Phil Brumwell has rejoined his old club Darlington on a free transfer. The 25 year old midfielder was released by the Quakers during the summer and joined City after a trial period, but he failed to make any impact at Boothferry Park, making only two starts. Many wondered why Brumwell was signed in the first place as he was only ever a squad player at Darlo. The ex-Mackem was Brian Little’s third signing, joining just before a transfer embargo prevented the boss from strengthening the squad further, if Little had known that embargo was coming it is unlikely he would have brought Brumwell in. Still, with the little lad struck off the wage bill, Brian might have the cash to offer another midget, namely Clint Marcelle, a permanent contract. Or maybe not.

The Council have had the outline planning application for the proposed new stadium approved by Government Office, meaning they can now determine the application at their discretion. The Council gave the project a ‘Minded to Approve’ decision at the beginning of October, this will become a formal outline approval providing conditions imposed by the Council’s Development Management Committee are met. There are over fifty conditions, covering all aspects of the development including traffic and transportation issues and design of the actual buildings.

The Stadium Project Team hope to formally appoint a technical design team shortly, they will be led by an architectural practice called the Miller Partnership, who were architects on Sunderland’s Stadium of Light, Middlesbrough’s Riverside Stadium and Stoke’s Britannia Stadium. The Council are currently inviting contractors with experience of building stadia to express an interest in constructing the final designs, and hope to appoint a contractor by May 2001 with work starting on the site next summer.

The long running court case between directors past and present over ownership of Hull City has been dropped. After being ousted off the board 18 months ago by Nick Buchanan and Stephen Hinchliffe, former directors Tom Belton, David Bennett and Alan Devy instigated High court action to wrestle back control of the club. However the case has been set aside as Buchanan and Bennett seem to have reached an out of court agreement. Bennett and Devy financed the purchase of Hull City from David Lloyd back in 1998 but were soon booted out by the ethically challenged Nick Buchanan who had allocated the majority of shares to himself and old mucker Stephen Hinchliffe. Tom Belton, who was Chairman at the time, was dispensed with shortly after and replaced by Buchanan who, in response to all of this once again trotted out the old line that he has the money to buy Boothferry Park in place and a deal with David Lloyd is being clinched as we speak. Yawn.

Buchanan was scheduled to meet supporters last night at a Tigers Co-op organised event at the 147 club on Spring Bank. However he pulled out of the question-and-answer session late on Wednesday sfternoon citing ‘personal reasons’ as his excuse, his wife had organised a surprise birthday party for him apparently (not much of a surprise then is it Nick?). Quite a pitiful excuse really and the whole thing reeks of blatant disregard for the supporters. This isn’t the first time the Tigers chairman has bailed on a supporters meeting, he was due to meet the Southern Supporters Branch recently, but failed to appear as a dog had eaten his homework, or something. This event had been scheduled for a long time, and to pull out after it had been announced in the press is not on, considering he gave assurances that he would attend on Saturday.