out more frequently. To keep it at 1-0, with a late flurry in the first half, always gave us a chance.
3. So it proved, as the second half was filled with encouragement. The previously lethargic Grosicki grew into the game, service to the hard working pair of Campbell and Hernández gradually improved and Aston Villa ceased being able to torment our full backs. This all made it possible for City to advance with authority rather than trepidation, and the equaliser – when it arrived – was fully deserved.
4. What a finish and what a moment for Jarrod Bowen. When Grosicki darted into the sort of space we were routinely denied last season and floated one over, it’d have been all too easy for a young, inexperienced player to wildly lash the ball high and wide when presented with the whites of the goalkeeper’s eyes. Instead, he demonstrated that his stunning match-winning goal against Benfica last month was no fluke with a finish of steely composure. Well done that man (and what a great celebration too; elbowing a steward out of the way to get to the supporters will endear him further to the City fans for many a year). Well done also City for recovering a point from – according to the pre-season odds – the hardest game we’ll have in 2017/18.
5. Grosicki seems much better suited to playing down the right doesn’t he? Not only does it lessen the impact of a failure to adequately track back on our stand-in left back, it allows him to finish moves with his right foot. Despite being ambipedal, Grosicki’s end product was woeful last year when he was deployed on the left. His right footed cross for Bowen’s strike suggests we’re best starting him on that side.
6. Isn’t Leonid Slutsky a thoroughly affable individual too? His infectious personality makes it hard not to warm to him. In a club beset by difficulties, his radiant happiness stands out even more starkly. Lets just hope that grin remains intact.
7. After all, he works for Ehab Allam, who is clearly incapable of learning from, or even tacitly admitting his mistakes. “Absolute power corrupts absolutely” goes the axiom, in that people with too much power succumb to arrogance, believing their judgments always correct, and their wisdom infallible, despite evidence to the contrary. The summer of 2016 was evidence enough, when City’s preparation for a new season wasn’t just inadequate, it felt like an act of self-harm. That wouldn’t be repeated in the summer of 2017 would it? Of course it would, Ehab doesn’t learn, perhaps he just doesn’t care about anything other than the money we get from the Premier League even after relegation. What must Slutsky make of a summer where both left backs have, left? Robertson’s sale was understandable from all perspectives, but allowing the first player to ‘graduate’ from our relatively new academy set up to go, a local lad who was shamefully still on a scholarship deal earning £150 a week after making Premier League appearances, seems more than just careless. “The supermarket is closed” was Slutsky’s terse public response to the seemingly unending departures. He deserves better owners, and we wish him luck.
8. The signings he has made will obviously take a while to settle and gel. They also need to get to know the club, with one notable exception: Fraizer Campbell. At Villa Park, he made his second debut for City, two months short of ten years since his first. Reaction to his acquisition on a free transfer from Crystal Palace has been principally positive, which is a relief given that he has taken some unwarranted stick from City fans on the handful of occasions he has lined up against us in the two highest levels of the game. Campbell is now an experienced player, an England international, not completely proven thanks to a mixture of injuries and hefty competition for places, but if anyone knows how devastating a presence he can be at this level of the game, especially with a good supply behind and outside him, it’s us.
9. While there will always be reservations about local commercial radio’s effectiveness to deliver good football coverage when, unlike the oxygenated BBC, it lives and dies instantaneously by its audience figures and revenues, there is nothing in the Viking 2 deal to blame the radio station for, even going as far as the non-appearance of the much publicised first commentary of the season on Saturday due to a technical fault (they do happen, even to the BBC). But the decision by Ehab Allam to not renew terms with BBC Radio Humberside because he disapproves of their awkward, irritating knack of questioning his regime (which they generally did fairly, and with balance) is yet another example of his over-inflated sense of worth, a man of incompetence and spite who thinks he is the bees’ knees, and woe betide anyone, such as an experienced local journalist steeped in the objectivity that the BBC always strives to show, who dares to think everything Ehab does is not necessarily flawless nor open to close examination. Dave Burns is clearly upset, judging by his tweets on the subject. He is right to be – even his detractors have been able to admit that they would rather he and his station were there on matchdays than not. We wish Viking 2 well but can’t help but fear they are in cahoots with a truly poisonous client who will prove deleterious to their reputation, and Saturday’s no-show, irrespective of the true reasons for it, felt somehow symbolic of the deal itself.
10. The 2017/18 home kit is quite nice, good work Umbro. Shame it doesn’t have the club’s name on it.
#259 June 19, 2017
1. So, welcome Leonid Slutsky, and brace yourself for a glut of headlines from our classy tabloid media which you will barely understand but will make City fans the world over cringe uncontrollably. We hope you settle in our neighbourhood quickly and have an enjoyable and fruitful time as our manager.
2. Look at us, appointing English football’s first ever Russian manager. John Bradley, the former Viking FM sports editor who now commentates on Russian football, told us on Twitter: “He’s a good man. Has a fine record in Russia. Gets the best out of players. Improves players. Conducts himself well at all times. Negatives: could be accused of being a little tactically naïve and a little stuck in his ways by playing the same way all the time.” So, mainly good notices from someone who has viewed his teams on a professional level on many an occasion. And Slutsky has spent the whole year learning English, too.
3. But yeah, our footballing nation’s first ever Russian gaffer, and he’s ours. As for City, the only manager not from the British Isles we’d ever appointed before 2017 began was Jan Mølby, who’d been in the English game as player and manager for nearly 20 years and had a more pronounced Scouse accent than large swathes of Birkenhead. Now we’ve had a brooding, telegenic, highly-rated Portuguese quickly followed by a Russian chap who was managing his country as recently as last year’s European Championships. Oh, how Paul Merson must disapprove.
4. We hope our new leader has made it abundantly clear to Ehab Allam that huge numbers of players need to be recruited to make us a viable competitor in the Championship come August. The money that needs to be spent is kind of incidental, really; we need bodies. Whether they are gifted freebies, unknowns from Russophile clubs, youthful loanees or big names, get them in, in quantities. The threadbare squad we had this time last year has now passed into footballing folklore and became a symbol of why ultimately, as per most predictions and previews, we were unable to maintain our Premier League place, and that deplorable situation will not be tolerated again.
5. And the defence is obviously the first port of call. Alex Bruce (who really would have been so useful this season, but obviously accident of birth rendered him persona non grata with the Allams – and imagine being reliant on your father for your career, eh Ehab?) has gone. Curtis Davies has also gone, joining Derby County in an improperly cheap £500,000 deal. Two defenders with a wealth of experience, out with barely a backwards glance.
6. And now, Harry Maguire. We may have struggled to keep hold of this exceptional young defender even if we’d stayed up, but it’s unarguable that there was no chance of his staying once our fate was sealed. Maguire is a fine top flight defender who will get finer and will be even more on the international radar now that he has joined Leicester City for £17m. We think he’ll do well there. We think he’ll play for England next season. And while we can point to all sorts of shameful stuff behind the scenes that ultimately leads to us accepting the first bid we receive for our best footballer, we can’t blame Maguire for going, and nor should we. He seems a decent sort and his popularity on an individual level last season, as a player with whom we could properly identify, means that many a City fan will follow his career for a many a year to come.
7. Is Eldin Jakupović going the same way? Reports say so, but City say no. Mind you, they denied Derby County had bid for Davies meagre hours before Davies signed for, er, Derby County. We’re jaundiced enough to know that when the Allams say it’s freezing outside we look for shades and flip flops, so if they say no-one wants our free spirit of a keeper, we should expect to see him brandishing a blue and white scarf anytime now.
8. Jakupović was terrific once he got the nod last season and he was an endearing character; however, if he goes we’d not suggest his departure is as worrying as others that have either already happened or seem imminent. We have two Scotland international goalkeepers on our books, and whatever misgivings there have been about Messrs Marshall and McGregor, they are experienced and have terrific reputations and either would be more than adequate as a first choice custodian next season if our Bosni-Swiss stopper does follow Maguire to Leicester. And if Gospodin Slutsky happens to know the parents of the next Rinat Dasayev, then all the better.
9. Andy Robertson seems certain to go, too. It does seem nothing official has happened as far as the impending exit of our nippy Scottish full back is concerned but it does only feel like a question of time. West Ham and Liverpool have previously been interested, and there will be others.
10. Marco Silva goes to Watford. A week later, Southampton dismiss their manager. We suspect he’s kicking himself a little bit.
#258 May 29, 2017
1. It wasn’t surprising that Marco Silva elected to leave City following relegation, but it’s still saddening. He’s a manager of obvious talent, was briefly ours…and now he’s gone. We’ll all watch his career with interest, and few would be surprised if he goes a long way in management.
2. All of which made his prompt move to Watford a little odd. This isn’t a slight against Watford – though similar in stature and with a remarkable capacity for burning through managers, they’re still ran more competently than City and achieved Premier League survival with several weeks of the season remaining, something we didn’t manage at all. Swapping City for them does make a degree of sense. But was it really the best move for him? And could have he been given a more prestigious job if City hadn’t collapsed so distressingly in the final three games of the season?
3. Nonetheless, we should wish him well. Though he didn’t achieve his “miracle” of keeping City in the Premier League, his attempts were substantial and not far from successful. We appreciate the effort.
4. Which takes us onto the new managerial appointment. With no firm favourite yet, it’s fairly apparent that the bookmaking fraternity has little clue which way Ehab Allam is going to go. At the time of writing, should you be interested in free sports bets, Nigel Adkins and David Moyes are your joint 5/1 favourites. Pulses in East Yorkshire will remain studiously unquickened by this.
5. A quick note: next manager markets attract a lot of attention, but relatively little actual money. One single wager of £50 on a contender would probably cause their odds to drop rapidly and create a little burst of news. With that in mind, let’s not collectively wet our knickers if someone suddenly becomes a “red hot favourite”…
6. Let’s instead hope that Ehab Allam is properly focussing on the club in the coming months instead. In his mind-warpingly banal in-house interview last week, Ehab conceded that last summer’s clusterfuck was damaging (though naturally it wasn’t his fault). Lessons better have been learned.
7. And if only because it’s clear we’re stuck with other. Ehab’s inability to sell the club in 2016 has left him with a debt-ridden Championship club that few prospective purchasers covet, and it was clear in his comments last week that the club is effectively no longer up for sale. So we have the unhappy situation that owners who are widely and rightly scorned for their dismal comments and conduct cannot sell a club they’re incapable of running properly, when enlightened and positive new owners are the one thing we crave most.
8. It all makes 2017/18 look like a challenging season. Quite a few players who performed admirably in ultimate failure aren’t long for this parish either – Maguire obviously merits more than second tier football, while the rich promise of Robertson, Clucas and Tymon are attracting suitors (and the clunkingly inept way the latter is being dealt with hasn’t helped). Loanees are returning to parent clubs, while Grosicki presumably didn’t come to England to play outside of the top flight. Whoever takes over as the manager will have extensive surgery to perform.
9. Part of us wants to wish Huddersfield well in this afternoon’s Championship play-off final, because their fans were solidly behind us when West Yorkshire Police were acting like a bunch of toytown fascists a few years. However, two more Yorkshire derbies next season wouldn’t hurt, and Reading away is hardly the most appetising fixture.
10. We have a soft spot for the League Cup, with its potential for ground-ticks and shock results – it’s even been kind to us in recent seasons, with a quarter-final and then a semi-final. However, it’s not always the most popular or grand competition – so renaming it the “Carabao Cup” is hardly a step in the right direction…
#257 May 22, 2017
1. What a truly vile, humiliating end to the season. Nobody doubts that Tottenham Hotspur are a fine side, but the way Hull City, a team of professionals supposedly to the end, rolled over and surrendered was utterly unforgivable. It was hard to not be furious with everyone who took part in that sorry, repulsive, cringeworthy shitshow in the immediate aftermath.
2. Upon reflection though…poor David Marshall. Inevitably there will be those who will allot him a large portion of blame for City’s record home defeat, but actually he had a decent enough game and can’t be held responsible for the supine attitude of those in front on him.
3. Hopefully Josh Tymon can put Saturday afternoon behind him. The young lad was given a torrid time against the Premier League’s most potent attack and such a day could have a deleterious mental impact. He is likely to have a large role to play in the Championship.
4. But the picture is always bigger, and that leads us to our foul ownership, a family that has managed to take a successful, admirable, happy football club with a united support and transmogrify it into a murky, immoral, cruel, squalid, estranged and risible outfit that gives no hoots at all to anything except its own ego. People are trampled on, politics rule, strategies are fallacious, communities forgotten or ignored, and at the very top, we have a man of narcissism and incompetence, a cocktail that is hugely dangerous as far as the well-being of the club and those who work for it or invest their feelings in it are concerned.
5. If City can start pre-season with a threadbare senior squad after a promotion, what’s going to happen after relegation and the likely loss of the entire coaching staff? There is deep sense of foreboding about the summer ahead.
6. Consequently, the removal of the Allam family remains the most important thing on the Tiger Nation’s agenda. However, despite near-universal disapproval of them and their contemptible methods, the appetite for a sustained campaign against them isn’t easy to detect. At present, we feel a weary and disillusioned set of supporters – not beaten, because we will never be beaten by their ilk, but in need of a serious summer re-energising.
7. To accomplish that will require proper organisation. All ideas are welcome…
8. Marco Silva remains the favourite for the vacant Watford job. However, if their owners (and others) were watching City’s last three games, might he now find a return to the Premier League as easy as it’d have seemed just three weeks ago? We wonder.
9. Before we finish, we ought to make room to wish well a proper professional and a fine servant to Hull City on the announcement of his retirement from football this week. Richard Garcia was an underrated player during his five seasons with City – sometimes devastating down the right flank, scorer and provider of important and great goals during the 2007/08 promotion campaign and a hardy contributor during more difficult and less glorified times afterwards. Hopefully he’ll find cause to fly over for the Wembley Day tenth anniversary celebrations (which we suspect the club won’t acknowledge, as they don’t like history) next year.
10. Bradford cocked it up over the weekend, but next season will be a season filled with Yorkshireness – both Sheffield clubs (with the blue half no doubt clogging the M18 with their six billion fans), Leeds, Barnsley and possibly Huddersfield, depending on the outcome of the play-off final. We’ve got some great days out ahead in 2017/18, and they will remain great days out irrespective of who owns, coaches or plays for our club. A club is and should always be defined by its supporters, and we’ve got supporters who make us immensely proud. Times may be volatile and uncertain right now, but come August, we’ll be ready to do it again, because that’s who we are and what we do. It’s in the blood, isn’t it?
#256 May 15, 2017
1. City have been relegated, and no matter how much we may dislike plenty about modern football and its ultimate manifestation the Premier League, it hurts. It hurts to see (R) decisively affixed to our name in the table, it hurts to be regarded throughout the game as having failed, it hurts that the magnificent City of Culture celebrations no longer include having a top flight football team, and it hurts to see so much hard work undone. This is going to distress and dismay the Tiger Nation throughout the unhappy summer that awaits, and there’s no point in pretending otherwise.
2. City were abysmal at Crystal Palace, playing with the intensity of a pre-season friendly and the intelligence of a hungover Sunday League team. The ultimate responsibility for this ghastly season lies elsewhere, but there’s no doubt that the players have grossly underperformed in these last two critical games – from a nervy, uncomposed display against the worst team in the division to an absolutely disgraceful non-performance in the game that represented our very last chance. They’ve been appallingly let down by others, but on these two occasions they’ve let themselves (and us) down very badly.
3. Unfortunately, it has to be conceded that Marco Silva has also seen just the faintest dulling of his lustrous reputation during these two calamitous games. Selections have surprised, and while unexpected XIs have been a (broadly positive) feature of his tenure, the decision not to restore Tom Huddlestone to the side following suspension has always jarred. Moreover, he failed to calm his side against Sunderland, and inspire them in the slightest against Crystal Palace.
3a. However, he remains this single best thing about this season and, given the epic handicap of our owners, to have even left us in with a plausible chance of survival going into the final weeks was a colossal achievement. He’s a fine manager, an assured speaker, an innovative tactician and he’s going places far loftier than the Championship.
4. And if that sounds like we’re already saying farewell to Marco Silva…well, would you want to work in the second tier for an odious owner with no money, no players, a ground partly closed and decline evident everywhere?
5. Only simpletons and people who are financially rewarded by the Allams will place the blame for this train wreck anywhere else than at their feet. It was Ehab who drove out the club’s most successful manager ever, who let us start the season with barely enough senior players to play a five-a-side game and then waited until January before taking action to give us any hope of at least trying to fight relegation. Playing in the Championship isn’t the worst part of relegation, no, the worst part is the decrease in likelihood of the club being sold, leaving us with the dreadful Ehab, a man with no love of the club or football, no integrity, no ability to see beyond his own ego and avarice, who is content to carry on his father’s work of transforming a beloved community enterprise into a soulless husk, a generator of revenue streams, a player trading exchange, a content provider.
6. After relegation in 2015, we were still able to be competitive in the Championship because several key sales, fees perhaps inflated by a new TV deal which made Premier League clubs feel flush, allowed us to keep some experienced players. Doesn’t seem likely this time round, as most of our current first team are on short term loan or out of contract. Great if you like seeing academy products given a crack at first team football, not so great if you’re hoping for a quick return to the top flight.
7. Congratulations to the players who won one or more of the awards on offer at the midweek end-of-season bash. What a pity the prizes themselves sport the name of a football club that doesn’t exist; we’d like to think at least some of them are aware of the upset this causes among supporters as the Allams continue to ride roughshod over popular opinion, club tradition and FA decree in still pursuing the Hull City Tigers nonsense, even though “it is not club policy not to use Hull City”. Also notable is that, post-Palace, Andy Robertson was swift to put much of the blame for our trials this season at the hands of those responsible for not allowing any player recruitment last summer – one imagines that the Scotsman knows he’s on his way to pastures new this summer and has nothing to lose.
8. Meanwhile, Marco Silva himself has also talked about the mishandling of the situation by the hierarchy at Hull City back in the summer as a key reason why, ultimately, he found himself falling just short in his rescue mission. It feels like, even if it’s just in a roundabout way, that he’s blaming the Allams for the mess. Astute man. Now, in 2013, Nick Barmby made similar comments in a far less toxic environment and was still sacked – would the Allams do the same to Silva? If Silva leaves of his own accord he would do so with our best wishes and deep thanks, but if he were to go against his will then it’s close to impossible to imagine just how ferocious yet another backlash against the Allams would be.
9. Whatever the inquest records over the next few days, next Sunday’s dead rubber with Tottenham is an opportunity to begin the forcible ejection of the Allam family’s death grip on this club. There’s nothing to play for, and none of the whiny excuses about not distracting the players can hold water (they never do anyway). We should appreciate the players, who were betrayed by their employer, and fête Marco Silva, if he’s still around (and more so if he isn’t), as we’ll never have another opportunity. But an afternoon of revulsion at what Assem and Ehab Allam are doing is essential. They cannot be left in any doubt that they are not wanted and must sell at the first opportunity to suitable owners. Bring every poster, banner and flag that’s ever been used against either them or their ridiculous, spiteful name change idea, and let’s get these appalling people out of our football club.
10. But there is a positive! Really, there is. And it’s usual, it’s all of us. The City fans at Palace were magnificent, as we’ve been all season. Amid the burning wreckage, we remain defiant and unbowed, the proud people of Hull, the loyal supporters of its foremost sporting institution and this essential part of Hull’s civic fabric. Very soon, we’re going to be all that’s left, so it’s a good job we’re so bloody brilliant.
#255 May 8, 2017
1. Oof! That hurt. What’s more, it felt depressingly like City v Burnley in 2009/10 and City v Burnley again in 2014/15, where we entered into a game against a team with an (R) next to their name on the table, with a chance to keep our fate in our own hands in the battle to avoid the drop, only to fail miserably. It goes beyond an afternoon to forget, because it will likely have repercussions far beyond the scope of one afternoon.
2. City seemed to suffer a collective mental paralysis against Sunderland. We’re used to City using the first half to merely suss the opposition under Marco Silva, but we’re not used to Silva’s City lacking purpose and conviction in the second half, and nerves appeared to get the best of players who have won games from being a goal down or with ten men of late. Against a side that have already lost Premier League status so had nothing else to lose, the importance of the game got to us.
3. It wasn’t an absolute stinker of a performance, and City were the better side for much of the game. However, a chronic lack of composure undid the side. As half-time neared, it was impossible to miss the nerves in the crowd starting to be reflected by things on the pitch. Sadly, for once, Marco Silva didn’t manage to focus minds at the interval.
4. Ahmed Elmohamady’s substitution was greeted by a chorus of boos in some parts of the ground, unquestionably aimed at the player himself. He’s had a poor season for sure, and he is perhaps the only player that hasn’t responded to Marco Silva’s appointment with an infusion of spirit and purpose, but boos still seemed an excessive reaction.
5. He certainly wasn’t the only person who stunk up the place. Alfred N’Diaye, pivotal in recent wins with his simple and effective game of breaking up opponent possession and moving City forwards, was sadly anonymous, his replacement by Tom Huddlestone was welcome, but overdue. We needed a driving force long before the 65th minute, and though Huddlestone was effective after his introduction, we needed more than his drop back and pass ‘quarterback’ style. Oumar Niasse may as well have been suspended after all, he offered little. Hell even Harry Maguire, lauded for his slightly terrifying but nonetheless exhilarating forays up-field, had a quiet afternoon.
6. What of the penalty claims during the game? The handball at the North Stand would have been harsh – it definitely struck an unwisely positioned Sunderland hand, but the proximity was such that intention cannot be divined with certainty. As for Maguire’s tug ‘n’ tumble, that was a classic deception tactic that players with large arses try regularly, and the referee was rightly not fooled. We’ve had quarrels with referees lately, but there are no legitimate grievances here.
7. Swansea, the admirable bastards, did not wilt as City upped up their game under Silva, and now go into the final two games in the driving seat, having come out of their supposedly tough games versus Manchester United and Everton with 4 points. Tottenham’s defeat at West Ham may have lanced their title aspirations, but beating them on the final day is still going to be difficult (and now the “Marco doesn’t lose at home” mystique has gone), and our away form doesn’t bode well for the trip to Palace. Meanwhile, Swansea take on Sunderland away and West Brom at home, ostensibly easier games. The single point lead Swansea now have on us can, of course, evaporate quickly, but somehow it feels mountainous.
8. There’ll be no shortage of recriminations if the worst comes to pass, most of which will be rightly be directed towards Ehab Allam’s 2016 summer of malice. For now, it’s hard not to fear the consequences. Silva will surely leave, leaving us managerless once more and quality applicants to work for Ehab in the Championship seem unlikely. The decision to soldier on with loanees means the squad will necessarily thin out, though even the City vice-chairman can probably work out which players will be staying in the Premier League with another club. Meanwhile, the epic lunacy of the membership scheme will see gates fall even more steeply, and so on and so forth. Argh.
9. Dispensing with volunteer ground-staff on Saturday with no notice? Classy stuff.
10. On Friday, the club released some minutes from its recent meeting with fans. We’re told by attendees that the content is roughly accurate, though the attendees’ hostility towards the club’s dopier antics has been underplayed. However, City’s contention that “it is not the policy of the Club to not use Hull City” is very puzzling. Unless obliged to in order to meet League and FA requirements (League tables, fixtures etc), it’s been a very long time since it was voluntarily used even once, with agonisingly convoluted means of avoiding it frequently employed. So either there has been an astonishingly lengthy and vastly improbable sequence of accidental non-use of “Hull City” stretching over a couple of years and many thousands of club utterances both large and small; or such a policy does exist and an alternative fact was presented to the supporters.
#254 May 1, 2017
1. It was only the second point we’d gained away from home in 2017, and the clean sheet that went with a heroic, if occasionally hard to watch stalemate at Southampton was a pleasant bonus. Praise for City’s performance and general attitude has been bountiful over the weekend; displays of a similar grittiness over three remaining matches will surely be sufficient to get us over the line.
2. And, of course, the clean sheet was preserved by Eldin Jakupović’s superlative penalty save in injury time. It was no fluke save; the ball wasn’t poorly hit or placed but aiming true for the bottom corner. Our ever-watchable custodian of the leather not only guessed right, but got his frame right down to the ball and managed to get enough palm on it to force it conclusively from danger with zero hope of a rebound chance for the kicker, or any other Southampton player.
3. Interestingly, Jakupović told the telly afterwards that he’d researched Southampton’s penalty taker. Dušan Tadić last took one in January and aimed it, successfully, for the same corner as he tried at the weekend against City. We perhaps underestimate the tactical preparation that goalkeepers, good ones, put in prior to a match and if Jakupović had theory on his side in choosing the way he went, then it bestows upon him even bigger hero status than would have been afforded on someone who had ‘merely’ taken a lucky guess.
4. City’s play in the first half sparkled, and we looked as good as at any time under our new manager. It was a half of sustained domination of both ball and territory, forcing a very capable side onto the back foot for long spells. If there’s one criticism, it’s that we didn’t convert it into a goal (or more), and parity at the interval was less than we deserved for the pattern of play but created a real feeling that an opportunity may have been missed.
5. The second half more faithfully resembled our away day agonies this season, with a presumably sternly-bollocked Southampton upping their game and City not always coping perfectly with it. Nonetheless, if the first half was a mixture of pleasure at the play and frustration at the score-line, the second was a reversal; dismayed at being outplayed but great satisfaction at holding on for a point. And given our nightmarish run on the road, it really was a fine point.
6. With Swansea gaining an unexpected (just as our point at Old Trafford was) draw at Manchester United, the share of the spoils in Hampshire becomes more crucial. With one game fewer to play, the gap remains the same. And we have a relegated, clueless, self-loathing, acrimony-filled club next, at our fortress of a stadium where nobody else has won since Bucks Fizz kicked continental backsides at Eurovision, or thereabouts.
7. And we all know what that means… or could mean. If anyone is going to make sure that the inopportune motto Typical City doesn’t occur on Saturday afternoon, it’s Marco Silva, surely? Last time we were this nervous before Sunderland at home, it was for an FA Cup quarter final, and that turned out okay. Nevertheless, by the time they clock in at the Circle, this Sunderland side might be irritatingly free of pressure (the kind of change in form that mightily offends loyal supporters whose lives are shattered by relegations) and everyone with a role to play for City, on and off the pitch, needs to be on their guard.
8. For the second weekend in succession, the timings may aid City. Again, Swansea will kick-off after City, and if we can overcome Sunderland, they’ll begin their 5.30pm match at home to Everton a daunting five points adrift. Of course, anything but victory over David Moyes’ rabble, and Swansea will know that a win of their own would put City back in the bottom three – but Marco Silva is sure to emphasise the opportunity that exists.
9. It really has come to something when an investigation is being launched into Hull City AFC, and the response of most supporters is to be glad about it. Then again, it comes to something when the owners of said club implement something as morally bankrupt, counterproductive and vindictive as the intentional pricing out of the next generation of City fans, then ask someone to release a poorly-written statement pretending that they aren’t.
10. Well, they are, and congratulations to the Hull City Supporters’ Trust, who’ve successfully persuaded the Premier League to investigate the repugnant, rule-breaking conduct of one of its own members. All we’d ask the Premier League to remember is this: we’d be delighted for City to be found guilty and ordered to stop being so thoroughly obnoxious, but could they ensure that any punishment is levelled solely at the abysmal family that’s running the club, and not the club itself? Having had to suffer the Allams, it’d be wrong to then suffer further consequences of having had to suffer them in the first place.
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#251 April 10, 2017
1. There was nothing unsurprising about City’s non-attentive performance at the Etihad on Saturday. Manchester City may have been off form prior to us popping across the Pennines, but we have a fetid smell seemingly following us around the country right now, and we should be grateful that many of the hardest away games of the campaign came at times when seasons weren’t going to be defined.
2. There were dabs of light in the City display, but ultimately better players beat us. That we managed a late consolation, thereby ever so slightly reducing the impact on our execrable goal difference, pays a small tribute to our team’s perseverance (though more likely Marco Silva’s insistence we play a proper 90 minutes, whatever is going on) while also making Pep Guardiola entertainingly tetchy in his post-match interviews.
3. Michael Dawson is a fine player, a consummate defender and a great example to young players everywhere. But he isn’t among our best two centre backs any more (as isn’t Curtis Davies), and the absence in Manchester of the injured Harry Maguire, and the buckles he tends to conclusively swash in games, was truly notable.
4. Maguire was colossal, again, as City beat Middlesbrough on Wednesday night and to finally see him notch up his first Premier League goal in what was a thoroughly engaging game, and display, was marvellous. The result itself was significant, as the spirit of Middlesbrough seemed to go that night at the Circle, and now it feels like City only have one relegation place to avoid.
5. Maguire’s header against Middlesbrough understandably made the highlights reel, but we could watch THAT pass for the third goal without ever growing tired of it. If Andrés Iniesta or Paul Scholes had picked that out, the world would coo. Well, it damn well should over that, because it wasn’t a diminutive midfield schemer managing it, but a colossus of a centre-back.
6. A fascinating aspect to that victory was that even Middlesbrough’s opening goal didn’t visibly dent the confidence in the team, or the stadium. City’s remarkable home form is not merely a happenstance of statistics, it’s increasingly a matter of belief.
7. Meanwhile, the peculiar hell that is Sunderland’s 2016/17 season shows no signs of improving, and they’re now a distant ten points behind City and from safety. What impact – if any – could them being relegated before they even play us next month have? Perhaps it could go either way. They’ll either be so deflated by their pitiful relegation they’ll accommodatingly capitulate, or may finally show up and play as soon as it no longer matters. The former would be preferable, obviously.
8. As for the earlier part of what is now officially (according to Sky Sports, anyway) the run-in, we have Stoke away, Watford at home and Southampton away, prior to that game against the doomed Mackems. The home game is eminently winnable; the away games, yet again, are where we should have enough about us to compete for at least a point, even if our away record in recent months is something on the imperfect side. Imagine what seven points from nine would do prior to Sunderland making their reluctant trip down the A19.
9. It’s hard to know what to make of the lack of progress towards a new contract for Marco Silva. The Allam family are not renowned for valuing valuable employees, however his impact has guaranteed Silva options aplenty should there be a parting of the ways in summer. It’s understandable that all parties may wish to wait for the determination of our “divisional status”, as the club’s semi-literate membership brochure would call it – but it’s abundantly clear that there’s something special about this manager. Given that, we should be making the first move.
10. Yesterday marked three years to the day that the FA rejected Assem Allam’s imbecilic name change idea. Think it’s irrelevant? The club still refuse to use their own name on anything unless obliged to by the FA/PL, the fans’ Twitter hashtag remains unused and the YouTube channel still alludes to a fiction of his feverish imagination. It’s as relevant as ever. Now, and forever, No To Hull Tigers.
#250 April 3, 2017
1. City’s win over West Ham on Saturday was streaky, improbable and accomplished late. None of that can detract from a result of serious consequence. We’re halfway through a brace of home fixtures from which the absolute minimum requirement, given our ongoing difficulties on the road, was probably four points. Three are already banked. And the season remains alive.
2. It felt in grave danger at half-time against the Hammers. City trailed after a wretched concession and had done little to suggest that even a draw could be salvaged. It’s tempting to let the euphoria of the eventual result mask the first half, but it was low-grade stuff. Worst of all, it was puzzlingly short of urgency, as though the desperation of the situation was somehow being missed by everyone on the pitch.
3. Still, if we’re to scorn the first half, let’s celebrate the second. A half-time substitution and a tactical switch saw a major improvement, quickly culminating in a sumptuous leveller, one of those goals we’ll never tire of watching. It set us up to lay siege to West Ham, a modest team playing modestly…but that didn’t really happen. When Grosicki directed his shot wide after we had struck the post, it felt like a rare and perhaps final opportunity to pinch the win.
4. Sometimes, luck goes your way. When West Ham inexplicably switched off at a late set-piece, Andrea Ranocchia capitalised with a fine header. But for the visitors’ sudden inattention, we’d have had to settle for a draw. It’d have been costly, as we were well aware that Crystal Palace were unexpectedly leading, but it’d have had to do. Fortunately, the sloppiness City had shown with West Ham’s goal was reciprocated, and the celebrations were long and loud.
4a. Apropos the second goal, we loved the poor steward’s unsuccessful attempts to douse the flare. Crash course in sand deployment for our fluorescent-jacketed friends, please.
5. Predictably, a lot of the pre-match discussion centred upon Robert Snodgrass. That he’s been almost entirely excluded from the post-match debate is testament to what a completely anonymous afternoon he had. That isn’t a trait you’d ordinarily associate with such a fiery character, but it’s true of his display on Saturday.
6. Results elsewhere this weekend were an odd bunch. Sunderland are surely done for after their latest defeat, while a draw in South Wales was a significant missed opportunity for both Swansea and Middlesbrough – the latter are in serious trouble, while the former have gained just one point in games against M’bro, City and Bournemouth and are heading quickly back into danger. Just a shame about Palace. The neutral observer may think that two are already as good as down, and it’s a straight fight between City and Swansea for the promised land of 17th. Such an observer would have a point.
7. With the exception of Manchester City next weekend and Spurs on the last day, the run-in is decidedly kindly, on paper at least, which was something we wryly noted last summer when the fixture list was first released. The principal games marked down as clichéd “must-wins” will be those against Watford, Sunderland and, of course, that seriously troubled Middlesbrough side in just 48 hours at the Circle. They can’t score goals at the moment, have just sacked their manager and replaced him with our own former assistant manager, and are set to come up against a City side close to invincible on its own soil with a head coach who hasn’t lost a home game with any of his last three clubs since Abba split up, or something. That fighting goalless draw at Swansea, while not massively helping either side, should serve as notice to City that our midweek opponents will journey down from Teesside at least determined to scrap like mad for something.
8. So what to make of the brochure sent out to current patrons of the membership scheme? Well, the first thing to jump out is the illiteracy of whoever wrote it (and Ehab Allam’s name is on it, so perhaps he is the author). Indefinitely is ‘ indefinately’, eighth is ‘eigth’, and the difference between ‘effect’ and ‘affect’ is misunderstood, as both are used. Incorrectly. When a Premier League football club can’t be bothered to get a document proof-read, or at least run through a spell checker, it’s clear they have utter disdain for the intended audience. The timing of the brochure’s distribution is suspect too, there were 14 days between games and this brochure arrived (and was inevitably picked up by local press) the day before an important game.
9. March 2016: Ehab Allam tells the Yorkshire Post that “Clubs should be encouraged by a penalty system to ensure crowds are close to capacity. At Hull, it would put the onus on us to get things exactly right…to fine-tune efforts.”
April 2017: The latest fine tuning of efforts? To claim memberships are increasing, then announce the closure of the West Stand Upper. Every day is April Fools’ day when you’re Ehab Allam.
10. We were as stunned as anyone when Jake Livermore was picked in England’s starting XI against Germany – we had gone on record both here and in our podcast that he would be on the bench for both games – but kudos to our recently exited midfielder for not only playing, but playing well, and making the more cutting, condescending doubters admit that he might have something to offer his country after all. It’s one of those occasions where we couldn’t be more pleased to be wrong – we just wish he was still playing for us at the time Gareth Southgate decided to include him.
#249 March 20, 2017
1. Another away game, another defeat. The sharp-eyed will have noticed a pattern: City play a game outside of East Yorkshire, they lose, they come home promising to do better, and the whole dismal thing repeats. Look – there’s no shame in losing at Everton, who are very firmly in the second tier of Premier League sides. The problem is that previous failures on the road have left us needing results in this type of fixture. And we didn’t really get close.
2. Sure, it was only 1-0 for most of the game, and the score-line was given an unfair tilt late in the game. But that argument falls apart when the shocking lack of shots on target is taken into account. We pose next to no threat to opposing sides on their own turf, meaning they can attack with little fear of the consequences. And, eventually, we concede.
3. The early goal was a killer. It’s always a relief to rapidly lead in a game you’re expected to win, and it soothed any nerves any Everton fans who hadn’t studied the “Away” section of the table may have felt. It wasn’t a notably brilliant move, but it was far too good for City, whose leaden-footed response was alarming.
4. That red card, eh? It’s a wrong decision, but it also has to be filed under “can maybe see why it was given”. That probably means that an appeal is doomed to fail; however, we’re doomed to fail whether Tom Huddlestone misses three games or four, should it be extended if the FA view an appeal as vexatious, so it’s worth a try.
5. Let’s try for at least one positive. After falling behind, we didn’t let the game run away from us (even if that event was deferred rather than postponed). City rarely looked like levelling, but it only takes an instant to equalise, so…oh sod it, we’re really clutching at straws here. You know it and we know it.
6. Results elsewhere were a funny lot. Palace’s streaky win was a cause for Saturday afternoon despair, but Swansea, Middlesbrough and Sunderland all remain accommodatingly toss as well. We aren’t cut off, and with two extremely winnable (and in truth, must-win) home games approaching, even this grim situation isn’t quite yet terminal. Even if the echoes of 2009/2010 are growing by the week.
7. Harry Maguire had a lot of columnists and pundits talking up his case for a place in the England squad, but unsurprisingly, he didn’t get the call from Gareth Southgate. Intriguing that Jake Livermore, of this parish until January, is back in the squad for the first time in five years, however. Notwithstanding the further propagation of the long-held belief that players, irrespective of their form, only get into major international squads after they’ve left City (36 league appearances for Spurs, one cap; seven for West Brom, one call-up; 90 for City in between, sod all), it does look an odd choice. We like Jake. We rate him as a very good midfielder, a good guy, a team player and obviously this return to the international fold takes him back to the top of a sport where he had very recently hit a horribly personal rock bottom. But we just don’t think he’s good enough.
8. If he plays in either of the games, he’ll become the first footballer to play for England after leaving City since Brian Marwood’s notorious nine-minute cameo against Saudi Arabia in 1988. If you want to fly a flag for Fraizer Campbell at this point, you carry on, but he was never ours so we don’t think he counts. We’d like Livermore to achieve this feat for his own personal redemption reasons, but sentimentality has no place in the international game and we suspect he’ll watch both matches from the bench.
9. Throughout the week, the club have been calling fans to ask if they’re interested in ongoing membership. Harmless, even proactive you may think, even if no information was divulged about the prospect of concessions for 2017/18 – except that they’ve been introducing themselves as calling from “Hull City Tigers”. Whoever’s bright idea it was to seek to pointlessly antagonise fans in this way should be sacked (or encouraged to remind his father that his promise to sell the club within 24 hours of being told to piss off by the FA is close to three years old).
10. “Crisis clubs” are nothing new in football – we’ve been one and seen plenty of others down the years (and no, you pathetic snivelling wretches at Arsenal, you aren’t even close to being one, however earnestly the self-pitying mantle of victimhood is claimed). However, they don’t get much closer to the brink than Leyton Orient, who may actually go under today. They’re already as good as relegated from the League, but their very existence is authentically threatened. We’ve long since forgiven them for the play-offs in 2001, and prefer to remember recent Cup wins there, victory in 1999 that gave impetus to the Great Escape, and for the generation before ours, that ridiculous 5-4 win in 1984. They’re an affable, inviting London club with a decent history, were screwed over by West Ham’s stadium move and appear to deserve better – we wish them well today.
#248 March 13, 2017
1. We needed that. Forget the manner in which it was achieved, just count up those three points and reflect upon a dirty job done well. The Premier League table and the predicament it places City in has been upgraded from “critical” to merely “severe”.
2. City’s 2-1 win over Swansea will not live long in the memory, but that doesn’t matter. After the pretty wretched capitulation at Leicester, coming on the back of a disappointing draw against Burnley, it’s hard to imagine that City’s aspirations of staying up could have survived anything but a victory over Swansea. Sometimes, it just needs grinding out. And that was done, to the significant credit of a side that must have felt immense and growing pressure throughout the afternoon.
3. For an agonisingly long time, it was a win that didn’t feel as if it was coming. Swansea were as limited as you’d anticipate relegation rivals on the road to be, but they were also organised and well aware that a point was as useful for them as damaging for us. For the first hour, City laboured against the Swans, and while the eventual victory makes it easy to overlook, the manager could do a lot worse than revisit this period for clues about how it could be improved upon.
4. It’s also easy to assume it’s nothing more than City playing for too long with one striker, and it’s true that the improvement upon playing with two up front was swift and considerable. However, City looked to be lining up with a 4-5-1 designed to quickly morph into a 4-3-3 – except that it was far from quick. Swansea had the better of the opening stages, and nervous or not, City simply didn’t start the game well enough.
5. At least City stayed in the game when struggling. And when Llorente went off close to half-time and Swansea realised they’d forgotten to devise a Plan B for life without the Spaniard, we grew nicely into the game. It still took the addition of a second forward though. As touched upon in the match report, strikers hunt in pairs, and even the most willing of forwards must find it dispiriting to plough a lone furrow. Hernández brightened when Niasse arrived and the combination for their goal was delicious. Silva appears not to favour a front two – but might the instant impact that pairing Hernández and Niasse had give him cause to reconsider? (post-Everton, at least…)
5a. The laughable attempts of Swansea fans on Social Media to paint City as little more than thugs trying to cripple all of their players glosses over a simpler truth. Swansea are a team of fadges.
6. The effectiveness of a front pairing was further emphasised when City reverted to one up front for the closing spell, allowing Swansea to press forward with urgency and score a preventable consolation which made it uncomfortable for the last couple of minutes of added time. It seems that this is sewn into City’s fabric, this notion that winning comfortably is anathema and somehow we have to make it hard for ourselves. Taking off attackers when in winning positions, very simply, endangers that winning position. Swansea had nothing left to lose by piling forward anyway, the last thing we needed to do was make it easy for them.
7. It’s fair to say that Kamil Grosicki had a difficult and frustrating afternoon on Saturday, epitomised by his rueful expression after slicing a free kick into touch (when City had sent everyone but him and Jakupović ahead of the ball). Still, his determination and graft are plain for all to see and highly admirable, hopefully it will click for him soon. Comparisons with David Beresford (Beresicki?) on the grounds of ‘lots of pace but no end product’ seem a bit harsh and premature, but that’s preferable to comparison with Lazar Marković, a man with little end product largely down to little work rate.
8. It was brilliant to see plenty of Poles in the ground on Saturday, presumably to see their compatriot. Several near us looked as though they’d thoroughly enjoyed their build-up to the game, and it was depressing to see the City stewards acting in such an unfriendly manner towards them. We hope they come back.
9. Attendances would be further buoyed if kids and seniors weren’t priced out. The courting of the city’s Polish community is admirable, but it also highlights the continued contempt for the young and old of the indigenous community. Concessions City, stop divving about and offer them again as the rules of the league you play in stipulate.
10. Much furore over Marco Silva’s comments about the state of the Circle’s greensward, having been rugby-ed up just 19 hours before a Premier League football match. From our vantage, it didn’t look too bad – however, both managers bemoaned its condition, so appearances were evidently misleading. It’s a pity the BBC chose to so callously misquote the City manager, for his complaint was about the proximity of a rugby league match to a football one, not the actual presence of it, something that naturally riled the egg-chasing fraternity and meant we’ve had to spend all weekend listening to them moaning, as if the Premier League and “Super” League are somehow comparable. Nonetheless, the episode serves as a reminder that ground-sharing with a rugby franchise is occasionally exasperating, and that it really isn’t on for City to have to play so soon after.
#247 March 6, 2017
1. Some weekends in a season feel pivotal. The one we’ve just suffered certainly feels that way. A rotten defeat for City combined with unhelpful results elsewhere have cut us adrift once more, and a plausible route towards safety feels difficult to discern.
2. Leicester first, where City were dismayingly poor. We even led (with a fine counter-attacking goal), but offered alarmingly little afterwards and ended up being easily beaten by a side who could’ve been dragged into the mire with a better result. Fulham aside, it was comfortably the worst performance of Marco Silva’s time in charge.
3. Gone was the cohesion, spirit and purpose that have lit up Silva’s time in charge. Instead, City looked disorganised and dispirited and were cut open with embarrassing ease far too often. It’s hard to believe we’d beaten Liverpool and Manchester United just a few weeks ago.
4. Brickbats invariably fly about after a defeat like this, and while one tries not to overreact, plenty of them are merited. Ahmed Elmohamady may not be a natural right-back (and his selection over Elabdellaoui looks a real rick by Silva), but that doesn’t disqualify him from doing his best. Increasingly, Elmohamady is a player trading on a reputation carved out a few years ago.
5. At least he wasn’t the wretchedly milquetoast Marković. Frustratingly, we’ve actually seen what he can do; but we’ve certainly seen what he sometimes can’t be arsed doing, which is pretty much anything. It’s mystifying to see a professional footballer not want to give his all in a game of football, and not doing so isn’t good enough.
6. Eldin Jakupović can’t escape scrutiny either. David Marshall would have been questioned for conceding either of Leicester first two (though Robertson hardly helped for the second), Jakupović merits at least a quizzical eyebrow for his contribution.
7. Silva has a week to do a lot of thinking about how to react. Damningly, we’ve led in games against both Burnley and Leicester in the past nine days, and collected just one point. Add five points onto our total, and we’d be odds-on to stay up. Hell, add even three and our prospects would be so much rosier. As it is, cheap concessions and the sort of crummy away defeat we’d be raging at Mike Phelan for have left us with a mountain to climb.
8. Well, the ascent begins on Saturday, with Swansea at home. If there really is to be a Great Escape for the Premier League era, it must surely include victory in this fixture. Such a win certainly won’t be engineered with the sort of limp display we endured at Leicester. If Silva was frustrated by losing at champions-elect Chelsea, he must be boiling at what we saw at the weekend. Channelling that frustration into a positive response will be an interesting test of the new City manager.
9. It’s March, and still nothing from City about their plans for season tickets/memberships/whatever next season, while clubs with proper owners are increasingly unveiling their plans for 2017/18. Vindictively removing concessions for various groups this season has probably set City back a few years; repeating this same malicious trick could extend the damage for a generation.
10. Let’s try to end on one positive: noted elsewhere, Sam Clucas has now scored in the Conference, League 2, League 1, Championship and Premier League in successive seasons, something that can’t have been done very often in English football. He was blameless at Leicester and has impressed all season. Well done that man.
#241 January 16, 2017
1. Marco Silva’s has had his first full week in charge of the Tigers, and whisper it quietly – very quietly indeed – but the opening signs are broadly positive. It’s crazily early to offer any sort of definitive judgement on the new City manager, and we won’t make any attempt to extrapolate beyond the immediate future, but nonetheless we’re impressed.
2. Unfortunately, his second game in charge was one that’s probably seen our faint dreams of League Cup glory and subsequent European exploration ended. Overcoming Manchester United over two legs was always a huge long shot, and while City’s 2-0 defeat at Old Trafford hasn’t absolutely settled the tie, it’s close to impossible to believe we’ll be two goals or more better than them in the return leg.
3. However, if the tie is effectively over and our dreams of major silverware have ended at the semi-final stage, then what remains is the memory of a sterling effort and the encouragement it provides. City defending manfully throughout to restrict a side assembled at preposterous expense to relatively few chances. Not much was created up front, unsurprisingly, but for a squad as thin and inexperienced as ours to keep it to 2-0, and be slightly unfortunate even to suffer that, was a superb achievement.
4. If that was the backs-to-the-wall against-all-odds match, then four days later came an altogether different test for Sr Silva. Bournemouth are an enormously admirable side, and even if they’ve experiencing a tick down in form they’re in a position we can only dream of. Nonetheless, this fell firmly into the “really could to do be winning” category. And we won it, deservedly, with a bit to spare and even the faintest hint of a swagger.
5. And that despite making it hard for ourselves too. Harry Maguire’s boneheaded challenge in the second minute could’ve been fatal for our chances, and had Bournemouth extended themselves properly and got a second while City were still coming to terms with a new formation and an early concession, it’d probably have been yet another defeat. However, as the first half wore on City cleared their heads and fought their way back.
6. Some of the play was far better than you’d expect from a side that started the day at the bottom of the table. We’ve seen that before, of course – the luckless Mike Phelan had City playing some attractive stuff prior to his dismissal, but this time there was a cutting edge. In other words, there was an Abel Hernández. His second goal was exactly the sort of predatory finish you can’t easily teach. Shifting the ball half a yard and instantly swiping it past an unsighted, uncomprehending keeper, it’s instinctive brilliance, and how we’ve missed it.
7. However, the hero of the hour may be Tom Huddlestone. He’s frequently frustrated, and a whiff of underachievement has stalked his time here, but he’s playing the finest football of his City career. He’s involving himself far further forward, his passing is not only sumptuously attractive but defence-splitting and he’s notably upped his work-rate. In the past month, he’s become a joy to watch and an essential player. If he can maintain this level of performance, then maybe, just maybe…
8. No! Enough. The odds remain stacked against City, and the strong probability of four defeats from our next four games will quickly provide both a reality check and also a lot of late-season work to avoid relegation. We’re probably still going down. But we’re going down fighting, and that’s better than nothing.
9. Two new players – striker Oumar Niasse and midfielder Evandro – have arrived, and we welcome them warmly. We’re pleased to note that a right back appears to be next on his wish list. The sooner the better please, patrão.
10. Oliver Holt, one of the country’s most respected sports journalists, dedicated his entire Mail On Sunday column at the weekend to the situation at City, paying a visit to the UK City of Culture to talk to supporters. It’s a must-read and, while seeing everything we have to contend with via the toxic Allam regime in black and white isn’t an uplifting read, at least someone truly influential has put it all down for the national footballing consumer to digest. We hope the Allams read it, hang their heads in shame and change their attitudes overnight. But then still sell up very quickly.
#240 January 9, 2017
1. An unfathomable amount has happened since we last wrote one of these, most of it in the past week. It’s hard to know where to start: Mike Phelan’s dismissal, the appointment of a largely unknown foreign coach, Cup progress and the first ever organised boycott of a City home game. If stability is one of the key ingredients of footballing success, City are sorely lacking it.
2. Let’s start with the sacking of Mike Phelan six days ago. Taken in isolation, there’s a real stench of shabbiness about it. Phelan did a job few others would have taken on, and kept the show if not quite wholly on the road, then at least mostly out of the steep ditches on either side. We’re bottom, but we’re not as hopelessly adrift as Ehab’s summer sabotage might have left us, and we’re League Cup semi-finalists.
3. It’s easy to pick holes in what Phelan did, and he was far from perfect – sometimes too negative, erratic in the deployment of personnel and tactically limited. Nonetheless, he kept our miserably thin squad together, won more games than we expected and actually had City playing some attractive football towards the end. His status as a decent and respected football man will hopefully not suffer from his experience with the Allam family, we thank him for doing his best and wish him well for the future.
4. Marco Silva then. We are supposed to believe that Ehab Allam has suddenly become massively knowledgeable about football and wanted a manager, sorry head coach, with a sports science background (which is odd, because the owners had a purge of sports science staff a few years ago, deeming them a waste of money). It has been suggested that the appointment was made on the suggestion of a party interested in buying the club, but whether that’s the case or not, it seems implausible that Ehab identified Silva as a candidate by himself.
5. Nonetheless, Silva’s CV is impressive: Near miraculous achievements with a small club (Estoril) followed by delivering the first silverware in a while to a well known club (Sporting Lisbon) and a league championship in another country (Olympiacos). He showed himself to be very articulate in his first club interview and called us Hull City several times for good measure. His appointment has breathed new life into the club, and we wish him the best of luck as a Premier League manager and in dealing with the buffoon(s) currently running the club.
6. It was quite unfortunate for Silva’s first game in charge to coincide with an organised boycott. Some opportunists claimed that boycotting the game was the action of fans who ‘don’t have the club at heart’, which is quite disingenuous. The boycott was never, ever about the club’s manager, its players or league position, but rather to highlight malcontent with the owners, something that hadn’t previously penetrated the football supporting collective consciousness on a national level. We would argue that wanting rid of the Allams is absolutely the default position of those who truly have the club at heart.
7. The attendance was 6,608. That’s essentially 10,000 down on when we faced Swansea in the League Cup last season, suggesting the boycott was a ‘success’. No one should be celebrating it as such though, that’s we’ve gotten to this point is a cause for great sadness.
8. Ehab Allam thinks ‘two or three’ signings will be enough to save Hull City’s Premier League status, so ahead of the deals being done we look forward to welcoming Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Robert Lewandowski to the Circle very soon.
9. The prospect of Robert Snodgrass leaving before the month is out is a genuine concern, even after the club activated a contract extension without attempting to negotiate a proper, long term deal. West Ham’s bid of £3m might seem insulting, but frankly City have insulted the player more by leaving it until just days before he was permitted to field free agency offers before indicating we’d maybe like to retain him. Well run clubs tie up players they want to keep a year (sometimes more) before their current deal expires, but we are not a well run club, which may encourage Snodgrass, who has been at the heart of anything and everything good that has happened this season, to take his chances elsewhere. If Snodgrass has his head turned by West Ham’s interest, then a lowball first offer puts them in a good position to get him for less than his true worth.
10. We won’t be podcasting tonight – we boycotted Swansea and we can’t therefore offer a reliable view of the game.
#238 December 12, 2016
1. After the dull mediocrity served up at Middlesbrough…where did THAT come from? Six goals equally shared, terrific football from City, heart, desire and skill – it all served up to make Saturday’s 3-3 draw with Crystal Palace the most uplifting afternoon at the Circle in months.
2. That was despite not winning, too. That late equaliser could return to hurt us, assuming we manage to come anywhere near to avoiding relegation, but it still doesn’t feel much like two points dropped – rather, it feels like one gained, in scintillating circumstances amid a plethora of positives. It was wonderful to see City set up to attack and playing in the way they did. Never mind the wider picture, this was a superbly entertaining football match.
3. Adama Diomandé was magnificent. Charged with leading the line in the complete absence of fellow forwards, he did brilliantly, with a performance of character, determination and no little skill. Tom Huddlestone was awarded the official man of the match, and he did indeed have a influential afternoon, but Diomandé was a revelation. After almost single-handedly transforming the West Brom game sixteen days ago, he commanded this one throughout. A hugely impressive display.
4. Huddlestone, afforded space by a ragged Crystal Palace side, dictated the pace of the game and produced a silken display of passing that was all the better for occurring closer to the visitors’ penalty area than ours, rendering it as effective as it was aesthetically pleasing. He’s probably secured a starting berth over Christmas.
5. Mike Phelan had attracted warranted criticism over recent weeks, but it was refreshing to see him rectify recent errors by changing both personnel, formation and attitude. 3-5-2 worked splendidly, the reversion to many of the men who got us off to a flying start this season was vindicated and the positivity was a delight.
6. As was the character shown after going 2-1 down.
7. We have to be realistic, relegation is still a distinct possibility, but if it comes it will be much easier to stomach if City battle the drop with positivity displayed over 90 minutes in games, as it was on Saturday, rather than only going for it for 45 minutes as we’ve done in previous home games. The Southampton and West Brom games yielded good results, but the Tigers were still needlessly submissive for a whole half in both. You can’t ease into a street fight, and avoiding relegation will need us to cease being timid. Positivity pays off.
8. But…Robert Snodgrass. That was an ugly piece of cheating, and even deflecting things towards Zaha and Palace in general, who’ve been notably collectively unsteady on their feet for a few years now is only a whatabouting distraction. It was particularly boneheaded given that he’d just been rightly cautioned – had City been reduced to ten men inside half an hour, as ought to have occurred, none of the stuff we’ve enthused about above would have happened. Don’t do it again, please. There are kids watching who’ll try this on a Sunday morning, and remember that you play for Hull City – it’s supposedly okay for the Sky Sports Super Clubs (or inexplicably fashionable London teams) to do it, but given the response it’s had, your every tumble from now on had better be legitimate.
9. Brian Bulless was born and raised in Hull, played more than 350 senior games for Hull City, didn’t play for anyone else, stayed in the city all his life and supported the club he served so magnificently until the day he passed away, earlier this week. He supported the ‘CITY TILL WE DIE’ campaign with a photograph of himself holding one of the scarves emblazoned with the mantra and epitomised the literal meaning of the phrase that fans uphold so readily in a way no member of the Allam family could ever begin to understand. The tribute to him pre-match on Saturday was superb and while we again extend our sympathies to his family, we feel his is the kind of long life that should principally be celebrated.
10. Our admiration for John Oxley, who paid £2,500 to engineer an opportunity to protest on the pitch at the Allams’ savage, venal destruction of our future support, is limitless. We hope he got his banner back, we hope (though don’t expect) City don’t ban him and trust he feels his money was well spent. He shouldn’t have to buy himself another beer this year.
#236 September 12, 2016
1. That was the takeover that wasn’t. Rumours had been growing for a day or two that all wasn’t quite right, with a semi-official deadline for Premier League ratification of last Tuesday for our new owners coming and going without news. By Thursday it’d apparently broken down. On Saturday, stories about its possible resurrection emerged. Only at Hull City, eh?
2. If the Chinese group, or a part of that group, has indeed failed a “fit and proper person”, then so be it. Having suffered under obviously unfit and improper owners for some years, we’re glad that such a test took place and that the governance of football clubs – the ultimate community asset – is taken seriously. Whether excluding of any parts of the group who fell foul of the test is enough to render the remainder suitable is anyone’s guess. We have an unhappy feeling that the whole sorry situation will still be rumbling unhappily along when the clocks go back.
3. Meanwhile, the unpleasantness with the Allams will remain. They remain temperamentally incapable of building any bridges or atoning for previous idiocy, as Allam Senior’s ridiculous comments on ITV a week ago demonstrated. All we can do is retain the soundtrack of opposition, lest they be tempted to think again about selling the club.
4. Mike Phelan says he and the current owners are miles apart when it comes to the terms of a proper managerial contract with his name on. We suspect the Allams want him to caretake until the end of the season whereas he, justifiably, feels he has earned a proper shot at the job and should receive the duration and recompense befitting a manager. If we’re not careful we’ll lose him altogether, but then again the Allams don’t exactly have a blemish-free track record when it comes to being careful, do they?
5. What a brilliant way to get a point at Burnley. Obviously on the statistics, it should have been a straightforward victory for City at Turf Moor, but a) statistics can’t put the ball in the net; b) neither can Adama Diomande (what a miss that was) and c) it’s never been plain sailing whenever we’ve gone to Burnley. So for Robert Snodgrass to cap a remarkable week personally with a sublime, curling free kick in the 95th minute of the game and snare a share of the spoils was most gratifying.
6. However, if we’re to implement high standards, and why not given the start we’ve had, this is a game we ought to have won. Not because we have a divine right to beat a Burnley side that finished above us, but for the way the match developed. Significant domination of possession. The creation of better chances. We ought to have won; at the very least, we shouldn’t have needed an injury time equaliser.
7. It was admirable, courageous and yet also eminently sensible for Phelan to pick the same starting XI for the fourth Premier League game in a row, despite the mad rush to get reinforcements into the squad. That said, we get the feeling David Marshall will be in goal against Arsenal next weekend, while Ryan Mason will also get a place in the midfield.
8. Ah, Arsenal. A brace of FA Cups hasn’t cheered up the moping Gooners, but they’ve won all five of their matches at the Circle and will be expecting a sixth. They’ll start as favourites, and on their day they can cut open sides with greater strength than ours. The beauty of the situation is that City’s unexpectedly strong start means we’ll have the confidence to believe we can take something from the game, and the comfort of knowing that it doesn’t greatly matter if we don’t.
9. What does matter is retaining the unity between supporters and players, whose strength is greater than at almost any time in our history. Think Great Escape 1999, and we’re about there. A special bond is presently shared by the players who’ve started this season and the fans who’ve delighted in their commitment and achievement. In the dog days of the Allam regime, it’s kept the club alive and made us hope that a brighter tomorrow is possible. Keeping it going won’t be easy. There’ll be defeats, individual errors and losses of form, and we’ll probably get into a few sulks of our own. But if they keep trying like they are, we’ll forgive them – and if that doesn’t always get the result we want, let’s do our bit by supporting them to the end anyway.
10. Off the pitch and among the backroom staff, a prominent individual left the club this week to take up another job in football. During his time at the club he’s seen a lot of turmoil but always did his best to rise above it, remaining personable and pleasant whenever we’ve spoken with him. Even if this hasn’t always been the happiest of times for our club, we hope he looks back at his time here fondly and hope to see him again in the future if his new role ever brings him back to Hull. Our thanks and best wishes, Ash Lord.
Things We Hope They Will Think – September 5, 2016
Soon, very soon, Hull City AFC are likely to be taken over by new owners and the Allams replaced. They’ll take on a club with great potential, but also with significant problems caused by the Allam family. Here’s how they could go about repairing things…
1. A cost-free way of generating instant goodwill would be the immediate restoration of the term “Hull City AFC” in all club communications. Despite FA rulings stating that the club could not change its name, and an unambiguous undertaking from the outgoing marketing and communications manager in March, the term “Hull City” remains effectively and childishly proscribed. Simple ways of unequivocally drawing a line under the divisive name change farce are to restore the http://www.hullcityafc.net URL of the official website, cease using ‘Hull Tigers’ on Facebook and Google Plus, have the club’s Twitter posts use the #hcafc hashtag, bin off Hull City Tigers Ltd as a company name, and instruct all club employees, sponsors and partners that the club is called Hull City AFC. The nickname of the Tigers is great, but ‘City’ and ‘AFC’ are beloved by fans too. Use them just as much as ‘The Tigers’ and terrace chants using the nickname can be used again, as its use by the club will no longer be seen as a means of punishing fans who value the club’s identity. An organisation that resents the equity of its branding is insane, the insanity of the last few years can be ended quickly and easily.
2. Restore concessions for seniors, minors and fans with disabilities, in accordance with Premier League rules and common sense.
3. Announce the intention to fully review the membership scheme, and ask supporters what they think should happen. The club’s idea of consultation for a scheme that was supposedly two years in the planning was to tell a few groups and individuals bound by Non Disclosure Agreements, what was going to happen (and it really was a fait accompli, there was no semblance of consultation in the true sense of the word) with some choice details, such as the removal of concessions, being omitted. Maybe the scheme is salvageable, though why a club would want to give supporters previously locked into a 9 month deal with a season pass the freedom to bail out after a few months if performances/results are horrific or if the most appealing home fixtures have already been played seems counter-intuitive. The beauty though is the club can pretty quickly wind down a monthly membership scheme if they put something else in place.
4. Take fan consultation seriously after the membership issue is resolved, don’t just want to be seen to be engaging with supporters, actually do it. That way when you announce a massive undertaking such as restructuring how people pay to watch their club, you’ll know the reaction is going to be broadly positive as there has been interaction throughout the whole process, from planning to execution. Most businesses understand that the way to keep customers happy is to know what they want, and you know what they want by means of consultation. There are some who think that supporters asking for proper engagement have a hidden agenda of wanting to dictate how the club should be run to the owners, but that is drivel, most fans just want to pay a fair price to watch their club in action, and that is best done by asking fans what a fair price is, rather than telling them.
5. The club crest is a good issue to consult on. One of the many broken promises made by the Allams was a fan vote on what a new club crest should look like, but it was changed arbitrarily and spitefully, removing the club name, copying Aston Villa’s shield and filling it with the tiger head and an appallingly kerned year of founding. It’s time to right the wrong of that action, because despite some people liking the new crest’s aesthetics, the reasoning behind its existence is downright ugly.
6. We’ve never won a better trophy than the Third Division title, but nonetheless we have a history to be proud of, so let’s acknowledge it with an element of permanence. Organise a proper Hall Of Fame programme, allowing former managers and players of repute and prominence to occupy an abiding and noticeable – and, most of all, official – berth in the club’s standing. There should be evidence of an appreciation and celebration of the club’s heritage embedded within the modern day Hull City AFC so that older fans can feel their heroes are not disenfranchised and younger fans can learn how the club grew, prospered and developed. For starters, let’s get something done to properly celebrate, commemorate and indelibly illustrate the achievements of Chris Chilton and Ken Wagstaff, the club’s two figures of the past most unconditionally revered. They are both in their mid 70s now.
7. Accept and enthusiastically endorse, as the rest of the Premier League has done, the £30 price cap on away tickets in the Premier League, and provide proper concessions to accompany it.
8. Restore some staff to the ticket office and the turnstiles, so the basic act of paying to watch a match doesn’t feel like a chore to the supporter and an inconvenience to the club.
9. Goal music. Don’t ever be tempted by it.
10. Above all, be conscious that for most people, football is a release at the end of the working week. We want following Hull City AFC to be enjoyable – and that doesn’t mean that we require incessant success. We’d spinelessly glory-hunt if we wanted that. Just keep the supporters in mind with every decision that’s made, and explain them truthfully and openly, and even if results don’t go our way or we don’t agree with everything, we’ll still feel the connection to our club that’s an essential part of the Saturday afternoon experience and we’ll all once again enjoy being a part of the greatest football club that’s ever existed.
#234 August 22, 2016
1. Again, tactically, Mike Phelan put on a masterclass at Swansea. With only 13 fit senior players, the emphasis had to be on team work rather than individual skills. Phelan set City up for a near catenaccio approach of ‘deny them space with bodies behind the ball and hit them sharply on the break’, and it worked perfectly.
2. Perhaps you’d expect an elderly Italian manager to admire the job we did on his side, but Francesco Guidolin bemoaned us having “11 players behind the ball with an attitude of not to move.” That’s a tacit admission that his own side didn’t do enough. Swansea provided a sterner test than Leicester did last week, they played with more energy, more attacking intent and moved the ball about well, but they never stepped up the pace as the game wore on to break us down. It was like watching a game of Space Invaders that doesn’t get faster and faster, allowing City to keep laser-cannoning away Swansea attacks, and twice hitting the mystery ship on the counter.
3. Key to denying Swansea goalscoring opportunities was City looking after the ball well when in possession, and the Tigers showed a Zen-like focus on accurate passing and continuous movement that cannot be praised enough. Perhaps Mike Phelan has his charges playing a lot of five-a-side in training, because such understanding doesn’t happen by accident. It wasn’t just evident in our own half either, witness the quick passing movement to create Adama Diomande’s missed shot in the first half, or the six passes that cut the Swans open for the Hernandez goal that sealed the win. Hardly indicative of a plan “not to move” Mister Guidolin.
4. Cast-iron. Nailed-on. Stonewall*. Whatever adjective you use to describe it, Jordi Amat’s challenge that took down Robert Snodgrass was a foul, and it was in the box, we should have had a penalty.
*Just how did the name of a gay bar in Manhattan that was the site of riots and the formation of the LGBT rights movement come to be used to describe the absoluteness of a penalty appeal?
5. Mike Phelan has given the prospective new owners some food for thought regarding the managerial position. If they already have a new man in mind, they may need to reconsider as a groundswell of opinion forms for the retention and permanent appointment of Phelan, who has done an extraordinary job in extraordinary circumstances.
6. Thoughts turn to player recruitment – still an imperative, yet it’s clear that it must be handled with care and subtlety. Whether by design or by accident, a fearsome spirit is pulsing through the side at present, and that needs nurturing, not hampering. Too many new additions, or not the right ones, and we risk losing what’s currently our greatest strength. Nonetheless, it has to be done. The last two weeks have been thrilling, but eventually someone’s going to turn an ankle, or rack up five cautions, or suddenly lose form. The kids on the bench would undoubtedly do their best, but the Premier League is an unforgiving environment to pitch players with virtually no first-team experience at any level. Buy, City. Buy well, buy carefully, but don’t let the current XI do it all alone.
7. We’re very pleased indeed with the new contract for Sam Clucas, as indeed is he. We have a question, however, which is, very simply – who sanctioned the deal? If it was Phelan, then it bodes well for the trust being placed in him as a manager-in-waiting, rather than just a stopgap boss or first team coach. But if it was anyone else at all, we can assume our likeable caretaker manager is not going to be any kind of manager for much longer.
8. The kids who have warmed the bench lately, plus others, are certain to get a run out at Exeter on Tuesday for City’s second massive trip inside half a week. Usually, 91st versus 3rd would be a hopelessly one-sided affair, but the Grecians are sure to field their strongest side, whereas we simply cannot afford to. Those young lads will need to show a lot of character if they’re to overcome a side full of men. Good luck, boys. But if you could avoid extra-time, that’d be nice for those of us at work the next morning.
9. Could this be the week City have new owners? The champagne is on ice and we have an increasingly good feeling about it all.
10. That’d make their first fixture Manchester United at home – 3rd v 2nd. Imagine the run-up to this game with the present wretched incumbents finally gone. The biggest club in England coming to the side creating the best story in this nascent season. The ground would be full, voices lubricated by an extra couple of hours in the pub and positive sporting vibes engulfing the city once again. It could just be beautiful.
#233 August 15, 2016
1. The last few months of being a City fan have been awful (and if you care about more than just games and results, there has been a slow, drip feed of awfulness for the last few years) but Saturday was a huge tonic, an infusion of spirit and hope, and a reward for those fans who have wearily endured the machinations of owners driven only by ego and self regard, and maintained love for Hull City AFC.
2. There have been more important games in terms of on-pitch achievement than the season opener against the champions at the weekend, but emotionally and spiritually, that win over Leicester feels like the biggest win in many a year, akin to the day we secured our league status under Warren Joyce a moon or two ago. The much misunderstood or doubted connection between team and supporters was self-evident; the fans gave full throat to the players, themselves victimised and entirely blameless, and in response they grafted, sweated and performed to the very maximum of their ability. When the two most important groups in professional football join forces like that, it is very special indeed. We heartily thank and congratulate every one of the eleven players involved.
3. We also offer our thanks and congratulations to Mike Phelan. Working for a misanthropic regime hell bent on destroying the club, he has sturdily taken the few resources available to him and found a team, a gameplan and a sense of optimism, however momentary it all may prove to be. He may not be the right man long term, even though he has voiced his desire for the job full-time, but he is the right man right now, because right now it is a crisis that needs someone wise, experienced and composed. He has proved to be all three in the last week, and more.
4. Tactically, Phelan excelled. Sam Clucas guarded the defence with a maturity and composure befitting a man with several years of Premier League experience, rarely letting Leicester target the out-of-position Jake Livermore. It was an unexpected but inspired move, and an honest player such as Clucas clearly revelled in both the responsibility and the opportunity for an afternoon of unremitting graft.
5. Also noticeable was City’s preference for transferring the ball into advanced positions at the earliest opportunity – or “long ball”, if you fancy. Without the giant presence of Robert Huth and struggling to cope with the tenacious Adama Diomande, plus City eagerly scooping up loose balls, Leicester consistently struggled throughout.
6. It was mostly about attitude, though. We wondered last Monday whether City would at least have a sense of togetherness, brought about by a turbulent summer. That was firmly answered on Saturday. That was a team that fought fanatically for each other, typified by Livermore’s thunderous block to deny a certain Leicester goal shortly before we took the lead. It galvanised the fans, and the way in which supporters and team were feeding off each other in the those frantic final minutes was beautiful. The odds remain hugely stacked against us; but maybe, after a season of high expectations and demands, a spell as battling underdogs may suit us.
7. What next? Saturday will have been draining, with a full ninety minutes required of every starter. We’ve a week until Swansea, when an identical XI will doubtless be chosen. We’ll need that attitude again, because Swansea are no dopes and they may exploit our weaknesses and improvised formation better than a weirdly tepid Leicester.
8. Exeter in the League Cup, eh? Regionalising a competition jars with the purists, and we don’t much care for it – but that’s a fair old trip isn’t it? Still, there’s a terrace and a chance to revisit a familiar venue of yesteryear, it’ll be a tick ground for some and it should see us into the next round – right?
9. Who knows what is in store with the next owners? With our track record of governance it’s hard not to be a little cynical, but with such an overt appearance by the Chinese/Hong Kong group at the game on Saturday, it seems the end of the Allam era is in sight and that generates a tidal wave of hope. We hope the new owners will not only inspire success on the pitch, but also be sensitive to fan feeling, and make sure that they, club staff, the fans and the wider local community can together proudly feel that Hull City AFC is OUR club.
10. Only when the Allams are truly gone will they no longer be able be able to insert flies into the ointment. The pitch-side electronic boards mention of the non existent entity of ‘Hull Tigers’ is a wilful act of spite and a feeble attempt at showing who is in control, by exposed dictators who haven’t even got the nerve to show up to see a reminder of their twice failing to impose their will on us. Let’s hope they take a few with them too, there’s a rotten culture at the club and the whole thing needs a clear out.
#232 August 8, 2016
1. No club in the Premier League’s 24 year history has ever been as woefully unprepared for a season as City are at the moment.
2. “No communication, no manager, no engagement, no signings, no identity, no concessions, no honesty”, railed the Supporters’ Trust. To which we are tempted to add “no chance” – City’s relegation is obviously not guaranteed, but it’s highly likely. The risk of a Derbyesque embarrassment cannot be ruled out; one bookie’s quote of 100/1 on a points tally that falls short of their infamous 2007/8 total has a grisly appeal. Accumulator tips across the land this season will rarely exclude the Tigers.
3. Ehab Allam’s time in charge of City has been an unmitigated disaster. He is miserably out of his depth, combining wretched ignorance with a lethal smugness whose toxic effect may have repercussions long after his dreadful family have left whatever remains of this club. It seems astonishing that he was once regarded as the smarter, more reasonable Allam. Smart and reasonable are charges that will never again be levelled at this thoroughly inadequate individual.
4. Five days from the start of the season, and we still have no manager. Ehab apparently has no clue who to replace Steve Bruce with, or even how you go about doing it. Mike Phelan is currently the favourite, if only because the other names mentioned either don’t want to tarnish their CVs with the Hull City car crash or won’t be allowed to leave their present posts. Under ordinary circumstances, Phelan would be a distinctly underwhelming appointment. Despite being just two years Bruce’s junior he has nothing approaching his former boss’ managerial experience. However, as City have actually performed creditably in pre-season (usual caveats apply) and Curtis Davies’ amusing comments demonstrate there seems to be a gallows humour/siege mentality occurring under his stewardship, there’s probably little alternative at present.
5. That gallows humour and/or siege mentality we desperately hope exists is just about our only hope of avoiding a total calamity. Team spirit can carry you a long way, and in the absence of anything else positive, we’ll need it.
6. Absent from that team will be Mo Diamé. Sure, we know that all things being equal Newcastle are a bigger club than City. But they aren’t equal, we’re in the Premier League and they’ve just lost at Fulham in the Championship. That one of our most gifted players has chosen the second tier over life in the Premier League with City is a damning indictment on the shambles you’re presiding over, Ehab.
7. We may be soon saying the exact same things about last season’s top scorer, Abel Hernández, if Aston Villa activate the player’s buy out clause. As bewildering as it is that a player would eschew the top flight for the division we’ve just left, can anyone blame any player for wanting out of the farce Hull City have become?
8. It isn’t just players on their way out of the club either, as coaching staff are jettisoned in unsettling circumstances and front office staff are set to depart. The owners appear to be adopting a scorched earth policy as their tenure comes to an overdue end.
9. The season kicks off on Saturday, with the visit of the champions Leicester. From a footballing perspective it’s impossible to look past an away win. The Hull Daily Mail headline of “Hull City sweating on fitness of Shaun Maloney and Greg Luer”, when the latter spent last season playing in League Cup ties for us before representing Scunthorpe and Stevenage on loan tells you everything you need to know about the depth of talent available for whoever will be picking the XI for the Premier League opener.
10. There are likely to be protests on Saturday, and although there is inevitable disagreement about what form those protests should take, there are few supporters who would suggest protest is unjustified. That in itself is remarkable.
#231 July 25, 2016
1. Hull City AFC is a club in a deep, potentially existential crisis with Steve Bruce’s departure. Let there be no doubt about this, and let us not take false comfort in the remarkable ability of football clubs to survive situations that would consume companies in other industries. We are in a fight for our lives.
2. The situation had gradually worsened all summer. As the weeks have ticked by without new signings or new owners, frustration has mounted among City fans – and clearly, with the City manager too. His decision to quit (“mutual consent” our arse) has been the putrid topping on a cake of purest shite. It leaves us reliant upon untested juniors to fulfil fixtures, no manager, no new owners, bitter hostility on the terraces, a massive slump in season ticket sales and, frankly, a stench of despair about the club. Our prospects of surviving look abysmally weak.
3. Steve Bruce wasn’t perfect. After all we should never have been relegated in 2014/15, and his record when given big money to spend was not stellar, which is unsurprising when strikers are bought on the basis of YouTube clip scouting. Nonetheless, he is our most successful manager ever: he took us up in his first season, following that up with Premier League survival, an FA Cup final and qualification for European football. Although he massively faltered in 2014/15, he took responsibility for that failure and put it right the following season, taking us back to the Premier League once more, setting a League Cup run club record on the way. His amiable nature and popularity with national media meant the club never truly became a laughing stock despite the unending attempts of the owners to embarrass us all with their stupid ideas and pig-headed obstinacy. Steve Bruce deserves our heartfelt thanks and respect for four tumultuous years that yielded far more on-pitch success than failure. He most certainly deserved to part ways with Hull City on better terms than he did, forced out by the smug-without-cause, integrity free Ehab Allam, a man ignorant of his own stupidity, with delusions of eminence.
4. How laughable was the statement about postponing the sale of the club in order to focus on squad strengthening? Well here we are on the other side of that announcement with no manager, no signings of note and indications that the Allams want to do the summer transfer window on the cheap. Their claims to want to ensure the club goes to a good home ring hollow, when the club is in more debt than it’s ever been and the fanbase wilfully disengaged.
5. On a national level, the press have started their usual speculation as to who the next manager will be, and bookies are laying odds. But it actually feels like it doesn’t matter. Steve Evans would make every City fan shudder as the current favourite for the job, but it makes no difference whether we get Steve Evans, Lee Evans or Linda Evans for as long as the same people remain in power to make that appointment.
6. One also wonders how attractive the job is. Known firefighters from the old school like Neil Warnock would take it, of course. It’s a Premier League role, after all, and few of those come up where managers outside the bracket of Premier League quality or experience feel like they may have a chance. But some of the names bandied about – Roberto Martínez, Tim Sherwood, others – will already be aware of the Allams’ reputation. Is our club, currently one of the 20 elite footballing organisations in England, now seen as too poisonous for any manager of reasonable self-respect to consider? They will have seen what Bruce has had to deal with and wonder whether their own egos, career prospects and reputations can withstand the heartache that inevitably attaches itself to the job.
7. The number of players who tweeted their sorrow and messages of thanks to the departed gaffer was notable after the news broke. Plenty of the senior squad owe their continued high-calibre careers to Bruce; one cannot help but feel a playing staff mutiny coming on, which would be entirely the club’s doing. It feels like an awful lot of transfer requests are going to be made in the coming days, if they haven’t already. Phil Buckingham described senior players as “fuming”, and it rings true – the ones who’ve seen it all before will know that this is absolutely not how you go about running a football club. At the end of the friendly at Scunthorpe on Saturday, which was played out to the constant soundtrack of supporter fury, the players very strikingly came over and applauded the supporters even as more anti-Allam chants rained down. The message it sent was unmistakeable; though of course, Ehab lacks the courage to witness such things for himself.
8. Scunthorpe also demonstrated that the supporters are now fully united. The name change once caused division between those opposed and those willing to hold their noses. But now, we feel like a support that is again pulling together. Opposition to the Allam family is absolute, and if it can be this pronounced at a friendly, they’d better believe it’s going to be savage when the season begins.
9. Savage among those present at least, for the actions of Ehab and co are guaranteeing swathes of empty seats next season. The redoubtable Hull City Supporters’ Trust revealed last week that the club, imaginatively, believes that Premier League rules simply don’t apply to them and there’s no need to offer the obligatory concessions. It’s beyond contemptible, and explains why the name Allam is increasingly spat out in this city. Some legacy.
10. Hull City AFC launch their home kit for 2016/17 later this morning. Eleven days ago, we promised to donate £50 to the Tigers’ Trust if City use their full, correct name during the launch. Our offer stands, and was matched by so many others that over a thousand pounds has been pledged to this charity if the club calls itself by its actual name. So, City, what’s it to be?
#230 May 31, 2016
1. We’re back in the Premier League for a third separate spell in less than a decade, and can look forward to another period of big occasions, big signings and big attention. Immediately we say congratulations to Steve Bruce and the team for achieving an instant return to the big time, even if it did come via the über-tense method of a play-off final at Wembley. But there are plenty of sub-issues that preceded, encapsulated and will now persist after Saturday teatime’s triumph.
2. On the pitch though, well that’s the easy bit to discuss. City let Sheffield Wednesday take an early foothold in the game and then, from roughly the 20th minute onward, took over, with naturally better, more experienced footballers able to control the flow and pace of the game, and by the time the halfway period of the second half had come, it was obvious who the better side were, and just one goal would likely finish the game.
3. And so it proved. Mohamed Diamé bent in a divine, gorgeous shot and won promotion there and then. The timing, the exquisiteness, the effortlessness, all combined in one moment of footballing artistry that killed our South Yorkshire opponents’ spirit and belief there and then. Hairy moments in the remaining 26 minutes, injury time included, were most rare. City had the ability to win the game and not lose it in equal measure and, gallant though they were in their efforts all afternoon, Wednesday simply couldn’t respond.
4. Diamé is such a good player that it really is baffling how his season has fluctuated between Championship colossus and half-arsed also-ran, because he has been noticeably both through the course of the last nine months. On his day, he was the best player in the division. His day, however, didn’t come often enough, a self-inked blot on his copybook. Mercifully, one of the handful of days that did come for him was on Saturday May 28th because even putting aside a wonderful goal, he was unplayable.
5. Everybody who started the game deserves praise, in variant quantities. We reserve special mention for Eldin Jakupović, who didn’t have a serious effort on goal to make look difficult but did deal with the bread and butter stuff in a most competent manner, and Moses Odubajo, who was the only member of the starting XI not to have played Premier League football before but over the course of three play-off matches looked the most obviously Premier League standard of them all. Kudos also to Michael Dawson and Curtis Davies, their combined ages and avuncular personalities inspiring total belief in those who play around, behind and in front of them; Tom Huddlestone, who topped the stats table at Wembley and Jake Livermore, whose back story is such that only the most churlish, stone-hearted moron would not wish him good cheer after his all-action display on the big stage.
6. Jakupović and Huddlestone have both spoken since the final about the lack of action by City on the contractual front while, notably, bringing up the fact that other players with deals due to expire this summer have had talks and put pen to paper. Whether they will now re-sign is now up to the manager, but of course, we go into the summer not knowing who that is going to be – and it seems the incumbent doesn’t know yet either.
7. Many have commented that City have been very low key in celebrating this quick return to the top tier, and with all the fresh riches a place in the Premier League brings. Much of that is because it hasn’t been a club that has been comfortable in its own skin this season thanks to the eternal stand-off between ownership and supporters, something that has managed to filter through to the players and coaching staff during the course of the year. But more than anything, the muted shindiggery has been because Steve Bruce doesn’t know what he’ll be doing next.
8. The manager looked knackered as he raised the trophy in the the Royal Box. The cheer he received was deservedly huge but the passive, watery smile and long sighs that dominated his demeanour said plenty, and he confirmed what we were all thinking in his usual candid way afterwards. This is a man who has achieved, then been knocked back, then achieved again, all while fighting an eternal inferno between his paymasters and his team’s supporters, trying to not offend either and probably ending up hacking off both. It seems he doesn’t want to do it any more if the club remains in Allam clutches, especially as he always got on well with Assem while not having the greatest of working relationships with Ehab. The ailing health of the patriarch and lack of likelihood of his recovery suggests a harder rain could fall for Bruce at City, even with Premier League money to spend, if he remains in place.
9. But, of course, the club is for sale. The Allams have said this ever since the FA’s decision not to endorse their preposterous rebrand, and building up to the climax of the season there have been rumours of buyers from various locations across the globe. The Wembley bathwater in the players’ dressing room had barely gurgled down the plughole when news of interest from consortia in the USA and other areas started to seep through and at least one seems to have made it fairly plain that they would wish Bruce to work for them. But, true to hypocritical form, such interest and the promise of mega Premier League money has made Allam jr. change his stance as vendor somewhat. The club may still be for sale but it now appears to be not as vehemently a slavering fox in the chicken coop of their business portfolio as they had allowed us previously to believe. Money talks, as ever. A person not prone to mistrust or misanthropy would just say the Allams were understandably holding out for the highest possible sum to pluck Hull City AFC from their grasp; the more cynical – ie, the City fan who has seen the Allams drop clanger after clanger and dissemble their way through their stewardship of the club without an ounce of shame – would just say Ehab has seen the cheque that promotion proffers and has decided to hang about.
10. If the Allams stay, then there’s no end of trouble ahead as Premier League status will likely allow them further ammunition, misguided and badly argued though it may be, to push their abominable membership scheme upon us. However, an astute piece of thinking is that even if other parties fail in a bid to buy the club, any opposing view they would hold on this scheme might make the Allams think again. They don’t listen to the fans – we’re irrelevant and we can die when we want, remember – but they do listen to people with their kind of wealth.
11. The empty seats. Yes, they are a source of embarrassment, though the people who should really be embarrassed about them are the club’s owners, as it is a reflection of how many fans have come to find their stewardship of the club repugnant. Having sought to vandalise the club’s identity, using it as collateral in a spat with Hull City Council, the Allams have sought to punish fans for daring to value the name the club was born with by calling them ‘hooligans’, telling them ‘they can die when they want’, they’ve stated to the FA that fan opinion is ‘irrelevant’, hiked up pass prices following relegation, evicted supporters from seats they’ve sat in for years with no consultation and abolished all concessions under the guise of ‘making football more affordable’.
12. The red seats made conspicuous by their emptiness on Saturday are a follow on from the red card protests at recent home games. While we personally took a ‘support the team not the regime’ approach to the play-off final, we have every sympathy for someone priced out in 2016/17 feeling that there was no point in paying a premium to see the game that determines what division we play in next season when they won’t get to see next season’s home games in person. Some have proffered cost and the rugby teams having games as reasons for the less than stellar turnout in the eastern half of Wembley, but those who have spoken to us about why they didn’t go have given just one reason: alienation. A feeling of disconnection from a club that no longer values their support.
13. There’s an odd morality in football fandom that decrees glory-hunting fans are something to be derided if they turn up en masse to, say, a home cup game against a big side when they’ve been absent at all other games, but should you get to Wembley for a play-off final then suddenly glory fans are a good thing, and it’s their absence that’s criticised. Somehow Sheffield Wednesday selling out their Wembley allocation of nearly 40,000 is a sign that they’re a ‘proper club’ who ‘deserve to be in the Premier League’, not a sign that they’ve more bandwagon jumpers than us. The average gate at Hillsborough this season was 22,640, but we’re supposed to view them as a ‘big club’ because many more than that wanted a day out at Wembley? Meh.
14. That’s not to say that Wednesday’s fans were not impressive in their bouncing full-throatedness (well, until we scored). They were, and they have a unity that we can only envy at this time. Let’s hope that the fracturing of our fanbase can be repaired and the passion of the Tiger Nation can be obvious once again.
15. Back to the membership scheme, in particular its odious removal of discounts from kids and seniors. As some eagle-eyed City fans discovered over the weekend, this is explicitly contrary to the Premier League’s own directives, as seen in their own 2015/16 handbook. In section R it plainly declares that such concessions must be made available. Did City realise that that they are instantly defying Premier League rules by pricing out the next generation?
16. And what happens if City don’t back down? The Football Supporters’ Federation are aware of the club’s dismal plans and are making representations on the fans’ behalf. It seems almost inconceivable that we could be denied promotion if Ehab doesn’t change tack and breaks a fairly obscure rule in a 582 page handbook – but then again, why would the Premier League seek to let little old Hull City AFC pick and choose which of its rules they abide by?
17. And most damningly of all, how on earth have we arrived at the situation whereby the Premier League, that ultimate manifestation of greed in the game, is being turned to for help in safeguarding the club’s future support? When they’re the good guys and your owners are the bad guys, it’s a reminder that the sooner they get the hell out of this club, the better.
18. Hopefully, whoever’s decision it was to put “Tigers v Sheffield Wednesday” on our play-off final shirts will be following them out of the door. It meant the Owls’ shirts had our name on them more than our own. Pathetic, spiteful, tiny-minded shite, City.
19. Let’s try to end on a positive note. As mentioned before, we can at least chart a path towards a happier future now. The advent of Premier League football makes shedding the Allams easier, and it’s good in its regard, right? We aren’t the wide-eyed fanbase of 2008 and we know the reality of the Premier League doesn’t match the glossy brochure, but it’s still the division we’d choose to be in. Let’s not be blasé and arrogant about this – Hull City AFC in the top division of English football is a very special thing. And it’s great news for the city of Hull too, the place so many of us are proud to call home. Hull, the Premier League City of Culture. We’ve come a long way.
20. Thanks for all of the comments, queries, tweets, e-mails and insults throughout what’s felt like the longest and most draining season of our 18 year existence. They’re all appreciated and we’re still quite touched that fellow fans take the time and effort to read our stuff and get in touch. There’ll be one final celebratory, hoarse podcast recorded live on Periscope tonight and then online to download tomorrow, then we’ll be posting only sporadically through the summer while we enjoy Euro 2016 and the cricket (some of us). See you in August, hopefully with new owners of our beloved club, and let’s see just how far we can go.
#229 May 23, 2016
1. After putting in arguably the best performance of the season in Derby on Saturday, the exact same eleven put in a wretched, stomach ulcer-inspiring display just three days later. Indeed Tuesday night ranks among the worst of the campaign, yet at the end we were compelled to celebrate the prospect of yet another trip to Wembley. It took us 104 years to qualify for a game at the national stadium, yet on Saturday we’ll journey there for the fourth time in nine seasons.
2. The 2-0 loss to Derby serves as a timely reminder that play-off finals are usually endured, rather than enjoyed, at least until the final whistle. Remember the injury to Bradley Orr that held up the game soon after Dean Windass’ spectacular strike? That just allowed nerves to seep in and mash with our heads, as we contemplated having something tangible to lose. We’re excited about the game with Sheffield Wednesday now, but when that whistle blows to signal kick off beneath the giant arch of Wembley, that’s when 90 minutes and maybe more of harrow begin.
3. How on earth did City come so close to a disastrous reverse with no precedent in play-off history? Firstly, Derby were excellent. They had nothing to lose and everything to gain after being so comprehensively outplayed in the first leg, and played as such. However, it cannot have been beyond the collective wit of Steve Bruce and his players to realise that their visitors would pour forward from the start and that taking the sting out of the evening with some possession, territory and a bit of calmness would quickly see them subside. We could scarcely have got it more wrong.
4. It wasn’t until the introduction of David Meyler shortly after half-time that City establishing anything approaching a foothold in the game. Prior to that the side was an inch away from outright panic, and had Derby levelled the tie there’s little doubt they’d be going to Wembley this week. As it was, if City deserve meagre credit for anything, it’s that they did at least tough out the final half-hour, belatedly getting themselves organised and ultimately denying Derby any real chances. When Tom Ince, gratifyingly hopeless in both games, spannered over a shot from very long range with time running away from Derby, it finally began to feel like our night.
5. We cannot agree with the Derby manager’s assessment that his side merited a final place more than City. When the tie was 0-0 only one team turned up; Derby didn’t play until it was virtually lost. We understand his disappointment, because coming so close to making history will spend all summer hurting. But as good as Derby were at City, City were better at Derby.
6. The club’s decision to ban that cretin who needlessly squared up to Richard Keogh was pleasingly swift and correct. It’s frustrating that pitch invasions, largely spontaneous expressions of joy, are increasingly being treated as criminal offences (after all one of the most famous sporting events in English history has a well intentioned pitch incursion at its heart, “some people are on the pitch, they think it’s all over…”), but some of that is down to bell-ends such as the one who decided screaming at Derby’s captain was preferable to celebrating City’s achievement.
7. So, to the final. On paper, City are comfortably a stronger XI than Sheffield Wednesday. It is, as most games have been this season, essentially down to what Steve Bruce’s charges do. And the play-offs have reminded us that forecasting City’s mentality is impossible – we can be as brilliant as we can be terrible, often with little in-between, within a short period of time, and in games critical and routine. It’s infuriating.
8. Therein lies both a strength and weakness: if City really turn up in the final, we’ll be promoted. But there’s a significant chance that they won’t, and if that happens then Sheffield Wednesday are definitely good enough to beat us. It’s a worry that they’re going to want it so much. Seeing South Yorkshire types on social media declare themselves moral victors in advance because they’ll probably sell more tickets is growing tiresome, but it does demonstrate how enormously important this is for them. With their lengthy top-flight exile and a first Wembley appearance in a generation, how could it not be? We’ve been in the Premier League twice and graced the Wembley turf three times since. Be in doubt: we’ll be up against dangerous, determined opposition.
9. Was it really necessary to charge £98 for some tickets for the play-off final? £64 for a behind the goal view?
10. So, we’ll see you at Wembley. It’s almost tempting to be a little blasé about it, though a quick recap of our fascinating, storied but broadly glory-free history should remedy that. But for one day only, let’s forget all of the crap that surrounds the club at the moment, and relish visiting one of world football’s greatest arenas to watch our beloved Hull City AFC. It could just be glorious. Again.
#228 May 16, 2016
1: Coo, what a performance. How unexpected. And how exquisitely timed too. To go to Derby, our prime nemesis this season, and give them a three-goal seeing-to in the first leg of the play-offs, without response, without breaking sweat, was just what the doctor ordered. Notwithstanding any ‘typical City’ circumstances that the educated in such matters will ponder ruefully over the next couple of days, the second leg should now be an excuse for a celebration.
2: And perhaps a party atmosphere at the KC(OM) is precisely what we need. It’ll be good for the soul, after some of the crap we’ve had to put up with this season. The team can do a professional job while the supporters sing, swap witticisms and make plans for the final, while following the Supporters Trust‘s suggestion that the red card protest is put on hold. And as Ehab Allam doesn’t attend home matches any more, he won’t be there to muscle in and get a staged photo taken looking happy and magisterial.
3: What’s that you say? Ehab will probably turn up now? Och, that’s very cynical. After all, he hasn’t got a history of hypocrisy or inconsistency or treachery at all.
4: It was a corking team display at the Baseball Ground Pride Park iPro Stadium, but we feel compelled to dish out individual praise. First up, Eldin Jakupović. One shot on target to save, one goal assist, one brilliant close-up bit of English swearing, one very dodgy punch, one split lip. It was like Jakupović bingo out there.
5: Moses Odubajo and (to a lesser, but by no means to his great detriment, extent) Andy Robertson. Some of the overlapping they did was from the textbook, fortunate as they are that their pace and stamina can get them into defensive mode again swiftly if possession is sacrificed. Both scored goals too (sort of) and that can’t happen often for two orthodox (in formation, if not intent) full backs. And Robertson’s goal allows us a whole barrowload of breathing space tomorrow night.
6: Abel Hernández. What a goal that was.
7: Jake Livermore. What a player he is at this level.
8: The City fans were magnificent at Derby. It’s a ground that’s rightly developed a reputation for having one of the Championship’s better atmospheres, and in the opening exchanges they were pretty loud, with noise coming at us from either side. By the end of the game, they’d completely given up trying to compete with the away end, which was given as free a run of the Ipro stadium as our team. Well done, us.
9: How do you approach a second leg at home with a three-goal cushion? It’s a nice problem to have and we doubt that Derby’s deflated caretaker manager Darren Wassall would hesitate to swap places with Steve Bruce; but that doesn’t mean the City manager doesn’t have a few things to think about it. If we do make the play-off final, an eleven day gap is more than enough time to get everyone rested – there’s no need to rest anyone here. Scoring first would kill off any lingering Derby ambitions of pulling off an epic comeback and there must be a temptation to aim for a fourth…however, conceding first will give tomorrow’s visitors just a glimmer of hope. They’ll have no choice but to throw caution to the East Yorkshire wind and come at us – setting up City to be solid at the back and pacy on the break seems the way forward. A little like Saturday, in fact…
10: Eleven seasons ago, our promotion from League One was rubberstamped by Tranmere Rovers, our nearest rivals for the runners-up spot, not winning a midweek game in hand. Next season they will be playing league games against North Ferriby United. We heartily congratulate our village neighbours on a stunning, extraordinary promotion to a division we came so close to “gracing” not a million years ago. And, as our generosity threshold is currently set to maximum, we offer pats on the back also to Grimsby Town on their return to the Football League, though obviously we’re wearing latex gloves when administering them. With luck, they can celebrate their return by being paggered by us in the League Cup next season.
#227 May 9, 2016
1. The mood has shifted a little in the aftermath of Saturday’s 5-1 gubbing of Rotherham. Quite how much remains to be seen and its ultimate effect is presently unguessable, but there’s no doubt that walking away from the stadium on Saturday, things felt better than for a little while. A comprehensive victory in the sunshine will always lift the mood, and we shouldn’t get too carried away; lets enjoy it for what it was and hope it has a small but useful effect in the coming weeks.
2. It certainly was a pleasant watch. Rotherham were obviously hopeless, but the way City put them to the sword in the first half was thrilling. There was a buccaneering spirit in the side again, with inventiveness and vigour – it was all too much for our lowly visitors, but you suspect it’d also be hard for any side in the division to handle. The challenge for City is to replicate it in the next two, and perhaps three games.
3. The quality of goals was impressive. Abel Hernández’s overhead kick one of the finest ever seen at the Circle, but Diamé’s, Snodgrasses and Livermore’s second would have lit up any game.
4. Derby, then. They’ll be a formidable proposition, and memories of their double over us this season continue to stalk us. We’ve achieved fourth, which means the second leg at home – a theoretical advantage, but it does mean surviving the first leg with the tie still alive. That’ll mean overcoming a hostile home crowd – Derby, having competent owners, fill their stadium and engage with supporters, so we’ll be up against it. And goodness knows that City have gone missing all too often when things get a bit difficult, and have a nasty habit of capitulating when conceding first.
5. It’s hard to guage what we need to do. Away goals don’t count extra, so the imperative to pick one up isn’t there; you’d think that any sort of draw would make City favourites to progress. But do we try to almost end the tie with an away win, as per Watford 2008 – do we dare? Would that risk a heavy defeat we’d struggle to come back from? Is it better to keep it tight and rely on our home form to carry us to Wembley? Steve Bruce has a lot to consider.
6. The bookmakers make City narrow but definite favourites to win the play-offs, despite finishing with a whimper in fourth place. Hmm.
7. This being City, it cannot of course be about on-field issues. There was another significant red card protest against the club’s decision to scrap child and senior concessions. Sadly Ehab Allam continues to lack the guts to attend home games, but did find the time to write nauseatingly smug, error-strewn drivel in the programme attempting to justify the decision to hollow out our support for a generation.
8. Again, it all comes down to the alleged misuse of concessionary tickets at the gate. We wonder if Ehab would like to explain why this issue, which presumably other sporting clubs across the land have also faced, can be solved elsewhere with the retention of discounts, but not here.
9. Friday was the (extended) deadline for keeping your seat, and it appears that City sold just 6,000 memberships by the time it elapsed – compare and contrasts this to 21,000 at Derby, or 15,000 at Huddersfield. The impact on the club is obvious and grave. We’re going to be among the most poorly supported clubs in whichever division we’re in next season. How is that going to attract players to the club?
10. However, there is a serious human cost too. Families are being forced to give up season tickets because of steepling price rises. Senior citizens are having to walk away after decades of support. For those on social media, it made Friday night a thoroughly depressing read as countless stories of distressed City fans being forced out were told. Well done, Allams. Your legacy at the club is the destruction of its support and your reputation in this city is in tatters. For all of our sakes, just go.
#226 May 2, 2016
1. It’s fair to say we haven’t always enjoyed a complete concurrence of views with many West Stand patrons in recent times. However, walking into the Circle on Tuesday night for the Brentford match and seeing them already holding aloft scores of Supporters Trust-provided red cards was a terrific sight, and those same supporters booing the stand announcements into eventual submission was no less fantastic.
2. That the West Stand, considered by some to be home to less protest-minded supporters, have been successfully riled into action speaks volumes for Hull City AFC’s unerring ability to alienate people. Support for the club and its actions is virtually impossible to locate.
3. It’s the noise we’ll never forget. Or lack of it. As the team came out to undertake its pre-match rituals, the eerie silence was punctuated only by anti-Allam chants, with hands busy holding aloft red rectangles of rebuke instead of applauding the team onto the field. That’s arguably tough on the team, even though they’ve deeply and frustratingly underachieved of late – however, there are far bigger issues at the moment.
4. In any case, City won at a canter, dispelling the myth that protest have a deleterious effect upon the team. It’s a fantasy peddled by those who want everyone to toe the party line, but has no real basis in fact. As it happens, the best atmosphere we’ve been in lately was away to Crystal Palace last season, when opposition to the current owners was finally crystallised in the wake of the Airco Arena shambles – and it saw one of our best results in that season.
5. The match itself, which often reeked of friendly, was as comfortable a win as we’ve seen for a while. Brentford looked jaded and largely disinterested, and even the disruption caused by multiple changes couldn’t really stop City. Despite the half-paced nature of the game, we did still manage to play some good football and the win was a welcome one.
6. How typical of City circa 2016 that it wasn’t followed up. The performance at Bolton was an absolute disgrace. No possible excuse can be advanced for it and Steve Bruce didn’t attempt one, even if he did add to the irritation by sounding more like a victim than an architect of it. It caused significant dismay in the stands – to goad your own supporters into such observations as “top of the league, we fucked it up” and “this is embarrassing” takes some doing. This City side has done it.
7. They’ve not done it alone, of course. The Allam family has been gradually dripping poison into the club for nearly three years now, making the good work done at the beginning of their reign seem impossibly distant as this poison has slowly infected everything. The protests at Bolton were organised by the (fantastic) Supporters Trust against the membership scheme, but their execution by the fans was laced with anti-Allam sentiment.
8. They’re cowards too, aren’t they? While the club tears itself apart, where is Ehab Allam? Where is the club’s senior management? If stripping child and OAP concessions is such a great idea, why aren’t they out there promoting it, instead of cowering in their bunker while the storm rages outside? Pathetic. Utterly pathetic. We deserve better.
9. We wholly endorse the Supporters Trust’s call not to renew season tickets for now. There are issues over the legality as well as obvious problems with their morality. For the time being at least, lets stay away from this rotten scheme.
10. Finally, we wish Assem Allam a return to good health and the opportunity to make good on his promise to sell the club.
#225 April 25, 2016
1. The win at Reading was terrific, but City’s subsequent failure to beat Leeds seems emblematic of our season as a whole: we showed flashes of excellence and superiority, but then lost our way when a lasting statement about that superiority was required. That’s why ‘the best squad in the division’ is fourth, ten points off the automatic promotion pace.
2. Thankfully, the Football League’s format will give us another chance to turn underachievement into success. Even though failing to exact revenge on Leeds for the Elland Road defeat was a disappointment, the wider form context of two wins and two draws means we have a good platform to enter the play-offs in buoyant mood.
3: Ah yes, the play-offs. With us unable now to catch any of the top three, we can now think actively about the mini-campaign that could yet salvage what has been a season of dislike, mistrust and standoffishness. The question to ask is: who do we want? Or, more pertinently, is it possible to avoid Derby?
4: Let’s face it, the only way we’re going to get Sheffield Wednesday, who although not assured of a play-off place are looking increasingly likely to secure one, would be for them to overhaul Derby and finish fifth (or us and Derby, and finish fourth). By this weekend, that could be impossible anyway. So unless we sink to sixth with three heavy defeats and get the odd one out of the three-strong 87-club (out of interest, two of the three scribes here think that’ll be Middlesbrough, with the other going for Brighton), it’s apparent that we’re going to play Derby twice more – and this is the only team to do the double over us this season. Still, prior to the final in 2008 we’d dropped points in both our ‘regulation’ games against Bristol City, so…
5. There were some positive displays from key individuals on Saturday. Chuba Akpom played with a dynamism and willingness that hasn’t been seen since late summer, and Tom Huddlestone is in a good run of form, playing crisp and effective football. That may be to get him a deal elsewhere, but it suits City’s purposes just fine.
6. Steve Bruce repeatedly lecturing supporters on what they should say at games is rather irritating. He is extremely well paid to manage City, a job he has until recently done very well. In return, he should leave the supporting to us, and not EVER imply that beseeching the club to see sense somehow constitutes a lack of support for the team. It may be difficult to speak out against his bosses – fine, we get that. That’s no excuse for transferring his frustration onto those who are being priced out of watching their local team next season.
7. As it happens, he could have little complaint about the crowd on Saturday. Though anger bubbles under the surface of a fanbase treated with utter contempt by the club’s hierarchy, the toxic atmosphere of recent games was absent and any ire was aimed at Leeds and their fans (well, aside from a half time announcement about the Membership Scheme that was roundly booed).
8. Outside the ground was a different matter, some fans of a certain vintage were burning their membership packs in West Park, and all week long we’ve seen photos on social media of defaced reply envelope. ‘Earn your stripes’ becoming ‘Another tripe idea’ was our favourite.
9. As we despair at the bovine intransigence of the club, we applaud the Hull City Supporters Trust. Their press release on Thursday was a terrific piece of work and their spokespeople have been eloquent and informed when commenting in the media. The contrast with those at Hull City AFC could not be more stark.
10. Sometimes a picture says more than many words, so…
#224 April 18, 2016
1. The Wolves game was turgid, but the result was very welcome and effectively guarantees us a play-off spot. Nine points ahead of Cardiff (in seventh place), it seems as equally inconceivable that they could displace us from the play-off zone as City now finishing in an automatic promotion spot.
2. The challenge for Steve Bruce is to use this victory, streaky as it was, to get some badly needed form and confidence back into his team. The benign run-in we’d hope would be propel us over the line to automatic promotion will instead have to be used for collecting some reinvigorating victories. And hey, if we can pagger Leeds and at least partially right the ghastly wrong of December, perhaps we will all start to feel a little better. Win most of our remaining fixtures, ensure we have the home leg second in the play-offs, and as wretched as it all feels now, football can change rapidly and this could still be a summer of epic celebration. No, really.
3. That will require a sizeable improvement in quality and attitude, of course. Names don’t need naming, but the manager must find a way of focussing his players minds not on their summer machinations and Premier League prospects, but on getting City promoted. That’s a tall order for a manager who has cut a reduced figure of late, however he has done it before, and getting City up for a second time would restore lustre to a legacy that’s been tarnished of late.
4. The club announced the revised Membership Scheme details over the weekend. If you’re a South Stander and had been expected to move seats if you’re not in a family group, you now don’t have to move, though you do have to accept that the stand will be more kiddy filled than before. That’s a very positive and welcome change.
5. Supporters being allowed to secure use of their current seat in the West Stand upper should we get promotion to the Premier League seems a neither here nor there change. They could always go in the West upper should we go up, albeit buying tickets on a match by match basis. Either way, the people contemplating potential eviction from their seats have no influence on the outcome, and have to hope a side whose manager branded their performance against Wolves “not good enough” are going to save their seats. The whole idea of closing a part of a stand rather than attempting to fill it with reasonably priced tickets is just pathetic and defeatist.
6. Does adding 800 extra Zone 1 seats cut it when almost 40% of current passholders have concessionary tickets? “For too long, the price of football in this country has been much too high”, Ehab Allam, the man behind price hikes following relegation, is supposed to have said. If he really thinks that, why not make the entire upper West Stand Zone 1 and fill it every week?
7. A question not answered the first time round still has no answer: If you suddenly find yourself in a rather cheap Zone 1 seat and will be saving money when compared to pass prices this season, why would you move to somewhere more expensive? If people don’t move, the chances of other people being able to move to cheaper seats from seats that have now risen in price significantly will be very limited.
8. The ‘Family Stand Guarantee’, which means ‘no group in the Family Stand will have to pay more than you did for…2015/16 Season Cards’ sounds great, but the caveat of ‘for your first year of Membership’ implies that the financial pain those who want to remain in their current seats not in the Family Stand will face soon, will merely be postponed for those who agree to move.
9. Even after the changes, many supporters are saying their overall spend may price them out of every game attendance next season. The brochure trumpets ‘adult savings’, which seems odd given there will be no distinction between adults and children any more, and ignores that most people don’t attend alone, they go with other people, some of whom will be children and/or seniors. The line stating that ‘the pride and passion of the black and amber army will never be lost’ seems remarkably hollow and mealy-mouthed doesn’t it?
10. It is clear that this scheme has been launched despite being nowhere near ready. Through our place on the Fans’ Working Group we urged the club not to proceed until the all-too-obvious issues had been satisfactorily resolved. Instead, the FWG was invited to another meeting to discuss it further. This was shelved. A proposed e-mail discussion failed to materialise. Instead, those on the FWG were notified on Thursday about the few small alterations prior to Saturday’s announcement – clearly, the club had decided to proceed by decree rather than by meaningful consultation. It’s precisely the sort of arrogant attitude that caused such serious damage over the name change fiasco, in which the fans imploring the club to think again have been proven entirely correct. A similar situation is imminent here. We despair at the club’s refusal to listen and the long-term harm could take a generation to repair.
10a. The club had previously promised us that the words “Hull City” would be used in the brochure. Predictably, you will scan it in vain for their actual FA-sanctioned name. A small thing perhaps, but indicative of the spiteful way in which the owners and management regard us all.
10b. And no, we very well may not be accepting any future invites to FWG meetings, if indeed there are any more. If they can’t be arsed to listen or make good on assurances given, why waste our time attending and being the only ones to ever produce a proper write-up of them?
#223 April 11, 2016
1. A bewildering, frustrating and infuriating week in this life of following Hull City. One of the worst defeats of our era, both in score-line and performance, followed by a bitty, odd non-display against a vastly limited team when the toxicity enveloping everyone involved with the club became as visible as ever.
2. Derby had a hold on us after winning at the Circle earlier in the season, and it was always the toughest of prospects after witnessing our form fall off a cliff of late, but to be cuffed 4-0 with amateurish mistakes, half-arsed turns from big names and retribution afterwards, really did feel like a dagger through the heart of our season.
3. Steve Bruce dropped Curtis Davies for the game at Huddersfield and whatever was said or inferred about this, it seems clear to us that Davies, who made that stunningly bad error for Derby’s opening goal, was being scapegoated, surreptitiously, for what occurred in the East Midlands. The manager is also entitled to change his mind, of course, but it didn’t look good when Davies was stripped and ready to replace the injured Michael Dawson at Huddersfield, only to then be told to retake his seat as a formation change was preferred.
4. What a weird occasion at Huddersfield that was. Four goals and City coming from behind twice. Should be a sign of character that, but it was merely a symptom of being shorn of conviction in who they are and what they are capable of. Given how good and expensive – and proven – our squad, to be so shapeless and idealess is bordering unforgivable. The only reason we came back is because our opponents were incredibly limited.
5. The mood in the away ends this week has been interesting. Fatalism abounds, but no little irritation as well. There was a splendidly well-observed “City Till I Die” on 19’04” on Saturday, marking two years since the FA torpedoed preposterous idea of City changing their name. But anti-Allam chants were also in evidence. Were they prompted by the anniversary of the fans’ victory? Frustration at the season’s disintegration? Either will, ill-feeling towards the Allam family remains.
6. The Bruce Out school of thought seems to be gaining new pupils week on week, but what is to be gained by making a managerial change now? What managers are available that could revitalise our season at this point? Perhaps our view is coloured by the appointment of one time ‘temporary football management consultant’ Iain Dowie, but there doesn’t seem an obvious choice of candidate, and without one would you trust Ehab Allam getting such a massive call right? Automatic promotion is seemingly gone, but dropping out of the play-off race seems unlikely. Steve Bruce still seems the best man to get us in form come play-off time, even if next season is a different story entirely.
7. Ahmed Elmohamady has had three excellent seasons with City, but this year’s performances suggest that he isn’t even remotely interested in a fifth, or even in impressing another club so they’ll take him. Sad. Really sad.
8. Wolves next up. We’re playing for nothing more than the opportunity to have the second leg of the play-offs at home. That doesn’t exactly quicken the pulse and we can’t imagine it’ll shift too many over-priced tickets, but somehow the manager and his players have got to regain some semblance of form before we enter those play-offs. Remember Watford in 2008? That could be us if we enter them still stricken by the current malaise. Steve Bruce could do a lot worse than simply pick his hardest-working XI and see if they can recover the situation.
9. A Fans’ Working Group meeting to discuss proposed alterations to the membership scheme was cancelled midweek, ostensibly because of the horror show at Derby. Some fans on fixed incomes or with children have suggested this may be their last season as passholders (or whatever they are to be called) if they are priced out by a lack of concessions, this needs to be resolved soon, and not put off because of an individual game.
10. Since then, we’ve heard nothing whatsoever about the scheme or the club’s plans to reconvene a meeting of fans’ groups to iron out the problems. With that apparently not happening and the membership scheme nowhere near ready to be launched, we hope the club postpone their plans for its implementation. Proceeding with a system that is fine in principle but has significant flaws that the club apparently don’t want to discuss, and at a time when many fans are increasingly disillusioned, has the potential to cause damage both short and long term.
#222 April 4, 2016
1. Our hopes of making the top two remain alive, but only just. Last Friday’s victory for Middlesbrough felt like a near-fatal blow, but Saturday’s emphatic victory over Bristol City means that we are, just about, still in the hunt.
2. The match in isolation was actually very enjoyable. City started well, got an early goal and apart from a lull midway through the first half, we were in complete control. Chances were made and taken at pleasingly regular intervals, and if 4-0 felt a tiny bit flattering, it does at least give us the division’s best goal difference again. Who knows if that’ll come in handy?
3. Its bearing on the season is something we’ll have to wait to discover. Prior to kick-off, City probably needed seven wins from their final nine games to be in with a shout of reclaiming an automatic place. We now require six from eight. It’s a very tall order and it’s not easy to see us catching the revitalised and reunited Middlesbrough – all Steve Bruce’s men can do now is try to make them earn it, as opposed to timidly handing it over.
4. We should have loftier aims than this, of course – but that victory gives us a cushion of seven points (and a game in hand) over seventh place. The play-offs are at least assured. A minute victory perhaps, but the prospect of a total top-six avoiding meltdown has been averted.
5. As for those play-offs, it’s a big advantage to finish third or fourth. Home advantage in the second leg is a big deal and if we must settle for them, it’d be nice to ensure we have that benefit, coupled with some decent form.
6. That takes us to Derby tomorrow night. It is by some distance our hardest match left this season. And it’s still almost a must-win game. There’s just no margin for error any more.
7. Huddersfield away absolutely is a must-win game. Meanwhile, we wonder just how sore West Yorkshire Police still are being forced to apologise for their disgraceful behaviour three years ago and whether they’ll look to take it out on us on Saturday. We just need one more apology for being wrongly labelled as hooligans now…
8. Doesn’t it rather feel as though the Steve Bruce era is coming to an end? He was decidedly equivocal when asked about his longer term future last week, and one wonders whether his enthusiasm for managing City is on the wane. Four years in the job is hardly an eternity, but in modern management it is and while we don’t doubt that he’s remaining thoroughly professional, we have the same feeling that a separation is coming as we did when Peter Taylor took his leave ten summers ago.
9. We’re unconvinced that going to Aston Villa is a great idea, however. They are certain to be a Championship side next season, while his current club does still have a presentable opportunity of being in the top flight. Barring a takeover and some investment, they’ll be a total wreck of a club. His Birmingham past will count against him the moment they lose a couple of games. As alluded to above, a decade ago a successful City manager thought that the grass was greener elsewhere. It wasn’t.
10. News emerged on Friday evening that modifications are to be made to City’s new membership scheme. We’ll wait for further details before getting too excited, as the club are yet to offer anything official, and there was an awful lot that needed sorting out.
#221 March 21, 2016
1. The wheels, if they have not yet quite fully fallen off, can no longer truthfully be described as securely attached. A season of rich promise is slowly, horribly disintegrating in front of us and no-one seems to have any idea as to how it’s happened or how to fix it. And having only just adjusted ourselves to the unhappy fact that the title is out of out reach, we now fear that City’s automatic promotion prospects are similarly vanishing.
2. Middlesbrough away followed the same maddening pattern. Loads of possession. Relatively few chances, and wastefully spurning those did at arrive. Being undone by a sucker punch at the other end. All followed by Steve Bruce’s increasingly grating post-match reflections, a form of uncomprehending ruefulness.
3. Not that Steve Bruce should shoulder the blame for 2015/16’s near-collapse alone. His players are highly culpable. They know it, too. Their collective decision-making has dramatically worsened of late, with panic clear to see whenever they approach the opposing goal. Hence the infuriating quantity of hopelessly over-ambitious shots flying miles off target from outside the area, the incessant playing of the wrong ball in the area, the collective fear of getting into a goalscoring area. And so on.
4. Bruce’s decision to drop Hernández for Aluko naturally prompted debate, and given that the former is our leading scorer and the latter is, err, not, it’s understandable that many eyebrows were raised. In the end, Aluko played tolerably well and Hernández hasn’t exactly been free-scoring of late anyway. It probably mattered little; it’s not just a personnel issue, it’s a confidence and attitude issue.
5. It’s clear that the Allams have endorsed this controversial membership scheme on the proviso (and with the expectation) that Hull City will be contributing to the next Premier League season. That the latest hare-brained, spiteful, badly-spun project which instigated a round of furious collective backlash from the supporters has coincided with a sharp decline in form for the team is quite poetic, as the number of people who will tolerate and invest in such a dastardly, schismatic plan will be a good deal lower if at Championship level. It’s almost worth a) stomaching the idea for a few weeks, and b) maintaining the bad run of results just to see the undoubted hammering to their gluttonous egos they would take. Because everyone is going to pay a three-figure top-up sum for the same football in the same seat in 2016/17, yes?
5a. We speak unseriously, of course. We’re desperate for a return to the Premier League. The consequences of not making it this season, with a likely summer firesale/managerial departure/falling gates/£80m debt, are quite hideous.
6. The Allams really do take a holistic approach to outraging supporters of the club. They’re not content with riling only those who value the club’s historic identity, fans with disabilities (by removing concessions), people who expect tickets bought from self-service machines to be recognised by turnstile scanners and East Stand patrons evicted at short notice to make way for away fans. No, they are truly inclusive, now targeting children and those of pension age for upset by removing all concessions. In a perverse way, that family’s ability to systematically anger everyone is impressive.
7. Let’s be clear: a membership scheme has plenty to commend itself. It could, in time, be quicker and simpler. As hinted at under the current proposal, there’s scope for price reductions, albeit ones causing possible disruption. But when the scheme was presented at the recent FWG meeting which we attended, numerous issues were raised, not the least of which was the intolerable eviction of South and Upper West patrons. Not enough of these issues have been adequately resolved. The problems raised at that time, and since its hasty unveiling last week, suggest that this idea is not yet ready. It could be the way forward in time, but that time is not now.
8. ‘Earn your stripes’ is a snappy slogan for a membership scheme, but it’s also highly insensitive. We’d imagine an existing passholder in the West Stand upper who pays for a child or children to go with them, facing both eviction and a likely net increase in seat costs for the group, wouldn’t be too happy at being told they need to ‘earn’ those imposed changes. Similarly, whoever tweeted ‘stay together‘ on the club’s Twitter account in the wake of the Middlesbrough defeat, failed to consider the irony of those words when the club are suggesting seat moves for a lot of people which will split up groups who’ve formed bonds after years of sitting together.
9. We’re pleased Curtis Davies, a fine defender and a very good pro, has signed a new two-year contract after months of waiting. We’re suspicious of the timing, however, with the news coming out a few hours after the City social media feeds were on the point of exploding through indignation while the club’s name was being blackened on local radio.
10. Given that March has been a horrendous month for City on and off the pitch, it’s probably handy that we now don’t play again until April. Quite why the traditionally exciting Easter weekend for club football has been sacrificed for a couple of international friendlies is beyond us, but the break will probably do everyone associated with City a bit of good.
#220 March 14, 2016
1. A busy, though not entirely successful week for City, on and off the field. Out of the Cup, out of the promotion places and out of touch (morning, Ehab).
2. Arsenal. This may have been the most encouraging part of the whole week. For a time, City’s much changed XI held and even bested their Premier League opponents, and had David Meyler not had that inexplicable brainstorm shortly before half-time, we could have snuck a result. As it was, Arsenal pulled away remorselessly in the second half to deserve a win, if not a very unfair 4-0 score-line, and we’re left with whatifs and maybes once more.
3. Nonetheless, the Cups have provided some real fun this season. Accrington, Swansea, Leicester, Bury, Arsenal (a) – that sort of enjoyment used to take about a decade to accumulate. Imagine what we could do if Steve Bruce ever took them seriously…
4. Taken seriously was Milton Keynes, and it was an unremittingly grim affair. It’s perhaps fitting that a club whose mere existence is a stain on the sport should play in such a grisly fashion. Time wasting from the very beginning, recognising quickly and capitalising upon a hopelessly weak referee’s indulgence when it came to falling over, delaying, spoiling – it was horrible. We have and always will wish them every misfortune.
5. None of that excuses City, who were dreadful. A sudden rash of injuries cannot be used to explain a baffling line-up that saw Clucas deployed centrally and Diamé out wide. Milton Keynes’ anti-football doesn’t forgive City wretchedly stumbling through the first twenty minutes without threatening to lay a glove on them, allowing a terrible side to gain confidence.
6. It was in midfield that City looked particularly weak. Without Meyler or Livermore, that area was very fragile. Hayden and Clucas rarely linked up, and when at half-time you’re beseeching the manager to put Tom Huddlestone on, it gives you an idea how disjointed the whole affair was.
7. That Steve Bruce let it go on as long as it did without making changes to personnel or formation is hard to understand. It wasn’t working. It hadn’t been working at any point. Why did he persist so long? The manager and his assistant were deep in conversation throughout of this miserable match – what were they discussing?
8. It all means that the title has probably gone. Burnley are nine points clear, and despite City possessing two games in hand, it really doesn’t feel as though they’re catchable any longer. We wanted that trophy, and its likely disappearance elsewhere hurts. Nothing in the two games between the two sides will ever persuade us that Burnley are a better side than City, and we had plenty of chances to establish a lead at the top of the table. However, they’ve gone, and you have to congratulate them on that. Barring a late surge by Derby or perhaps even Sheffield Wednesday, it seems as though three teams are contesting the second promotion place. Neither of the three are shaping up especially well at the moment. Brighton may be unbeaten in four, but they’ve drawn their last two without scoring. Middlesbrough are having a meltdown to make Derby’s turmoil earlier this season seem positively restrained. We’re suddenly struggling. It’s a bizarre promotion race, with the ludicrous Premier League riches obviously affecting everyone.
9. Meanwhile, the regrettable instance of a member of the Allam family opening his mouth irritated everyone at the end of last week, with Ehab striking a peculiarly anti-supporter line. The Premier League’s proposed £30 cap on tickets for away fans is, apparently, “not in the interests of football”. Presumably, pricing thousands of fans out of the game somehow is – but on he continued, foot firmly in mouth, decrying the prospect of tickets being “over-subscribed” and darkly warning that it “will lead to an allocation process having to be set up”. Ehab, old sport, go speak to what’s left of the ticket office. There’s already an allocation process set up.
10. Meanwhile, his comments about the impact on City are just laughable. What do you check when you’re thinking of going to an away game? The cost of tickets, who’s going, train times, whether anyone will drive, etc – or Tripadvisor reviews? On Planet Ehab, it’s apparently the latter. Meanwhile, in the reality-based community, price is a huge factor. But on he ploughed, saying that clubs who aren’t at 90% capacity should be financially penalised. It’s fairly obvious that this was just something that popped into his head with no real thought, and no-one will take it seriously. It does raise one interesting question though: exactly how much does he think City should be fined this season for all of the empty seats his ridiculous pricing system has created – and how is he going to prevent this from happening in the future, given that £30 is apparently not enough?
#219 March 7, 2016
1. Birmingham was a ninety minute exercise in frustration. Some time from the end, it’d become dishearteningly clear that City weren’t going to score. That’s a worry. Goals have dried up of late, and teams devoted to defending now find it easier to keep us out.
2. The performance offered some consolation, however. City battered Birmingham, and were only an observant referee and an improvement to even satisfactory finishing away from victory. This is a results business, and they’ve taken a dip – but performances are still encouraging. That may sound minor, but it isn’t – Steve Bruce’s task would be a far harder one if he were having to fix both.
3. It’s clear that if City are to win promotion and/or the title, we’re going to have come from behind. Already, four points keep us from the top – that could rise to seven tomorrow, and if we beat Arsenal and swap League for Cup on Saturday, that could rise to a daunting ten. Sure, we’ll have games in hand, a deep squad, a run-in we wouldn’t exchange for any of our rivals’, weighted nicely with home games – but the task could be made extremely difficult by our rivals.
4. Perhaps we’re clutching a little at straws here, but might that benefit City? Every time we’ve had an opportunity to establish a lead at the top, we’ve failed to take it. It’s unfair to suggest that complacency instantly creeps in whenever we reach the summit, but maybe there’s a tiny unconscious relaxing of intensity. Will chasing help to rediscover any lost intensity? Will having no option but to perform at their very best with no margin for error help or hinder? With all those home games and a theoretically favourable run-in, perhaps winning it it from behind is the way in which we’re most likely to do it. After all, it’s probably the only way now.
5. We’d like to believe that the reason Bruce withdrew Mohamed Diamé with half an hour still to go against Birmingham was to keep him relatively fresh for a starting berth against Arsenal on Tuesday night. An on-song Diamé, against a distracted, misfiring Arsenal side, could be a very interesting thing to witness indeed.
6. And, despite the mild dip in league form, we really, really hope that Bruce just gives this FA Cup replay against a flagging, much-criticised Arsenal outfit a proper go. There should be no place for fringe players on that night at the Circle. Tickets are selling well (at a semi-reasonable price too) and there is a real feeling that City could do a job on the Gunners and get another winnable quarter final at home afterwards. It would be a real travesty if the belief and interest of the public was not reciprocated by the manager and his charges.
7. And the prospect of Arsenal fans spontaneously combusting with their conceited, self-entitled, charmless bleating courtesy of a defeat by City is just too good a prospect to turn down. This view of Arsenal fans is felt by every other set of supporters across the country – it’d be great to win the game not just for our own purposes, but for football as a whole.
8. It’s a shame the Fans’ Working Group went 11 months without meeting, a run ended only twelve days ago. At least we learned a few things from it. We were told that responsibility for the club’s ridiculous decision to use a made-up name for some of its social media outlets lies with the Allam family. How utterly pathetic.
9. Away fans to the upper West, eh? We’re frequently given the least appealing accommodation on our travels, so there’s a temptation to return the favour to our visitors. In theory, bunging away fans in the remote corners of the stadium could be of benefit. But there are other issues to consider. The stroppy local police are likely to object, irrespective of its merits. Home/away fan interaction is one of the main drivers of atmosphere – is placing them out of earshot going to help the torpid matchday atmosphere? And so on.
10. Price, price, price. It’s football’s biggest issue at the moment. Over to you, City.
#218 February 29, 2016
1. Mohamed Diamé was mesmerising at Ipswich. When he is in that kind of mood, there is no footballer better in the Championship. His mood, his form and his opponents’ ways of dealing with him could be the key to City’s destiny.
2. Diamé scored a blinding goal but during the extended period afterwards at Portman Road, City could’ve been four or five up. It was marvellous entertainment, totally authoritative, and against a decent side who last lost at home under floodlights when John Wark first grew his ‘tache, or something.
3. Ipswich aren’t easy to hate normally but after fleecing City fans for £32.50 a ticket, they’ve risen substantially in our “gluttonous twats in football” hit parade. Which we’ve just made up.
4. Those with the most jerky of knees were quick to label City ‘shit’ after the 0-0 against Sheffield Wednesday. Not true, they were in fact good, though admittedly not good enough. There was no faulting City’s application, it was just the execution they faltered on, having made many chances to score.
5. Wednesday were an enigma, in the first half their positivity in having so many attackers away from home, their fast movement and fluid passing were something to be envied. That positive approach was abandoned at half time after failing to yield a goal, and the Owls adopted Brighton’s policy of containment for the second 45.
6. Fernando Forestieri didn’t dive when he received a second yellow for simulation late in the game, but the protestations of both player and visiting fans about a grave injustice ring hollow. The Argentine spent so much of the game throwing himself to the floor, the boy who cried foul should already have been dismissed by the time Dawson felled him. It is disingenuous to accuse referees of threatening the integrity of the game with incorrect cards for simulation if you wilfully ignore a player simulating fouls the rest of the game. An amusing piece in the Sheffield Star said “He’s being singled out by referees. Being judged on reputation rather than the evidence before their eyes.” Well the evidence was there to see in the previous 90 minutes, Forestieri bought a few free kicks with dives, and so cheaply was he getting them, Robert Snodgrass took the ‘can’t beat them, join them’ approach with some tumbles of his own.
7. That result, and the preceding home fixture against Brighton, both look like missed opportunities given the events elsewhere that have knocked City from the top of the table. It’s true that City could have done better in those matches, but it’s hard to argue they weren’t part of a tricky trio. Brighton were bang in form; they still didn’t dare take us on. Ipswich on a Tuesday night – awkward, victorious. Wednesday are a clear threat, they too were held at bay. Five points from three hard games is alright, and just because others have done better over the same period of time isn’t cause to panic.
8. If anything, perhaps our promotion rivals deserve a bit of credit. The pace at the top continues to be brisk, with four teams already boasting points tallies in the sixties. Burnley and Brighton’s resurgence merits admiration, as we’d written both off at varying times. If City are to do it, we’ll have to do it the hard way. Which is perhaps how it ought to be.
9. Things are likelier to get tougher, too. City’s next away game bears similarities to the last, a midweek trip to a side on the edge of the play-off places. Birmingham on a Thursday night is as ridiculous a piece of fixture scheduling as you could hope to see, and with our league game the following Tuesday falling victim to the preposterously timed Arsenal replay, anything but a win is likely to see us out of the top three by the time Milton Keynes arrive the weekend after. Unless we beat Arsenal, in which case we could go fourth by the time we’re in post-Birmingham league action. Either way, steady nerves, Tiger Nation…
10. There was a Fans’ Working Group meeting last week at the Circle. Meeting minutes soon, we promise…
#217 February 22, 2016
1. Well, who foresaw two 0-0 draws from games against Brighton and Arsenal? City started really well against the Seagulls, looking relaxed and confident as they passed the ball sideways waiting for a gap to open up in Brighton’s rear-guard, but the visitors contained us well and City lost focus. After Middlesbrough’s no score draw at Leeds, City had a chance to take advantage and go four points clear at the top, but we didn’t exert ourselves enough to take it. A draw was tolerable, but undoubtedly disappointing. Complacency is the only thing that can stop City winning their first championship in 50 years.
2. Meanwhile, it’s a joy to be in the draw for the sixth round of the FA Cup again, isn’t it? We may not actually be in the sixth round (yet) but by not losing at Arsenal, keeping a clean sheet and making their unimaginably spoilt, entitled supporters go bawling to the Guardian’s comments pages about it being so unfair that lesser teams have the nerve to defend against them, we’ve done ourselves and football a great service.
3. That is, perhaps, until you consider the schedule ahead of us. The authorities have insisted on putting league fixtures into the midweek windows following each FA Cup weekend, thereby giving whingers the chance to question the FA Cup’s importance, and clubs further excuse – not that they’d actually need it – to put into the team a bunch of third-stringers whose matchday duties rarely go beyond hauling the kit basket out of the coach. A replay, albeit one at home, suits City as little as it does Arsenal.
4. The likeliest scenario at the time of writing is that City will rearrange the midweek home game against Brentford in order to accommodate the replay. But of course, little attention has been paid to City’s pile-up of games because Arsenal are in the super-duper stages of the Champions League and that takes on inter-planetary importance to absolutely everyone, including those who don’t know it yet or whom the media thinks should know better. That is, of course, until Barcelona crush them over two legs in their round of 16 game.
5. Of course, it isn’t necessarily a sympathetic view to bemoan an extra game of football being foisted on highly-paid professional footballers. From City’s point of view, a draw at Arsenal could be seen as a worse result than a defeat, as an exit from the FA Cup, heroic or otherwise, allows you to follow the immortal, tiresome cliché of “concentrating on the league” and, in City’s case, there is much to “concentrate” on, of course. But if City had won? That in itself, short-term glories and justifiable baiting of hateful Gooners aside, would have also brought out the professional worriers as far as fixture congestion is concerned, because the sixth round game would have forced another Championship match into the midweek abyss somewhere (and may still, of course – in this instance, City’s home game against MK Dons). There are compelling arguments on both sides, but ultimately football is about glory, glory comes from winning trophies and trophies come from winning matches. If you don’t want to be successful, stop winning and see how far that gets you with the fans, the media and with your employment prospects. City reached the final two years ago without being consequently in danger of relegation from the Premier League, and have a squad capable of enough of trying to the absolute limit in the FA Cup without destroying hopes of Championship glory. And if they beat what we suspect will be a massively distracted Arsenal side in the replay, then Wembley will be 90 minutes away and, thanks to Watford’s name coming out in a home draw, eminently doable to boot. It’d be mad, criminal even, to turn that chance down.
6. Steve Bruce’s desire to have FA Cup replays scrapped was the main focus of at least one national newspaper’s coverage of the game, not the performance of the team, nor of the goalkeeper, nor a massively heartening result for a side looking to win their division. It was such an unwise thing to say and smacked of short-term self-interest. Nothing more. City could play the exact same XI in the replay and it not affect our league run in at all, given that we made ten changes to the line-up that faced Brighton. We have a deep squad, established players that can’t get into the first team who need proper games to maintain fitness, we have talented young kids such as Josh Tymon who will gain immeasurably more from playing a replay against Arsenal than playing developmental games at Colchester, and our manager talks of doing away with replays because we have a busy run-in.
7. And finally, we can turn to that very act of keeping Arsenal at bay, led by an unlikely performance from Eldin Jakupović. He had a day in the sun, becoming the subject of a glut of internet memes for his saves and also his reaction to one save after viewing the replay on the big screen. It’s hard to begrudge him the attention, as the signing of Dušan Kuciak and Allan McGregor’s contract extension suggest Jakupović’s days are numbered. It’s ironic, given that this has been his most impressive and notably least error-prone campaign with the Tigers. And, just throwing it out there … is there any chance he may stay in the team for the game against Ipswich on Tuesday?
8. After the trip to Ipswich (who had the weekend off and hover in ninth place) City have a Friday night game for the TV cameras at home to Sheffield Wednesday. Big games in quick succession, not much room for respite, and yet we can’t wait. Bring it on. All of it.
9. We’re disinclined to waste too much energy on Jimmy Bullard’s claim that City accidentally paid him £50,000 per week, instead of the mere £40,000 he was expecting to have to struggle by with. The facts and the personalities are well known: Jimmy Bullard is a abhorrent human being obsessed with money and with no interest in football; those running City at the time were delinquent over-spenders completely unfit to be our owners. The less we hear about these miserably inadequate individuals, the better.
10. It was a shock to the system when we realised that Josh Tymon wasn’t even alive when this website (and the hardcopy fanzine it supported) was first created. Happy 18th birthday to us!
#216 February 15, 2016
1. City’s sequence of away games concluded with a very satisfying 2-0 win at Blackburn on Saturday, and we’re back at the top of the league. Significant credit to the players for this one, because whatever the disparity in ability between City and their hosts, any away victory that’s made to look fairly routine is an accomplishment.
2. It suggests a real improvement in mentality from City. They lost three horrible games in a row on the road in December, results and performances so awful it threatened to derail the whole season. Since then we’ve played five times outside of East Yorkshire: QPR (okay, improved), Fulham (alright), Bury (good), Burnley (good, unlucky) and Blackburn (very good). We still don’t entirely trust City away from home, but that’s a solid sign of progress.
3. It means we’ve come through this ugly little patch of four successive away games with six points and progress in the Cup. We’d definitely have taken that at the start of it.
4. Who saw Tom Huddlestone being included at Blackburn? Not us, not anyway it seemed. It’s tough on Isaac Hayden, though the manager reassures us that he has the mentality to cope. It’s also remarkable to think that David Meyler, indispensable at the turn of the year, also cannot get in the side. That strength in depth thing is turning out to be real.
5. Meanwhile, as City smoothly retake top spot, at least until tonight, others are faltering. Derby’s loss of form culminated in the bizarre decision to sack their manager, accompanied by a gloriously idiotic wail about “the Derby way”. That this act of naked panic was a bad idea is proven by the delighted reaction of the other promotion-chasing clubs’ fans, and also Derby’s latest defeat at the weekend.
6. What of Middlesbrough? We’ll learn a lot about their mentality tonight when they take on Leeds. That’s a very winnable game for any side hoping to be in the top flight next season, but they’re experiencing their own sticky patch. Wouldn’t it be lovely if they too could do something as dopey as Derby?
7. No longer struggling are Brighton, City’s opponents at the Circle tomorrow evening. When they lost their third League game in a row at Rotherham, it’s safe to say that many wrote them off. Four wins later and they’re right back in it. What a glorious division. And what a recovery from them too – it’d have been easier to slide meekly out of contention, but here they come. This, the first of three away games in a row for them, will be an extremely testing game for us.
8. It’s tempting to write off City’s trip to the Emirates on Saturday. A more winnable tie than this would have us almost panting with excitement, stricken with Cup fever. As it is, it’s very hard to imagine City taking too much from this game. We wonder how seriously Steve Bruce will take it, given City’s position in the League.
9. Ehab’s been a busy boy, speaking freely in the Yorkshire Post last week about his family’s plans for the club. We still enjoy his plucky assertion that he prefers watching games at home to being there in person – courageous advocacy of armchair support, that. A pity he wasn’t pressed more on ticket prices and whether we can have the proper badge back next season, though.
10. We may be learning something more about those 2016/17 prices very soon. Given the mood in football and the failure of last year’s increased cost, we can only assume they’re coming down.
#215 February 8, 2016
1. City lose to Burnley. Shock bloody horror. It’s tempting to think that they do indeed possess a hex over us, one lifted only temporarily on Boxing Day and ruthlessly reasserted on Saturday, and there’s plenty in our recent history to suggest that we are simply destined to be points fodder for Burnley. But let’s look beyond that.
2. City were actually okay. Better than in victory at Fulham and QPR, some say. Those weren’t stellar performances, but they were at least victories. And with a fraction greater sharpness at both ends, this’d have been a win as well.
3. On another day, Abel Hernández would have stuck a chance away, and Allan McGregor would have parried the ball to safety. Fine margins in a tight game against a good side in which City played tolerably well – this sort of frustrating afternoon is inevitable.
4. That frustration was compounded by results elsewhere. With Middlesbrough and Derby drawing games far easier than our own, it’s hard not to wistfully imagine the consequences of a City win. We’d be a fair way clear now, with games in hand on many. Instead, we’re level on points with Middlesbrough, whose slight stutter brings comfort, but just a point ahead of a resurgent Burnley and only three ahead of the recovering Brighton. It feels very tight again.
5. It’s also hard to overlook another defeat on the road, even if mitigating circumstances apply. City are the only side in the top eight to have lost six times away from home this season, and you must travel into the bottom half to find a side with more losses on their travels. That trio of calamities against Leeds, Rotherham and Preston continue to stalk the season.
6. Well, tough. We’re on the road yet again this week, against a Blackburn side who’ve won just three times at home this season. They did us a useful favour on Saturday, but this really is a game we have to find a way of winning.
7. What would Steve Bruce have done if Harry Maguire had been fit to start at Burnley? The Maguire-or-Dawson dilemma sparked plenty of debate in the build-up to the game, with powerful arguments either way. Drop one of our form players of recent weeks? Unthinkable. Decline to play Michael Dawson? Unthinkable. For some reason, it never felt as though Curtis Davies, more steady than spectacular of late, was in for the chop – we’ll now never know. It’d have presented the manager with a fascinating dilemma.
8. The grumblings over the decision to levy a mandatory charge on anyone booking tickets for a game in advance continue. For City’s away games at Bury and Burnley, this meant those that bought before travelling were charged, those who elected to pay on the day were not. Might this charge – small, but annoying – encourage City fans to defer buying until they reach the away turnstiles to avoid it, thus causing inevitable mayhem at the gate, the risk of people being locked out or missing chunks of the game?
9. City have announced a small tweak, with season ticket holders no longer charged for buying in person. But what about those priced out of possessing a season ticket? Or those who live out of town? We aren’t interested in whether it’s City’s fault, or the SMC, as if those are two wholly separate entities – just drop it. We pay too much as it is.
10. Meanwhile, we look on with interest at the reaction to a sizeable section of Liverpool fans walking out of their game at the weekend over pricing. Their club has reacted with a technocratic reply shorn of imagination, a lack of appreciation for the bigger picture and a mildly unpleasant air of self-congratulation about freezing some prices, as though maintaining the unjustly excessive is somehow a cause for celebration. Rather how we’d expect our own club to respond, in other words. So, over to you City. If the approximate schedule of previous seasons is being followed, 2016/17 prices will already be under discussion. Prices need to come down, sharply. And that’s not us greedily wanting to pay less for “the product” simply merely our subjective opinion, it’s objectively proven by the thousands of empty seats a table-topping team must play in front of.
#214 February 1, 2016
1. The FA Cup trip to Bury was a handy reminder of how much of a fun day out football can be when you strip away the sanitised stadia and immaculate pitches, and go for the throat for 90 minutes. That a second-string City won so convincingly in tough conditions on a pitch with both hard outskirts and a quagmire-like centre is a great tribute to the professionalism of the players.
2. Chuba Akpom’s hat-trick included an open goal and a penalty, but we aren’t quibbling. He did his job ruthlessly and, aside from a new ball to put on display home, also earned himself a huge respect from the City fans for the way he took to Bury, when previous interpretations of his demeanour had suggested he believed such teams were beneath him. We hope this allows him to become a serious contributor to the remainder of City’s title-chasing season.
3. And this bring us to Josh Tymon, a player who was just nine years and two days old when Dean Windass scored at Wembley and yet took to Gigg Lane like a koala to eucalyptus, playing a blinder at left back and making us genuinely proud. A decent larker from the ranks who is going to be a *proper* contributor long-term (more than Wiseman, Cairney or Cooper ended up being, to quote three more recent examples) is way overdue, and gives us someone to cheer and identify with. He was greeted and encouraged impeccably throughout the game by the City fans, who should be proud of themselves…
4. … for that bit of the day, at least. Honestly, the menace created by the two sets of opposing children in the south east corner just before kick off, and after Akpom’s penalty, was pathetic, both in intention and result. Loads of these pillocks on both sides buggered off before the end of the game, so the “see you outside afterwards” tone they were trying to convey became somewhat less important compared to missing the traffic and getting home to mum.
5. The reward for all this toil in sleet-bound Lancashire? Arsenal. Away. Again. Okay, so they might take their foot off the gas this time, or they might give us a mega seeing-to, but please Mr Bruce, don’t pick a team that suggests you’ve given up on the game before it starts, like you did at Manchester City. Pick the strongest team, the form players, the ones on a roll. Let’s look like we mean it.
6. Bruce made 11 changes to the side for Bury but the identity of the opposition meant it was both acceptable and predictable for him to do so, and it’s not as if the likes of Akpom, Alex Bruce and Tom Huddlestone are bad players. Sone Aluko had a good second half, Michael Dawson’s return from injury was an enormous boost and David Meyler is still a fine box-to-box midfielder. Not everyone looked the part – Ryan Taylor was lost for most of the match and played too many careless passes, while Adama Diomande started the move for Akpom’s opener and then wasn’t seen again until his number went up. Of all of these, you can imagine only Dawson being absolutely certain for the next trip to Lancashire this weekend.
7. Yep, same motorway, maybe the same weather, but different class of opponent. Burnley are always a tough turn, with a fine record against us at Turf Moor and they’ll want to avenge for the spanking City handed over at Christmas. Still, a team that’s top of the league in February should be able to deal with anything placed in front of them.
8. The transfer window “slams shut” (eugh) tonight. Good. We hate it. And why we need to join in the mad dash for a new player on the last day when there has been a whole month to do business is anyone’s guess. Nick Powell hasn’t joined yet, after 72 hours of speculation, so if he’s worth it we’ll get his moniker on the form first thing and stay well out of the yellow-tie-and-sex-toy-on-camera procession of brain-deadedness that will invade the main sports channel later.
9. Should that happen, this will have been another successful transfer window for City – again, retaining players has been key. It’ll be a shame to lose Mo Diamé if he departs, though not necessarily disastrous. It’ll be nice to keep Ahmed Elmohamady, even if he’s not reached his usual high standards this season. Otherwise, the less that Sky Sports News and tedious bullshit merchants on Twitter mention the name Hull City today, the better.
10. Greg Dyke is to stand down as the FA Chairman this summer. Good riddance Greg, take your squalid support for League 3 and Hull Tigers, and leave football to people who understand it.
#213 January 25, 2016
2. That deserved its own entry, we feel. It’s a special feeling to sit atop any table at any time of any season, but to enter February at the summit of the second tier is very nice indeed. Never mind that Middlesbrough have a game in hand, that there’s a long way to go, etc etc – Monday mornings always feel better when you’re top of the league.
3. It wasn’t a vintage ascent to first place, however. City were nothing like the side that crushed Cardiff and Charlton at the Circle of late, lacking fluency with the ball and unable to sustain pressure on the Fulham goal, ultimately relying on an admittedly clear penalty to win the game. City may have come unstuck against a better side than the struggling Cottagers.
4. However, the more glass-half-full types will point to City’s resilience. It’s certainly fair to say that while Steve Bruce’s men could have played better, there was nothing missing in terms of application – this was nothing like the Rotherham, Leeds or Preston horror shows. It had much in common with QPR on New Year’s Day – a far from vintage performance with City toughing it out and pinching a late winner. Sometimes, there’s no other way to prosper.
5. It means that City will have a fortnight at the top of the table to enjoy, and for everyone else to stew upon. Derby can cut the gap between City and third place to four points this evening, but even if they do, it’ll be mid-February before we can next find ourselves outside of the top two. That’s a long time.
6. Before we return to League matters, the Cup. Bury v City is a match for the nostalgics among us, and probably a ground tick for a lot too. Set aside the fun of a new ground, City possibly outnumbering the home support (though 5,000 tickets still seems too many) and an affordable ticket, this is a chance to reach the Fifth Round of the Cup – not something we have an extensive track record of doing. It’s imperative we get through this tie.
7. At the other end of the country, the fans of Whitehawk FC were, until last night, facing agonies similar to our own in recent times. Their owners had sought to change the name of the club to “Brighton City FC”. Some may consider that a common, lousy and irrelevant thing to want to start calling yourselves, but no matter; it’s clear that this change wasn’t welcomed by the fans themselves, with whom consultation was initially non-existent – and when it took place, opposition was such that they’ve now backed down, for now at least. Their club appears to still covet a renaming of some sort in the future, and the relevance to City fans is clear: if the FA permit them to do it, we absolutely would not put it past the Allam family to have a third crack at vandalising City’s identity, citing a newly-created Whitehawk precedent. We wish them well, for their sakes and our own.
8. Could someone at Hull City AFC or the SMC please advise how to buy a ticket for a match and pay exactly the price shown on that ticket?
9. Meanwhile, the club will presumably be underway with planning their 2016/17 prices. Last summer’s hike in the costs has clearly been a failure, with a side top of the league playing in front of thousands of empty seats most weeks. If City stay down, prices will surely be falling in order to prevent that situation from worsening; if City go up, the astonishing Premier League riches on offer from next season can be used to offset an even bolder price cut. What isn’t sustainable is maintaining or even increasing the current prices – for the long term health of the club only sizeable reductions are viable. We look forward to hearing what they are.
10. As discussed by the excellent Hull City Supporters’ Trust last week, the Government is looking at new ways for football clubs to engage with their supporters. It all looks very promising, with commitments concerning supporters’ ownership and involvement in the running of clubs – which is what clubs ought to seek anyway, because who knows more about what makes a happy football fan than a football fan? Big businesses spend hundreds of thousands seeking the views of their customers; football fans offer their views and expertise for free all of the time and it’s odd that City seem so disinterested in gaining that valuable knowledge. The new recommendations seek to mandate twice-yearly meetings between fans’ groups (such as HCST) and owners of clubs – again, encouraging, and the club’s approach to the Supporters Trust is disgraceful. And lastly, these recommendations would seek to protect aspects of a club’s heritage. All good stuff. Come on City, it’s the 21st century – work with us, not against us.
#212 January 18, 2016
1. It’s been a perfect week for City. A clinical if unexciting victory against a poor Cardiff side on Wednesday night, followed by a complete demolition of an astoundingly awful Charlton on the Saturday afternoon. Two games, six points, eight goals, none against, all while both Middlesbrough and Derby had a little stumble.
2. Cardiff first. They arrived with a pretty rotten record away from home, and it was a record they showed little interest in repairing. Negative from the off, they may have gotten away with something had they held City until half-time; once the lead was established, it was never going to be given away.
3. Hernández’s penalty was excellent. They’re always horrible moments, and there was a split-second when you just have time to realise that both ball and keeper are heading in roughly the same direction and you instantly expect the cheers of the other lot to accompany a head-in-hands moment of your own. Not this time, it was a fine penalty at a critical time in the game by a striker in terrific form.
4. City then saw the rest of the game out in a controlled fashion, it must be said. Steve Bruce cannot have been expecting the luxury of withdrawing some players and seeing the rest play at 60% intensity for much of the game, but with a quick turnaround before Charlton we understand why City effectively declared at 2-0 against the Bluebirds, even though another goal or two were on the cards.
5. At least we didn’t want for goals on Saturday. The moment a hapless Addick coughed up to possession and had to watch in horror as Hernández punished him, this was never a contest. One thing we’ve often grumbled about is City converting dominance and chances into goals. We can have no such complaints this time. Six goals. It’s a rare treat.
6. They were all lovely goals in their own way. The cool finish to break the deadlock. The curling right-footer. The curling left-footer. The hat-trick goal after great interplay on the left. The instant curling right-footer. Hayden’s…well, okay, you can’t get full artistic merit for them all. But we scored some fantastically good goals that’ll live long in the memory.
7. It’s not even enough to say that Charlton were dreadful, though they truly were. City have struggled against poor sides before, and doubtless will again. We’d have beaten anyone in the division in that sort of form, and plenty from the division above too. The passing, moving, shooting, intensity and work-rate were all an absolute joy. And if you doubted that this was a special day, even the West Stand was observed singing at one point…
8. Now to back that up on the road. Derby have lost form at a bad time, allowing City to move ahead on both points and goal difference. They don’t play until after our match at Fulham, meaning that an ominously wide seven point gap could be present before their next game. Even with games in hand, and the two sides yet to meet at Pride Park, that’s a lot.
9. But even if we don’t win at Fulham, we have three successive League games on the road approaching. You can set your own points target, but it surely has to exceed one per game, otherwise the magnificent home form is all for nothing.
10. That’s down to Steve Bruce. He can get us playing at home, and it’s fair to say that the doubts some raise about his suitability for the post have rather evaporated this week. But he’s sounded unsure about the reason for our occasional malaise on the road this season; he’s had a while to figure it out. Starting with Fulham, we hope he’s got the answer.
#211 January 11, 2016
1. What a thoroughly odd game it was against Brighton on Saturday. Both sides rested plenty, yet City looked immeasurably superior throughout the whole game, which was conducted largely within Brighton’s half of the pitch – yet we only won with a penalty.
2. Analysing a game that was liberally studded with fringe players on both sides is perfectly possible, but determining what it means for the rest of the season isn’t easy – apart from the obvious fact that if Brighton suffer a few injuries to important first-teamers, they’ll do well to finish in the top eight.
3. The game itself was entertaining, if you’re of a City persuasion. Some of the football was very easy on the eye, we never looked remotely threatened at the back and a few of those currently outside the starting eleven advanced their claims for re-inclusion. And most importantly, City are in the Fourth Round of the FA Cup.
4. Tom Huddlestone, captain for the day, impressed – though he was given an astonishing amount of time and space with which to unveil his languid range of passing. Robert Snodgrass scoring and celebrating with the medical staff was a nice moment. Eldin Jakupović wasn’t involved enough to have the chance to do anything inadvertently amusing. Robertson looked a cut above almost everyone on the pitch. Possible even two cuts above.
5. All told, a satisfying afternoon. City progress and avoid a replay both sides would have dreaded, and we’re ball number 32 this evening. We should hope to go further. Progress in the League Cup a few months ago gave the side confidence, repeating that in the FA Cup could also aid our promotion push. And if you’re thinking it’s “only the Cup”, which side is feeling better about themselves and the 2015/16 season in general today – City, whose players will all be glued to the draw tonight, or Brighton, who spent 90 chastening minutes chasing shadows on Saturday?
6. The build up to the game was increasingly dominated by ticketing issues, with the club’s hopes of driving more sales online not backed up by a proper system. Social media was dominated by complaints, ranging from the inability to switch seats, choose seats or even contact the ticket office on Saturday morning. Cash turnstiles are history. Some of this is understandable – the days of snaking queues outside Boothferry Park to pay £3 to stand on Bunkers are long gone. More online functionality is a good thing. It may be of benefit should City make it to Wembley this season. But the system as is presently being unveiled isn’t ready, and isn’t being correctly backed up by a proper resources in the ticket office, particularly during the transition period. Let’s hope City rethink this.
7. Back to the League, then. City have two very winnable home games this week and must be targeting six points that could hoist us back into the top two. Cardiff first. They’re having a funny season. On the cusp of the play-offs and beaten only once at home this season (ahem), but ropey on their travels and with the embarrassment of being dumped out of the Cup by a struggling League One side yesterday, it’s hard to imagine they’ll be feeling great about life right now. City rested lots of players on Saturday with this game in mind. Let’s hope that decision was vindicated.
8. What to say about Charlton on Saturday, other than it’s essential we win? Fixtures don’t come much more straightforward than this, on paper at least. No slip-ups please, City. A six-point week would be terrific.
9. Allan McGregor is putting his name to a new contract, and that’s good news indeed. His start to the season was frighteningly rocky, but he’s recovered his composure since then to become the reliable keeper he’s been before. City are going to need to tie down a few more players whose contracts expire this summer, and looks as though some progress is being made, at last.
10. If Elmohamady is going – something he plainly covets – can we swap him for James Chester please, Mr Pulis?
#210 January 4, 2016
1. Happy New Year to Hull City AFC fans across the world. The festive fixtures initially typified this oddly frustrating season. A sparkling home win against handy opposition, another pathetic non-performance away to a lesser side, but with the slight novelty of a gritty victory on the road finishing things. It’s been a mixed bag, with the autumn’s consistency and flair continuing to largely elude City; but if you’re a glass-half-full sort of person, it’s also been six points from three game – promotion form, in the main.
2. Burnley first, where City (eventually) impressed in a way they hadn’t done for some weeks. The first half may not live long in the memory, though coming on the back of the Rotherham calamity, a scrappy parity with a top-six side represented at least an immediate improvement. It also laid the foundation for City to push on in the second half, and once the splendid Jake Livermore had walloped the first goal in, the Tigers looked close to their best once again. This was a reminder of just how good they can be – and a rare victory over Burnley in front of a good crowd and a good atmosphere was a very enjoyable way to spend a Boxing Day afternoon.
3. Sadly, Preston was a reminder of how bad they can be. It was an inept, lifeless display drawn from the noxious anti-vintage served up at Elland Road and the New York Stadium, with some judging it the foullest of all. Steve Bruce cocked up by resting players, which invariably sends the message to everyone that the fixture isn’t being taken seriously; his chosen XI then proceeded to indeed not take it seriously. That Preston took so long to take the lead is indicative of how hopeless they are; a decent side could have inflicted severe damage upon our goal difference.
4. The manager’s post-match comments were laced with a lack of comprehension about what’s been going wrong away from home, and how to fix it. Honest, perhaps; but it’s also troubling to hear him admit he had no idea how to solve the issue that has bedevilled the season thus far.
5. He’ll have been relieved by the QPR performance, and victory too. It wasn’t sparkling. The game was stodgy stuff and doubtless poor fare for the Sky Sports neutrals. But it was an improvement, and that’s important. Runs were being made again. Tackles weren’t shirked (Harry Maguire pulverising two hooped foes at once was glorious). Yes, the winner was a fluke. City nearly threw away two points by coughing up a late equaliser, and Bruce’s tactical and personnel adjustments late in the game have rightly caused comment. But City were better, and won. For now, that’ll do.
6. Middlesbrough have made a real break for it at the top now. They’re five points clear of City, with a game in hand. Hauling them in isn’t impossible, but it certainly seems that anyone who finishes above them will win the division. At least Derby remain catchable, while Brighton’s long-awaited stumble has finally happened. They may come again, but there’ll be plenty thinking that the bookies’ trio of pre-season favourites are beginning to move away from the rest. Let’s hope so.
7. Apropos of Brighton, FA Cup game always carry importance, and sending them back south on Saturday evening with another defeat would be very useful. We know what’ll happen; Steve Bruce will promise to take the game seriously and pick a strong team, and then do the opposite. But Brighton probably will too, and this is a very presentable chance to pick up a victory that’ll increase confidence while making it into the Fourth Round.
8. At least the two clubs have arrived at a sensible pricing policy – £12 for season ticket holders is decent value even with a slew of changes to both sides.
9. There finally appears to be some movement with regards to City’s clutch of players whose contracts expire in the summer. Overdue perhaps, but thank goodness it’s finally underway. And David Meyler’s comments about wanting to stay and raise his child here just make us love him even more.
10. The dismal jamboree of excess that is the January transfer window is now underway. As usual, please excuse us from the tiresome ritual of speculation, patently false rumour, hyperbole and Jim sodding White. All we want is our best players to stay, a few million quid for any who think they’re Premier League quality and want to prove it with the Norwiches and Newcastles of this world (even if they haven’t proven it yet this season – naming no names…) and maybe a new forward on loan.
#209 December 21, 2015
1. Reading first. If only to keep us from having to face the awfulness of Rotherham. Not that this was quite the perfect display. City put in a typically torpid first half showing and deservedly trailed at the break. It’s maddening to see this gifted side repeatedly decline the chance to seize the initiative, granting it instead to lesser sides who then overcome City with superior application and confidence born from unexpectedly matching us. It has to stop.
2. Credit does go to the manager and his side for the recovery, however. 1-0 down in a Sky fixture is a deeply unpromising position, but the second half was immeasurably improved and while the winner was late (and lucky), City deserve plenty of praise for rescuing the situation. Bruce’s substitutions were unorthodox but effective, and we left feeling that the slide of recent times had been corrected.
3. Oh dear. The debacle at Rotherham followed an unhappily similar pattern to the Leeds fiasco – slow, slovenly football coupled with an unmerited superiority complex followed by a very sharp shock with a couple of opposition goals. Rotherham were an obviously limited side, but their commitment was total. It’s to the City XI’s lasting shame that they didn’t come close to matching it.
4. The defence creaked. The midfield lumbered (and that’s without Tom Huddlestone). The wings provided limited ammunition, and what there was the attack ineptly spurned anyway. It’s rare to see a game with no-one emerge with some credit, but that was the case on Saturday.
5. Chuba Akpom’s had a horrible week. Wearing gloves is bad enough, petulantly throwing them to the ground in response to being substituted is worse, but standing motionlessly when a through-ball is yours to chase and a defender is helpfully playing you onside is inexplicable. He’d already struck the post twice and failed to make a pass to Hernández that’d have provided a goal. By the end it was hard not to feel sorry for him. He’s young, evidently very immature and there’s no hiding place any more. But his attitude and execution have got to improve, immediately.
6. The same applies to Ahmed Elmohamady, who doesn’t have the excuse of being a teenager. If he put as much effort into playing football as he does with the stroppy gesticulations he’d be about the best wide player in the division; instead, he’s sulking his way through games, presumably waiting for January to rescue him from the utter hell of having to play in the Championship. Increasingly, it’s hard not to conclude that he won’t be missed if he does depart.
7. Steve Bruce has some interesting issues to deal with in the coming weeks. Should we cash in on Davies, with whom his relationship is apparently still fractious? Can we get a few million pounds for the underperforming Huddlestone and/or Elmohamady to invest in a new forward? How to get this lavishly talented side to stop coughing up crummy defeats to lesser sides? How to play well in a first half. Unless and until he gets those things right, there’ll still be a few grumbles about his position. It’d be a poor decision to replace him, for a variety of reasons: City are very much in a promotion race whose outcome cannot be guessed at, there are no plausible alternatives that’d definitely be better, and we find it hard to place much faith in the Allams’ ability to get this sort of decision right. So, in Bruce we must trust. Meanwhile – whisper it quietly – but our demands and expectations a little unrealistically high…?
8. The club has acted quickly upon its promise to survey City fans about their preferred matchday entertainment. Why this is even necessary is never really clear, as the football ought to provide the entertainment; if you want crap pop music or cheerleaders, that’s what nightclubs and American sports are for. But no matter. The survey looks straightforward enough, and barring a repeat of the club’s infamous name change poll, ought to decisively settle the matter of goal music.
9. Burnley next, aiming for their 741st straight victory against City. Gah. Let’s not think about it for now.
10. From us all at AN, a very Merry Christmas. And be sure to listen to our next podcast, recorded this evening and available tomorrow. We’ve a guest who’ll hopefully have loads of fun stuff to tell us about…
#208 December 14, 2015
1. City are back on track, at least in terms of the result gained on Saturday. A win and a clean sheet, it’s what we’d become greedily accustomed to prior to the most recent international break. And there’s no doubt the win was welcome. But…
2. But it wasn’t awfully convincing, was it? Bolton were as dreadful a side as you could ever wish to see at this level, a team wholly devoid of confidence and ability with ambitions extending to nothing more than hoping to stop City scoring without no apparent interest in troubling our own defence. With that in mind, a 1-0 wasn’t overly impressive, even if it was welcome.
3. There were mitigating circumstances. We’ve been off form of late, culminating in the appalling defeat at Elland Road a week earlier. The weather was terrible. Bolton were suffocatingly negative and continued to waste time even when losing. The referee (officiating his first and probably last Championship game of the season) was awful, blowing seemingly at random, losing control early on and never threatening to regain it. So perhaps it was never going to be a good game. But there’s still a feeling City could have done more.
4. Positives. David Meyler was back, and City immediately looked brisker and more business-like as a consequence. Chuba Akpom was lively and committed. Robertson and Clucas linked up well. Robert Snodgrass finally made his home debut, and made a zesty contribution. It didn’t really click, but that wasn’t really for a want of trying.
5. We’ll bank the three points and move on. It keeps City in touch at the top, restores a little confidence and means that the visit of Reading on Wednesday evening provides the opportunity for us to start putting another little run together. They aren’t a bad side but they are playing badly, with four defeats in five (the other being a win over, ahem, Bolton). Ideally, City will win to nil again and we’ll all be able to love Paul McShane again.
6. There’s something we don’t much love right now, and that’s some of the people who work at Hull City AFC. On Saturday, for the first time, the aurally offensive garbage that is music after a goal was played at City. Its effect was remarkable. Midway through a goal celebration, supposedly the pinnacle of the Saturday afternoon experience, thousands of people suddenly stopped as they realised the ghastliness that was being directed at them, and the atmosphere never recovered. Many booed – so well done to those responsible, never in 111 years will City fans have been booing seconds after a goal, so you’ve at least created a squalid slice of history there.
7. The response has been encouragingly blistering in its condemnation. On social media, the internet forums, at the game and in the pubs afterwards, the disgust at this ridiculous practice was unanimous. That’s certainly been good to hear. James Mooney, perhaps the most high-profile City employee on Twitter, has already promised it’ll be reviewed this morning (though leave off the personal abuse towards him, yeah? Back in March he came out against this shit too). We’ll await the outcome of that review later today, though quite what there is to debate is anyone’s guess. The answer to this question, which has been raised before, is no. It has always been no. It will always be no. No, no, no.
8. We’re overreacting, being aged stick-in-the-muds, etc etc. The kidz love it, lol. And so on. As though somehow anyone under the age of 25 is so eye-wateringly stupid they don’t know the difference between an authentic football experience and cheesy Americanised nonsense and therefore need to be pathetically patronised. Well, maybe they do and football as we know it is effectively dead. But we don’t think they’re that dense. They booed too, and bear in mind that they were as vocal as anyone in protesting against the name change.
9. Part of the problem is that the club is, as usual, paying no attention to its fans, and is instead intent upon antagonising us. Again. From the (defunct?) Fans’ Working Group meetings, the club were repeatedly told that goal music would not be welcome. They knew the views of the majority, and did it anyway. It is impossible to conclude anything other than that those responsible have done this purely to anger and annoy. Which is so utterly contemptible that we long anew for the departure of the owners and their miserable gaggle of acolytes.
10. At what point should be start being worried by City’s attendances? Bolton may only have brought a few hundred, but to get under 16,000 when we’re supposed to be aiming for promotion is pretty terrible. It’s almost as those those ridiculous price rises everyone said was a bad idea was, well, a bad idea.
#207 December 7, 2015
1. Steve Bruce described City’s first half against Leeds on Saturday as “pathetic”. If anything, the City manager is underplaying the awfulness of his side, whose collective lack of interest stank Elland Road out for 45 excruciatingly inadequate minutes. City improved in the second half, of course. They could scarcely do otherwise. But even against a side as limited as Leeds, too much was left to be done as a consequence of that pre-interval capitulation. The manager was right – tackles were shirked, headers weren’t made, frankly they absolutely bottled it. Shameful.
2. Steve Bruce didn’t get much else right, though. No recognisable forward, and let’s look at the right side. Odubajo and Elmohamady look increasingly incapable of playing together, constantly getting in each other’s way and repeatedly swapping filthy looks. Their respective understanding and basic respect for one another is decreasing as the season progresses, and it’s beginning to appear untenable to play them both at once. With that in mind, Elmohamady looks the one most at risk of being dropped, because his high standards are not being met and his attitude looks questionable.
3. Tom Huddlestone. He should no longer be dropped to shake him up, he should be dropped because we simply cannot afford to carry him any more. He clogs City’s midfield up far more effectively than any opponent with his listless ambling, sideways passing and reluctance to wander beyond his centre circle comfort zone. Please, David Meyler, get fit again soon. And in the meantime, Mr Bruce, pick someone else alongside Jake Livermore.
4. Much of the same applies to Sone Aluko, who must surely be running out of opportunities. The dazzling, fleet-footed displays that so impressed us a few years are now a fading memory.
4a. Defensively, we’ve gone from being unbreachable to frighteningly porous. Harry Maguire is earning plaudits for his displays, though City’s leakiness has coincided with his introduction to the side. However, that’s almost certainly more to do with the loss of Michael Dawson than anything else. He’s not easily replaceable.
5. Manchester Hunter was an even heavier defeat, though with the obvious qualification of being against the Premier League title favourites. Just how much strength a club can amass with hundreds of millions of pounds at their disposal was chasteningly illustrated, and though City gamely kept going after a fear filled first half and didn’t deserve a 4-1 loss, even our first team would probably have been comfortably beaten.
6. Apropos of which, why on earth was a League Cup quarter final not deemed important enough to play our first team?
7. Let’s not panic, even if strong criticism is rightly being aimed at players and manager in the aftermath of the Leeds debacle. It’s important that we regain form quickly and that this becomes a blip, not a crisis. Much of that will depend upon Steve Bruce, the way he deals with his bruised squad this week, the decisions he makes before the City play Bolton (a club in genuine crisis) – and of course, the result of that game. This is nothing a 3-0 win on Saturday won’t go a long way towards repairing.
8. The forthcoming transfer window is going to be interesting, given that seven players are out of contract in the summer, which may incline the club into taking something at the season’s halfway point rather than getting nothing at it’s end. We’ve already castigated Huddlestone and Aluko, so perhaps their loss would be no bad thing. Both ‘keepers will be free to leave in June but probably won’t leave in January, though having to find two worthy netmen in the summer may be tricky. David Meyler has been excellent this term and we’d be sad to see him go, though he is perhaps the most likely of the seven to sign a new deal. Curtis Davies is well worth keeping, but probably hasn’t felt enough love from the manager over the last year to be compelled to stay. Ahmed Elmohamady, exceptional for three seasons, has merely gone through the motions this year and looks like a man who knows his future lies elsewhere. Tom Huddlestone expressed surprise when he found out that City let contracts run down when at other clubs new contracts were offered when two years remained on existing deals, we can but hope we don’t rue a lack of forethought in the summer.
9. It’s the draw for the Third Round of the Football Association Cup this evening. Somewhere near and exciting away, please. Though at least it can’t be as bad as last season’s draw. Err, right?
10. Last week, City fans were praised for their ongoing good behaviour at games, with banning orders now at a two decade low. “Hooligans” indeed.
#206 November 30, 2015
1. A jolt back to reality on Friday night. After appearing invincible prior to the latest international break, City have looked decidedly mortal since it. A patchy point at Bristol City was a disappointment, but being convincingly bested by a (very good) Derby side was a real shock to the system.
2. In the long run, it may not matter much, and could even act as a timely reminder to our squad that promotion must be earned, not simply expected. This is a superb side with a generally impressive application and attitude, so there’s no reason to be unduly concerned.
3. That’s not to say that the Derby defeat didn’t contain lessons that must be learned. It did plenty of that. Firstly, playing players out of position is unwise, unless absolutely necessary. Moses Odubajo is good on the right, but looks lost on the left. Steve Bruce recognised this, albeit late, and fixed it; however, it’s an unforced error that shouldn’t have happened to begin with. Waiting until the 73rd minute to change an XI that patently wasn’t working was also a mistake, giving the substitutes eventually brought on too little time to rescue a grave situation.
4. Most of all, we need to talk about Tom Huddlestone as a replacement for David Meyler – because they’re so unmatched in style that it’s really hampering the side in midfield. Meyler has played so well this season that replacing him was always going to be difficult, even with someone possessing England caps; however, for all of Huddlestone’s languidly glorious passing, we badly miss his colleague’s tenacity in the midfield. Over-running City in the centre of the pitch is a tough ask when Meyler is snapping at heels, closing off angles and generally being a massive pain in the arse. Huddlestone is never going to do those things.
5. Which begs the question as to whether Meyler needs replacing in a different way. Huddlestone inevitably slows City down, but we’re a team that performs best at high tempo. For all that his spell at City has been underwhelming, might Isaac Hayden be more suited to standing in until Meyler is eventually fit again?
6. It’s not all doom and gloom though. Friday did contain some positive aspects. Harry Maguire was outstanding, and is playing with real confidence and authority. He’s had to be very patient, but he’s taken the chance that’s finally fallen his way and if he loses his place to anyone not called Michael Dawson, at present he could consider himself unfortunate.
7. Also impressive was Sean Maloney. It was a pity (and source of frustration) that he didn’t take the chances that came his way, but he was otherwise sharp, lively and always looking to ghost into a pocket of space to cause havoc. He looks the sort of player who could unpick a tight defence in a tight game, and therefore very good to have about.
8. What a week awaits. A historic first ever League Cup quarter final on Tuesday, away to Premier League leaders and likely champions Manchester City. So, it’s obviously going to be extremely difficult, to the point of near-impossibility That isn’t really the point; we’re in a League Cup quarter final. Let’s go there, sing, love it and not worry too much about the result.
9. Four days later, it’s Leeds away. City will start the game as solid favourites, and though it’s tempting to loftily declare this “just another league game”, the clamour for tickets (dismally unmatched by the hosts) makes it clear it’s not. Sticking one over Leeds will always be more satisfying than beating, say, Bolton – but gone was the fevered hatred of just a decade ago. They’re not another league game, but they’re not the draw they think they are either.
10. In the hours before kick-off on Friday, it emerged on Twitter that some City fans had been turfed out of N5 following apparent complaints by some about the proximity of those seats to the away fans. Frankly, that’s the main attraction of them. Being within hailing distance of the other lot carries appeal for some, and not just that tiny minority who still harbour suspect motives – football fans feed off each other, and long may that continue. But instead of offering a change of seat to those complainants, who frankly need to grow up or a grow a pair, someone took the decision to move everyone. It’s unclear whose fault that is, City’s or the SMC’s, though only informing those people affected on Friday afternoon is a terrible way to proceed. Mentioning “Hull City Tigers” in the letter didn’t help either…
#205 November 23, 2015
1: After what felt like a never-ending international break, it was so good to get back to domestic action again. But we did look rusty because of it, and a 1-1 draw at Bristol City feels like a chance missed to put some daylight between ourselves and the rest, especially after Burnley and Brighton could only draw with one another 24 hours later.
2: But it is also the spoiled, mildly churlish City fan that expects good runs of form to last until the end of time. We didn’t win, and we didn’t keep a clean sheet. But on the plus side, we didn’t lose, we came from behind and even though off-colour, we were still a better side than a limited Bristol City team that perhaps couldn’t believe their luck by the end.
3: Ahmed Elmohamady is in desperate need of a rest. He isn’t sharp, his crossing is failing and his general energy is almost entirely absent. But we have only Moses Odubajo as cover on the right side of midfield, and he in turn would leave a gap at right back for which there is no like-for-like, only curable by switching to 3-5-2 again.
4: And a 3-5-2 is out of the question now that Michael Dawson is absent with a combination of suspension (one match) and a hamstring injury (probably more than one match). We have three fit centre backs only, so the idea of shoving all three in together where they can all be vulnerable constitutes desperation and madness.
5: A re-ordering of things will also be necessary on the left, with Andy Robertson missing out. His combination with Sam Clucas has been a joy to watch in recent weeks, and its interruption – only for a single game – will be a loss for City.
6: It’s such a shame that David Meyler is now out until the New Year with a knee injury picked up while training with his national squad. He missed playing an active part in the Irish celebrations at qualifying with ease for the Euros next summer, and is now unavailable to continue his excellent form, noticed at last by his detractors among the City faithful, in our midfield. Injuries happen but in this case, the timing really does stink.
7: Replacing him with Tom Huddlestone isn’t exactly like-for-like, and that manifested itself at Ashton Gate. Huddlestone has his own qualities, but they’re quite different to David Meyler’s. Might Steve Bruce judge that Isaac Hayden is a better replacement for him for the remainder of 2015? His loan spell so far has been disappointing, but he’s sure to bring greater urgency to the midfield than Huddlestone.
8: Derby next, Friday night in the cold of the KC. They’re all biggies. This one certainly is though, by dint of their one defeat in ten matches, putting them just two behind us. They hardly need incentives, it seems, but going top of the table with victory at ours will provide a massive one anyway. City will need to be at their best, just as they were when the previous big threat in the colours of Middlesbrough pitched up at the KC and we soon pulled their pegs out.
9: It’ll cost £35 to go see City at Leeds – or, specifically, for “an upper tier seat beyond the corner flag at a crumbling racist-infested Wessie shithole”, as one of our number decreed it on social media not so long back. One day Leeds United will have to accept that they don’t have the glamour, prestige, status or importance to justify prices that border on the criminal. Manchester City are charging us £20 less for a far more important game, and they have relevance, international repute, quality, recent honours, all that.
10: What did we think of the third kit now we’ve seen City actually wear it? Meh. We’ve had better ones…
#204 November 9, 2015
1: We’re going to spend a minimum of 18 consecutive days at the top of the Championship. These are heady days indeed. City currently are all about consistency, talent and general goodness and every player and supporter should feel very proud of what has been attained thus far.
2: Our trip to the helm of a very competitive league indeed has come via two more terrific, thrilling and utterly conclusive victories against teams of genuine form and threat. We stated at the start of the week that Brentford (four straight wins, conceding none) away, then Middlesbrough (three straight wins plus victory in the League Cup at Manchester United) at home would be as stark a test of our toughness, resolve and attitude as any other – and we passed every one of those tests.
3: Brentford first, and it must be acknowledged that at half-time most concurred Brentford had had the better of the first 45. Sharp and inventive, they’d forced City onto the back foot and created a few chances, befitting a side in strong form. However, when City stepped up a gear in the second half they couldn’t live with Steve Bruce’s men, and the game became increasingly played in the Bees’ half of the pitch, to the extent that it felt over before City scored their second – and it was almost disappointing that a simply exhausted and defeated Brentford didn’t suffer additional punishment in the closing minutes.
4: That may have been harsh on our hosts, however – if only because a trip to Griffin Park remains a splendid and useful reminder of our modest history. It also, extremely rarely in this sanitised age, provides visiting supporters with a proper terrace to stand on. And guess what? Everyone loved it and it was perfectly safe. How sad that they’re the exception rather than the norm, and we’re reduced to fighting for the compromise of safe standing.
5: That took us to City v Middlesbrough, league leaders versus title favourites. Except the new title favourites are the Tigers, courtesy of a thudding 3-0 victory. This was City’s most accomplished display of the season, grinding down and outplaying an obviously handy side who’d come here to play and to win (not something every team has done at the Circle).
6: They started reasonably too, not perhaps because City were slow or over-cautious, but like Brentford they understood the risks of ceding the initiative to a side as strong as ours – Milton Keynes made that mistake and they never recovered from it. But this Hull City squad is relentless. The players remained calm, slowly wrested control from Middlesbrough and never gave it back.
7: Again, City scored late in the first half, something that’s happened too frequently to be mere chance. Is it fitness? City do look pretty strong in games, though as our midfield is extremely adept at controlling possession, that leaves a lot of wearying chasing for opposition sides to contend with. We finished strongly too, in both games. Everything this side does bodes incredibly well for the rest of the season.
8: David Meyler, our current star midfielder, has now racked up 100 league appearances for us. By the time City play again, he could be looking forward to playing in the European Championships for the Republic of Ireland next summer. His country have a two-legged play-off against Bosnia & Herzegovina in the next week, and given how well he is playing for his club, it’d be a fitting and deserved extra celebration for him to know he has some big dates on the continent ahead. And qualification would, hopefully, put even more of a spring in his step as he continues to play his heart out for City, hopefully for 100 further games and more.
9: The return to Championship action is at Bristol City, on telly, a week on Saturday, and it’s an opportunity for City to do a professional job against a dogged but limited side while also, we hear, parading in the new third kit for the the first time. It’s just a pity that the 12.30pm kick off for the cameras will stop a sizeable number of City fans from trekking down to lend their support.
10: As we write, Steve Bruce is the 6/4 favourite to be the next Fulham manager. That’s Fulham, 12th in the table, gubbed 5-2 at home two days ago. Hmm.
1: An excellent week, again. A safe, historic and exciting path was followed to the quarter finals of the League Cup, then a stout and dominant win in the Championship against one of the less troublesome sides in the division. Steve Bruce and his players have every reason to feel proud.
2: It’s all well and good saying “only Leicester”, as though defeating them was somehow inevitable, but it really wasn’t. They obviously won’t remain in their present position in the Premier League table, but they are there right now, so it’s no mean feat to overcome them, and even better to thoroughly deserve it, despite rather than because of the interventions of the officials. City absolutely deserved this victory and played terrifically well for it.
2a: Five penalties out of five, too. And a corking save from the much-maligned Eldin Jakupović too. City were once notoriously awful at these, but have we ever enjoyed a more faultless penalty shoot-out?
3: City have enjoyed fairly kind draws in this competition thus far: a tick ground and terrific night at Accrington, home to a plodding League One side, a tough-but-winnable match home to a middling Premier League side, then a repeat of the latter. Away to Manchester City is none of the above, and the trip to the likely English champions is as difficult as we could have had – already, City are being quoted at 12/1 to win the game. So, our thoroughly enjoyable League Cup adventure is likely to end in Manchester on December 1st – but it’s a shot to nothing, and whatever happens, history has been made and the our cup run has been great fun.
3a: As an aside, this game had better not be touted by our own club as “City v Tigers”, as that’d be the sort of deliberate provocation we ought to be leaving behind.
4: The game at Milton Keynes was a merciful exercise in domination and professionalism, much required because of the otherwise unseemly feeling that goes with an enforced visit to football’s ever-hateful franchise outfit. Their stadium is colossal, grey, isolated. The team unambitious, frightened, star-struck. And that doesn’t even come close to the adjectives that one can use when describing the very existence of this club. That City were able to win, and win well, and win comfortably (in the end – we still didn’t look hell bent on killing them off when we had chance), was at least a saving grace for the day itself.
5: Mind you, if you believe the local newspaper down there, Milton Keynes Dons were in total control, massively unlucky and comparable to 1970s Ajax in the way they made the football chirrup like a budgerigar and their opponents fall to their knees, blessing their great good luck. We understand that website reporters reliant on club coinage have to be unduly partisan, but local newspaper reporters who have been to journalism college really should know better. Funny, but embarrassing.
6: A mention for the spine of City’s team in Buckinghamshire is worthwhile. Michael Dawson and Alex Bruce were imperious at the back, Abel Hernández a fantastic line-leader at the top, and especially we should hail the central pairing of David Meyler and Jake Livermore, who bossed the game entirely. Livermore looks sharp, fit, focussed and creative. Meyler just ran after everything, and until his late booking prompted a slight withdrawal from proceedings, got everything he chased.
7: Incidentally, that song about Meyler is horrendous. Meyler has been key to our team since pretty much the day he signed on loan. He has been a rock in midfield while scoring crucial goals in our promotion season and FA Cup run and deserves much better than the charmless guff sung in his name at recent games.
8: Brentford next, who are also on a run of wins and not prone to conceding goals. Tuesday night could just be a bit of a cracker. If you’re going, lucky you. Then we’re at home to Middlesbrough, another side not exactly acting the shrinking violet right now. Another big, relentless, testing, exciting week of football is ahead of us. Catch your breath when you can.
9: The Yorkshire Post carried some interesting comments by Ehab Allam last week. We enjoyed the mental image of the Allams huddling around a television screen to watch live feeds of City games when they have a perfectly serviceable executive box at the stadium they could watch them from, but never mind. Most striking was the suggestion that a new chief executive could be appointed during this season. We can only hope they’re not planning to bring Paul Duffen back to the club.
10: The third kit seems a bit superfluous, doesn’t it? The racing stripes are interesting though.
#202 October 26, 2015
1. What a week for City. Two games, two wins, five goals for and none conceded. We thought last week that four points would be nice. For City to get all six and play so impressively while doing so bodes very well.
2. Ipswich first. By fairly common consent they’re the most useless side we’ve faced this season, but that needn’t limit the praise City deserve for cuffing them 3-0. The Tigers started sluggishly, and if you’re to grumble about anything then it’s the fact that they weren’t properly thrashed when half a dozen goals were perhaps in the offing; but that half an hour period of play either side of half-time was scintillating and far too much for the hapless Suffolkers to cope with.
3. Lovely too to see City go and get that second goal we’ve so often harped on about. Even the most abject side can steal an equaliser if only a single goal advantage is established; by quickly going 2-0 up there was never any real doubt about the outcome.
4. It frustrated some that City then visibly withdrew upon scoring the third, with players being taken off (Hernández with fitness in mind, Dawson with a booking to his name) and the players obviously taking it easy with the next game in mind. And of course, it was a pity for the paying spectator that City didn’t really go for a truly massive win. However, what a situation to be in, playing with your next game in mind with 25 minutes remaining of the present one.
5. That next performance was even better. Birmingham were touted as the best side yet to visit the Circle, they arrived with a good away record and real hopes of being the first side to win here. In the end, they left thoroughly outplayed and with a 2-0 defeat that was better than the bald score-line suggested.
6. It’s tempo, isn’t it? City are playing so much more quickly and with much more intent than earlier in the season. Though they had the first real chance on Saturday, Birmingham barely touched the ball in the first 8-9 minutes, establishing the tone for the afternoon. And again, the second goal! It’s a glorious feeling when, still recovering from the celebrations of the first, you get another inside a minute. It completely poleaxed poor Birmingham, who went from aspirations of half-time parity to near-certain defeat inside ninety traumatic seconds. We loved that killer instinct.
7. We love David Meyler, too. It’s stretching things to say that his introduction alone has seen City take things up a gear this week, but equally it cannot be just coincidence. Two fine goals have capped two outstanding performances.
8. After a slowish (but still useful start), it feels as though the season is really underway now, and that anything is possible. City are second, with a side in form and a squad full of rare quality at this level. Derby and Middlesbrough probably remain the biggest threats and are slowly closing in on the upper reaches – it could end up being an epic three-way tussle for the top. Right now though, the title genuinely feels within our grasp.
9. Just to add to the positivity, there’s a League Cup Fourth Round tie tomorrow. City have never made the quarter-finals of this competition, and this represents a chance at making club history. Yes, there’s lots of League football at the moment. But this is a chance at genuine history, and while Leicester are rightly (though narrowly) the favourites, this is winnable. It’s not “just” the League Cup, it’s a chance to do something no Hull City side has ever done. Let’s hope it’s taken seriously, and let’s hope we can do it. Wonder whether City will do the funky disco floodlights too…?
10. At long last, months after promising it, the Hull City Official Supporters’ Club has released their submission to the FA about the Allams’ doomed attempt to chance City’s name. Let’s charitably call it “unimpressive”.
#201 October 19, 2015
1. An odd afternoon in Sheffield on Saturday. Steve Bruce went for the same XI that won handsomely at Nottingham Forest a fortnight earlier, deploying them in the same slightly unusual way. It didn’t get close to working this time around, and in the first half City were alarmingly creaky at the back and decidedly unthreatening up front.
2. Seeing Dawson and Davies being dictated to was surprising and just a little bit frightening, and there was always the feeling that they just didn’t have enough assistance. Meanwhile, the Tigers looked good on the ball until they encountered Sheffield Wednesday’s back line, upon which our efforts to breach it rather tamely petered out. At half-time, it didn’t feel awfully promising.
3. Credit to City for turning it around so emphatically. Steve Bruce’s decision to withdraw one of his faltering midfield came in the 50th minute, and was therefore probably five minutes late; but its impact was considerable. We immediately looked more threatening, and when we equalised it felt as though there’d only be one winner. The longer the match went on the better City played.
4. A point wasn’t a disaster though, and given the dire first half you’d struggle to assemble a convincing argument saying we deserved too much more. It keeps City in touch with the top, represents a useful return of four points from two away games and the much improved second half performance ought to keep confidence levels high. Just one thing…Steve Bruce often seems to need to drastically change his Plan A. Fair enough, he has a good record of doing so, but maybe we could try getting this right from the start?
5. An afternoon to forget for referee Mr Stroud though. He missed plenty, including two instances where an Owl could’ve been dismissed for assailing Abel Hernández, had a sadly lacking comprehension of the handball law and ended up limping off when clobbered by Chuba Akpom. Oops.
6. Two home matches now await City, Ipswich on Tuesday and Birmingham on Saturday. It’s only natural to want to attach a target for these two matches, even though Steve Bruce will say he’s taking one at a time (and is probably right to do so). Nonetheless, anything fewer than four points would be a pity.
7. The club’s newly filed accounts are interesting, but contain no real surprises. Turnover was massive in the Premier League, as was wage expenditure. The Allam family have overseen another rise in the club’s debt, which very conveniently creates debt interest payments to, err, themselves – and now stands at over £77m. It’s a quite horrifying figure.
8. City’s pricing policy was much discussed last week, as a cost of football survey unsurprisingly revealed that the lowest price you can pay for an adult season ticket here is higher than anywhere in the Championship, and quite a few in the Premier League too. We’ve long thought that City’s price hike in the summer was motivated as much by spite than any pressing financial need, but the consequences have been predictable: significantly lower gates and continued ill-will towards those running the club.
8a. The club has no real counter argument to it either, demonstrated by the unconvincing response made on local radio by a club spokesman – excusing the colossal cost by saying it was decided upon in the Premier League and couldn’t be mitigated upon relegation is obviously silly (ever heard of refunds?) and that three Cup games were given free doesn’t come close to washing. As we repeatedly try to point out, this isn’t just about fans wanting to save a few pounds or get a decent product in good quality surroundings on the cheap, there are grave long-term consequences to this folly. Football in this country is eating itself in a way that future historians are going to find impossible to believe. What madness is it to invest so much effort into attracting new fans, only to wilfully drive so many away through cost?
8b. The radio interview alluded to above did, however, contain the snippet that City are “looking at doing something” for next season. We’ve heard this sort of thing plenty of times before, of course – and it’s now seven months since the last meeting of the Fans’ Working Group, so the club’s interest in meaningful discussion is clearly negligible. We won’t hold our breath.
9. Apropos of pricing, Milton Keynes are letting City fans in for £12 in a couple of weeks. We hate to ever praise Milton Keynes Dons…so we won’t start now.
10. News that the QPR away game has been brought forward to New Years Day is rather dispiriting if you’ve already bought rail tickets for the original date of January 2nd. We understand Sky Sports’ desire to show the Tigers, after all we’re bloody brilliant (usually), but wouldn’t it be great if the television companies could arrange their fixtures before the 12-week booking period begins – and given that it’s now virtually impossible to get home from London on the railways after this 5.30pm kick-off, just imagine how much good the television companies could do for their image if they liaised with the train companies to put on extra trains at cost when their meddling with the fixtures causes such inconvenience? With a little imagination, they actually could make themselves the good guys.
#200 October 5, 2015
1. A fine victory at Nottingham Forest. City created chances in the first half, controlled the game smoothly, took a deserved lead and held onto it well. Not quite the complete performance, and there’s still that feeling we have higher gears to click into, but nonetheless this was a very encouraging and enjoyable afternoon.
2. If there’s a gripe, it’s that City had to hold on a little in the closing stages, even against ten men. The Tigers ought to have settled the game earlier and it meant we had to experience an anxious finale.
3. Nonetheless, there was plenty to savour. With Mo Diamé and the excellent Jake Livermore providing him with cover, Tom Huddlestone was able to run the game in a way we’ve seen him do regrettably infrequently. On this occasion, he was a delight. His passing was immaculate, his contribution to the tempo of our play fluid and even his tracking back and tackling were impressive. Where a month ago he wasn’t worth picking, if he can replicate that form more often, he’ll be undroppable.
4. At the back, Dawson and Davies were superb. Forest didn’t create much, but most of what they did floundered on our defensive rocks. They may still harbour Premier League ambitions, but there’s been no evidence of sulking from either -and when things got tough, they didn’t shirk.
5. Who saw Abel Hernández tirelessly leading the line for us this season, then? Another goal, albeit from a distance of approximately 6 microns, another game harassing the opposition defence, he was again terrific. An honourable mention to Sam Clucas too, who sometimes looks as though he’s taking a little while to adjust to playing for a side in the upper reaches of the Championship – increasingly, he looks comfortable doing so.
6. Outside the ground and on the way home, we learned from Nottinghamshire types that our victory was ill-deserved and owed itself to the referee. So now we know. While that does completely spoil our fourth successive victory in a row at an appositely named ground, nothing could spoil the fun that was being had on the terrace and the concourse. Two thousand City fans in fine voice was a reminder that although football seems determined to destroy itself (see next point), it won’t be allowed to go without a fight.
7. Saturday saw the Football Supporters’ Federation’s “Twenty’s Plenty” campaign receive plenty of publicity. The campaign aims to encourage clubs not to charge more than £20 for away tickets, something Forest did, that City routinely do and is commonplace virtually everywhere in the top two divisions.
8. Doubtless, the accounting staff at clubs pore over supply and demand graphs and justify their steepling annual price rises with continued full or mostly full stadia, and secretly dismiss fans as annoying pests intent upon greedily saving themselves a few quid. But that really isn’t the case. Football’s demographic crisis has been written about extensively and the clubs are going to seriously hurt themselves if they don’t stop constantly extorting ever greater sums. The problem is that this damage will occur in the long term, and this is a sport notorious for its short-termism. But City, believe us, for your own good as much as ours, £20 really is enough.
9. Apropos short-termism, it was noted on Twitter that Steve Bruce is now the 8th longest serving manager in the country. Madness.
10. Of all the people who did harm to City in the recent past, it was a surprise to learn that Nick Buchanan was the first to shuffle off this mortal coil. His reign, alongside Stephen Hinchliffe, feels a long time ago now.
#198 September 21, 2015
1. The 2-0 win at Cardiff on Tuesday was very encouraging. It was close to the perfect away display: start the game with positive intent, score early, defend stoutly and pinch another on the break. Not that it’s saying much, but that was easily City’s best performance on the road this season.
2. Cardiff slightly played into City’s hands, however. Perhaps they were wrongfooted by our reversion to 3-5-2 (of which more shortly), but seeking to rescue the game by pumping high balls into our penalty area was stodgy stuff and easily repelled by a back three whose aerial prowess is formidable. That said, Cardiff are a decent side and we kept them at bay with reasonable comfort – and their shortcomings needn’t overshadow what was a very good defensive performance.
3. Elsewhere, Alex Bruce starting and Ahmed Elmohamady being dropped after 100 consecutive games raised eyebrows before the game, though the outcome vindicated the manager. The move back to 3-5-2 was perhaps less controversial – it just seems to fit City better. It could be a coincidence that our perhaps our best victory of the season followed it. It also may not be.
4. Meanwhile, City beamed this game back to the Circle, for a few hundred souls gathered in the posh parts of the West Stand. It’s no substitute for being there, and the focus really ought to be on the 300 or so who actually made it to Cardiff (disclaimer: none of us managed it), but nonetheless there’s no harm in acknowledging the club’s effort in making an otherwise unwatchable fixture available back in Hull.
5. QPR was a little less enjoyable, obviously. City did well to come from behind, but in the second half with the game there to be won we were a short of inspiration when trying to break them down.
6. Their miserable negativity was a bit of a surprise – if City so wholly abandon ambition in any League game this season, we’ll be quite annoyed. No game is unwinnable, unless you don’t try to win it. But perhaps we’re blaming QPR for shortcomings on City’s part. A bit slow, a bit predictable – all the same worries we’ve had so far this season showed themselves.
7. Still, the situation is much improved upon a week ago. After the rotten defeat at Brighton, we’d have certainly taken four points from the next two games. We got that, and the League table shows that this is a good start to the season and that we’re definitely in the hunt for promotion – even if things at the moment feel slightly flat.
8. An interesting midweek awaits. Swansea will fancy a League Cup tie in Hull like a hole in the head, and it’s anyone’s guess what side they’ll put out. This is a tie we can win. And the Fourth Round of the League Cup is no mean feat. All it’d take is a few big sides to be knocked out, a favourable draw, and…okay, we’ll stop there.
9. Fresh from his defeat at the hands of Hull City fans, Assem Allam is taking on the new Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn. At least it’ll give him something to do other than serially annoy us.
10. A court has prevented Hull City Council’s attempt to serve an injunction on the SMC over their attempt to evict numerous local sporting clubs following the installation of a pitch designed to benefit City. It’s all so unsatisfactory: the Allam’s high-handed arrogance, the local council frittering over £100,000 of taxpayers’ money (if the SMC are to be believed) – it really shouldn’t be this way.
#193 August 10, 2015
1. Well, that was refreshing. Going to support your local team should, regardless of the result, be an enjoyable experience, and on Saturday it actually was. None of the division and rancour that befouled many a matchday last season was evident, the atmosphere was at all times positive and the focus entirely on football and football alone between 3pm and 4.50pm. Brilliant.
2. City did their part too, sending fans home still happy with a resounding 2-0 win. The performance wasn’t at all times convincing against limited opposition, but the Tiger Nation was given reason to believe that Steve Bruce’s men can play much better than they did, and if you can win well when not at your best, that’s a very good sign for the season ahead.
3. Disappointingly, the Allams have managed to create a negative headline or two amidst the joy of winning on the opening day, initially with their decision to boycott matches, and then with their later claim (not made directly by them, but revealed by the manager) that this was due to their property being vandalised by City fans. Notwithstanding the fact that we would condemn any such action, the fact remains that such allegations should go to the police, not to the media, and we have strong cause to suspect they haven’t. Their failure to rebrand the club still haunts them and eats away at them, and still they cannot bring themselves to stop besmirching the good name of their own customers. Shame on them.
4. Irrespective of their reasoning behind the boycott, we can now move on. In their absence, there is less need to call for the owner to do one and more need – indeed, necessity – to unite as supporters in concentrating on singing pro-team songs, as opposed to anti-Allam songs. The “City Till We Die” chant existed long before his signature on the deeds did, and so it should be reclaimed as the exclusively pro-team song it has always been. Re-singing ditties with the words “The Tigers” in should be considered too.
5. It has been a sadly rare occurrence for us to acknowledge a job well done by the club of late, especially if it has any connection with history, but the decision to allow supporters to hurl symbolic oranges on to the pitch before the game, in memory of Ian McKechnie and in homage to the unique way City fans of the late 60s and early 70s used to herald him pre-match, was a truly commendable one. It’s nice to see that someone crucial from the club’s past could be remembered appropriately and quite innovatively, especially in an age where football as a whole has become too sanitised and distant to allow such activity to occur regularly again. Anyone chucking an orange at Allan McGregor would now be arrested and banned, after all.
6. There’s always some medicine with the sugar though. Have you seen how the club have altered the Championship table? Putting ‘The Tigers’ instead of Hull City, while keeping all other surrounding club names intact, smacks of juvenile pettiness. Club nicknames have never appeared on a league table, and that’s what ‘The Tigers’ is – a nickname. The FA said so. If they’d actually doctored it so it was a table entirely full of nicknames, that might have been taken as a decent, if predictable, joke. As it is, those who made this decision just look total buffoons.
7. Accrington Stanley will, hopefully, be such a laugh. Hull City and the League Cup are hardly bosom buddies, and a first round exit feels almost inevitable given the circumstances (and our current regime’s less than exemplary record of respecting cup competitions), but we almost don’t care. It’s a ground tick, it’s a summer night’s trip to the devil’s county and it’s an opportunity to emphasise again, what being a proper City fan is like. We can’t wait.
8. See also Wolves next weekend, which is on Sunday, kicking off early and provides a proper opportunity for a Sabbath on the sauce at a ground which is always an enjoyable awayday.
9. On Thursday night, a group of supporters were invited to the stadium to taste, and opine on a variety of produce supplied by the deservedly much vaunted local firm Hull Pie. The outcome was a decision on which flavour pie would be stocked in limited numbers at stadium food outlets against Huddersfield, and a commitment to increase orders to satisfy demand if they sold well. Everything about this is admirable, it shows that there are people at the club actively engaging supporters to improve the matchday experience (even if the owners don’t like what the fans think) and that efforts are being made to showcase locally made produce and support local businesses. Barbecue pulled pork was the winning pie incidentally, we could have recommended that long before Thursday night having scoffed many, and if you haven’t tried Hull Pies wares, made by long standing City fan Matt Cunnah, you should.
10. Bloody hell, Channel 5’s Football League highlights show was jenk wasn’t it?
#192 July 13, 2015
1a. A weekend for unadulterated celebration. The Football Association emphatically rejected Assem and Ehab Allam’s ridiculous Hull Tigers idea, there’s no scope for appeal this time and the margin of 70/30 was even greater than the first application. This stupid, vindictive tiny minded idea has been absolutely dismantled at every stage of its conception by absolutely everyone. Hull Tigers is dead and can never be resurrected.
1b. There’s so much to rejoice in. That the margin of defeat actually increased this time proves that the FA have no appetite for this lunacy, and never will have. Had the scale of the Allams’ defeat been lowering, they’d doubtless have thought “third time lucky”; and indeed, they may still be thinking that anyway. But the governing body’s opposition has only increased.
2. Ehab Allam’s whinge on the official website was every bit as comical as we’d hoped for. There was an attention-seeking bleat about “taking time out” – what, and leave the club rudderless? Isolate Steve Bruce when his squad badly needs reinforcing? How dismally self-obsessed, putting their own hurt feelings above the good of the club. Then there was the laughable contention that it was “important to fight for what you believe in” – as though believing that malevolence towards a local authority and the people of Hull is somehow laudable. It isn’t, it’s utterly contemptible.
3. Meanwhile, brickbats for some at the FA. After being unveiled in the Sunday Telegraph as a supporter of the name change and with the insane “League Three” suggestion already on his charge sheet, Greg Dyke is obviously not fit to be the FA Chairman. That’s probably one for the FSF to tackle, but just as troubling was the notion that the professional chairman were also minded to side with the Allams. That should alarm fans up and down the land: your owners would sell you out in the same way ours wanted to, given the chance.
4. Now that the name change is dead, it’s time to reverse the rebranding that has already taken place. The old (and still functioning) official website URL of hullcityafc.net must be restored. The club’s various social media outlets must be amended to reflect the club’s actual name. Stories, press releases, promotion literature and the suchlike must once more use “Hull City”. The “#hcafc” hashtag must return. The matter is settled, and it’s time to graciously accept it.
5. In the aftermath, lots of calls for unity. It’s a noble idea, but it seems unlikely. There’s no need for the supporters to compromise in any way, for our opposition to the name change was correct, principled and wholly vindicated. If we’re to move forward together, it requires a significant gesture of rapprochement from the Allam family. Frankly, we doubt they have it in them.
6a. All of which makes us wonder what comes next – or perhaps, who comes next. Barring an improbable reconciliation with the present owners, the mutual dislike is only going to fester, inevitably impacting upon everything. They’ve repeatedly said they’ll sell, fondly imagining it to be a threat of unimaginable ghastliness; perhaps it’d be best for all if they now make this a rare instance of a keeping a promise.
6b. Meanwhile, we should pour undiluted praise upon the Hull City Supporters’ Trust for their efforts in fending off this offensive rubbish. Their submission to the FA is a stunning document, outlining in forensic detail the multiple follies and falsehoods of the owners and management at Hull City AFC. It is little short of the complete record of this squalid affair, and they deserve the very highest praise. They’ve also made noises about “reversing the rebrand”, as we allude to above. We wish them the very best, and recommend everyone joins them. Please, do so right here.
6c. Compare and contrast with the OSC, whose silence and equivocation over this matter has been utterly pathetic. There are some decent people within that organisation, but its decision to represent the club to the fans instead of the fans to the club has rendered it terminally irrelevant.
7. Steve Bruce denounced Norwich’s initial bids for Robbie Brady as ’embarrassing’, but it can be argued that Norwich are just being canny, and that it’s actions such as spunking £10M on Abel Hernandez that are truly embarrassing. Is Robbie Brady worth more than the £2M offered? Of course, but player prices are entirely subjective and not fixed, so who can blame Norwich for trying a low bid and seeing if we bite when we’ve failed to move on Huddlestone, Jelavic and N’Doye? We spent £40M last summer, ending up relegated and counting the cost, so it’s hard to fault Norwich for being sensible. Meanwhile, we’d also say there is an embarrassment to attach to City being unable to persuade Stephen Quinn to stay at the club, with the Irishman choosing Reading over a new contract at the Circle, tarnishing Bruce’s man-management reputation further.
8. One thing that the Allams have been wholly praised for is their unequivocal backing of Steve Bruce, they’ve readily supplied transfer funds and previously there has been no suggestion of interference, sensible given a lack of football knowledge, but laudable nonetheless. The sale of Tom Ince, reportedly over Steve Bruce’s objection, may indicate a change in their willingness to indulge Bruce’s every wish, and maybe that’s not a bad thing after a slew of costly failures. Bruce needs to accept the financial reality of wasted money and relegation, and if the Allams overruled him over Ince to balance the books a little having seen the player signed and then almost immediately packed off on loan (only to be deemed crucial upon relegation) then it’s unfair to blast them for it, even if strengthening a Championship rival is unwise.
9. Of course if the Allams vindictively begin a fire sale after a second no from the FA, they’ll deserve all the ire that would generate, though incredibly there are some twisted sorts suggesting that our owners have been given a mandate to do so. Fancy being a fan of the Allams over being fans of Hull City AFC.
10. Flamingo Land are our new sponsors. Meh. It’s a bit naff and small-time, but it was hardly going to be a gigantic global corporation given our recent relegation and a marketing team inept enough to think a name change was the key to untold riches. We’ve had worse and it really doesn’t seem worth being too annoyed about.
#191 June 15, 2015
1. There doesn’t seem much need to overly detain ourselves with Ehab Allam’s comical offerings in last Friday’s Hull Daily Mail. The 1700 this, the 1700 that – it’s clear the poor man has got a figure in his head and is going to keep on repeating it whatever, and never mind what those pesky facts actually say.
2. Most illuminating was the tone of his answers. When asked about the name change, the younger Allam sounded downcast about its prospects. Perhaps we know now why. A day after the second part of his interview was published Ian Dennis, the BBC’s senior football correspondent, tweeted that the “FA’s Membership Committee recommend the name Hull City to remain“.
3. For the first application, this was recognised as an important step towards success. With the second application (you know, the one Assem Allam promised he wasn’t going to make) we can only hope this report is true and that it’d carry the same significance. It’d certainly explain Ehab’s entertainingly demoralised demeanour.
4. The first part of his interview dealt with finances and players, and was a little more positive. Though not explicitly mentioned, the club’s debt remains frighteningly high – however if proper contingency plans have been put in place to deal with that and prevent it getting out of control now that our access to Premier League riches is to taper off, then that’s good.
5. City’s initial batch of announced friendlies are a trifle more interesting than usual: Sheffield United away obviously stands out domestically. Wonder if they’ve stopped sulking about the FA Cup semi-final yet?
6. While it’s understandable that these things can sometimes to take a while to organise, it’d be nice if the club could get a wriggle on with announcing where and when we’re going abroad this summer – the logistics of arranging time off, flights, hotels and so on is no small thing and the more notice the better, please.
7. It’s fixture week! However cynical one may affect to be about football, it’s always nice to have the August-May portion of our lives arranged. A tick ground away in the League Cup, at home on the final day and West Yorkshire Police to be banned from rewriting the fixture list would all be nice.
8. News that Celtic have been given permission to introduce safe standing at Parkhead is very encouraging. It may be occuring under another association’s juridisction and we must still wait for permission to be granted to an English club outside the non-leagues, but one of Britain’s biggest clubs forging ahead with this sensible and overdue method of accommodating supporters can only hasten its arrival south of the border.
9. City were of course in favour of its introduction a few years ago. It would be very welcome if the club could reiterate its support for safe standing and continue to push for its introduction here in Hull.
10. RIP Ian McKechnie, who kept goal for City for eight distinguished years between 1966 and 1974. Here at AN we were too young to remember his time at the club, but heard stories of both his fruit appreciation and goalkeeping prowess from those who did see him. Everyone spoke well of him, as a man and a player.
#190 June 8, 2015
1. England’s execrable draw in Ireland yesterday was made only vaguely watchable with a bit of City-spotting. Robbie Brady (to whom we’ll return) impressed, while it was bittersweet to see Paul McShane in action. Great to see him representing his country; saddening to remember he’ll not be playing for us any more.
2. Meanwhile, the rumour mill continues to churn out its usual mixture of rubbish. We are not in the slightest bit interested in repeating the nonsense published as facts in tabloid newspapers at the behest of grasping agents, we’ll generally leave that tiresome game to others. However, a tweet by the well-connected David Burns did raise a smile, claiming that while others are interested in Brady (not surprising), City claim to want £15m.
3. Let’s remember that isn’t a valuation; even today’s transfer market cannot possibly accommodate that madness. It’s not even what Steve Bruce really wants, or would realistically settle for; his hand would probably be forced by a Premier League club offering a third of that. It’s simply a way of staking a position and inviting others to overpay.
4. James Chester’s departure remains the biggest fear. He’s too good for the Championship, and both he and his employers must realise that. That doesn’t automatically mean he’ll be sold, but he comes across as an astute young man who’ll say the right things and keep himself professionally out of the limelight, evidently instructing his advisers to do the same. You’d have to wish him well if he does leave, because he’s been a gem of a players and a good pro; but wouldn’t it be fantastic if Steve Bruce can persuade him to stay?
5. If Chester goes, could that propel Harry Maguire to prominence? An interesting piece in the Hull Daily Mail last week contained strong reviews of his time at Wigan, and while he was very obviously not ready for Premier League football in his few outings last season, he did appear to have some potential.
6. Not such a good pro, but more likely to leave is Abel Hernández. His goal for Uruguay, albeit it against Guatemela, will hopefully help City to recoup at least some of the frightening outlay for him.
7. City are in the First Round of the 2015/16 League Cup. That’s quite a departure from last season’s automatic entry into the Third Round; but we will of course be seeded, opening up the opportunity to play (hopefully away) someone we’ve not played for a while, or indeed, ever. Ground tick geeks rejoice.
8. Better still, it’ll be free for season ticket holders who renewed before City were relegated. Though with the First Round being sandwiched in between the first and second games of the Championship season, it’s hard to see anything other than a full-on reserve team being fielded. Which, if we’re at home to Morecambe, means the free ticket offer is hardly a sensational reward…
9. A ball hasn’t yet kicked, and already City have lost their place as Championship title favourites. Derby, presumably on the back of their recent managerial appointment, are now most fancied to finish top. Not that we’d be unhappy with finishing second behind them, of course.
10. Congratulations to City fans, for whom banning orders are now at a 13 year low. We hope that West Yorkshire Police and their scarcely better counterparts in this part of the country take note.
#189 June 1, 2015
1. Six players have gone, and while some were predictable departures, some have caused something of a post-season furore. The unsurprising first: Harper’s mature vintage was always going to count against him, Figueroa and Dudgeon’s distance from the first team is so great as to make even a drop to the Championship unlikely to re-include them, while Sagbo just hasn’t been good enough. Good luck and all that, but Steve Bruce’s summer reshuffling was always likely to contain those names.
2. Liam Rosenior. Model professional. Evident admirer of the city of Hull and its football fans. There are reasons to have kept him, which include that professionalism, his adaptability (who else can comfortably play on either side?) and his proven ability in the Championship. But on the con side of the ledger, he’s the wrong side of 30, he didn’t figure much last season and is unsuited to 3-5-2, the formation Bruce prefers. It’s easy to make build a solid argument for him being retained, and equally for him being released. But we’re sorry he’s going.
3. Paul McShane. Loveable, ginger, heroic, fan-friendly Paul McShane. There has to be more to this than the squad building for 2015/16. Wages? McShane’s expectations are probably significant. Attitude? Impeccable from our perspective, though presumably not to Steve Bruce. Competition for places? Hefty, though we’re going to face a battle to keep James Chester and Michael Dawson’s head may still be turned by Premier League suitors. It’s saddening to see him leave, and has cast quite a shadow over the already grey post-relegation Cityscape.
4. There are hazards in this for Steve Bruce, too. He may think he’s entitled to put together the best squad he can irrespective of our views, and perhaps he’s got a point. But in the real world, we as fans bond with certain players, and feel their departures more keenly. Steve Bruce is not quite on thin ice with the supporters, but he’s just had a season of resounding failure without facing calls for his sacking; that’s fairly uncommon in this impatient age and that indulgence must have limits. It can only be reduced – even only at the margins – by casting aside fans’ favourites.
5. It’s good to see Stephen Quinn receive an offer, however; he has been an unfussy, useful and occasionally bright presence in the City midfield over the last few months and will inevitably be key in a Championship season. Whether he decides to take up the offer is another matter, of course. If he doesn’t, it could potentially damage Bruce’s credibility further, especially as the alternative for him would presumably be a direct rival in the second tier.
6. As touched upon earlier, keeping players is going to be a formidable challenge for the club. Some are obviously deserving of better things, while others may think they are. There’s little point trying to cling onto Jelavic, he did more than enough to deserve a move, while we’re frankly well shot of Hernandez. Huddlestone will probably also want out, and while it’s tempting to want to “punish” his dire season with trips to the Rotherhams of this world, we’ve seen enough of his half-arsed ambling around for now. Diame too strikes us a likely departure. It’s others whose futures are most interesting. Chester, Elmohamady, Brady – all may have designs on bigger things, but all have been here several years. If they can be kept, then the bookies’ installation of City as title favourites may have some justification.
7. The scandal engulfing FIFA may feel quite distant to East Yorkshire, but it’s likely to have indirect consequences for football for some time. It’s impossible read the squalid allegations seeping from this discredited organisation without falling out of love with the sport; and with cheating gazillionaire players, ludicrous ticket prices, and barely disguised hostility to the fans from almost every agency connected to football (hello West Yorkshire Police), this is not a game that can comfortably carry many more reasons to dislike it.
8. Arsenal’s cakewalk to a second successive FA Cup in the final at the weekend should make all City fans feel a bit better, a year after we lost the same occasion. At least, unlike Aston Villa, we turned up, made a game of it and looked interested in winning.
9. City’s offer of three free Cup tickets to those who renewed season tickets prior to relegation is probably well meant, but will be essentially meaningless unless Steve Bruce starts taking Cup competitions seriously.
10. We won’t hold our breaths on that; meaning that City are going to enter the 2015/16 Championship season with some of the most expensive season tickets in the division and just a trio of opportunities to see the reserves to make up for it. Oh, for someone with elementary football knowledge at the club.
#188 May 26, 2015
1. City are relegated. There were to be no final day heroics, and in truth it rarely felt as though there would be. The requirements were simply too great – beat a top-four side while hoping for help elsewhere. That sort of thing CAN happen, but it rarely does. The bookies’ prohibitively short odds on a City relegation were not unjustified.
2. That’s not to say that City didn’t acquit themselves tolerably well against Manchester United, because they did. Granted, the visitors were visibly half-arsed at best, however City played with determination and a little skill, and still felt short. In a way, it was almost a microcosm of the season as a whole: some good stuff, but ultimate underachievement.
3. This was not a relegation that should have happened. City absolutely did not have one of the three worst sides in the Premier League. But it has happened, and we’re going to spend an unhappy summer apportioning blame. It’s all very different to last summer, when we had the heroic FA Cup Final failure to look back on, European football to look forward to and the prospect of Premier League consolidation and improvement. The contrast is stark and depressing.
4. The blame can be widely spread. Steve Bruce brought disappointingly, motivated indifferently, selected erratically and ultimately failed to break the cycle that’s blighted his career: a bright beginning with a new club, big spending, underachievement. He can cite injuries, but that doesn’t really wash. Many millions were spent, all to go backwards. To not try to compete in the League Cup. To not even take our first and probably last adventure in Europe seriously. That is straightforward failure, most of it having no excuse other than poor judgement, and he’s extremely lucky that he has such understanding bosses and supporters at his back.
5. His players were also gravely culpable. The stars of last season almost without exception failed to reproduce the same form, while new signings did not perform to an acceptable standard. Most damningly, we have to question the application on too many occasions. Burnley away was particularly horrendous, when Bruce rightly labelled his “big time Charlies” – the relationship between fans and players fractured for the first time in its aftermath and the suspicion that too many players had an overinflated sense of self-worth never really left us after that match.
6. The owners’ unceasing determination to provoke the fans didn’t help, though it was not quite as considerable a factor in our eventual failure. A house divided always falls, and our house is certainly divided – needlessly so, for no reason other than to spite the people of Hull. It’s horrible and unforgiveable – but while they haven’t helped, with rancour in the stadium entirely their responsibility, they haven’t ambled around a football field or frittered millions on Abel Hernandez.
7. Where next? The Championship, and you don’t need to look far to see people relishing that. We’re certainly looking forward to less preposterous ticket prices, more 3pm Saturday kick-offs and a more honest XI, but we won’t celebrate the fact that the city of Hull has lost its representation in one of the best leagues in the world. It saddens us considerably – it took us a century to get there, and there’s no guarantee we’ll be back any time soon.
8. But we are where we are, and there plenty of virtues to the second tier. For one thing, the bookies’ installation of City as title favourites is nice, and suggests we’ll win more games than we lose, something extremely difficult to imagine in the Premier League. There’ll be plenty of enjoyable away games, some Yorkshire derbies, and hopefully a decent promotion push.
9. A brighter note: the City fans were absolutely outstanding on Sunday. With all hope of survival gone, the noise levels and pride in the club was magnificent. A club is nothing without its fans, and however much we’re all bickered over the stupid name change, who’s plastic and who isn’t, etc – we have some marvellous fans. Hopefully the club are noticing this and thinking how to work with us, and not against us. Just imagine if the name change was shelved, a discount on season tickets was implemented and more ways of working together established – the goodwill alone generated would sustain us through the summer and get our 2015/16 promotion campaign off to a flier.
10. We’ll naturally be more quiet during the summer, though Monday morning TWTWTs will continue. Thank you to everyone who’s read the reports, previews, opinion pieces, commented on the site, contributed to the forum or listened to the podcasts this season. Next season will be our 18th, and by August we’ll be looking forward to it as much as any.
#187 May 18, 2015
1: Is there anything our club can do that’s right at the moment? Everything on and off the pitch seems to stink to high heaven, and there is a sense that the rest of the Premier League can’t wait to see the back of us. Our owner is derided, our manager ridiculed, our players lambasted for not trying or patronised for not being good enough. It’s starting to feel almost like we should be embarrassed by association.
2: We’re not of course. We’re proud. Of ourselves, and our association with Hull City AFC. The club aren’t proud of us, of course, but that’s only as a result of some toxic individuals controlling the coffers and the flow of information who have no inkling of what we represent, and what importance we hold. We’ll always be here.
3: Jake Livermore, however, is unlikely to be here much longer, assuming he hasn’t already been privately told his City career is already over. What a grim business this is: a lad of peak fitness and considerable earning power, not to mention a decent future in the game, will now forever be tainted by an association with illegal, hard drugs. The circumstances may point to a troubled life for Livermore, of course, but taking cocaine has no place in professional, elite sport, irrespective of the circumstances, and if ultimately proven guilty he must be stoutly punished – and then helped, if help is required.
4: Meanwhile, the team-mates he has left behind went to Tottenham and, while the performance wasn’t lamentable, the basic lack of quality for a side that contains pushing £42m worth of signings since the summer was. Spurs barely broke sweat in beating us, and City had to rue poor final balls and poor finishing. The difference was stark throughout. For Tottenham, read also Swansea. And Southampton. And Stoke. And any number of games this season in which City have travelled to difficult but not unbeatable opposition, and slid to a cheap defeat against anyway. As much as being doubled by Burnley was crucial, it’s been the incessant inability to get anything on the road against mid-table opposition that’s killed us.
5: Relegation isn’t set in stone, but it feels like it’s inevitable, doesn’t it? Oddly, an awful lot of pundits think that we’ll somehow sneak a win against Manchester United – a team we’ve never beaten in the top tier, and whom Steve Bruce has never defeated in his managerial career – while Newcastle flop against West Ham and go down. We appreciate their faith in us, but it feels misplaced. And if Sunderland take themselves out of the relegation picture with something from their game at Arsenal in midweek, then our opponents will see a glimmer of hope for third place, and avoiding a European Cup preliminary tie. This scenario will make an already onerous task pretty much impossible. And even if we do beat them, it’s still reliant wholly on others. If we win and Newcastle do too, we will still go down, and we’ll damn well deserve it.
6: Are you ready to turn on Steve Bruce yet? It’s a tough one, as the City manager remains an affable fellow, and his first two seasons delivered a quadruple whammy – promotion, a highest ever finish, an FA Cup final and European football. Those achievements bought him time and goodwill when the cracks began to appear, but if we are relegated under him, and even if we are not, he now needs to be properly scrutinised. His decision-making, overspending on players, awful attitude to the cup competitions, tactical negativity, risible criticism of justified fan protests and general shoulder-shrugging, soundbite-riddled reactions to inept displays and awful results have all gone against him this season, and have intensified in recent weeks. His national image is that of a dinosaur manager – we don’t go that far, but he has questions to answer and, assuming he is big enough to return to Championship football with us (as the club won’t fire him), a spot of redemption to find.
7: In the event of relegation, it’s imperative that the real men of professional virtue – Chester, McShane, Bruce junior, Elmohamady, Brady, Quinn, Meyler, Rosenior – are kept on. These guys have our club in their hearts and will be hurting at returning to a division they strived so much to exit in 2013. One or two are out of contract this summer and, miracles this weekend notwithstanding, need to be retained urgently. In the second tier they’d be among the best in the division, again, and we can only imagine Elmohamady and Chester being courted by any of the clubs we leave behind. Also, the financial meltdown some predict for City in the Championship should not be pre-empted by any kind of massive fire sale, even though we’d expect the likes of Jelavić and Robertson to fetch some decent money, while others like Huddlestone, Davies and Hernández could be offloaded just for the sake of the wage bill. And that’s even after the pay cuts we all know about have kicked in – after all, none of us can imagine Huddlestone wanting to play in the Championship on half his current colossal salary, even though he hasn’t looked remotely like a Premier League player for months.
8: We were close to saying the club itself hasn’t done anything provocative or boneheaded this week, but then we got the spectacle of cheap scarves being doled out at Tottenham with that awful, nameless logo on it. Visual reminders of the Allams’ vandalism of our heritage aren’t terribly welcome at the moment.
9: David Conn is bloody good at his job. When he gets involved in your club’s travails, you know more than ever you are in the right.
10: On a lighter note, mercifully, we are thrilled to bits that Phil Brown is going to have another crack at leading a team to play-off victory at Wembley. This coming Sunday, the day we play Manchester United and likely exit the Premier League, is the seventh anniversary of the day we first reached the top division, and we still remain grateful for that mesmerising season, that wonderful day at the home of English football and the man who masterminded it. We wish our ex-gaffer and his Southend side the best of luck when they take to the Wembley field against Wycombe on Saturday.
#185 May 5, 2015
1: A tremendous victory and a stellar performance against Liverpool, and three immeasurably vital points. Even with only a single goal chalked up, the game felt oddly at ease throughout, even allowing for the usual emotional panic that goes with any City victory-in-waiting. The final whistle made a heavenly sound, the reaction to it was composed by the gods.
2: Any suggestion that the back to back wins against Palace and Liverpool were enough to guarantee safety was shot to bits on Saturday with victories for Sunderland, Leicester and Aston Villa. We couldn’t afford to view the Arsenal game as a ‘free hit’ as we might have done had other relegation scrap contestants failed to register points at the weekend, and why should we? The Liverpool game (and West Brom’s Bo Myhill assisted vanquishing of Manchester United) illustrated quite handsomely that we needn’t be defensively minded and shouldn’t be timid against supposed betters.
3: Sadly, City did look timid against Arsenal. Gone was the belief that coursed through the side at Selhurst Park and against Liverpool, and in its place came a severe case of nerves. That was perhaps heightened by awful results at the weekend, and it’s understandable up to a point, however City looked dismayingly easy to beat by Arsenal. Apart from avoid a serious rout, there was very little to take from this game.
4: Individually, a few players who’d recently returned to form had howlers. Huddlestone coughing up possession cheaply was instrumental in bringing about Arsenal’s first goal, and the former Tottenham boy had a poor night all around – as did Jake Livermore, meaning that Stephen Quinn was almost alone in trying valiantly to stem the Arsenal tide.
5: Steve Bruce chose, inexplicably, to major on the anti-Allam protests when offering his post-match thoughts on Tuesday night. He again referred to the £70m the owner has ploughed into the club and questioned whether any other individual has invested quite so much into Hull, and asked the question about if the protests were necessary, worthy, wise, whatever. Again, it falls on the supporters to say, without malice aforethought: Steve, he didn’t give us the money. It was a loan, not a gift. He shoved four per cent interest on to that loan and took a six-figure fee consultancy fee. Whatever he has put in – and the figures vary from source to source – he is expecting to recoup, with interest, with profit, and with the added effect of making the people of East Yorkshire bow and scrape and throw rose petals in his path wherever he goes. We don’t blame the manager for talking up the owner who keeps him in work and transfer funds, but similarly, we’d rather he just didn’t speak on the subject at all, as what he says lends itself to obsequiousness, not to mention inaccuracy.
6: The sound of people (we won’t call them City fans, they aren’t) booing City fans singing a City song at a City game was disgusting.
7: Another thing: why do those who drag out that tired old “get behind the team” nonsense whenever something controversial is happening invariably turn out to be the ones who sit in complete silence all game long?
8: Newcastle have been properly dragged into this relegation scrap with three to go and that could be handy for City. Nobody is in worse form than them, no set of players gives less of a toss than them, it could be that everyone that isn’t QPR or Burnley is now looking at the hapless, useless, joyless Geordies and seeing them as their ticket back into the Premier League’s everywhere city. Newcastle are the favourites, in mind if not maths, for the third relegation spot, and that suits us.
9: There are many reasons to want to stay up, but we’ve just added a new one: we really, really want a weekend in Bournemouth next season. Though if we do stay up, knowing our luck, the Premier League will probably give us a Wednesday night there. Also, we don’t have any real affinity with Watford, but given that we did them in the 2008 play-offs, then did them again on the last day in 2013, we’re sort of glad they’ve made it back up to the Premier League at last. Good day out, Watford.
10: The ‘1966 and all that’ banner hanging in the South Stand has been understandably mocked on social media, as it credits Waggy’s contribution to the 1965/66 promotion campaign to the unfamiliar character ‘Wiggo’. Mistakes happen, only the unrealistic expect absolute perfection at all times, but when mistakes become legion (and social media types have had a lot to highlight in recent weeks) it paints a picture of carelessness about things people care a lot about. Wiggo FFS.
#184 April 27, 2015
1: We threw out the question last week: “When will City give us cause to write a cheerful TWTWT?” The answer is: immediately. Saturday’s win at Crystal Palace had a smattering of everything; great football, individual brilliance, unflinching support, white-hot atmosphere, off-field talking points. And it gave us three points somewhat unexpectedly, given Palace’s resurgence, and in a timely manner too.
2: We’ll cling on to football matters for as long as we can, as for once, it’s worth it. Dame N’Doye was sensational, Tom Huddlestone looking truly interested and back to his pace-dictating best, the defence solidity personified and Sone Aluko showing smatterings of the form and confidence that made him such a superstar when we first got him. Even if he did slip with almost amusing regularity.
3: Our clutching onto those straws of hope is a little stronger than a week ago, and an optimist may note that Crystal Palace’s nothing-to-play-for lethargy could similarly infect some more of our future opponents. Arsenal’s top four place is a secure and there are Cup Final-ruining injuries to be avoided, Burnley could be beyond rescue, Tottenham may be dreaming of summer…
4: How much fun is Liverpool at home going to be now? A packed Circle on a spring Tuesday night, with City seeing their fate in their own hands while the big-name visitors from the unclean end of the M62 have to win to maintain the tiniest hope of a European Cup place. It could prove to be a cracking night. And, dare we say it, it’s a good time to beat Liverpool: out of sorts, out of the FA Cup, with question marks over the future of their manager and star winger, while their strikers can’t score. Kiss of death stuff we are risking, clearly, but we turned them over last season with some ease when they were also not having a great time of it. That they then went on a ridiculous run of form and nearly won the Premier League afterwards is nothing to do with us.
5: If you are a Liverpool supporter based in East Yorkshire, don’t come to the game unless you are in the away end. Liverpool shirts have been more abundant in our parts of the KC than those of any other foe since we first experienced top tier football in 2008, and it is unpleasant and inflammatory to witness them. And if you’re a steward, eject them. No ifs and buts.
6: We referred earlier to a “white hot” atmosphere, and of course much of that heat was directed at the Allam family. It was probably inevitable that their deplorable conduct would eventually see an Allam Out campaign arrive to accompany the thus-far successful No To Hull Tigers campaign, and what was striking at Selhurst Park was how widespread the feeling was. The only minority used to be those in favour of the name change, now it may even be that supporting Assem Allam’s ongoing ownership places you at odds with the majority.
7: This is all placing the local media in an invidious position, and they’re certainly coming in for plenty of criticism. Of course, Assem Allam is rich and powerful, and perfectly willing to exploit that. And we understand that without access to players, listeners will drift away and readers will cease buying newspapers. We wonder if the real reason that the local media continues to sit on its hands over the club’s various misdeeds is because having failed to ask any serious questions at the outset despite repeated warnings, doing so now would make their initial loss of nerve appear even worse. Maybe it would. But it’s better late than never. Perhaps they could start with the missing £200,000?
8: However, to some extent that’s shooting the messenger when the real problem remains the Allam family. It’s hard to see however they can ever regain the goodwill of City fans, principally because they aren’t even trying. Major transgressions vie with minor ones for attention; turfing kids out of the Airco, the club STILL sending out e-mails from Hull Tigers urging us to renew season tickets. Whoever at the club thought that was a good idea would, at a properly run club, be clearing out their desk tomorrow.
9: Apropos of season tickets – if even half of those threatening not to renew next season carry it out, we are going to see huge swathes of empty seats next season. What a sad sight that would be, and how avoidable it all is.
10: Quite what is going on at North Ferriby United is not clear, but several of their players have felt compelled to criticise the Allam family for withdrawing financial support. The value of a club like North Ferriby was made abundantly clear by their recent Wembley win, they edify and uplift their local community. The owners though, seem to miss that point entirely, talking about the financial bottom line as if that alone represents the value of the club, and effectively blaming a village of only a few thousand inhabitants for their expectations of a commercial return being wholly unrealistic. Does this have any relevance to Hull City? It’s hard to say, but Ferriby’s owners (who incidentally removed ‘AFC’ from a revised NFU club crest) are part of Assem Allam’s inner circle, and share a trait of claiming to be community minded while really just looking after themselves. The brainless mindset of “it’s his club, he can do what he likes” rings especially hollow when a club is voluntarily relegated, an act that will upset many people who care and have done so long before the Allams got their mitts on local sides.
#183 April 20, 2015
1. When will City give us cause to write a cheerful TWTWT? It really would be nice. But when the club continues on its slow descent into the gutter, fans have little option but to criticise. And good grief, there’s so much to criticise about the owners of Hull City AFC at present.
2. We’ll start with 2015/16 season ticket prices. They’re going up, by 6%. Which means that someone has looked at this season’s prices, the costliest ever and some 30% up on the previous season, and arrived at the conclusion that they are too cheap. Think about that for a moment. The people charged with levying season ticket prices currently think the current prices are not high enough.
3. At a time when Premier League clubs are preparing to have even vaster riches shovelled at them by television companies, with the fans only contributing about one fourteenth of income and empty seats every week, Ehab Allam (for he is responsible here) thinks we need to pay more. This isn’t the outcome of rational thinking, because it will simply price many out and cause even greater ill-feeling among those who remain, a poor idea when discontent is already rising. There aren’t prices, they’re punishments, meted out because the fans refused to go along with the Allams’ cretinous name change idiocy.
4. As a side note, Liverpool fans are planning a boycott of their fixture at the Circle on April 28th, in protest about the steepling cost of £48 being levied at a venue for which Stoke fans were charged just £16. Good on them. If they’re successful and Liverpool return tickets to City, that’ll compound the problems the club are already having with a fixture that is yet to sell out. The foolish pricing policy will have ensured ripped off supporters AND empty seats at a time when Steve Bruce needs a full stadium and a upbeat support base. Slow hand clap, City.
5. It’s been a hectic old week though, and pricing folly is far from the only dopiness drifting from a decaying regime. It’s useful here to separate Hull City AFC and the Allam family, because it is very much the latter who are behaving so atrociously in regard to the Airco Arena. As City fans, it’s hard not to feel embarrassed by what’s going on, and we hope the wider community blames not our club as a whole, but its present custodians.
6. We are now in the scarcely believable situation of the local council threatening legal action against the SMC and actually cheered on by many for doing so, while the Premier League issues a lawyerly statement refuting previous assertions made by the Allams. Meanwhile, Ehab spews badly written nonsense at the council on a seemingly daily basis, even going as far as to ask them to break the law. Remember his father’s astonishment and anger with us for not rising up against the council when they were disinterested by his derisory bid for the stadium? Looks like the fans called that one right, Mr Allam.
7. The whole depressing saga of the name change is the cack on top of a putrid cake. The FA are to consult once more, with the Hull City Supporters’ Trust and the OSC both invited to make submissions. Do we detect a slight hardening of the OSC’s view? How on earth is the club going to get anywhere near to winning a properly-conducted ballot of its own fans given that “Allam Out” is no longer a view expressed by a fringe majority? Indeed, over two-thirds of respondents on another City forum expressed that view in a poll there. Everywhere you look, the current regime is viewed as discredited and their reign possibly beyond salvation. This all cannot have escaped the FA’s attention.
8. Let’s talk about football! Sadly there’s little cheer there either, with once-doomed Leicester now level on points with City and looking resurgent. In order to stave them off, City probably need 6-7 points, more than once seemed likely, and quite a lot more than present form suggests we’ll get.
9. That makes leaving Crystal Palace without at least one of them an unthinkable proposition. They were cuffed at home by West Brom on Saturday, and it’d be nice to think they’re winding down a little this season. City’s record at Selhurst Park can only be a source for glumness, but we really are running out of time now. Another of those nastily cheap away defeats we excel at amassing and we’ll probably be going into a horrendous run of fixtures already berthed in the bottom three. And that won’t end well.
10. Now isn’t the time for faint hearts, players phoning in 80% effort or overcautious tactics. Only wins are going to keep the Tigers safe now, something that tends not to happen when Nikica Jelavić doesn’t play. But things can change quickly. Victory over Palace and Burnley, and a point somewhere else and we might be okay. Right?
#182 April 13 2015
1. Defeat at Southampton following a wearingly predictable theme. City looked superficially attractive for a time without posing too many serious threats – then a soft goal was given away and defeat was unhesitatingly accepted by most of the team. Falling behind at Southampton is bad but not utterly calamitous, but there was a total lack of belief among the side that anything could be done about it. And that’s scary.
2. That lack of belief is very real, but quite bizarre. The Chelsea defeat, far from invigorating us, appears now to be a rare high point. Defeat at Swansea was rotten and inevitable, this was little better. The players have no confidence, no conviction, no apparent desire to scrap. And with everyone around us – except, perhaps, Sunderland – absolutely busting a gut to stay in the Premier League, how on earth are we supposed to have any confidence?
3. Steve Bruce’s selection on Saturday was puzzling. It didn’t feel especially courageous, and featured the never welcome sight of players out of position. Was a back four consisting wholly of central defenders really necessary, or wise? It was defensively okay, for a bit, but when width was required later in the game meant we looked horribly one-dimensional.
4. The players and the management have coasted through this season in a deeply disagreeable fashion. The desperate desire to achieve and improve has been missing. Why couldn’t we have done what Crystal Palace or Stoke have done? Where was our incessant drive to get safe as quickly as possible, and then try to power up the table? Why have we always settled for doing just enough? The squad gives us every impression that stumbling towards 17th is enough, and always was enough. And it isn’t. We’d certainly take it now, of course. But that ought to have been the very minimum required this season, and even if we do somehow stay up, this will have been a very disappointing season.
5. What chance us staying up though? Let’s be clear about one thing – we badly want to survive. Not just because of the club’s horrifying debt, a debt that’ll be coped with better for receiving the incredible Premier League riches. But it took us a hundred years to get here, and let’s not be conceited enough to think we’ll somehow get straight back. There are plenty of clubs our size in lower divisions who probably thought their absence from the top flight would be a temporary arrangement who haven’t been there for many years now.
6. If there are any straws to be clutched at, the fact that our run-in will now largely take place at home is beneficial. They’re all testing games – and yes, Burnley is included in that, for our recent record against them is abysmal and they’re fighting admirably. But, but…hopefully some of them will have little to play for. Manchester United will probably have already secured a top four place, while both Liverpool and Arsenal will have a Cup Final ahead with no League issues at stake. And does Tottenham’s defeat on Saturday hint at a side already on the beach? And are we sounding a bit desperate here?
7. If we do go down, we’ll be a house divided. That division stems from the club’s actions, and their determination to continue provoking their own fans is as inexplicable as it is loathsome. Take the Away Supporters’ Initiative. City fans are owed the thick end of £200,000, but Assem and Ehab Allam so hate the fans that spending it on us is apparently not deemed acceptable, so the money is withheld and no-one will answer questions about it. Meanwhile, empty seats at Southampton were adorned with a cheap t-shirt that predictably failed to mention Hull City’s actual name. What would Steve Bruce prefer: seats filled with fans whose attendance was subsidised by the ASI, or crappy t-shirts that merely help to inflame an ever-worsening situation? Stop arsing about City, and hand that money over to away fans. Pocketing our money is absolutely disgraceful.
8. As usual, the business case for the Allams’ spiteful actions makes no sense. Having left it too late to spend this cash, some testing and long-distance away games are taking place with only a few hundred hardy souls cheering the side on, when there could be thousands. Quite how that helps the club in a desperate relegation battle is something we’d like to hear, though we already know it’s something way beyond Ehab Allam’s ability to explain.
9. Season ticket prices are announced today, and they’re going up again, despite last season’s huge increase. Already prized crazily highly, we grimly await the latest hike, which will of course be garrulously accompanied by comparisons to other Premier League sides, as though falling behind in the race to rip off your own fans is somehow a bad thing.
10. A written, legally watertight guarantee from the club that refunds will be given should the name change will obviously be required. But even that may not be enough to ward off a significant drop in attendances. They’ll obviously collapse if the club really is planning to increase prices even if we’re relegated (which would contradict previous information given at FWG meetings), but even if we stay up, the club’s ownership is very dimly regarded by a lot of people at present. Hiking prices again could provide the perfect excuse for many people to walk away. That fabled Allam business acumen, eh?
#181 April 6, 2015
1. A dismal capitulation at Swansea was the latest example of City embarking on a tough but not impossible away assignment, and losing in a feeble nature. After the stirring performance against Chelsea a fortnight ago, the aggression, togetherness and tempo of that afternoon was wholly lacking.
2. Steve Bruce can complain about referees and linesmen all he wants, but it really won’t wash. The officials were imperfect, and Meyler’s red card was arguably harsh, but City were responsible for this defeat, not the men in black. We fervently hope that Steve Bruce knows this and is seeking to publicly cover his charges – if he really thinks he and his players weren’t the agents of their own downfall, he is frighteningly out of touch.
3. What on earth was wrong with Dame N’Doye? He’s been a glorious breath of fresh air since joining, but at the Liberty Stadium he was isolated, sulky and ineffective. We especially disliked the way he turned his back on the play after not being fed the ball in the first half – just how does he expect to score while petulantly flinging his arms around while gazing at the heavens? Let us hope this was a one-off.
4. Results elsewhere made this defeat especially worrying. Wins for sides around us mean that a once comfortable-ish situation has rapidly worsened back to being quite grim. With testing games ahead and the rotten Swansea offering unhappily prominent in our thoughts, we arrive at the conclusion that the players have returned to fecklessly coasting through games, blithely assuming that everything will somehow work out and three other sides will keep us up. It’s the same ghastly complacency that cost us in Europe and that’s cost us time and again against beatable opposition in the Premier League. This is a side that is capable of splendid things, but lacks the application and the hunger to perform consistently. We’re being cheated; and the players are cheating themselves.
5. Southampton is going to be horribly difficult. They’re a genuine class above City and have achieved formidable consistency. Getting any sort of result there was always going to be hard, but this weekend’s unhappy conclusion makes leaving St Marys without at least a point unsatisfactory. Unfortunately it’s already easy to envisage that game: reasonably positive beginning, sloppy individual error gifting a goal following by meek surrender.
6. While Steve Harper and Eldin Jakupović are not good enough to be regular Premier League players…there can only be so long that Allan McGregor be permitted to continue in this run of form. Something has to change, and ideally that’ll be McGregor’s performances – but if not…
7. It wouldn’t be a week at City without contemptible conduct from Assam Allam, would it? We always expected he’d break his promise not to submit a second application to change Hull City AFC’s name, but seeing it was still revolting. It’s the detestable act of a spiteful, untrustworthy, bitter, hate-filled man who is wilfully committing serious long-term damage to this club in order to propagate his deranged vendettas against the council, the fans and the Football Association. We can no longer support a man capable of such vengeful acts.
8. In the meantime, the urgent priority must be the safeguarding of the name Hull City AFC. Allam’s promise-wrecking decision to make a second application will presumably be thrown out by the FA, with Ehab still laughably unaware that a business case requires making and the impossible task of persuading an increasingly disgruntled supporter base to support this mad idea still required. Ultimately, this nonsense will still fail.
9. It’s the cost of that success that worries us. You don’t need to go far to find long-serving City fans who are so thoroughly disillusioned by Allam’s disgraceful behaviour that they’re walking away from City and football in general. Those people may be comparatively small in number – after all, Boothferry Park was rarely full – but they’re the people who’d have stood by the club in the event of a relegation or two while the “it’s his club he can do what he wants” Premier League-only appeasers returned to their armchairs and Liverpool scarves. Instead, they’re being driven away. It’s heart-breaking.
10. Hull City AFC, you owe your travelling fans the larger part of £200,000. Get it sorted, right now. We’re sick of being fobbed off with deadlines that are never met and promises that are never kept.
#180 March 30, 2015
1. Having spent the last year threatening to sell the club, Assem Allam, in conversation with David Burns, has said that several parties are interested in buying it. Mr Allam though, isn’t quite sure that the prospective owners would be “good homes”. Quite what would render them less suitable than a man who dissembles, insults and seeks to vandalise a football club’s identity just to get one over the Council is not clear, though it would be fascinating to find out.
2. We don’t actively want “ALLAM OUT” – barring a further deterioration in his conduct, the present status quo is unhappy but about tolerable. But a sale of the club to new and presumably more respectful owners doesn’t strike us as a bad thing.
3. In the aftermath of a hectic week, we didn’t have the opportunity to ruminate upon the fact that some at Hull City AFC actively desire music after a goal. It’s difficult thing of anything more hatefully plastic, redolent of the Readings and Wigans of this world, and even less appealingly, rugby league clubs. This dismaying revelation came at the most recent fans’ working group meeting, and while its host James Mooney understandably declined to name the culprits, it wouldn’t surprise us terribly to hear of the hand of Ehab here. His tin ear is every bit as, err, tinny as his father’s, after all.
4. Can you imagine the utterly crawling embarrassment that would come from Steve Jordan spewing Tom Hark or Chelsea Dagger at the very height of your glee at City scoring? It’d deaden the celebrations, give away fans the opportunity to gloat at us for being small-time, and would make you dislike your own club’s actions. It’s cheap, nasty, unoriginal and thoroughly unwanted. Please, City, don’t do it.
5. Swansea on Saturday. That’s a tough one, but it isn’t a game we can comfortably return pointless from. Swansea have never been in danger this season, although their present standing of eighth isn’t that can be realistically improved upon. Whether that presents City with an opportunity or not is unclear, as they’ve been admirably consistent all season. But we need do more than wait for Burnley at home for our next win.
6. Concerns over the “missing £200,000″ continue to grow. The club cannot have spent anything approaching half of this sum yet, with a few tarted up facilities for away fans at the Circle and slightly discounted travel for Arsenal last year unlikely to account for much. With away games running out and tickets for the next three away matches already sent out, it’s hard to see how the money will be spent now. Let us hope that the Premier League, who give this money out to be spent on fans, severely and public rebuke City if they fail to meet this obligation.
7. City were fined £30,000 for their players’ sulky conduct at Leicester recently. The FA actively trying to stamp out an unedifying trait of modern footballers is a good thing. Surrounding the referee and bawling like kids denied sweets in a supermarket over a decision you don’t like is plain awful, even if the official makes an incorrect call.
8. Alex Bruce did win the ball cleanly, after all.
9. Congratulations to North Ferriby United. Like many City fans, we’ve spent pleasant afternoons at Church Road at one time or another, and yesterday must have been glorious for their supporters.
10. RIP Jimmy McGill, Hull City AFC 1971-1975.
#179 March 24, 2015
1. Looking for positives in defeat is a loser’s game, but there was no shame whatsoever in City’s 3-2 defeat to Chelsea. Ten minutes in there was the omnipresent worry that Chelsea were going to run up a cricket score after some very approximate defending, but a wondrous 72 seconds gave us a scarcely believed parity. That we were eventually edged out by the champions elect is of no surprise, and is of no cause for self flagellation, City made a decent fist of what was essentially a ‘free hit’.
2. That train of thought might be very different had other Premier League results not gone our way, but they did, every one of them. Sunderland, Villa, Burnley, Leicester and QPR all succumbed to losses, making our defeat immaterial. The teams below us now have one less game in which to make up the points they need to overtake us, so despite a loss, the weekend was a minor victory.
3. Diego Costa recently defended his ‘robust’ style of play, yet oddly took objection to Alex Bruce winning the ball and then kicking him up in the air. We bloody loved that. We bloody love Alex Bruce.
4. Dame N’Doye is really bloody good isn’t he? His work rate is brilliant, he defends from the front, gets into great positions and showed Sunday that he takes decent free kicks too. We’re going to miss Jelavić, and that places a lot of pressure on two forwards who are new to the English leagues, but some of the omens from Sunday were good
5. He and Andrew Robertson are the Premier League bargains of the season – and Robertson had a fine game on Sunday too. Unafraid to take Chelsea players on, the fearlessness of this youth was the catalyst for getting City back into the game. He’s had a few quiet patches this season, which is understandable given that this is his first in the Premier League, but there’s no doubting his ability and vast potential.
6. City have some time off for the international break, and while a loss is a loss, we enter that period in better heart than seemed possible after nine minutes of the Chelsea game. We’ll need to as well, because that run-in is daunting. Successive away games loom, as do visits from Champions League contenders. Five points and an avoidance of heavy defeats hurting our superior goal difference is likely to do it. It’d be great to pick the first of those up at Swansea.
7. The club said they’d present a business plan to the FA to show the proposed benefits of a name change, but didn’t. It’s reasonable to assume that there simply isn’t any business plan, because if there was, figures would not be plucked out of the air when a projected benefit pound amount is given. Previously Ehab Allam told Radio Humberside that Hull Tigers would make £1m a year just for being Hull Tigers, but at the weekend that figure was revised to £30m, and it has been several figures in between in the interim. Let’s call those figures what they really are: unfounded fantasy bullshit. The Allams have been described many times as ‘shrewd businessmen’, but do shrewd businessmen complain that they weren’t told that an application to a governing body has to be any good?
8. This was all discussed during Ehab Allam’s disastrous interviews with Radio Humberside over the weekend. First things first: well done to David Burns, who asked the hardest questions an Allam has faced thus far. And he wholly failed to answer any of them properly. Instead, he sounded smug, arrogant, ignorant and thoroughly out of touch. It’s been said before that Assem Allam handing control of City to his son may be a suitable way forward, replacing an intransigent and out of touch man with a more moderate one. Given that his contempt for the people of Hull apparently matches that of his father, we aren’t so sure.
9. And again, we return to the business implications of this. Ehab evidently fancies himself as a competent businessman – so how on earth does he consider it wise to serially aggravate his customers? Professional football may be a product with unusually high customer loyalty and substantial price inelasticity – but there are still limits. And if he and his father had the nerve to actually speak with supporters every once in a while, they’d learn that a lot of fans are much closer to their line in the sand than it may appear in from their ivory tower. Good businesses understand their customers and seek two-way dialogue with them. Our business openly dislikes its customers.
10. However, there’s little doubt that in terms of the name change, things remain solidly in the supporters’ favour. Assem Allam will have to break a promise in order to reapply, hardly an insurmountable obstacle for him, but one that will still play poorly. He seemingly intends to submit one identical to that just savaged by the FA’s Tribunal. Ehab continues to misguidedly thinks that the fans’ views are irrelevant, but even if their expensive lawyers persuade them that a successful application simply must feature success in a properly-run ballot, their recent petulance makes that impossible – because whatever they both think, the majority have always and will always oppose the name change. The name Hull City AFC looks a lot safer than their reign at the club.
#178 March 16, 2015
1: Ooorgh, that really did feel like dropped points at Leicester, didn’t it? Despite the reduction in numbers, it was still City’s game to take and that chance that Abel Hernandez didn’t put away at the end already feels like one of those that could come back to haunt us. City, as per Sunderland, looked handy at times and were the better side in the first half by a comfortable margin. So this wasn’t a game drawn through a poverty of ambition or a wretched performance, just though a lack of real cutting edge.
2: This isn’t us being unduly negative (well, no more than normal) but an inability to beat both Sunderland and Leicester (teams on the bones of their collective arses, confidence-wise), combined with a look at the forthcoming fixtures and worrying evidence of a resurgence from Burnley means that much work still has to be done by Steve Bruce and his players to keep us going as a Premier League club.
3: Two of our ex-employees took the limelight amidst all of this basement-battle tomfoolery at the weekend. Nigel Pearson has now managed to add a journalist (not always a sympathetic profession, but the unnamed hack was asking perfectly acceptable questions to the Leicester boss after the draw) to his list of offended parties in football, following a supporter of his own club and a player from the opposition. When he was our manager he was always in total control of his emotions – it was one of his many plus points – but now a grumpy, pressurised, abrasive, even nasty character is emerging. Leicester still look certainties for the drop but now, more than ever, he will be seen as part of the problem if and when they do return to the Championship.
4: George Boyd, meanwhile, scored a delightful goal to give Burnley their crucial, unexpected win against Manchester City on which both player and club could dine out for years, especially if the stay up. We liked Boyd. We felt he wasn’t used enough by Steve Bruce. And the flair players who have come in since his departure – Ramirez, Ben Arfa – haven’t exactly set us alight. Wisdom after the event is easy of course, but indirectly at least, the sale of Boyd is coming back to haunt us.
5: Tom Huddlestone’s two challenges were neither cautionable, but he was still an idiot for making the second tackle, knowing he was already on a yellow card. Yet it is still not set in stone that we’ll somehow be a quarter of the team without him, just because he still isn’t close to being the fulcrum of the team that he so effortlessly was last season – even if recent weeks have hinted at an improvement upon his winter torpor.
6: At first glance Chelsea feels, as usual, like a free hit, but afterwards it’s Swansea and Southampton away, followed by Liverpool. Suddenly, there’s no such thing as a free hit. As crazy it sounds, we’ve got to try to get something from the Chelsea game, anything that isn’t merely heroic defeat and a sense of pride. Points are now all that matter. Our run-in starts here, and it’s a tough one.
7: A wider look at the relegation battle suggests that Leicester are probably gone now, and QPR are leaving themselves an awful lot to do as well. Burnley’s remarkable win on Saturday gives them hope, but it’s Sunderland who ought to be particularly afraid today. Hammered at home by Aston Villa and with unrest among the natives, if anyone’s going to rescue any of the bottom three, it could well be them. Though a few iffy results for City, and we could quickly be back in serious trouble. It’s still all to play for.
8: The Airco Arena is to be converted into an all-weather indoor football pitch for City to use and receive additional accreditation in their bid to elevate the standing of their youth set-up. So far, so good. Except that it now appears that doing so will see multiple community users of the arena evicted at a month’s notice and with grave consequences for their own sports and pastimes. (BBC News link)
9: We’ll be blunt: netball, basketball and so on, we aren’t terribly interested. Most people aren’t, it’s football dominates the city of Hull, as it dominates nationally and globally. But that isn’t really the point – some people ARE very interested, and a sporting passion is always to be applauded. Therefore, as supporters of Hull City AFC, we feel a little queasy at reading things like “disabled sportspeople evicted for millionaire footballers”. That’s a bit simplistic and not 100% accurate, but nonetheless it’s hard not to feel uneasy.
9a: This isn’t airy-fairy wouldn’t-it-be-lovely wishful thinking though. There’s a hard-headed business angle to it all. Like any football club that draws its support almost exclusively from one area, we are wholly reliant on the community of Hull and East Yorkshire for fans. We cannot exist in isolation from them, let alone be seen to act antagonistically towards it. There will be some who participate in minority events at the Arena who also support City, and feel torn. There’ll some who use its facilities, or know people who do, but don’t support their local football team, and who will now be much less inclined to ever do so. Once more, we find ourselves shaking our heads in utter despair at the narrow-minded short-term thinking from the club, which is now viewed by far too many in the city as high-handed, uncaring and arrogant.
10: This is probably not malignancy on the part of City, just a simple lack of foresight. Why did no-one realise this’d be necessary? And who on earth actually investigates the club’s potential actions for such adverse consequences and publicity as this? The answer is surely no-one. Seriously, City, if you need a help with this sort of thing, there are thousands of people who can easily help. Even if the chairman did once slander them all as hooligans.
HULL CITY KITS 
