Congratulations to Paul Hopton, the winner of our black and amber scarf competition held in conjunction with Savile Rogue. When he supplies us with an address, we’ll inform Savile Rogue , who will send the prize.

If you didn’t win but would like to get your hands on one of the fine cashmere scarfs regardless, the kind folks at Savile Rogue are offering a £5 discount to Amber Nectar readers. Just enter the code AMBER during the checkout process at http://www.savile-rogue.com .

Thanks to all who entered, the correct answers were Harold Meens, Billy Bly & Viggo Jensen.

You can follow Savile Rogue on Twitter or Facebook

We have teamed up with Savile Rogue to give you the chance to win one of the world’s finest cashmere football scarves in City colours

Savile Rogue scarves give a nod to football terraces of yesteryear, shunning in-your-face logos and cheap nylon in favour of a traditional bar design and the comfort, quality and warmth of top grade wool

It’s the sort of scarf you would be happy to wear even when you’re not at the match.

For the chance to get your hands on a Hull City scarf,  just answer this question…

Former Tigers players Meens, Bly and Jensen are featured on this fan’s scarf, What are their first names?

Send us your answer by Email to scarf@tigernation.co.uk

You can follow Savile Rogue on Twitter or Facebook

The inherent danger of being asked to contribute to a football book is that the end product maybe be slipshod and you end up looking shoddy by association. When you fire off an email containing dubious insights into the psyche of the Tiger Nation as well as recommending pubs for away fans for publication, you envisage some embittered shaven headed City fan stood in Waterstones sneering at you for lending your name to a lame, poorly researched tome that looks like it was typeset by barbiturate addled Macaques.

Any such fears about my contribution to Footprint Travel Guide’s ‘Around The Grounds’ were dispelled shortly after a copy metaphorically thudded onto the Amber Nectar doormat. Now, club and stadium guides for all 92 professional clubs in England and Wales are ten a penny, as the embittered shaven headed City fan spending his lunch break in Waterstones knows, but this book, by Chris Nelson, is a superior slice of the genre, and no, I don’t say that because we’ve penned words for it, as we’ve done so for many ground guides and some are uber-crud.

The crud books are cliché riddled, tending to slavishly subscribe to long standing perceptions about clubs, Leeds and Newcastle for example would be deemed giants of the game, despite their recent reality being lower league scuffing and financial travails. The ground guide information is often stultifyingly functional and instantly out of date in regards ticket prices and range of hot pie flavours, and they’ll feature a cover image of Old Trafford to grab the attention of those who think football is only about the Sky Sports Big Four Consortium Of Awesome, after all the ultimate away day involves spending £50 for admission to the football version of EuroDisney, the Nike/AON sponsored shrine to corporate excess, doesn’t it? Um, no.

“So, if Around The Grounds is better than genre peers, what makes it so?” I hear you ask, err, think. I shall tell…  (more…)

Quantity has replaced quality when it comes to City related items listed on Ebay these days. Not so long ago, typing Hull City in the search box brought up old replica shirts, programmes and cig cards, you know, genuinely collectable items. Now though, coin eyed wankers are listing any old shit in the hope that there are people gullible and foolish enough to think that any old toss with Hull City on it has collectable value in the Premier League era.

Take this for example…

HULL CITY v TOTTENHAM BETTING SLIP AUGUST 2009  Starting bid 99p, postage £1.75 Royal Mail 2nd class

That’s right, someone is selling a betting slip, a free betting slip, the type that litter the concourses post match at the Circle, furthermore they’re asking to be paid at least £2.74 for this supposedly ‘rare’ item to be put it in an envelope with a 30p second class stamp affixed and posted. ‘FIND OUT WHAT PRICE 5-1 TO SPURS WAS & DEFOE TO SCORE HAT TRICK, BOTH ARE LISTED’ is the tempting sales pitch. Bid history? No bids.

Tod rating…

‘Personalised HULL CITY mug, gift, birthday present’, asking price £4.99

Ok then, how about a personalised Hull City mug declaring you ‘number 1 fan’? Sounds good eh? Until you realise it declares you number 1 fan of, not City, but Hull FC. EPIC FAIL..

Tod rating…

Last but not least…

J99 JRK Private Plate Linked to Hull City FC ‘Offers’

This takes not just the biscuit, but the whole packet of Bourbons. The auction blurb implies that this number plate once belonged to whale slaying Faroe Island international and one time City scuffer Julian Johnsson, though at no point in the listing is that explicitly stated…

‘This plate as far as I can find out is linked to Julian Johnsson who played for Hull City in the 2001-2002 season and now plays for danish team Svendborg FB. The plate has the Hull City crest on the left hand side of the plate and reads ‘Jules’ at the bottom. The number plates will be sent to you but are not in the best of condition and look like the original ones made’

Is linked to? Not in the best condition? Unbelievable. The seller is open to offers but suggests you buy it now for a mere £400. Hah. Caveat emptor indeed.

Tod rating…

Unofficial. Available from: Footballwallart.com Price £49.50.

It’s not a bad idea that Football Wall Art are peddling here, it’s just the execution is dismal. “We understand that football is a way of life and many supporters like to live, eat and breathe Hull City Football Club, we are certain that this piece of football art will not look out of place in any Hull City supporters home.” says the sales patter. Hmmm.

We’re meant to believe the (ahem) impressionist and blurred nature of this City crest on satin is all arty, but it’s more likely a handy copyright workaround. Still, if you wonder what Hull City AFC looks like in Klingon calligraphy you might like it, or if you have a short-sighted granddad, you could buy him one and he’ll not notice the difference.

Perhaps the most amusing part of this folly is the flashing text on the website that reads “Limited Edition – 501 remain out of 500“. Heh!

Tod rating…

Unofficial. Available from: Ebay. Price £11.13 inc. postage

Some real care has been taken to replicate City’s crest, and some of the detailing on this jersey isn’t a bad approximation of Umbro’s work either, such as the pinstripe diamond motif on the sleeves, or the mesh ventilation panels under the arms. But the colour…what the hell? Ignorant television commentators will often irritatingly describe our colours as orange and black (they’re open to correctly calling Wolves’ tone ‘old gold’ though, the basts), and it seems the colour blind chap who chose the material’s shade took the commentator literally.

If you turned your TV’s colour setting up to maximum and watched a Phil Brown press conference, he still wouldn’t be this orange, and I’m guessing this along with Kia-Ora, is what constitutes ‘too orangey for crows’. Amusingly the necktag features the amended Premier League crest as worn on the shirts of the league champions, fitting for a team who finished 17th! Err…

Tod rating…

Unofficial. Available from: Ebay. Price £12.99

I’m always reminiscing about the good old days at Boothery Park aren’t you? I really miss the Klemptun stand.

FFS, Boothery? BOOTHERY? And you’ve made 50 of these? Good luck shifting those, you clueless fucktards.

Tod rating…

The automatic reaction to any quiz is surely to complete it, then scour for any mistakes that you can gloat over. So it was interest that Amber Nectar was offered a copy of the Official Hull CIty Quiz Book to review a short time ago. With the almost obligatory foreword by Paul Duffen and a battery of kind words on the back page by City luminaries past and present, it’s compiled by Chris Cowling and Kevin Snelgrove, who seem to have plenty of form in producing quiz books on varying subjects.

At just over a hundred pages, including the answers, it feels slightly on the light side, but it has over 800 questions split into different categories: players, matches, seasons, history, and so on. The layout is pretty basic and the italicisation of everything is mildly annoying, but it’s not terminaly distracting. Substance over style, and all that.

Most importantly, the difficulty of the questions has a well-judged variety. Some are so easy that even the newest member of the Tiger Nation will answer with ease; some challenge even the most formidable of City memories – and I couldn’t find any errors.

Verdict: worth sticking in the glove compartment for away games.

Courtesy of the nice people at Apex Publishing, we have a copy of the book to give away. To enter the competition, e-mail your name and address to competition@tigernation.co.uk, and using an as yet undetermined randomising process we’ll post it out to the winner.

Unofficial. Available from: Ebay. Sold for: £13.00

It’s somewhat irritating when desperate traders think that any old tat emblazoned with a tiger stripe design is automatically coveted by Hull City fans, but such tat usually takes the form of balloons, ‘novelty’ hats and for attention seeking hoons, full bodysuits complete with a tiger head*. Rarely though do you see women’s silk dresses casually tagged with the words Hull City in the hope of getting Tiger National trade. “IF YOU ARE A TIGERS FAN THIS IS PERFECT COLOURS & PRINT-A VERY CLASSY ALTERNATIVE TO THE STRIP !!” says the blurb. Oh aye, perfect colours, huge bands of silver/grey are often found on our home shirts.

*sometimes worn, not by choice, by soon to be married chaps in Dusseldorf.

Tod rating…

Unofficial. Available from: Ebay. Price £9.99

For a reason that I cannot fathom, ‘Premier Image Products Ltd.’ of Kent have decided to re-imagine the principle logos of twenty football teams, and luckily for us the Tigers are among that number. For just £9.99 (plus £3.50 postage) you can own a 16 x 12 framed and mounted picture of a crest that Hull City have never had. “Using current styles and designs,” they tell us, “artists have created these modern variations of football club badges. They invariably incorporate the main features of either the current official crest, or more popular recent crests, including broad design and colours, but often with a little added character, or in some cases – fun.”   (more…)