So then, game number five of Mad March, and following the kind of heroics in Wales that we really didn’t dare expect to see, one can again almost touch the optimism surrounding this Hull City’s team quest to finish in a top six spot.

Nick Barmby takes his side to London this weekend looking for an 11th game without defeat, a statistic which is tremendous at face value. However, only four of those have been victories. Tuesday night’s match at Cardiff was a mesmeric experience for all emotionally involved, but unfortunately that win – and, currently, any win – remains the exception rather than the rule. So the trip to Crystal Palace gives the Tigers a clear opportunity to continue righting that small but visible wrong.

It’s never a picnic for a visiting side at Selhurst Park but in City’s favour is the state of play for Palace. Mid-table, with minimal chance of making the play-offs and certainly no danger of being relegated, they are at the point of the season when clubs and players begin to think about the beach. Wiser sages within the Tiger Nation claim that facing watertreaders rather than sides fighting for their lives at this stage of the campaign is more beneficial. And they are right.

Barmby has little immediate need to change the team but with the fixtures coming thick and fast and a home game against leaders Southampton looming on Tuesday, he may choose to tinker mildly again with the starting XI in order to keep some of the biggest hitters healthy for that huge midweek match. This won’t include goalkeeper or defence, but maybe one or two individuals further up the pitch, especially if Robbie Brady makes a recovery from his recurring thigh injury.

Palace are without their star-in-waiting Wilfred Zaha, who was sent off at Burnley last week and is banned for three games. There will be a change also on the bench as our own beloved pet flame-haired Irish airkicker Paul McShane is ineligible against his parent club.

City haven’t an amazing record against Palace and have already lost once to Dougie Freedman’s men this season. There have been a spate of draws between the clubs at Selhurst Park in recent years, featuring famous equalisers from Ian Ashbee and Dean Marney, and a goalless stalemate of considerable featurelessness last season that was inflicted on subscribers to Sky Sports.

Though the bottom tier Tigers famously secured a shock win in the League Cup at Selhurst Park in 1997, the away leg still ended in defeat on the night. The last time City actually emerged from this particular bit of south London properly victorious was in October 1985, when Brian Horton’s men won with goals from Frankie Bunn and Stan McEwan; prior to that, we had to go back to August 1977 and a single goal victory courtesy of John Hawley.

A leading bookmaker is offering 15/8 on City to win, with Palace priced at 7/5. The draw – which would be City’s eighth in 12 matches if it happened – is 9/4. Frankly, one feels like anything is possible with this team after the systematic dismantling of a Cardiff side not full of mugs in midweek, and it’s just such an exciting, entrancing period in a really compelling season. So c’mon City, do us proud again.

March is already feeling relentless, and we’re only a third of the way through it. Three short days after the dismaying collapse against Ipswich comes the long journey to Cardiff, and an opportunity to record our first win in six, set a new club record of six succesive draws, or fall damagingly behind the play-off places. The margin for error is growing increasingly small.

With the honeymoon now over and the relentless grind of management now settling itself upon Nick Barmby, he’s not had much time to ponder his response to the Ipswich game, but knows decisions must be made. Robbie Brady is only half-fit but travelled with the side yesterday anyway. Cameron Stewart really needs a rest, both mentally and physically. Aaron Mclean continues to be started only occasionally, and carries both a potent workrate and a disappointing goals total. What to do, what to do?

This evening’s hosts have had an odd season. They were a penalty shoot out away from winning the League Cup, and consequently achieving European football for the first time since the nonsense of Welsh Cup winners who play in England being allow to qualify was halted. That Cup run was doubtless thrilling and a huge achievement for a second tier club, but it’s done them few favours in the League. They were until recently eyeing a top two position, but they’re now sixth and just a point clear of the chasing pack. Sixth and a League Cup final is still an excellent season, but it could end in anticlimax were they to miss out on the play-offs altogether.

Their cause tonight won’t be helped by the likely absence of Rudy Gestede, whose hamstring injury is proving a frustration for the Bluebirds. Stephen McPhail is also missing through sickness, but that aside they’re in reasonable shape for a side that’ve played a lot of games season. Cardiff always seem to be one of those sides with an enviable home record, despite the switch from the seething Ninian Park to the more sedate Cardiff City Stadium, something we can certainly relate to. However, they’ve not kept a clean sheet at home this year, a pleasing statistic given our erratic strikeforce.

City’s solitary visit to Cardiff’s new home was an unhappy one, with a limp 2-0 defeat last season. This has never been a happy hunting ground, with only one win in our last eight – though it was a memorable one, keeping City in the Championship at the expense of Leeds in 2006/7. Almost a generation ago, City notched up a memorable 4-3 win at Ninian Park, but it’s been thin pickings throughout time. The Tigers aren’t widely expected to improve that sequence, with the bookmaking fraternity willing to offer as long as 3/1 on an away win – Cardiff are 11/10, while yet another sodding draw is 12/5. Things aren’t quite desperate yet, but a win is badly needed if we’re not to regard 2011/12 as a “what if season”. What better place to start than South Wales?

The ‘must win’ game. What a rubbish cliché. Surely all games are ‘must win’ games? There’s no such thing as a ‘must lose’ game, unless you are involved in an Indonesian betting ring, whereas a ‘must draw’ game sounds like something the old Pools Panel would come up with to make sure their smoking room predictions on snowy days rang true.

But of course, the expression has its place. City are just slightly losing sight of the play-offs after way too many draws (none of which were ‘must draws’) and a disappointing return in front of goal. Nevertheless, the two stalemates achieved thus far in Mad March have had their moments; the great good luck of a late leveller after a largely sloppy display at Blackpool, and the domination against Leeds that, on another day (and probably against absolutely anyone else), would have had the three points boxed off at half time.

The Tigers are unbeaten in eight matches, which is excellent. But the goals aren’t coming and the wins are too few. So, as we approach the third game of this hectic, season-defining month, we welcome a side who, without wishing any disrespect, are at face value one of the more beatable foes we have to outwit before April begins.

There is form to back this claim up, of course; City won at Ipswich back in August and then did likewise at the KC in the third round of the FA Cup in January. Ipswich, though on a decent run at the moment, are distinct and obvious watertreaders in the division, largely unnoticed except when that tousle-haired, noxious toerag Jimmy Bullard gets up to the kind of tricks we know only too well.

Bullard is suspended and cannot play, though one suspects a sniffle or toothache or anal polyps would have been invented were he not currently on Ipswich’s naughty step for some disallowed fun and games in the north east. One day we may still get our chance to vent a collective black and amber spleen at this vile individual, but it won’t be this weekend.

Nick Barmby, free from wondering how to best reposition Bullard’s crazily-paved knees without being caught, has a decision or two to make. Cameron Stewart urgently needs to be rested, with his form and confidence at undoubtedly its collective lowest since he joined the club. Some wisdom round these parts questions loudly the continued omission of Richard Garcia, who could bring experience and an understanding of Championship wingplay to the starting XI, but there has been no word so far from the club of his addition to the squad. Robbie Brady, oddly going in the opposite direction to Stewart in the contributive stakes after months of frustrating uselessness, has recovered from his thigh injury and is back in contention.

A small but noticeable bit of publicity has also gone the way of 17 year old striker Jack Barlow, who bagged a hat-trick for the reserves on Wednesday night and, with our current success rate in front of goal close to nil (not that Barmby sees this as an issue), there can’t be much harm in making him a sub.

Ipswich bring with them a drop of form. They got a 1-1 draw at Southampton in midweek, which is no mean feat, and have won three of their last five, enabling to sit in 15th position, something of a healthy state of affairs after an unconvincing start to the Championship campaign. Bullard’s apprentice-in-debauchery Michael Chopra, comparably unpunished after the fun and games among the Bigg Market’s esteemed clientele, should be fit after taking a knock to the ankle against Southampton.

Ex-Tigers Damien Delaney and Ibrahima Sonko will be involved, though only the fondly-remembered former is in the starting XI at the moment. It seems that they’ve also sussed out, like we did, that Sonko is useless to go with Bullard being despicable.

City’s long unbeaten run means little to gamblers if the team involved struggles to score, and one leading turf accountant has City at evens to win. Victory for Paul Jewell’s men stands at 11/4, with the draw at 23/10. With big trips to Cardiff and Crystal Palace ahead during this relentless, unforgiving month, a win this weekend is almost definitely key to any hopes of eventually puncturing the play-offs. It’s a ‘must win’ game, you see…

City v Leeds is as accurate a measure of the shifting balance of power in Yorkshire as any over the past half-dozen years. Go back to the start of the 21st Century, and imagine this fixture then. It’d have been accompanied by a quickening of the pulse, a gleam in the eye and an almost involuntary anticipatory clenching of the fist.

Now, it’s just another League fixture. Well, no, not quite. Being a City fan is a pleasure known only to us and denied, cruelly you may argue, to most – but one of the very few things we lack is a proper, reciprocated, fearsome, visceral rivalry. Leeds look elsewhere, the Sheffield clubs have each other, while rest of Yorkshire and the North Lincolnshire clubs are a bit far or aren’t really up to the task. Leeds is never going to fill that gap – but there will always remain that antipathy towards them. The racism of yesteryear, the arrogance, the cheating, the gloryhunter tossers from these parts – ah yes, it’s coming back now…

So no, we don’t really like Leeds very much. Yes, we do look forward to this fixture more than most. Add in to that the fact that neither club dare lose tonight for fear of being cut adrift of the play-off race, and it’s one to await eagerly. City and Leeds are already three and six points respectively off the top six, a gap that can’t really be allowed to grow much further – especially for the visitors, who’ve played two games more than the Tigers. For City, defeat would be damaging but not fatal; for Leeds, it could be terminal.

Little in either side’s recent form points to a decisive result, however. Though unbeaten in seven, City have won only one of their last five games and have scored in only two of them. That actually compares favourably to Leeds. They’ve won only one of their last seven away games, only four of 14 in total and have continued steadily shipping goals this season, the persistent failing that eventually persuaded them to sack Simon Grayson and draft in perennial pantomime villain and long-standing enemy of decorum Neil Warnock. Him joining Ken Bates, at Leeds United, had many observers predicting a nexus of bellendery so colossal it may rend apart the very fabric of the universe – however, three games in and the cosmos remains (for now) intact.

Colin has a couple of things on his mind other than the fact Leeds haven’t scored a goal under him – and by the way, isn’t that just EXACTLY the sort of sequence City are peerless at halting? – with a few injuries sustained in their desperately unlucky defeat against Southampton on Saturday. Alex Bruce, David Somma and Mika Vayrynen are already ruled out, while Leigh Bromby and Aidy White could join them. For ex-Leedster Nick Barmby, he is unlikely to start with Seyi Olofinjana just four days after Blackpool, though a late fitness test will be needed for Corry Evans. Robbie Brady is out, meaning that the off-form Cameron Stewart may be given the perfect stage on which to remind us all of his worth. Up front, the on-going dilemma of whether to start Mclean is made easier by Brady’s absence, though Fryatt may still form the “1” in a 4-2-3-1 sort of formation.

City have a dire record against Leeds, both recently and historically. Since the resumption of hostilities in 2005, City have won only one of seven and just 12 of 41 ever. A mark of the footballing readjustment is that a sell-out is highly unlikely tonight, unthinkable a few years ago – another is that City are almost being universally quoted at evens to register three points. Leeds are as long as 3/1, while a draw that pleases neither team but saves the face of both sets of fans is 5/2. C’mon City.

The calm has passed, and the storm is about to break. Mad March is here, freighted with danger, yet glistening with promise. Let’s do it.

Nine games have been levered into this month, with an unremitting Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday pattern. The received wisdom is that however we begin it will set another pattern, with a good or bad start becoming the established routine for the month. That’s perhaps a little simplistic – football is too unpredictable to be governed by feedback loops – yet it does have a kernel of truth. We therefore cannot afford to start badly. And tonight, we start at Blackpool.

They’re having a fine season themselves. They were narrowly demoted after a single season in the Premier League yet slipped down free from the shackles of overspending, meaning the situation is a happy one on the Fylde coast. Blackpool presently sit in fourth, having gained four more points than City thus far, though like everyone else they’ve played more games. There’s no specific area of strength of theirs – good at home, good away, with a decent attack and (at home) a good defence, they’ve simply been solid throughout, playing good football and quietly amassing enough points to challenge.

For everyone’s favourite jovial manager, the team news is mixed. Robbie Fowler is training with the club but is not yet registered to play. Roman Bednar is fit again, but doubt surrounds the availability of Craig Cathcart, Matt Phillips and former City loanee Gary Taylor-Fletcher. He’s their second-leading scorer, so his absence would be useful – however, their top scorer Kevin Phillips is available to play. With a dozen goals to his name and a strikers’ instinct that the passage of time is yet to dull, he represents the biggest threat to City creating a bit of history tonight.

It’s a slightly trivial piece of history, granted – yet it’s always nice to create a record. That is, of course, the prospect of keeping a seventh successive clean sheet in the League, having already levelled a club record that dates back to 1908. One doesn’t fall in love with football for defensive shut-outs, but they do come in handy for promotion pushes. Not since January 2nd have we conceded, and given both our resilient defending and reluctance to even let other teams have the ball, we’ve rarely been threatened.

Sadly, some of our recent clean sheets have been mirrored by the opposition, with three 0-0s in our last four games. That wouldn’t be a terrible result this evening, but every game is winnable and we’d expect Nick Barmby to continue his policy of seeking to win every game irrespective of circumstance. He’ll have been pleased that the midweek internationals didn’t place onerous burdens upon his young players. There are therefore no new injury concerns for the Tigers, and the manager has pretty much the full squad at his disposal. There’s even a strong possibility that Seyi Olofinjana could start.

The 99th meeting in League and Cup between City and Blackpool will see us looking to improve a few records. Having stolen victory on the opening day in August, Blackpool could become the second side to do the double over this season. Stuart Elliott fired us to a Boxing Day victory in 2004 at Bloomfield Road while Alan Fettis surreally did the same in 1995, so there are some recent happy memories of this part of Lancashire. However, only two of our last 15 league visits have ended in a victory, and notching a third won’t be easy.

But this is City, and we’re bloody good ourselves. The Sky cameras will be in attendance (do the BBC even know we exist?), there’ll be a healthy following from East Yorkshire, and we have a young team who fear nothing and no-one. Even if this month does break us, it’s a pleasure to be a City fan at the moment. We’ll still be proud of how this team goes about its business. Come on March, we’re ready for you.

A comparatively rare Wednesday outing for the Tigers tonight sees the visit to East Yorkshire of Brighton.

It’s not a fixture they’ll have really wanted right now. They were on the wrong end of a Cup kicking on Sunday, losing 6-1 away to Liverpool – to have to return to the north three days later for a night match isn’t what you’d plan for yourselves. But they’ll have to roll their sleeves up to get on with it and they’ll probably be fine. City’s current pattern of fixtures is scarcely ideal, after all. We’re part-way through a sequence of three successive football-free Saturdays, and were further burdened yesterday by the call-up of several young players for international duty just two days before next week’s trip to Blackpool. At this level the squads aren’t always huge, and hefty demands are being placed upon them.

At least City should be fairly fresh. Eight days will have passed since the draw at Birmingham that saw the Tigers slip out of the top six, a place that can only be restored with a win tonight after Tuesday’s sub-optimal results elsewhere. That rest will be handy, as we’re up against a very good side. Since a nasty run of form at the end of 2011, when many a knowing sage predicted the end of the play-off push (ahem), they’ve recovered and are undefeated in the League this year. Gus Poyet is a manager of class and he’s moulded a side that hasn’t looked in the slightest bit out of place at this level.

Really, Sunday’s game shouldn’t bother them that much, however much we want it to. Being dicked at a top-six Premier League side is no disgrace. A point and a place behind City, they’re very much in contention for a play-off place. If that doesn’t focus your mind, not much will. Usefully for Poyet, he’ll have Matt Sparrow back in his side after his recent ban was completed. Always a man for continuity, Nick Barmby is likely to continue with the same side that drew a blank at St Andrews last week.

Considering that City don’t score or concede many, it’s perhaps a surprise that we’ve only had three nil-nils this season. One of those came at Brighton back in October, though City struck wood more than once and were unlucky not to win – that was a good game despite its goalless nature, but the two sides will do well to repeat such an open encounter owing to a frankly rotten pitch at the Circle. Even allowing for the on-going aggravation of fatheaded convicts being permitted to wobble into each other every other Sunday, the state of our surface is extremely disappointing. Luckily Brighton won’t be here to defend, as shutting us out is always aided by a bobbling pitch the players cannot trust.

City have a historically poor record against Brighton, losing 20 of 43 games in all competitions. They were memorably the beneficiaries of that infamous night at Boothferry Park in 1998 when nine players were enough to overcome the Tigers in a Fourth Division fixture – it forms part of a sequence in which we’ve won only two of our last eleven against the Seagulls. Well, that needs improving. An unfavourable result here and more bad news on a game-free weekend could see us suddenly cast a little adrift and with lots to do in Mad March. No pressure, then…

It is, at the time or writing, an an impressive -7c here in Hull – if this game had taken place in the 1990s, or in Portsmouth, there’s no chance it could be on. However, the wonders of undersoil heating allied to a snow-free 24 hours mean there’s no risk of the match not going ahead, and so City return to action after an unwanted 11 day break.

It’s essential this game did beat the weather, too. March is looming, creaking under the burden of nine League games for City. It’s the month that will decide the season, and one we’re virtually certain to commence from outside the top six. That makes a victory over a struggling Bristol City side really rather important. If we lose touch we may find it very difficult to reclaim our play-off spot.

Nick Barmby will at least have a fairly fresh squad to pick from, a luxury that will certainly not be available to him later in the season. That means a decision to make over whether to stick with Corry Evans or introduce Seyi Olofinjana from the start – Evans’ form has dipped a little lately and his place is under threat to the experienced Nigerian.

Things are less straightforward for the visitors, who have a weakened squad to pick from. Defenders Bolasie and Wilson are both suspended for this afternoon’s fixture, while injuries are ruling out Carey, Kilkenny Nyatanga. It’s been a tough season for Bristol, who currently lie 20^th in the table. They have at least established a gap of six points between themselves and the bottom three and you’d expect them to limp to safety given the enduring awfulness of the present incumbents of the relegation zone, but this is a season they’ll not look back fondly upon.

They have at least travelled tolerably well, with half of their 30 points coming in away games. However only two sides outside the bottom three have leaked more on their travels, an encouraging statistic given City’s well-known difficulties in front of goal. They’re not a side we historically relish facing – Wembley aside, we’ve won only one of the last twelve games against the Robins, which was on a perishingly cold December day 14 months ago. They had no answer to Cameron Stewart that day, and will doubtless be apprehensive about facing him once again.

City are odds-on with every bookie to get three points, with 5/6 the best price you’ll find on a home win. A Bristolian success is 4/1, while a second successive home draw is rated a 14/5 shot. It’s going to be a cold one and the forecast is for widespread glove-wearing, but let’s hope City do their bit to warm things up. Oh, and don’t forget the Football Supporters’ Federation’s safe standing roadshow between 12pm-2.45pm, just near the Sports Bar at the South Stand. C’mon City.

There is always heartache associated with a game between Portsmouth and Hull City. One, or possibly both, of the two teams are embroiled in some kind of strife when either Fratton Park or the KC Stadium plays host to them. (more…)

You’ve just been embarrassed in the Cup by a club brand new to the Football League – what do you want next? A week off to recover and lick some wounds, perhaps. Tough. This is the Championship, which uniquely in England combines a 46-game campaign with international breaks, meaning quick Saturday-Tuesday turnarounds litter the season. However, if you must play, you couldn’t wish for much more than a home game against a side in the bottom three.

Ah, dear Doncaster. This isn’t a fixture for away wins. We haven’t won there since 1985, a run so enduring it even permitted defeat during Doncaster’s infamous relegation season of 1997/8. However, they’re a considerate bunch in that corner of South Yorkshire, and have themselves built themselves a run without victory in Hull since 1950, with City winning the last eight at home. This really ought to be a game that at least extends that sequence into a 63rd year, though given the side’s respective positions, you’d hope for a ninth successive win as well.

Doncaster are on the verge of losing Billy Sharp to Southampton, which would helpfully remove their major goalscoring threat. Fellow forward James Coppinger is out with a fractured cheekbone suffered at the weekend, while porcine ex-Tiger Jon Parkin is both shit and on loan at Huddersfield. They’re also missing one-time transfer target Habib Beye, not the ideal preparation when you’ve lost your last six away games and are preparing to face a side that has shown impressive consistency in putting away clubs towards the bottom.

City made seven changes for Saturday’s embarrassment, and are likely to reverse most of them for tonight’s game. Liam Rosenior is fit after his ankle injury sustained at Reading, and we can expect an XI very similar to the one that won impressively in Berkshire. This is the first of three games against sides currently in the bottom nine, and with an ugly 17-day break disfiguring the second half of February ahead of a hectic March, City really need to capitalise on this run of fixtures. The Tigers are no longer than 8/13 to rack up a fourth successive League win, Doncaster are 6/1 to end their decades-long misfortune in East Yorkshire, while City’s first home draw of the season is 3/1.

On the 18th of February 1989, arguably Hull City’s most famous post-war FA Cup tie occurred. The memories and anecdotes from the 3-2 defeat to reigning champions Liverpool in the fifth round are still fresh in the memory and quick to be recalled. Though it ended in defeat, it gave the Tigers what was then a spot of rare national exposure and, given that we led 2-1 at the break, for just a brief period we looked close to one of the biggest shocks the competition had seen.

On the 18th of February 2012, the FA Cup fifth round (or, at least, most of it) will occur once again. It would be very, very nice to be there, be it for another occasion against one of the mightiest names in global club football or a team of clogging nonentities. Since that day at the Ark 23 years ago, we have only been to the fifth round once more and, although that tie ended in victory, the manner of defeat in the consequent quarter final against Arsenal and the general spite and controversy that surrounded our whole FA Cup run (arguments on the touchline at Newcastle; violence from Millwall supporters; a goal that shouldn’t have been given against Sheffield United; the awful display by Mike Riley and conduct of Cesc Fabregas at the Emirates) means that 1989 remains the FA Cup benchmark year of many of the more aged City fans.

To get to the last 16 again, we need to beat Crawley Town. They are led by a total oaf in Steve Evans and have managed to emerge from the non-league pyramid while making absolutely no friends whatsoever, which is some feat, and they make a first ever visit to the KC Stadium as, quite rightly, considerable long shots. City will be runaway favourites to win when one considers status, form and venue, but nevertheless we’ve struggled in cup ties against glorified pub sides in the past – hello Hednesford, hello just about any Carling Cup opponent in the last decade – and their playing staff, if not their existence, should be respected.

Nick Barmby has an opportunity to select a few fringe players but he needs to strike a balance between giving stiffs their chance to impress and not rocking the boat too much. He achieved this in the third round tie against Ipswich Town, which allowed a handful of players usually in the dugout the chance to stretch their legs while still keeping the likes of Jack Hobbs, Cameron Stewart and Aaron Mclean in the team. A similar policy would appear to be the best approach for Barmby, with the likes of Richard Garcia, Tom Cairney, Liam Cooper, Joe Dudgeon and others all having a right to hope for a place.

Crawley, for their part, have much to crow about. They are second in League Two and are aiming for a second successive appearance in the fifth round of the FA Cup, having famously pushed Manchester United at Old Trafford last season, eventually losing just 1-0. However, they should be beaten well tomorrow. Defeat is unthinkable while a draw will provide just one mild consolation (for those fools who place importance on such things); that of a first-ever visit to the Broadfield Stadium for the replay, and a tick of the box.

A well-known bookmaker offers 5/6 on a City win, with Crawley’s prospects of victory measured at 16/5. The draw – an occurrence not yet seen at the KC – is 13/5. Please gamble responsibly and all that, and hope for no dramas and a place in the last 16. A City victory will mean that the Championship game against Brighton & Hove Albion at the Circle will have to be re-arranged; that said, an unthinkable result for the Tigers may still result in that re-arrangement, as Brighton are also partaking in this weekend’s FA Cup ties.