One thing I’ve noticed in my 13 years of Tiger following is that City supporters have a tendency to over exaggerate in a manner that makes Nick Buchanan’s claim in the local rag that he can afford to buy Boothferry Park seem plausible.

Case in point number one. As what seems like every Hull resident over the age of 45 delights in telling the likes of you and me, City used to get 40,000 every week in the sixties.

Actually it wasn’t every week. Not even every month. Five or six times a season maybe? Actually it was once. That’s right, Hull City had a crowd of 40,000+ for precisely ONE league game in the 1960s (v. Millwall, December 1965).

Now I for one aren’t belittling the black and amber masses that descending on the Ark at this time. Hell, if we got a third of the attendances that City averaged in the mid sixties these days I’d be delighted. And if all the people who claim they used to go in the sixties went every week, I’d be ecstatic. As long as they didn’t sit or stand near me.

A recent survey conducted by FourFourTwo Magazine also shows City’s crowds in a less than flattering light. It divides each league club’s average gate by the local population. Now undoubtedly there will be some flaws in this system, but City finishing 74th out of 92 is less than impressive.

This only took into account the population of the City of Hull, and not the whole of East Yorkshire, which is regarded as City territory. For the record Middlesbrough came first and Rotherham United 92nd.

This should come as no surprise, as there’s sod all else to do in Middlesbrough and the average Rotherham resident seems to prefer drinking 14 pints, watching the Chuckle Brothers or impregnating teenagers rather than support the Miserable Millers.

Hull City isn’t a big club. It never really has been. It could be, but it isn’t. It is a Third Division club, with a decaying ground, dwindling support and is run by carpetbagging shysters. Big city unfortunately does not equal big club. It’s the eleven players on the pitch that matter. Since the war, there have only been three periods (late ’40s/early ’50s, 65-75 and mid ’80s) where City have managed to rise above dismal mediocrity. City threatening to get promotion to the top flight has been rarer than a competent performance by Jon French. Even worse is the fact that City are one of only eight Football league teams to have never played at Wembley. Up until 20 years or so this was no disgrace, but these days they even let dregs like Scunthorpe, Darlington and Torquay play there.

The Kempton. The home of the more intelligent and committed City fan, so I keep being told. The heart of Boothferry Park. Oh really? Take the last home game, against Brighton. Two chants emitted from the National Holidays East Terrace (whaddya mean it’ll never catch on?), were so toe-curlingly embarrassing and ill-informed that the Brighton fans they were directed at must have been falling about with laughter.

Firstly “You must have come in a taxi”. It might just be me, but I always thought that this should be sung at poor away attendances. Brighton must have bought 600 at a conservative estimate. With a 600 mile round trip. On a Friday night. And these Kemptonite dunderheads believe this to be poor? It’s damn sight more than we’d have taken down there for a Friday game.

And when Martyn “Keep it up Terry” Hainstock announced the 6,200 gate they came out with “What’s it like to see a crowd?”. Yeah, nice one lads. Brighton are averaging crowds of nearly 7,000 this year, and virtually every game at the Withdean is a sell out. And I won’t even start on the chanting of “Rent Boy, Rent Boy” at any opposition players with – horror of horrors – blonde hair.

As for being the spiritual home of Tigers fans, I don’t think so. Anyone else remember games in the early `90s (Sheffield Wednesday, Bolton etc) when the Kempton was given to away fans. Did anyone complain? Did they heck as like. The reason for this was that City used to get a couple of hundred in there at most. It was a larger version of the Well and twice as quiet. No-one gave a shit. Contrast this to when our `friends’ from Bradford City were given the South Stand.

Another annoying myth I heard is regarding the marvellous `96/97 campaign and our marvellous leader at the time. Last year I was at City reserves 1-0 defeat by Macclesfield (which incidentally was the most tedious game of Association Football on record). Sat behind me in the West Stand were a couple of old timers who’d obviously been going to City for many, many years. The conversation turned to your enemy and mine, Terry D*lan. They went on to say how if Tigers 2000 (If they had formed this year would they be called Tigers 2004?) hadn’t protested we’d have gone up that year. How exactly?

Protests or not the football played, the majority of the players and the managerial and tactical methods adopted by D*lan and Lee- and I use the words in the loosest sense – stank. We’d have been equally dismal if Tigers 2000 had never formed. And if you ever hear anyone claim that Mr 10% would have done well if he had only have had some money to spend you have my permission to stick garden shears through their eyes. Of all the preposterous claims to do with City, this is by far the most infuriating.

The vast majority of his signings were terrible, so why would having money change this? If you had given D*lan the budget for the Millennium Dome, we’d still have been in Division Three playing football which would be about as entertaining as being forced to watch a recording of the Olympic Dressage competition on a 24 hour loop, with commentary by Dave Gibbons.

City fans even exaggerate about relatively petty events. Deano. We all love Deano, even the media, otherwise why would he have a cameo role in the Sun’s `Supergoals.com’ advert? He never missed a penalty y’know, that’s what most City fans reckon. Except at THAT game at Blackpool in 1995. He buried the rebound though.

So the next time you overhear some know-it-all droning on about how City are bigger than Barcelona, Juventus and Bayern Munich combined, when we got a crowd of 60,000 to watch the reserves play Workington in 1953 or how a Terry D*lan-managed City passed the ball to feet three times in succession (alright, perhaps not!) leave them be – unless it’s pro D*lan, Fish or Lloyd.

It is the football fan’s right, no his duty, to do so. We all do it, and long may it continue. Now do you remember Andy Payton’s goal against Brighton? Must have beaten 15 defenders and run 300 yards…

James McVie

The Scots, as a rule, hate the English. This hatred tends to have fairly sound historical motives as the reasons for this animosity can be traced back through the past few centuries. Why though, have our celtic cousins reserved a special disdain for Hull City? Confused? Read on.

There has been a worrying pattern developing over the past ten or so years. Whenever City take a player from a club north of the border, we get screwed. This all started way back in 1989, when Eddie Gray was visiting his homeland and spotted a right back for sale, from Hearts, who had an impressive pedigree. Malcolm Murray was the player, who had starred for the Edinburgh club in a Scottish Cup final, not to mention the ensuing European campaign. £40,000 laid out, Murray became a Tiger.

Now Malcolm wasn’t a poor player. He was shite. He displayed an ineptitude when it came to defending that had never been seen before at Boothferry Park, yet was to set a precedent for the next ten years. Unsurprisingly, two months after signing him, Gray was sacked.

Next came Paul Hunter. City actually beat Chelsea to his signature!! Stan Ternant laid out £150,000 for the East Fife star, which was a lot of money in those days, and would be a bastard fortune now (that would buy us two knackered coaches from Stephen Hinchliffe). Paul was overweight, had no first touch, and displayed all of the predatory instincts of a Herry Ngata, and therefore naturally fitted into his new surroundings at Boothferry Park. Months after signing Hunter, Ternant was sacked.

Terry Dolan, master tactician that he is, generally stayed away from Scotland when signing players. Why travel all that way to unearth shite when Rochdale and Bradford’s reserve teams were virtually begging us to take their cast-offs? Dolan however couldn’t resist the wailing of the bagpipes, and towards the end of his regime took Kenny Gilbert from Aberdeen along with Craig Baxter. These players were so anonymous that I challenge even the most ardent of Hull City fans to picture them. Both didn’t stay long, and not long after signing them Dolan finally fucked off.

Then came the ‘Scottish Invasion’. Hateley, one of the most decorated players in Scottish football history, as manager. Kirkwood, one of the most respected coaches from the Scottish Premier League, as his assistant. The whole city was jubilant, yet if we’d paid attention to the warnings from history, perhaps we’d have kept the champagne on ice.

Our first signing was Scott Thomson, who proved every adage that Jimmy Greaves had joked about Scottish keepers to be true. In his short career at City he never actually saved a shot on target. Whitworth came from Kilmarnock, commanded huge wages, got beaten up in the City Centre for slagging the club off, and never played for City again.

Hateley himself briefly treat us to an appearance, totally bemusing the City faithful with his marvellous falling over antics. Rumour had it that Nike were thinking of bringing out shorts with studs on them to accommodate forhe amount of time that Hateley spent on his fat, overpaid arse.

Then though, perhaps two of the biggest crimes by Scottish players towards City were committed, and they came in the shape of Brian McGinty and Steven Boyack. These two bastards inspired an impressive run at the end of Hateley’s first season, and somewhat unforgivably, gave us hope and made Hateley look like a half-decent manager.

Boyack returned to Glasgow, safe in the knowledge that his work was done, but McGinty stayed, was half the player he’d been in the previous season, and under Hateley’s guidance helped us to bottom of the third and six points adrift. You all know the rest.

Warren wisely left the Scottish leagues alone in his pursuit of talent, and Brian has done so far, but a chill went down my spine when we were rumoured to be trying to sign Don Goodman from Motherwell.

Perhaps the most unpalatable fact throughout this is that we gave them our finest player of the last decade, when Deano went to Aberdeen, who are apparently also interested in Tappa.
You would have thought that this would have perhaps softened their hatred of the Tigers, but if anything it intensified throughout the Hateley years.

So the next time Scotland are unluckily knocked out of a major tournament in the first round by being stuffed 3-0 by Morocco, don’t shed a tear, or feel sympathy for the 40 stone Glaswegian sobbing and staining the St Andrews cross painted on his face, remember Murray, Hunter, Thomson, Whitworth and the rest, and think to yourself “Ha. That’ll learn ‘em.”

Richard Gardham

Sometime I feel sorry for John Fieldhouse. No, hang on, don’t stop reading, I’ll explain. It’s never pleasant doing a job at which you are patently no good, for a kick-off. I once had a job as a window cleaner’s mate and my boss and I liked nothing more than spending the morning’s takings getting smashed at lunchtime, before going back up the ladder with a gallon or so of ale on board.

I wasn’t right for the job, but at least I got out intact and now I don’t do it any more. Clean windows that is, I still do the supping part. But Fieldhouse for some reason blunders on in a role for which he is obviously unfit. Why?

If only the Hull Daily Mail had thought to employ him as, say, a car park attendant, I’m sure he would have been much happier, in a spiffy (albeit rather tight) uniform, with a cheery smile, touching his cap politely to his betters as he directs them into their allocated spaces.

Unfortunately they employ him to write about Hull City AFC, which has left him somewhat exposed. He has only two real faults, 1) he knows nothing about the Tigers, and 2) he is a dreadful writer, but these do seem to hamstring him somewhat.

Pick any report at random and you’ll find cliché and error battling away for supremacy in what our hero would undoubtedly refer to as a showdown. In the one I’ve just read (October 10th) he says that Aberdeen is Britain’s most Northerly club, which no doubt comes as a surprise to both the Dons themselves and Inverness Caledonian Thistle, amongst others. Aberdeen were probably also bemused to find that they apparently signed Dean Windass from us for £850,000, as the fee was actually 200k less.

I’ve stopped getting angry about his laziness, ignorance and lack of attention to detail as I don’t have time to be permanently annoyed. And in fairness, the lad is certainly versatile.

He was an equally useless reporter for Hull KR prior to his current appointment. Perhaps he could be employed as a dreadful TV critic if their current incumbent, and former telly addict champion, the estimable Ray Rumkee, who does after all have a proper job in advertising at the Hull Daily vague as well, moves on. That might be rather fun:

Saturday 6.30 am on Channel 5, Bluffy the Vampire Slayer
The world of Sunnydale was rocked to its foundations as Fluffy the Werewolf destroyer found herself locked in a life and death struggle with the forces of evil! And Beefy hammered out a warning that her undead opponents would not be getting matters all their own way!

Fifi, played by spoon-bending actress Sarah Uri Gellar, admitted that she had trained well through the week with Giles the librarian and was in the best shape of her life for this weekend’s showdown. Girls revealed, ‘We are still looking to strengthen the squad after Faith unfortunately had to be sold to the Mayor so that we could afford to pay Xander and Willow as it’s always difficult over the summer vacation after graduation when no revenue is coming in.

And it was a shame to lose Angel to Chicago but he was keen to battle evil in America’s most Northern city. But I’m actively looking for a big new slayer to produce some crosses and hold up the Holy Water which should give Bushy the chance to stake her claim up front.’ The bespectacled Girdles blasted back at critics who had condemned his strategy as being over cautious. He rapped, ‘Would anyone like a cup of tea?’

But though his general lack of competence and inability to do the job for which he is employed are reasons enough to pity Fat John, the main area of sympathy I have stems from the difficulty of writing about Hull City at the moment. What do you say?

At the start of this season I thought there was a lack of expectation based upon the comic book summer that we had suffered.

I had a terrible fear that we might be dreadful. Well we haven’t been that. But we haven’t been right wonderful. And that’s really no more than could be expected. We haven’t strengthened, through no fault of our coaching staff, who clearly were only told a very partial story by the board about the state of City’s finances.

It’s one thing to be told that you are on a tight budget. It’s quite another to discover that due to financial mismanagement a transfer embargo has been placed upon you. Oh yes, and you are locked out of your ground.

Under the circumstances (and you wouldn’t really want to be under there, would you?) I think Little and his team have done well. In most games we’ve looked purposeful, we’ve played to a pattern and kept our shape we’ve tried to pass the ball. In all honesty it’s been a while since we could say that on a consistent basis.

Yet we remain in the bottom half of the table as we move towards the end of the first quarter of the season. Gates are down compared with the corresponding stage of the season last time round. Hull folk aren’t stupid and I think there’s a general recognition that however much the coaching staff may have impressed, the team is simply not good enough.

I’m fascinated to know what the Board make of this. After all, Joyce was sacked after guiding the side to the same sort of position last season. Surely they wouldn’t sack Little?

Yet if they keep him if he does no better, presumably that’s recognition of the fact that it’s lack of players not coaching nous that’s the problem? So it would be their fault, wouldn’t it? You think that’s unfair? Watch them take the credit if we do get any success, even a promotion, as part of the 5 year, 4 year, 3 year, 2 year 1 year and his dog plan that we are suddenly hearing so little about.

Still, in fairness, Buchanan has recently spoken warmly about the fine job the manager is doing. This was good to hear as it brought back cosy memories of the Chairman addressing a supporters’ meeting just a year ago when he said the same thing about Warren Joyce.

On the pitch, again, what do you say? We’re organised in defence, as we damn well should be with all the central defenders we have hoofing about the place. Midfield is slick and skilful when Whitmore plays. When he doesn’t, well, it isn’t. Our attack is out of sorts and almost everyone seems to think that we need a physical presence up front on the lines of, to pluck a name completely at random, Colin Alcide. Big Col, the Lion of Lucia, was not everyone’s half coconut of rum punch but I feel we’ve never looked properly balanced since he was sold on, against the wishes and to the general humiliation of Warren Joyce. Nothing, in short, that you might not have guessed from the start of the season.

The one signing that might actually cover a weakness is that of our new custodian of the leather, Musselwhite. I’m acutely aware that he might yet do some disastrous stuff as it is early days and we have seen more false dawns than Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, but to date he has looked an improvement on both Lee Banzai! Bracey and Steve Wilson. If by the time you read this he has had a ‘mare at Halifax, I’m sorry.

In short, that’s why I feel sorry for the Fieldmouse. I can’t think of what to write about the Tigers and I only have to do it every few months. He’s supposed to file something 6 days a week. It can’t be easy. And I have the advantage of knowing a bit about the club and actually wanting to watch them, benefits sadly denied to the Lardster.

I can’t in all honesty see Fat John getting any better. He hasn’t got it in him. City are a bit different. They can do better. But whether it’s this season (and with this board), well to be honest it doesn’t look a lot more likely than it did a few months ago. Ah well. Now, where did I put the Hull Daily Vague’s TV guide?

Mark Gretton

Terry Dolan had one. David Lloyd had one. Everybody who enrolls at Weight Watchers has one. No, not a B.O. problem, I’m talking about ‘five-year plans’. You may also remember, amidst all the DTI and Fraud Squad investigations, court appearances, transfer embargoes, negotiations with Lloyd and the lock out, that Nick Buchanan also had a ‘five-year plan’. To be in Division One by 2004, he said, and I lapped it up like John McGovern would a can of Special Brew.

Now, in the 2000/2001 season, it seems unlikely we’ll be promoted come May, which leaves just three years of unlikely upward momentum to spoil the Hull City tradition of bullshitting chairmen. It has taken the board two years to drag the team from the foot of the table (for which I’m eternally grateful) to where we were when Dolan fucked off. At this rate of progress, we be in the division’s top half by 2003. And at the moment, we are about 2000 down on the average gate the board need to break even, and they don’t seem to have a contingency plan. Oh bollocks.

The combination of winding up orders and transfer embargoes have left me wondering whether Mr Buchanan had a plan at all, never mind a five year one, in spite of him delivering a top drawer manager who, backed properly, could win anything thrown at him. Brian Little has the best track record of all Division Three managers, however he has not been appointed to bring his top-flight and European football experience to Boothferry Park.

Brian Little has been appointed because of his record with Darlington, who he dragged from the bowels of non-league football to the Division Four championship on virtually no budget. Mr Buchanan has already gone on record with the heart warming news that Brian can only bring in the striker we so desperately crave on loan, and that having no money should not be much of a problem to a man like Brian, but if Mr. Buchanan expects Brian to repeat his Darlo feats here, he should take into account that a few things are slightly different to back then.

For a start, Little’s 1991 championship outfit were already on a high after winning the Conference by a mile, they weren’t a demoralised bunch of prima-donnas who’d spent years in the lower reaches of the basement together. Secondly, Brian released almost all of Darlo’s squad and replaced them with players who actually wanted to play there. Whilst here Brian has released half a squad and managed to scrape together some last minute signings to add to the players already at his disposal, players who either can’t be arsed, are under-motivated or are jetting off to El Salvador to play for their country and getting injured in the process (why can’t Jamie Wood get more Cayman Island call ups?)

Also, football in general has changed. In 1991, every club in the bottom division was skint to the point of extinction, with Aldershot and Maidstone falling by the wayside. Now the club is competing with the likes of Cardiff, Chesterfield and Darlington themselves, all bankrolled by rich and generous sugar daddies. I am still unsure as to whether Buchanan is un-rich or un-generous, but by coming here Brian Little has probably picked the worst place to resurrect his management career as he is never going to be backed properly by this board. It took Cliff Britton five years to achieve anything here, coincidentally the same amount of time it took him to prise open Harold Needler’s wallet. Hanging about waiting for some support from above is not in Brian Little’s style. He’ll just fuck off. And who can blame him?

His cheap and cheerful signings so far have been excellent, Musselwhite is the first goalkeeper at City since Roy Carroll who doesn’t appear to grease his gloves in Brilliantine prior to a match, Brightwell is a slow but necessarily solid stopper, Philpott is the first City player who can take set pieces for fucking ages and Marcelle is exciting to watch (though not an out-and-out striker) who deserves a contract. Had Brian Little been given just a piffling £300,000, the fee splashed out by Cardiff for Leo Bad-Fortune-West, we would surely be in the top three by now.

We knew that this sort of money would definitely not be available, but if the club were willing to take a gamble on Joycey last season, why can’t this be done for Brian? He can be trusted, unlike Warren, to deliver something in return. However the pre-season embargo damaged that option, though in my opinion, Brian would not have been able to sign any more players than he did, never mind a wide player, a central midfielder and most importantly, a proven goal scorer.

The City hierarchy seem to be secretly crossing their fingers and hoping that Brian Little is a miracle worker, while Brian crosses his fingers that some capital will emerge from somewhere other than player sales. While Brian says we can hope for no more than mid-table, the board say Brian can take us up. Nick Buchanan appears confident that promotion can be attained, but I personally don’t believe that he gives a fuck.

Lat season, despite the boards over budgeting, the club brought in Whitmore and Goodison on (allegedly) two grand a week each, I thought it was to improve our league position. However the sales of captain Dave D’Auria, misused waste of talent Gareth Williams and the big striker we now desperately need Colin Alcide to make ends meet pissed on that bonfire. Theo and Ian were simply signed in the hope that they’d be worth one million a piece in six months. Although I never felt we were going to achieve promotion under Joyce, he was hard done by in this respect. He was allowed to bring in new players over the summer (admittedly most of them were shit) before having three first teamers sold from under him. The club had gone back on their ‘five year plan’ after six months.

The capture of Brian Little was a masterstroke, but I fear it won’t be long before he gets pig sick of unpaid rent, winding up orders and buggers off as the chairman presides over a stagnant Division Three club, in which case they may as well have appointed Rod Arnold.

Mr Buchanan being a good spin doctor as (if not better than) Alistair Campbell, rarely resists the temptation to have a dig at Tom Belton. Now I’m no believer in Belton as the next Don Robinson, let alone a Jack Walker, and I particularly agree with the point that he is ambitionless and may be satisfied to keep us in Division Three.

Nonetheless I’ve had enough winding up orders in the last decade to last me forever, and they are becoming more frequent now then they ever where in the Dolan/Fish era. The club’s reputation has been dragged through dog shit umpteen times during the present chairman’s reign, and there is no sign of us escaping Division Three with Nick Buchanan at the helm.

Although every season in this division is another step towards extinction, I’d rather the club went bust with it’s reputation intact. I’d also prefer a chairman with whom you knew where you stood, with whom you didn’t have to read between the lines and whom you believed when he explained where the latest gate receipts from a cup tie with a Premiership team had gone.

Mr Buchanan had his chance, he’s had two years to bring about an improvement and he hasn’t done so. He’s unlikely to be driven out of the club either, as the fans have already seen off Fish, Needler and Lloyd already and, I believe, are far too jaded for another scrap with the men in suits.

Compare his reign with Lloyds however and you’ll see a few similarities, big crowds but still losing money, cup-tie proceeds vanishing, a question mark over where we’ll be laying in the future and a big name manager who isn’t being backed.

These are the differences; Lloyd put more money in than Buchanan has so far, £300,000, Lloyd’s henchman Appleton creamed off less (allegedly) than Buchanan’s chum Hinchliffe, and Lloyd never went cap in hand to the PFA.

However Lloyd has cost the club in rent and called you and I crap while Buchanan, significantly, is a great PR guy, with Blunderside hanging off his every (swear) word as Lloyd (twat though he is) painted as the baddie every time Nick and Co. drop a bollock.
Five years ago, Gillingham began a ‘five year plan’ of their own following receivership, under the stewardship of Millwall boot boy Paul Scally. Five years on, the Gills have gone up twice, played at Wembley, and are making a mockery of every one who predicted they’d become Divison One’s whipping boys.

The team that got them out of the basement division was no better than one we have now, their gaffer was a nobody who spent a mere £100,000 and they had attendances of around 4,000. The thing that got them started in the first place was simply this; when the chairman said he had devised a five year plan, he meant it.

The longer Nick Buchanan remains, the more damage is done to Hull City. I appreciate that I’m out on a limb saying this, but the appointment of Brian little has pacified many, but there is only so much shit the fans can swallow. The latest winding up order must surely be the last straw.

Look at little Gillingham, while they entertain Fulham and Blackburn, we entertain Rochdale and Torquay. That’s how you run a football club Nick.

Danny Lodge

In the last issue of Amber Nectar, Andy Dalton pointed an accusatory finger at the Hull Daily Mail over its coverage of Hull City AFC. The Mail’s Editor John Meehan was none too pleased and sent us this response…

“Instead of building for the future, the club is in chaos. However, it (the Boothferry Park lockout) is resolved, that the situation was allowed to develop this far raises serious questions about the suitability for office of the current board.”
Hull Daily Mail Comment, June 22nd 2000.

“The manager’s hands are tied. He can improve the motivation, training and tactics, but he cannot recruit the players required to transform a mediocre team into a successful one. It all seems so illogical. Why employ a top-line manager and then not give him the tools to do the job? The City board have to provide their manager with the necessary support before he and the fans lose heart”
Hull Daily Mail Comment, August 3rd 2000

Hardly evidence of a newspaper running “a propaganda job for Buchanan and Hinchliffe”, as Andy Dalton contends.

But perhaps Andy Dalton doesn’t read the Mail all that often. That really can be the only explanation for his thoroughly misinformed article in Amber Nectar. Before I go any further I’d like to make clear that that I don’t mind criticism of the Mail, or of me personally. In fact, I expect it and a great deal of the criticism we receive is constructive and helpful

I also don’t mind in the least a bit of fun being poked at us. The Dull Daily Mail feature in the same edition of Amber Nectar was standard fanzine fare and even mildly amusing in parts (although I’m not sure John Fieldhouse takes kindly to his new byline). But Mr Dalton’s piece was something else. It seemed to me a classic case of “shoot the messenger”.

The author is clearly far from happy with the club’s owners, but chooses to take it out on us. The starting point for his rant against the Mail seems to be our coverage of the Boothferry Park lockout caused by the dispute between the board and landlord David Lloyd about unpaid rent.
Now, I’m not going to claim that everything we do is perfect, nor was it on this occasion. The fact was that John Fieldhouse was, unfortunately, on holiday when the story broke (he deserves some time off like everybody else) and, at the time, the sports desk was somewhat lacking in leadership (an issue since resolved).

But to claim, as Mr Dalton does, that we ran just a “single, tiny, rushed piece” about it is simply nonsense. Far from “blatant disregard” for the story, we led our front-page on it on the day of the lockout, followed by dozens of stories in the following weeks. Certainly our coverage was in much greater depth and sustained for longer than any other media. And, although I agree that Sky Sports provide an excellent service for sports fans, you can’t rely on them for a thorough report from an away trip to Torquay or Hartlepool.

It seems that Mr Dalton won’t be happy until the pages of the Mail are filled entirely with news from Boothferry Park. I’m sorry, but that simply isn’t going to happen.

He talks about us “gushing interminably about the most ridiculous, uninteresting local news”, forgetting, it seems, that we are, after all, a NEWSpaper. It’s our job to report local news. It may be boring to Mr Dalton, but it is interesting enough to be read by 201,000 people in this area every day.

I’m also sorry, Mr Dalton, that you have to put up with us writing about rugby league and speedway. We do so because a significant proportion of our readership is interested in these sports and expect us to keep them informed about them. And, by the way, although I accept that the potential support of the football club is greater than the two senior rugby clubs, the combined attendance at Hull FC and Hull KR is often greater than at Boothferry Park.

The fanciful conspiracy theory simply doesn’t hold water, either. Even if you set aside the Comment pieces I referred to at the beginning of this article, I fail to see how any reasonable person could believe we have an agenda which protects the City board. There is no such agenda we simply strive to report accurately, within the limits of the law, events at and surrounding the club.

Mr Dalton refers to the current trial involving Stephen Hinchliffe and our failure to report it. This is simply because there is a legal ruling banning any media from reporting the case or even mentioning that it is in progress (in fact, I probably shouldn’t mention it even here). The case is expected to last for at least six months. Please be assured that, at its conclusion, it will be reported fully in the Mail, providing further restrictions are not imposed. He also asks why anti-Board letters are “never” published. Again, I can only presume Mr Dalton rarely reads the Mail or Sportsmail because they certainly are, as long as they are legally safe to publish.

The latter point should not be missed. I have a responsibility to ensure that what we publish does not contravene the many laws which apply to newspapers, in particular the libel laws. There is a great deal of information we receive that we simply cannot print. Understandably, fanzines are far less careful for instance, I noticed a letter in Amber Nectar referring to Mr Hinchliffe that would have given me a heart attack were it published in the Mail. Come to think of it, referring to the Mail (and presumably me) as incompetent, arrogant and smug is probably actionable, but I’ll let that pass.

Amid all Mr Dalton’s misinformed so-called facts, I was most concerned by his claim that we deliberately misquote or misrepresent fans’ comments. All I can say is that, if any Amber Nectar reader can provide real evidence of this, I will investigate it thoroughly. We don’t get everything right but we try very hard to do so and we certainly never deliberately misquote or misrepresent anybody.

As a football supporter myself I understand entirely the frustration of Mr Dalton and other fans at their club’s plight. I too long for the day when Hull City enjoy stability off the field and success on it. I too share the supporters’ concern over the running of the club and their alarm at the FA and police investigations.

There is only so much that the Hull Daily Mail can do to influence what happens at Boothferry Park, but I can assure Hull City supporters that we will continue to strive to keep them fully informed about events on and off the field.

Finally, Mr Dalton, I have some advice from a professional journalist to an amateur: I don’t know what it is, but please don’t give up the day job.

It isn’t difficult finding reasons to mock Scunthorpe, especially when their fans are so accommodating as to supply you with new ones. Take Steve Wright for example, no not the Radio 2 DJ, but the producer of an Internet site dedicated to the Scunts. After watching Euro 2000 he hatched a plan to have Scunny fans emulate the thousands of Dutch fans clad from head to toe in orange (or oranje if you will).

Wright figured he might be able to persuade the ‘legions’ of Scunny fans (average attendance 3,593) to all don either the clubs garish new lime green away shirt or other green garb.

Speaking in his local rag, the spotty 18 year old from Bottesford (I think that’s a place, but it may be a sexual preference) declared “As we have just been relegated everyone, club and fans, want a quick return to division two and to kick-start our season we will have to win away at Macclesfield.

To help do that the fans can create a fantastic atmosphere in the away end, and it would inspire the players to play and the fans to sing if the away end was a sea of green.”

A sea of green? The yellowbellied fool seems to have overlooked that the reason the Holland fans look impressive is because there are lots of them, and that while 50000 people at the ArenA in Amsterdam or at De Kuip in Rotterdam bedecked in orange ensemble looks fantastic, 17 people at Gay Meadow and Spotland wearing green does not.

The Scunthorpe Evening Telegraph, clearly desperate for stories that day, continued… ’Steve is hoping the campaign will catch on and wants all fans to play their part, whether they have the new away shirt or not. He’s encouraging supporters to wear anything green, take green balloons and green paper to add to the occasion.’

Eager for a bit of publicity, the club’s commercial department latched onto the scheme and trotted out the old ‘sales of shirts are at record levels’ line, i.e. they sold 150 of them.

And so the season began, the Scunts notching up three points with a 1-0 win at Moss Rose, and there in the away end were people clad in green. But as viewers of Goals on Sunday that weekend will testify, it wasn’t quite a ‘sea of green’, more a small pond, or even a puddle. Fuckwits.

Les Motherby