On shirts and shit...

Day started nicely. Lots of sunshine. Enough to cause me a Formula1 pit lane-style conundrum over how many layers to wear to the football. There was a moment, as I sat in the garden supping coffee and listening to some pre-match build-up and getting a little bit excited, when I considered a short-sleeved shirt with a t-shirt beneath. But that arrangement went out the window as soon as it dawned on me that I would be unable to sit down in the shirt in question without all of the buttons bursting open. I may be deluding myself but I am almost certain that the shirt must have shrunk in the wash. As it was, I donned a jacket over a long-sleeved shirt. If I hadn't been sitting on the prawn sandwich side of the KC Stadium the dress code would have been a little shabbier. Hull City's performance against fellow cellar-dwellers Burnley was abysmal. The majority of players lacked the necessary passion required to fight for the three points. And so it was that they ended up losing 1-4. And, more disastrously and highly likely, look to have ensured that the Tigers' Premier League dream will end after two seasons. In our posh and poncy seats, we were separated by the Burnley board of directors by a piece of rope. I do hope it was put out of sight quickly at the conclusion of the game because a lot of Hull City fans, sick to see their team self-defeated by unmotivated, mercenary, money-grabbing twats with no skill, would no doubt have been keen to have fashioned it into a noose.

Mates...

I quite like the late Simon Gray's Smoking Diaries habit of picking up on words he jotted down several hours before for a subsequent diary entry. So, mates. Or, more specifically, my dad's mates. Who he left me on the barrier at Boothferry Park for during a few seasons of Hull City AFC games starting in 1969/70. The mates mentioned briefly in Sunday's entry. Mates is probably not the right word. Certainly not mates in the beery, blokey, cor blimey, eff and jeff, nudge nudge, wink wink, look at her, 21st century sense.

Dad wore a shirt and tie most of the time and I seem to remember that, even though he stood with the more leisurely attired massed ranks in the North Stand when we first went to matches together, his formal dress remained intact. And his 'mates' or, rather, his work colleagues, dressed similarly. They weren't mates. They were gents; gents that happened to work together. And go to the football together. They were all signwriters. All employed in the publicity department of Jacksons, then Hull's main supermarket chain. All adept at creating fluorescent posters for shop windows and avoiding making a mess of it all with their deft use of a stick with a ball on the end (it's called a mahl stick - art editor).

At some point, when I'd abandonded Saturday afternoons down at the place that would become Fer Ark in favour of Sundays watching rugby league, Jacksons became sponsors of something-or-other (probably pre-match, half-time and post-match bread) and dad and his shirt and tie moved to more appropriate surroundings - the so-called Best Stand (best only if you liked watching your football bending your neck around the steel that held the roof in situ). In his later years he headed back North, not to stand but to sit. Next to one of his mates, a man who had been his boss for around 30 years. Occasionally, I'd kop for dad's mate's season ticket and sit in the North Stand. Still wearing his shirt and tie, dad would never swear no matter how bad things got on the pitch. He would, however, hurl gentlemanly and polite abuse at the referee. Bizarrely, this sometimes took the form of merely shouting the word referee in a slightly psychotic manner and, very occasionally, jumping up, in silence, and wagging a finger in a sinister, pointed way. He'd often have to spit his Needler's Fruit Sensation into a handkerchief to facilitate this activity.

After a few years absence and at some point in the late 1970s and possibly, to be more accurate if not quite certain, season 1979/80, I became a regular, for a few heady seasons of pretend football hooliganism and smoking Players No 6, in the Kempton stand at Bothferry. Often, after dubious decisions, I would look over at the North Stand to see if I could see my dad jumping and pointing in his idiosyncratic manner. I could never look for too long though because I always feared that dad would spot me, cig in hand. I wonder what his mate made of it all. If anything.

Oh Arse...

The last time I saw Hull City in the flesh, so to speak, was the rather drab and lacklustre affair against Blackburn back in December 2009. I'd go more often if I could get my mitts on tickets. And, as much as I'd like to reveal that expert planning, foresight and membership to various ticket purchasing schemes had gone into me gaining access to yesterday's game against Arsenal, I have a mate's illness, which rendered him stuck in Sheffield, to thank for being able to park my derriere in the North Stand at the KC. I still owe him the 28 sheets he forked out. Must remember to pay him when I see him which, of course, I would have conveniently forgotten about had the game been the proverbial one-sided trousers it promised to be.

This is not a match review. But the effort on show from the Tigers once they'd gone down to 10 men - after Arshavin put Arsenal in front on 14 mins and Bullard had equalised from a pen around the half-hour mark - made this a most memorable and gripping encounter. It was a tense affair. Hull City fully deserved a draw. As it was, they conceded a Bendtner goal in the 94th minute, with the oft-lauded Myhill gaining an horrific assist on the play (he pushed a Denilson shot out to the goalscorer's feet). Felt gutted. Which is, no doubt, connected to the well-hidden, supressed tribal belonging that I can trace back to Boothferry Park, 1969, when father made me invest in his club by sitting me on the two foot tall perimeter fence, passing me some sweets that slightly resembled, in shape, taste and texture, Love Hearts but contained the names of Football League clubs and telling me to "watch" before walking off and standing with his mates.

I don't want to feel anything towards the Tigers, other than a dislike for the way that they are ruining a perfectly good rugby pitch every time they take to the field of play. But I do. I really do. Mostly, I want them to get what is rightly theirs (which is to play against the best and get the results they deserve) and to make up for the five decades of mostly wilderness that the old man willingly, against all common sense and my attempts to lure him to the Boulevard, had to endure. They was robbed. Deepest sympathy, with full understanding, to the loyal supporters that stick with The Tigers every year, every week, every day, every game. One day, it will be ok.

Update: Phil Brown was relieved of his managerial duties on Monday, March 15 2010.

Play like John Terry...

How very topical; this week's Match of the Day Magazine contains free skills cards, one of which arms us with the knowledge required to Play Like Terry! Not sure if that particular card was made possible once JT's superinjunction was lifted but it does contain two very useful sentences allowing us to emulate the ex-Engerland captain's signature thrusts and lunges. I assume that Toni and Veronica are already familiar with Terry's ability to "spring with both feet and spread your arms to leap really high." "Be strong and use your forehead," the card concludes. Meanwhile, for those that like footballers with christian names for surnames, Gareth Barry's card advises: "Don't dribble too much or you might lose possession!" Wise words indeed.

Football crazy...

Was invited along to see Hull City AFC take on Blackburn today and, beforehand, enjoy some pre-game booze in the Kingston Suite. A fun few hours at the KC although the game was pretty terrible. Watched Match of the Day to check whether the game was better than we'd thought but 90 minutes edited down to a still pretty poor three minutes of 'highlights' suggested that I had, indeed, witnessed two sub-standard teams going at each other like fat, hopeless schoolkids. They get paid £30k a week to do that? Blimey. Followed that with the X-Factor semi-finals, the contestants of which were of a similar standard and, just as we knew fron episode one all those months ago, there's not a star amongst them. The mad, rambling woman who had been mentored by Danni Minogue was voted out leaving two young men (Cowell and Cole's charges) with no personalities to battle it out for the honours tomorrow. I saw on the front of a tabloid yesterday that SCowell has asked ITV for £3m more for the next series, as if additional cash will somehow magic up talent, although, of course, that's not really what X-Factor is about.

View from the East Stand...

To the KC Stadium, to be amongst the 24,902 watching Hull City v Manchester City. My first live experience of Premier League football. Some players like to roll about a bit. Some terrible defending. But the second half was real edge of the seat stuff. Final score was 2-2. I also enjoyed the re-run on MOTD, where somewhat more disturbing than the blunders at the back was referee-cum-pundit Paul Durkin's rather peculiar neck. Eurgh.

Premier...

All very surreal to be watching Hull City on Football Focus and Match of the Day. But the reality is that they're amongst the top 20 football teams in the land and certainly should be appearing in a prominent position on the telly box. I'm sure you're aware by now that City beat Fulham 2-1, appear to have bagged a real match-winning bargain in Geovanni and that Chairman Paul Duffen was so enthusiastic when he rang the club's Premier League bell to usher in the new era that he broke the darn thing. I did catch the end of the Waggy and Chillo era and a lot of Saturdays as a boy heading to Boothferry Park with my dad, and then with mates for 90 minutes of Players No 6 and shouting abuse at away fans from the comfort of the Kempton but such glamorous entertainment and the occasional cup of Bovril didn't make me a big footie fan but it's hard not to get caught up in the incredible journey that the Tigers are making. I'll try and resist jumping on the bandwagon and leave that to the likes of local politicians, regional development agencies, quangos and media outlets, as there's no way all that weight should be put on a collection of wayward sportsmen, but well done City, a fine start that bodes well.

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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If...

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.