Wembley...

This, if you'll excuse the bad stitching, is the view we enjoyed at Wembley. It looked somewhat different inside the stadium come kick-off...

And pretty magical come the final whistle...

Hull - a city of winners...

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I have a bag full of pasties and crisps and my clothes are all ready to jump into in the early hours of tomorrow morning before I head off to Wembley. It'll be a great day.

I couldn't have missed such a significant moment in the city's history now, could I? But I'm really there for my dad, who would have given anything to have seen a player in black and amber crack in the goal that took his beloved Tigers into the top flight for the first time in their history. Everything is crossed in the hope that another dream is about to come true. Readers based in Orlando can watch the game here.

Winning city...

Well done Hull City. To Wembley for the first time ever in a history spanning 104 years with a resounding 4-1 victory (6-1 on aggregate. Blimey!) over Watford. My dad followed the Tigers in excess of 50 years and endured six decades of frustrating on-field antics, getting through the hard times by reminiscing about the glory days of Bunker's Hill, the nigh-sexual experience of watching Raich Carter fly down the wing and the almost success of the Waggy-Chillo days (1970-71, cor, that was a year. Having sat in front of the South Stand on the small boundary fence that ran around Boothferry Park during that season, those games are probably amongst my earliest memories. It all went wrong. With one eye on spending my leisure time down the Boulevard I remember ripping a team photo in half in a childish huff). By the dawn of the new era at the KC Stadium, dad was too ill to haul himself along to watch the start of the renaissance. He'd have enjoyed tonight's glorious shenanigans, which, if a city's fortunes are linked in any way to that of its sports club's, could well be the moment when Hull and its people moved from alsorans to fully-fledged winners. Indeed, when the goals started pouring in I felt incredibly proud on his behalf. And all this coming from a rugby fan (we are tantalisingly close to having three, yes three, professional top flight sports clubs). Be nice to go to Wembley to watch the Tigers roar but the day - and indeed tonight - is for the fans of the Tigers who have been there throughout the dark days. You deserve it, you bloody magnificent winners. Altogether now...we are Hull, we are Hull, we are Hull...

Match of the day...

Despite being raised on a diet of Saturday afternoons sitting on the boundary fence at Boothferry Park back in Hull City's glorious Waggy and Chillo era, when I imagined that Ian McKechnie was Superman and Frank Banks could do no wrong, I'm not really a football man (too many PE lessons picked to play in goal took their toll). Still, glory seeker that I am I went to watch the Tigers' ongoing charge towards the Championship playoffs yesterday, witnessing a rather tame and never really in doubt 2-0 derby victory over relegation-threatened Scunthorpe. For a derby with a fair bit at stake for both clubs it was a rather boring, incident-free experience with barely a shin kicked in anger and the crowd, briefed by manager Phil Brown to create a hostile environment for the visitors, were much nicer than I remember footie crowds being in the past. Be nice if City can hang in there for the rest of the season.

Runnin' down a dream...

I made it to the half-time show of the Super Bowl but, sadly, Tom Petty did for me (and confused me - didn't he used to have much bigger teeth?) and I gave it up as a bad job. Only to discover, this morning, that I had averted my eyes from what was maybe, possibly, the biggest Super Bowl upset ever. It is, perhaps, a sign of my age and early adoption of this wacky American sport, that I remember the New England Patriots being complete bobbins. They're also a division rival of my beloved, perennial under-achievers since 1969 (and the other New York team) New York Jets so, rather unfathomably and underdoggerish of me, I was hoping for a Giants win. And lo, it happened. These things tend not to occur in the extremely predictable, winning is everything and nothing to be ashamed of world of US sports.