The rich tapestry of football has been crafted over many years, and has many different alluring components. Stories of yesteryear, of legendary players and monumental games, of controversy and opinion. Oh, and myths. The modern game has a huge store of practically indestructible myths, from the FA Cup being “romantic” (the romance at Kettering was almost tangible, wasn’t it?) to the one about Matt Le Tissier being lazy. Oh yeah, a professional football club would really pay a lazy player £20,000 a week, wouldn’t they? Honestly.

But surely one of the more enduring (and therefore irritating) myths of modern day football is that the Nationwide Conference is somehow far stronger than the division above it. But examine things closely, and the myth withers under the spotlight of facts.

Of course, like all myths and legends, there is some basis to it, however misplaced. That Macclesfield, Conference champions of 1997, achieved promotion from Division Three at their first attempt, following the examples of Barnet and Wycombe, was indeed very impressive. However, Barnet have since slid back in the basement, as have Macclesfield, both now struggling on puny crowds in shoddy stadia.

Only Wycombe now continue to impress, currently mid-table in Division Two, but still with small crowds. The more recent additions to the Football League, Cheltenham and Kidderminster, have made decent starts.

Cheltenham narrowly missed out on last season’s playoffs, and look like going one better this time around, while Kidderminster are currently in a comfortable mid-field berth. But so they should be. They were the champions last time around, and you would expect divisional champions do well the following season.

More credence to the pro-Conference argument comes from the failure of the sides tumbling into it from above to do well. Okay then, let’s look at them. Halifax are already back in the league. Hereford, after a few indifferent seasons, are in the hunt for promotion this season. Doncaster did flirt with relegation from the Conference, but they were a broken club at the time.
Having sorted themselves out, they are now chasing promotion. Scarborough, a non-league outfit if ever there was one, have stabilised themselves, and are midtable. Chester, relegated in dismal style last season, are eighth, but should be higher. The Conference certainly doesn’t appear to be the insurmountable challenge its proponents would have us believe.

Let’s look at the bottom end of the Conference – those teams who would narrowly survive in the Football League, so the story goes. The bottom three currently comprises Hednesford, Kingstonian and Kettering. Err, who? Hednesford, after the glory of their D. Laws-sponsored victory at Boothferry Park have slumped horribly (and amusingly), and are in desperate trouble. Kingstonian have neither the players, money or set-up to survive in the League, and probably not even the Conference for much longer. Kettering might have beaten City, but that wasn’t hard, any self-respecting pub team would have beaten us that night.

They are a club with massive problems, thanks mostly to the ineptitude of their chairman and manager. While one may sympathise with their plight, they are still light-years away from league standard, although incredibly their ground IS considered satisfactory. Bizarre. The rest of the lower Conference clubs are barely worth mentioning. None could hack it in the Football League, whatever they and their supporters might think.

The exciting dynamism of lower league teams that is supposedly there just does not exist. Rushden have a new stadium, rich owner, and a good team. And? They are still in the Conference, the stadium is positively Glanfordian in scale and crowds are nothing to write home about. Yeovil are looking good on the pitch, but again they have only very limited room for growth – mid-table Division Three, being generous. The middle-to-lower end of the division is just a motley collection of small clubs with no potential, largish clubs dying a lingering death and mediocrities who’ve been in the Conference forever, and will no doubt stay there forever – and worse still, are perfectly happy to.

However, because the Conference is thought to be some sort of shining beacon of light stuffed full of ambitious clubs coming forth to sweep the League’s deadwood away, the argument goes that there should be more promotion places into Division Three. Correct – there should be.

In fact, there soon will be. From next season, two Conference clubs will have the opportunity to join the Football League, with two sides departing Division Three. Good.

While they’re at it, why not make it three-up three-down? That will finally put the Conference’s credentials to the test. That pleasing side-effect aside though, it is right in principle. The League have been incredibly insular throughout their entire history. Their intransigent refusal to even admit the Conference champions until the mid-eighties was a disgrace, and they only reluctantly allowed one team per season to enter.

If they League see sense on this issue, English football would at least be truly open, where any non-league side can reasonably dream of playing in the professional divisions. Whether they’d sink or swim is anyone’s guess, but that’s not the point, for the moment.

In fact, our neighbours North Ferriby United should make a push towards this. They have a bit of potential – they should be looking to exploit it. Why not try harder to attract those fans disillusioned with City? They have plenty to offer – beer in the ground, cheap admission, tasty grub, a welcoming feel, decent football and a rapidly improving stadium. East Yorkshire could easily support a Conference team in addition to Hull City.

But I digress. The likely outcome of three-up three-down would be similar to that of Divisions Two and Three, where relegated Division Two sides usually fare quite well, and promoted Division Three sides often struggle. The same would happen – clubs like Hereford, Doncaster, Chester et al, with a considerable league history, would probably return after a while, and cement their position in the league once more. The gap between the Conference and Division Three is just the same as the gap between the other divisions.

What about Hull City? What if Warren Joyce had not kept us in the league? (Which, by the way, was an incredible feat, and one for which certain individuals still do not give proper credit, instead carping on about last season. Shame on you.) Would City have gone under? Off-field, who knows, since this lot are clearly loath to reveal any financial details, whether they incur fines as a result or not. Perhaps, perhaps not, it’s difficult to say. But as far as on-field matters go, our team of 1999 would likely have finished in the top ten of the Conference at the first attempt, probably even higher.

It’s all well and good saying that the Conference clubs would have been determined to cut the “big boys down to size” – that’s no good if the big boys are better at football than you, though. Gates would probably have remained about the same 4-6,000 level – perversely, they may have even risen with the advent of a winning team. Focusing just on the footballing dimension, it is hard to see that City would have remained a non-league team for too long. We might even be half-way through a promotion season now, but for the heroics of a thoroughly under appreciated gentleman currently working in Leeds.

Back again to the Conference. Under a three-up three down system, many small Conference clubs will find themselves in the League, particularly if play-offs were introduced. Those who gain promotion and have no league experience would mostly struggle. Many have no real fan-base to call upon, and would lack the financial clout to survive once the honeymoon period was over. Life in the League without money can be desperately grim. In time some might succeed against the odds, and follow Wycombe’s splendid example. However, most would flail about in the lower reaches of the division, and plenty would return from whence they came. And with them, hopefully the myth would finally die.

Andy Dalton

Assuming you went to see City’s win at Scunthorpe in December, which incident from the game would you say was befitting of the description ‘naff’?

The referee missing Nathan Stanton chopping Tappa’s legs away in the box perhaps? Or Guy Ipoua’s sensationally inept miss, when he nearly hit the top of the stand from three yards out? Or the godawful ‘We are the Tigers from Boo-Boothferry’ chant?

"Ooops! Pissed me'sen again"

If your name is Brian Laws none of the aforementioned acts. No, the bouffant-haired halfwit claimed that David Brightwell’s goal for City was ‘naff’. Now I’ll admit that Brightwell isn’t the most skilful player in the lower divisions, but his shot was well hit, accurate and better than anything Scunny managed.

The only poor aspect of the goal was Scunny’s hilariously slack wall, and Tommy Evans’ reactions being so slow that the ball was already in the net before he dived.

He also went on to claim that Clint Marcelle ‘used his experience’ to win the free kick from which the Tigers scored, i.e. Clint dived. Incredibly this was after Andy Dawson, the impressive Scunt fullback admitted that he’d fouled Marcelle on Radio Humberside.

Now there would be no reason whatsoever for Dawson to claim he’d fouled Clint if he hadn’t, so wrong again Bri. He couldn’t simply accept that he’d lost and City deserved their win.

Mind you Laws has a long and illustrious history of making a complete tit of himself and I aren’t referring to him winning ‘Blooper of the Month’ on the ‘Goals Galore 88/89′ video.

Back in 95/96, when he was the manager of fellow South Bank degenerates Grimsby Town, Laws actually managed to attract a decent player to Blundell Park, the wily Italian schemer Ivano Bonetti. Being head and shoulders above the other dross plying their trade in Europe’s Food Town (snigger) Bonetti became something of a cult figure with Mariners fans. He’d inspired them to their best start to a season in ages. So what does Laws do?

After a poor performance at Luton he chucked a plateful of chicken sandwiches at the current Dundee manager. Bonetti, unsurprisingly slung his hook, and Laws was deservedly sacked within a couple of months. And there’s more. Around a year ago in the Guardian he admitted that prior to a Wembley Cup final with Forest he was so nervous that he wet himself. Yeah, that’s really the sort of thing you want to admit to a national newspaper.

Imbecile.

Also when Steve Guinan, who’d been on loan to Scunthorpe from Forest refused to stay for a second month he stripped him of his club tracksuit in the club car park. Poor old Guinan had to drive home to Nottingham in his underwear. And about a month ago after a 2-1 defeat at Exeter City he described the Grecians’ keeper Arjan van Heusden, as ‘The worst goalie I’ve ever seen’. I would mention that he described Exeter’s strikers Steve Flack and Kevin Francis as being ‘More suited to Basketball’, but he was actually correct about that.

Could you imagine Brian Little coming out with such tripe? Even the likes of Alex Ferguson, Kevin Keegan or John Gregory, all emotional characters have never spouted such drivel. Perhaps it’s because Laws feels so passionately about the job. Perhaps it’s because he wants the fans to identify with him. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t think before he speaks and regrets his actions afterwards. Could be, but I think it’s because Laws is a complete twat.

James McVie

It’s never dull in Hull, so we’re told. Similarly, it’s never dull at Hull City. Unless you count the actual football, that is, which is so interminably dull it pains me to even think about it, let alone write about it. However, if only for historical posterity, I’ll have a go.

And where on earth do you start? From the defence to the attack, we are simply not good enough. Or are we? I rather think we are good enough to at the very least mount a credible play-off challenge. We’re not doing that at the moment, by the way. It is all rather reminiscent of last season, where we always mathematically close, without actually looking particularly likely.  

This time around, we’re just a handful of points away from the promised land of seventh position in the Fourth Division (and if that doesn’t depress you, nothing will). Hell, we even got to within a single point following that marvellous win at Scunthorpe. And what happened yet another false dawn.

So, if we’re good enough, why aren’t we seventh, or higher? Tactics, maybe? Brian Little has a reputation as a cunning tactician, but I’d argue that he’s missed a couple of tricks so far this season. Playing Harper at left wing-back is a flawed plan. He cannot do it any more, if he ever could. His confidence is shot, his play a shadow of what it was. He should have been moved somewhere else on the pitch, or dropped. He is not yet a liability but he is not offering the sort of play someone with his talent (and pay-packet) should be.

Little should move him to right wing-back, where he would probably be more comfortable. Hopefully, when Neil Mann makes his long-awaited comeback, this will happen. Then, you must consider the wisdom of playing Mike Edwards at right wing-back. Edwards is a superb player, with many admirable qualities. However, attacking play is not one of them. He doesn’t make the right runs, or play the correct passes. No problem – with that he’s a centre-back, after all, but it is not fair to ask him to do something he patently cannot do. Like Harper, his confidence is clearly low, and his progress as a player is being harmed.

Then, the very tactics of the team must again be brought into question. It’s not a new debate, of course, but it remains a relevant one. 5-3-2 isn’t working. It didn’t work for Joyce, either. Little, from his days at Villa, West Brom and Stoke, is known to prefer 5-3-2. But it is not wise to employ this formation when it stifles the team at home, and invites pressure away. 4-4-2 is regarded as football’s natural formation, and quite rightly. It provides balance, a definitive shape and best of all, is second nature to most players. It seems quite bizarre to impose an alien formation on the players. Hopefully, when Mann returns, 4-4-2 will make a return, to Mann and Harper playing on the wings, and Whitmore and Brabin in the middle, and a proper flat back four. Well, you can but dream, can’t you?

But no, tactics are not the primary reason we’ve stuttered this season.

The greatest share of any blame lies firmly upon the players. They have shown neither the guile nor the will to win often enough this season. Our tactics are perhaps not helping, but that does not excuse the sheer lack of effort on one or two occasions, most notably against Kettering and Chester.

There is nothing any manager can do about his players not playing properly, save for dropping them and with a squad as small as ours, even that option is not available. Irrespective of who you blame for our financial woes (for some reason, my mind keeps repeating the word ‘Sheffield’), Little simply does not have the option to ring the changes he clearly wants to. For better or worse, we are stuck with what we have.

However, irrespective of which formation our manager opts for, it would appear we have a new tactical option, with the arrival of Kevin Francis from Exeter. His assets are well-known – he’s bloody huge. He will hopefully provide Brown, Bradshaw or Eyre a bit of physical protection up front, giving them more room to do their thing, whatever that might be. However, you can’t help but worry what will happen. Will the defence take the easy option of lumping the ball up front? For that matter, will the midfield? Far easier to aim for Francis’ head than try a simple pass, after all. Will our intentions to play attractive football be sacrificed at the altar of results? No great loss, results are more important than pretty football, but nonetheless, you can’t help but worry.

Furthermore, how will the recent arrival of Rodney Rowe affect things? He has a reputation as a pacy, lively striker with good control and a sharp brain, though he is not noted for being prolific in front of goal. He has toured seemingly every lower league club in Yorkshire, with previous spells at Scarborough, Huddersfield, York and Halifax.

His arrival will bolster our option up front, and suddenly we seem to have a positive abundance of strikers. Brown, Eyre, Harris, Bradshaw, Wood, Francis and Rowe will all be vying for two places. Obviously, that probably spells the end for Harris and Wood, and places a question mark over Bradshaw having much involvement in the second half of the season.

However, with none of forwards in any sort of form, it is easy to see Little opting for Francis and Rowe up front, despite them both being new arrivals. A desperate last throw of the dice, or a master-stroke? Well, Little hasn’t let us down yet, you have to suspect he knows what he’s doing.

Andy Dalton

It doesn’t take a bean-counting genius like Chris Lee to know that our beloved Hull City are in a serious pickle. Sure, the arrival of former Coca-Cola Cup-winning boss Brian Little has seen a modest improvement on the pitch, but it’s behind the scenes that gives us the greatest cause for concern. More so than if the HDM informed us that accountant Lee was set to ditch his abacus and pull on his football boots once more.

Now apparently, in the financial year that ended July 1999, City recorded a profit of £32,000. Which means that the recently reported debt of over £1.5 million has been incurred in a year and a half. So that’ll be the eighteen months in which we drew Chelsea in the FA Cup and Liverpool over two legs in the Worthington Cup then? So much for Buch’s ‘promise’ to the supporters of a return to First Division football, all nicely encased in a 35,000 seater super stadium, in five years.

Since Nasty Nick arrived after a, shall we say, controversial spell at Sheffield United with close friend and DTI-banned director Stephen Hinchcliffe, we have come under severe scrutiny from tax inspectors, the FA – and even the police.

And we thought David Lloyd was bad! At least his failings were tempered with the knowledge that the tennis chap didn’t have the foggiest about how to run a football club, and was prone to passionate public outbursts that bordered on the mentally unstable.

Unfortunately for us, Buchanan DOES appreciate just how to run, and fleece, a football club successfully. And he delivers typically calm, con-man, ‘everything’s gonna be all right’ statements on an all too regular basis to the HDM.

Ah, yes. The Hull Daily Mail. That bastion of.. what exactly? Every game to come is a ‘showdown’, every game gone a ‘hard-fought battle’. The quality of match-reporting was never an issue, for every local rag will deliver the same, cock-eyed slant on their team’s fortunes. But surely none would steer clear of a story that would guarantee them record sales?

The fans in Hull have been waiting in vain for the headline ‘Where Has The Money Gone?’ for over a year now. At it’s best, it’s failure to deliver is just lazy journalism. But at it’s worse it smacks of a conspiracy. Why else would the paper faithfully trot out the old chestnut ‘Tigers set to sign Gary Jones/Kevin Francis/Gabriel Batistuta’ at every available opportunity over the summer when it was clear that something horrible was brewing in the corridors of power.

Why else would it continually report that we were ‘unfortunately’ in the middle of a transfer embargo like it was a perfectly normal thing that all clubs go through?

Where’s the investigating? The writers prepared to get their hands dirty? If they are being threatened or silenced by Buch’s minder mates, then that too is a story in itself for Christ’s sake! I worked at Blundell’s Corner for a while, not too long ago, and the then-chairman tried heavy-handed tactics to sway the then-Tigers reporter’s version of events. Kneecapping, I believe, was the preferred method of warning – but said chairman was told to clear off and the story ran. Not too long before he did a runner himself I might add.

So what’s changed? Is the Mail now simply a tool of propaganda for the club? Are we not interested in why Brabin and Goodison came to blows on the pitch on Boxing Day? Or what David Brown screamed at the Kempton fans? It’s not libellous to print what he said, but to my mind it’s clear that someone, somewhere, is deeming certain things ‘damaging or derogatory to the club’ and telling the Mail not to bother with it.

The non-reporting in the Buchanan case is both disgraceful and bizarre. When unpaid rent of over £118,000 forced two Lloyd vs. Buch court appearances, and the defendant tried the novel approach of counter-sueing tennis boy, claiming he owed him slightly more, where was the Mail to ask what the hell was going on? How can a grown man, in charge of our football club, actually believe you can counter-sue someone and ‘just call it quits’ in a court of law? That’s what the reader wants to know.

In fact, the reader wants to know a hell of a lot more. What exactly was the role of Stephen Hinchliffe? What’s happened to the team coach? Who is owed money in the local community by the City’s football club? Who designed that bloody badge and how much did he get paid? What’s all this about Mr Chu’s Chinese restaurant? Oh yes, and Where’s The Money Gone?

Phew. That’s a lot of stuff gone unnoticed there boys. Give us £30k and a car and I’ll come back and get your answers for you. In the meantime I’m trying to sign Gary Jones and looking forward to a blockbuster of a showdown on Saturday afternoon.

Andy Downie

SCIENTISTS DISCOVER GENE THAT MAKES

SCUNTHORPE UNITED FANS ARSEHOLES

Scunts react with existential despair as Lee Hodges misses a penalty at the Ark. Ha ha.

Following a scientific discovery that could have huge implications for future generations of inbred Scunts, geneticists at Cambridge University announced last week that they have isolated the specific DNA series that makes fans of Scunthorpe United complete and utter arseholes.

“It has long been acknowledged that most of Lincolnshire’s inhabitants are total wankers devoid of human worth” said Dr Helmut Estoppel, Head of Research at Cambridge.

“It was not until we began clinical testing however, that it became evident that Scunthorpe fans display significantly more wankerous traits than the average yellowbelly.”

Estoppel added; “The most prominent trait shared by all the Glanford Park regulars tested, is that of making preposterous claims, such as the suggestion that Scunny are better than local rivals Hull City, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

We could not understand how anyone could believe such bullshit, until we discovered gene series SCU-1/HC-2.” According to the Cambridge team of researchers, series SCU-1/HC-2 is a set of ‘allelomorphs’, or collections of genetic material that render carriers unable to comprehend rational and logical statements.

Researcher Dr Dodderick Simons said “people with this gene produce up to seventeen times the amount of phucwitamene normally found in a human. Phucwitamene is a naturally occurring rational-thought override endorphin that is released in response to certain types of stimuli, in the case of these yellowbellies, anything relating to Scunthorpe United.”

These endorphins completely disable the higher reasoning functions of the brain, leaving a person susceptible to believing all manner of bollocks, like claims implying Scunny stand a chance of going up this season or that they didn’t deserve to be gubbed both home and away by Hull City last season.
Studies are continuing to determine the exact number of carriers of the gene. Current estimates put the number at around three thousand.

Carriers of the SCU-1/HC-2 gene are hailing the find. Luke Cornhole, editor of the fanzine Iron Deficiency, said “it’s about time science took steps to help people like me realise that I support a shitty little team and that rabid jealousy of Hull City is not productive.”

The discovery of SCU-1/HC-2 is thought to be the most significant advance in gene-mapping since the University of Dusseldorf isolated the gene that makes Hull FC fans claim Hull is a rugby town.

Behaviour Change Functions of SCU-1/HC-2

1. Starts transcription of RNA Sequence which lowers stadium appreciation faculties, allowing subject to believe Glanford Park isn’t merely a glorified shed.

2. Predisposes subject to take the utterances of Brian Laws seriously. David Brightwell’s free kick was naff you know.

3. Produces morality quashing dopamines that allow subject to commit incestuous acts guilt-free.

Les Motherby