A seriously unimpressed match report will follow, once we’ve gathered our thoughts and calmed down a little. That may take some time…

A trip to Everton is a tricky prospect at the best of times. Without a win away from home in a year, travelling to a side who’ve recent scalps at home have included Manchester United and Chelsea, it’s hard not to feel a sense of foreboding about this.

Not that a trip to Everton is necessarily mission impossible. They’ve had an iffy season so far, lying tenth in the Premier League and nowhere near the top four that must have been their ultimate aim this time out. They’ll also be disappointed with how their UEFA Cup campaign ended recently, a 3-0 defeat at Sporting Lisbon ensuring that this will be a trophyless season for David Moyes’ men. All that remains is the chance to put together a late run in order to qualify once again for Europe.

Oh, to have such problems. City will enter this match in the bottom three, barring defeat for Burnley and a colossal home defeat for Wolves later today. Relegation is a serious danger for the Tigers, and while home form provides cause for optimism, our wretched record on the road simply must be improved upon. Not since Manucho pinched a late late victory at Fulham twelve months ago have we tasted victory outside East Yorkshire, and home form is unlikely keep us up on its own. So without wishing to place excessive demands on a team evidently playing to the best of its ability, we need to start taking points from difficult assignments such as this one.

We’re not helped by the recent injury situation. The luckless Anthony Gardner is out for six weeks, and the worry must be that his season has come to a premature end. Stephen Hunt is a doubt for the game, while Craig Fagan is banned following his red card at West Ham a fortnight ago. The big question is regarding Jimmy Bullard. He’s featured in the reserves and a first-team friendly lately, but is yet to complete a ninety minute game  of any kind since his return to fitness. Will Brown risk him from the start, or hope his charges remain in the game enough to make a later introduction a better approach? Tricky. We suspect a decision won’t be made until tomorrow morning.

Everton have a few worries of their own, inevitable at this time of year. Marouane Fellaini’s elbows will miss out owing to an ankle injury, while Saha and Hibbert will also miss out. They have further concerns over Jagielka, Osman, Senderos, Cahill and Vaughan. It could be a rather depleted side that takes to the field for Moyes’ men.

City memorably won the return League fixture in November, a 3-2 victory that saw the Tigers take a thrilling 3-0 lead only to nearly throw it away in a fraught second half. Whether that provides any meagre inspiration is unclear, though it ought to demonstrate that tomorrow’s opposition are far from unbeatable. There’s little from past meetings to go on: City and Everton have only met 16 times before, with only one of those games being a home defeat for the Merseysiders.

A formidable task awaits the Tigers. However, time’s starting to run out and in order to prevent an awkward situation coming drastically worse we need to start bringing something home with us. Tomorrow would be a very good time to start.

***Tigers fan in Hampshire, Dorset or Isle of Wight?***

Hull City HDi are a supporters group in the southern counties who are hoping to become OSC affiliated when they attract new members. They are meeting up on Sunday to watch the Everton match at a neutral pub, the Roebuck in Marchwood, and all Tiger Nationals in the area are invited.. The pub is trying its hand at making patties and hope  exiled Hullensians and others supportive of the Tiger cause can whip up some atmosphere.  Further details are on the group’s Facebook page Hull City Hampshire Dorset and IOW.

It’s bad, but it could have been worse: City have confirmed that Anthony Gardner will be out of action for at least six weeks after ligament damage was confirmed as the ankle injury he sustained at West Ham.

Ever the optimist, Phil Brown has suggested the player could still be involved at the end of the season, though his lengthy and unfortunate history of injuries may mean we’ve seen the last of him for the 2009/10 campaign. Nonetheless, given his stricken deameanour when being stretchered off at Upton Park thirteen days ago, perhaps we should be thankful that his absence is being measured in weeks rather than months.

Raich would walk into the greatest  XIs of any of the three teams he graced in England at inside left or inside right. Had the war not punctuated his career when he was at his most productive, he’d have more than a few supporters for a role in an all-time England XI too.

Born in Hendon, a ship-building area of Sunderland (his ‘posh’ Christian name was from his grandfather, Stratton his mother’s maiden name), in 1913, Carter was a prodigious youth sportsman. It was football, however, that had Raich marked out as a star from an early age, following in the footsteps of his father, who had played for Port Vale, Fulham and Southampton. An England schoolboy international, despite his slender build, Carter was fast-tracked into the Sunderland first team aged 18, and didn’t look back…

By the time he had reached his mid-20s he had a championship medal, had won the FA Cup (scoring in the final) and was establishing himself in the national team. By 1939, he was regarded as one of the finest players in the country, and at the age of 26 was just beginning to stamp his authority on the world of international football. Then Hitler went and invaded Poland…

Upon war being declared, Raich joined the fire brigade – a decision that didn’t go down too well with many. Though this enabled Raich to continue playing for Sunderland in their war-time games, as well as guesting for various other teams in the region in fund-raising games for the war effort, his lack of military action disappointed many fans, despite the fact he was spending most of his time extinguishing the fires caused by the ceaseless bombing of Sunderland’s shipyards by the Luftwaffe. Sensitive to this, Raich signed up with the RAF, and was eventually posted in Loughborough in a fitness and rehabilitation role. This allowed him to settle in Derby, near his wife’s family, and occasionally guest for the town’s football team. He would also play 17 times for ‘England’ during the war, scoring 18 goals – second only to Tommy Lawton’s 24.

Upon the end of the war, Raich’s disillusionment with the regime at Sunderland, and his enjoyment of his time in Derbyshire, saw him move to Derby County. Almost immediately he led his new team to the FA Cup, making him the only man to win the trophy before and after the war. The England call-ups continued and Raich continued where he’d left off in 1939, maintaining his reputation as one of the most skilful and entertaining players in the country. He also played a handful of times for Derbyshire in cricket’s County Championship, though his impressive club batting was soon found out by the county bowlers. You don’t care about any of that shit though.

In 1948, Raich was looking for a move into management. Assistant management offers flowed in, with two, Division Three North Hull City and Division Two Nottingham Forest, emerging as frontrunners. Mindful of the fact that City manager Major Frank Buckley was nearing retirement age, and Forest manager Billy Walker was relatively young in management terms, Raich plumped for East Yorkshire, £6,000 was exchanged and a legend was created. On April 3rd 1948, Raich led out his new teammates against York City in front of 33,000 at Boothferry Park. The game finished 1-1, and afterwards Raich immediately travelled up to Scotland to fulfil his duties as England reserve in a friendly at Hampden Park. In the match, England keeper Frank Swift went off injured, but sadly the substitution law that was being experimented with at the time was not being used for the friendly, so instead of creating Hull City history by becoming the club’s first England international, Raich accompanied Swift to Glasgow’s Victoria Hospital. So near, yet so far…

While Raich was away, his decision to join opt for City because of the potential for a quicker move into full management was proven to be a shrewd one. Major Buckley had fallen out with the City board, resigned, and Carter was offered the job one game into his City career, a move made official on April 23rd.

In the following summer, Carter signed former Sunderland FA Cup final teammate Eddie Burbanks to add to an impressive-looking team that contained the likes of Billy Bly, Ken Harrison, Norman Moore and Jimmy Greenhalgh. City got off to a flyer that year, with Raich prompting from inside left and Boothferry Park regularly packing in 30,000-plus gates. The side remained unbeaten until October 16 when Darlington won 1-0 at Boothferry Park. Carter responded by signing Danish international and City legend-in-the-making Viggo Jensen. They weren’t to lose again until mid-February, in which time First Division Stoke had been knocked out of the FA Cup in the fifth round in a match at the Victoria Ground. City were the talk of the football world, with Carter’s profile remaining as high as it had been when he was playing in the top-flight. His presence was adding thousands to any game he played in.

Though clinching promotion was not quite a formality, the sixth-round tie at home to Manchester United in the FA Cup in 1949 captured the city’s, and nation’s, imagination in a way that that other sport could only dream of. You should all know the attendance that day (55,019 for those of you who were too cool as children to spend hour upon hour studying the facts and figures in your Rothmans) and that City lost 1-0. Unluckily too, by most accounts, with the ball reportedly going out of play just before Manchester United scored the game’s solitary goal. Raich played left wing that game, and was largely subdued by Harry Cockburn, but his managerial qualities were there for all to see. City were matching the best teams in the land under his stewardship. It seemed that under Raich, it was a matter of when, not if, First Division football would finally come to Hull.

Promotion to Division Two was sealed on April 30th after a 6-1 win at home to Stockport, with Carter netting twice. In the whole season, Raich had missed only three league games, scoring 14 times (level with Viggo Jensen and only behind centre-forward Moore’s 22). Football historian Peter Jeffs names Raich as the manager of the year in his ‘The Golden Age of Football’. Raich was the king of Hull. The city that had taken such a battering in the war – and had been largely been ignored by the national media – was given reasons to be both cheerful and optimistic. And it was Raich we had to thank.

So, Division Two beckoned. City had shown that we could match the best in the FA Cup the previous year, but could we sustain it over a full season? Did Raich’s 36-year-old legs have another full season in them? Would he be as effective at this level? Of course he would. City won 12 of the first 18 games of the season to challenge at the top of the table, with Raich scoring 13 times. Don Revie was signed to strengthen the midfield for what was then staggering fee of £20,000. However, Revie proved to be a disappointment, and the wheels started to come off City’s season. Carter missed only three games all season, but was to only score three more times and a once-promising campaign faded as City won only one of the final 15 games, and finished what was generally viewed as a disappointing seventh. In the eyes of the City faithful, however, Carter could still do no wrong. The attendances still touched 50,000 for some home games, and Carter’s performances had many in the national press touting him as a potential member for England’s World Cup squad in Brazil.

As if to prove those pressmen right, Raich started the 1950-51 season in incredible form, scoring in eight of City’s first nine games as the Tigers once again started a season among the division’s front-runners. However, an injury to Raich in November saw the good form tail off, and though it picked up again on Raich’s return (which helped see off top-flight Everton in the third round of the FA Cup, a game in which Carter scored and Boothferry Halt was first used), the gap to the top two couldn’t be breached and City had to settle for 10th. Yet again, there’d been plenty of cause for optimism, but how much longer could Carter go on for? And who could replace him on the pitch? His 35 appearances had brought with them 21 goals. Alf Ackerman and Syd Gerrie had been brought in to plug the goalscoring gap with some success, but replacing the irreplaceable? You might as well replace Michael Turner with Ibrahima Sonko.

The 1951/52 season started with the usual optimism. Though Raich had missed the team’s pre-season tour to Spain to care for his sick wife, he’d declared himself fit for another season. However, he was injured in the first game of the season – a goalless draw against Barnsley. Little did anyone know that it was to be his last game as City’s player manager. Carter handed in his resignation on September 5th, and it was unanimously accepted by board on September 12th. Mystery shrouded Raich’s resignation. The board said nothing, and Raich’s vague explanation was that he’d quit because of “a disagreement on matters of a general nature in the conduct of the club’s affairs”.

And now for the tricky bit. Does a writer risk sullying the name of one of the greatest players in the club’s history by referring to what was largely believed by City fans at the time the reason for Carter’s departure? Or does one gloss over it as irrelevant gossip. Ah, you’ll just have to forgive me, but it was widely accepted around the city that Carter had become romantically entangled with a female member of the staff at the club (often rumoured to be a board member’s wife). A few years later, Raich’s first wife, Rose, died tragically young, aged only 38, after years of ill health. He was later to marry former Hull City employee Patricia Dixon. What actually went on when Raich left the club has been subject to decades of speculation. I don’t know what happened. All I know is that none of it should in any way detract from Raich’s outstanding contribution to the club and football in general, and that the ultimate losers in all of this were Hull City.

Raich made clear his intention to go back into management, and while awaiting the right offer, he opened a tobacconists on George Street. However, without Raich, City were rudderless. A 12-match winless run saw the board partially relent and allow Raich to return – as a player. The club’s fortunes improved with Raich dictating things, and the club staved off the relegation that once looked to be a certainty. The club even had time to beat First Division Manchester United 2-0 at Old Trafford in the third round of the FA Cup. Carter was man of the match. In the final game of the season – in what was to be Raich’s final game in the black and amber – Doncaster were beaten 1-0. The scorer? One Horatio Stratton Carter.

At the end of the season, Carter was given a civic testimonial by the Lord Mayor of Hull and the Carter family were showered with gifts from all kinds of companies and families connected with Hull. But the bitter truth was that Raich was going to move on, and when he did, it was surprisingly to Cork Athletic, who offered him a lucrative contract to play for them. After leading the team to the Irish Cup, managerial offers flooded in for Raich back in England. He opted for Leeds, where he would again follow in the footsteps of Major Frank Buckley, and also help shape the early stages of the career of John Charles.

After getting Leeds promoted to Division One, Raich resigned from Leeds in circumstances clearer than his initial departure from City. He couldn’t recover from the board selling John Charles to Juventus. Managerial posts at Mansfield (where he oversaw the early stages of the career of Ken Wagstaff) and Middlesbrough followed, but Raich’s managerial career, while impressive in places, was never to hit the heights of his playing days. After his sacking by Middlesbrough, Raich moved back to Willerby and made ends meet by starting his own football magazine, reporting on matches for the Daily Mirror, sitting on the pools panel and opening a newsagents close to where the KC is now situated. He remained a regular at Boothferry Park with his son, Raich Jr, but sadly only as a commendably passionate supporter.

Raich’s final ‘appearance’ at Boothferry Park came at half time in an otherwise forgettable 0-0 draw against Sunderland in October 1988. He and fellow Sunderland FA Cup final hero Bob Gurney dribbled a ball up and down the pitch as the crowd – to a man – stood to applaud them. The affection for Raich from all supporters was clear for anyone to see, several decades after he’d had any involvement with either club.

Raich died on October 9th, 1994 in Hull. At the time largely regarded as the club’s greatest ever player, the city mourned one of its finest adopted sons. At the request of then chairman Martin Fish, the funeral cortege stopped outside Boothferry Park to be met by a guard of honour formed by the playing and management staff and some 400 fans. His funeral ceremony was littered with football greats mourning a player who could stand shoulder to shoulder with any of them.

So where does Raich stand in what we can now hopefully call with some justification the ‘pantheon’ of City greats? Comparing players from different eras is in many ways futile. Who was the best Hull City player out of Carter, Waggy, Chillo, Whittle, Windass and Turner? Well only one of them thrived in the top-flight with the club, but that shouldn’t necessarily end the argument. Raich’s stats – 136 games, 57 goals – don’t necessarily tell the full story either, the story of the hope he gave a bomb-battered city and its underperforming football club, the flashes of skill that could change a game, the cheeky penalties where he would pass the ball to a teammate instead of shooting, the fact that one of the country’s finest players was gracing the black and amber.

Raich’s name is remembered with a sports centre in his home town, a road in the Kingswood area of Hull, and a trophy that we played Sunderland for in the opening of the KC. More importantly, it is stamped all over the history of the teams he played for. ‘Carter the Unforgettable’ was the slogan printed on t-shirts by fanzine Hull, Hell and Happiness in the early 90s. Given that he could still inspire such affection from a club for whom he hadn’t played for in several decades, that would seem to be a most fitting epitaph.

Richard Gardham

Our Soul of Hull City series has reached the halfway mark, with 50 of the 100 supporter nominated entries documented for posterity. We’ll be working on parts 6-10 soon, but for those who’ve missed some or all of parts 1-5, here’s a look back at those 50 entries as we set out to define what it is that makes Hull City unique, different from every other club in the land. The first 5 parts are linked below…

The Soul of Hull City part one
Waggy & Chillo
Leigh Jenkinson in the Rumbelow’s Sprint Challenge
Andy Payton v. Brighton
Tennis ball protest at Bolton
The Well
1990-1991 relegation season
Phil Brown’s shoes
John Hawley signs amateur terms
Terry Neill
Pub quiz questions

The Soul of Hull City part two
Securing promotion at Yeovil
Reverend Ballbag’s Yuletide carols
Jon Parkin’s fall from grace
Post war sky blue kits
Simon Dakin’s lift shaft tumble
Signing Jay-Jay Okocha
Fer Ark signage
Ian McKechnie and the oranges
Sheffield Wednesday 2 Hull City 4
Billy Whitehurst graffiti

The Soul of Hull City part three
Ian Ashbee
HDM nickname City ‘The Tigers’
Dave Bamber’s own goal at Brighton
’The Tigers Are Back’ record
Billy Whitehurst
Premier Club bell
Robinson and Horton with some turkeys
Hinchliffe crest
Boothferry Halt
Mark Hateley

The Soul of Hull City part four
Peter Taylor
1965-66 promotion season
Six free-standing floodlight pylons
Andy Davidson
Jeff Radcliffe’s hat
Hednesford cup defeat
The Reggae Boyz
Pearson Takeover
Caleb Folan arrives for a million
Martin Fish

The Soul of Hull City part five
Payton & Swan
Halftime v. Liverpool (1989)
Associate Members Cup Final – Not at Wembley
Billy Bly
Mauled by the Tigers
City blow chance of top flight promotion, 1910
KC Stadium move
Best Stand dust showers
A kick in the Balkans documentary (1990)
Michael Turner

Sad new for Portsmouth fans, though it does at least keep the club alive in the short term. From a City perspective, it’s hard to avoid the fact that one of the relegation places already settled is no bad thing. Portsmouth travel to Burnley tomorrow, a match most of the bottom clubs will suddenly be keen for them to win.

For some people, Hull City didn’t exist until May 2008, when the club joined the upper echelons and entered the national consciousness. For long time City fans though, the Tigers are far more than a single match or season, they are the sum of childhood memories of standing on Boothferry Park’s ‘well’, of recollections of Simon Gray coach trips to away games, even of events not witnessed first hand but passed down from a previous generation of Tiger Nationals. Hull City is a rich tapestry comprised of many individual and overlapping threads.

Some threads are more important than others though, and we set out to define what it is that makes Hull City unique, different from every other club in the land. What are the 100 key events, people, sights and sounds that combine to form the soul of Hull City? Not every entry has to be of monumental historic importance, but it has to be quintessentially Hull City…

PAYTON & SWAN
Dramatis Personae

A terrific strike partnership that should never have been, really. Peter Swan wasn’t even signed as a centre forward when City shelled out a record £200,000 for him in 1989, and absolutely hated playing up front.

But, with Keith Edwards and Billy Whitehurst both buggering off the following season and Dave Bamber ultimately ending up as a worthless yet expensive piece of shit, needs must and the big centre back, who had a scoring record as an emergency striker at previous club Leeds United (including a consolation at Boothferry Park on the same day youth product Andy Payton grabbed his first senior Tigers goal) was shoved up the field.

It also shouldn’t have worked because the two evidently didn’t get on. The brilliant, short, mulleted Payton was beyond archetype as the selfish centre forward, both in the way he played and the surly air he gave off in interviews and the like. He felt a strike partner, even a good one who benefited his own game, was some kind of occupational hazard.

Yet Swan aided Payton and Payton helped Swan, if only to appear professional, and the two scored for fun in Stan Ternent’s unspeakably abysmal team of 1990-91, one of the more freakish and unlikely statistics in Hull City history. Swan was tall and courageous and scored most of his goals while airborne, whereas Payton relied on flicks and crosses or simply his own pace and a self-confidence bordering on narcissism to earn the many goals he stuck away.

Sadly, the defence was way too often unable to prevent a similar concession rate to the strike rate at the other end, and ultimately it was Payton and Swan alone who benefited from their prolific association as City were horribly relegated. Payton went to Middlesbrough for £750,000 a few months into the next season after Swan had already offed it in the summer, heading for Port Vale.

Payton maintained, publicly, his love for Hull City afterwards following a nomadic career which involved many moves to acquire signing-on fees (and probably avoid bills, fines and divorce lawyers) whereas Swan built a local media career which proved successful enough to warrant an autobiography that was panned in reviews but did reveal his dislike and mistrust towards Payton. Thankfully, that they worked together so well, even when shoddy defending at the other end meant it almost didn’t matter, will remain the dominant memory of them. It ultimately wasn’t relevant that they weren’t particularly enamoured with one another. All that was important was that they were ace.

HALFTIME V. LIVERPOOL (1989)
Heights of joy

So rarely in the life of a lower league football club do significant moments arise of genuine global proportions. Perhaps this new Premier League Tiger breed has lost sight of what a remarkable achievement it can be, to briefly best a genuine world class footballing side. In 1989 the Tigers, an established second tier side thanks to the calm administrations of manager Brian Horton but now piloted by dour Leeds-type Eddie Gray, reached the Fifth Round of the FA Cup after solid wins at Cardiff and Bradford and drew a plum tie at home to 80s global phenomenon Liverpool.

The masses crammed into Boothferry Park (the attendance of 20,058 in the old place that day was never bettered) and watched in amazement as goals from bludgeoner Billy Whitehurst and arch-poacher Keith Edwards saw City return to the dressing room at half time with an unlikely 2-1 lead. Boothferry Park witnessed a remarkable spectacle at half time, an almost deafening hum of people talking in low tones to each other about how unbelievable this all was. It was a sound that many football fans will never experience.

Alas, it all faded away as quickly as it arose. Liverpool soon assumed a second half lead and the plucky Tigers went down 2-3. City narrowly avoided relegation while Liverpool suffered their worst of tragedies two months later when the South Yorkshire Police force facilitated the death of 96 supporters in the sheep pens of Hillsborough. But just for a moment, whispering scarcely credible predictions over steaming cups of half-time Bovril, the little guys from Hull believed they were going to rock the footballing world. Nice feeling, that.

ASSOCIATE MEMBERS CUP FINAL -- NOT AT WEMBLEY
That’s SO Hull City

A competition which has struggled on manfully under the weight of high street sponsors like Sherpa Van, Autoglass and, currently, Johnstone’s Paint, the Associate Members Cup final made its debut in the 1983-4 season in an effort to give lower division clubs the chance of proper silverware and an appearance at Wembley. Yet the second of those laudable incentives didn’t happen in its first year as the national stadium’s pitch had been ruined by the Horse of the Year show -- and obviously that had to be the year Hull City got to the final.

It was an easy path that Colin Appleton’s men beat through the competition, defeating northerly foes like York City and Sheffield United on the way to a final that, in any other circumstance at all, would have had the Tiger Nation dancing in the streets at the prospect of a first ever visit to the Twin Towers. Once that dream had been shelved by equine vandals and their jodhpured friends, the mood went from disappointed to perplexed when it was decided that Boothferry Park would host the match, awarding the Tigers an obvious and clearly unfair home advantage for a one-off, winner-takes-all occasion.

Of course, by the time City played Tranmere in the semi-final, the promotion from the third tier dream had been shattered courtesy of one poxy goal, and Appleton had announced immediately after the crucial game at Burnley that he was doing one. Chris Chilton had to lift the heads of a gutted team three days later as they beat Tranmere 4-1 in the semis, but it was all too much at Boothferry Park once the final came. Bournemouth won the game 2-1 and took the trophy back to Dorset. In pretty much one fell swoop City had lost out on promotion, lost out on a visit to Wembley, lost out on a proper trophy and lost a good manager.

Naturally every subsequent final in this competition until the original Wembley was torn down made it to the great stadium, while City had to wait another 24 years to get there. Typical.

BILLY BLY
Dramatis Personae

Hull City’s history might be a bit underwhelming, but our history of goalkeepers most certainly isn’t. From Eddie Roughley, reputed to have been so outstanding in Hull City’s first serious stab at promotion to Division One, to the underappreciated Boaz Myhill more often than not standing as firm as could be expected behind such a porous Premiership defence, the list of Hull City greats is heavily weighted in favour of custodians of the leather.

Boaz would rightly have his supporters in an all-time City XI, as might George Maddison, Maurice Swan, Ian McKechnie, Jeff Wealands, Alan Fettis and maybe even Roy Carroll. In all likelihood, however, the green jersey would go to one of two men: Tony Norman or Billy Bly. In the event of a tie, the decision would have to go on who has the most pre-season trophies named after them.

Bly was born in Newcastle in 1920 and came through his home town club’s youth system. It was while playing for Walker Celtic that he caught the eye of Ernie Blackburn and joined City as an apprentice in August 1937. However, Bly had to wait until April 1939 to make his debut at Rotherham in a 2-0 win though he was to remain City’s first-choice keeper for the remainder of the season. The war seemingly ended Bly’s City career before it had begun. Though he was to turn out for the club in a few wartime games, there could have been no clues that this skinny keeper who had played only a handful of games before the commencement of hostilities in Europe was going to stamp his name all over the history of the Tigers.

It was a 0-0 draw at home to Lincoln City in August 1946 in which Billy Bly’s City career started in earnest. He was first choice for City that day, and was to remain so until March 1960. Indeed had it not have been for a series of unfortunate injuries (Bly was reputed to be ‘the most injured man in football’ at the time) and the war robbing him of six years of his career, one can only wonder just how many more appearances than the eventual 456 Bly would have racked up in his 22 years at Hull City.

Bly’s star was to rise quickly. In the hubbub that surrounded Raich Carter’s appointment and the club’s rise in the next couple of years from half-decent Division Three (North) team to being on the verge of promotion to the First Division, Bly was outstanding. Carter’s class may have been taking the plaudits on a national scale, but among the City faithful Bly’s popularity was second to none. In the famous 1949 FA Cup run , Bly kept an impressive clean sheet at Stoke in a 2-0 win to set up the famous Sixth Round tie at home to Manchester United. The 55,019 fans at Boothferry Park that day saw Bly break his nose in the first-half, and bravely play on despite clearly being concussed. It was such devotion to the cause that means that ten-a-penny fanzine writers are still writing about him 50 years on and why fans at the time loved him so much.

Injuries then started to hit Bly. He missed much of the 1950/51 season with a variety of injuries (his bravery was to see him suffer 14 fractures in his career, as well as a glut of other injuries). His fitness also seemed to be affecting any possible football career outside of the confines of Boothferry Park too, with Bly having to withdraw from an England ‘B’ call up due to injury. The rest of the 1950s seemed to continue with a pattern of: Bly plays, City look fine; Bly is injured, City look shaky. Indeed Bly was to never be ever-present for City in any season. The closest he came was in 1958/59 when he missed just one game. It was no coincidence that that season City were promoted from Division Three.

Despite his obvious frailties, Billy was 39 when he played his final game for Hull City in a 1-0 defeat at Bristol Rovers. His final season was, predictably, blighted by injury, and again, City fortunes floundered in tandem. Relegation at the end of the season also saw Bly announce his retirement, 21 years or so since he’d made his debut in a career that spanned four decades. Bly came out of retirement to play for Weymouth two years after his last game for Hull City, and helped his new team to a giant-killing run into the fourth round of the FA Cup, but as far as league football was concerned he remained a one-club man. After his football career ended, he ran a sweet shop near Boothferry Park and remained a City fan after his playing days had ended.

So there’s much more to Billy Bly than a mere trophy. The trophy – usually presented to the victors of the North Ferriby v Hull City pre-season match by his son, Roy -- means that his name stays in the conscience of Hull City fans, but in truth his achievements while at City deserve more recognition than that. The longevity of his City career, his bravery, his talent, his likeability and the achievements of the club while he was stood between the sticks make Bly a worthy recipient of the title ‘legend’, a title that shouldn’t diminish with time.

MAULED BY THE TIGERS
Fan culture

Liverpool (and Celtic) have You’ll Never Walk Alone, Manchester City have Blue Moon, West Ham have I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles, Manchester United have whatever the ‘terrace poet’ appointed by the marketing men in charge at Old Trafford tells them to sing. Even the rugby clubs have their own anthems – the only, and I mean ONLY, thing that they can maybe feel superior to us about. And what do we have? Don’t even think about claiming Can’t Help Falling In Love – Sunderland have been singing that for ages. Sadly, Bread of Skeltons rarely gets an airing these days. That leaves our only unique terrace chant/song as Mauled by the Tigers. Still, it’s better than most have to offer.

Born some time in the mid to late 90s, the ‘Mauled’ chant, with the accompanying hand movements, has been taken to the bosom of City’s support. Younger fans seem to love its childish appeal, older fans appreciate that it’s just plain amusing and a more inventive way of reminding opposing fans of the fact that their team is losing than simply chanting the scoreline. A few fans may harrumph at how gay we all look, but we know its shit, and never shitter than when thousands of hardened, tattoed Hullensians are singing it in unison. However, it’s also funny, and never funnier than when it’s being chanted at Anfield or the Emirates.

It’s unlikely – given that among English clubs there’s only Millwall who it might apply to – that anyone is going to steal it off us. Most importantly though, it’s ours, in all its self-deprecating, camp, mocking glory.

CITY BLOW CHANCE OF TOP FLIGHT PROMOTION, 1910
Depths of despair

Oldham Athletic. When they’re not stealing Jobbo for half his true worth, or poaching our best schoolboy players of the late 80s and early 90s, or gaining an unfair advantage on a plastic pitch, or persuading us to overpay for Andy Holt, then they are pipping us to promotion to the top-flight of English football 100 years ago. Bastards.

1910 was when we managed to mess up the best chance we’d had of promotion to what was then known as Division One, and were to get for another 98 years. City’s team back then doesn’t quite roll off the tongue like the great post-war teams but that’s more to do with the length of time that has passed than it is the quality of the players. You’ve all probably heard of EDG ‘Gordon’ Wright. Some of you may even believe that he was our first and only England international (he wasn’t; official FA records have him down as a Cambridge University player, unfortunately). But there was more to this team than the Hymers College schoolmaster. Manager Ambrose Langley seemed to want to field teams with as few surnames as possible, meaning the defence and midfield was based around the Browell brothers, George and Albert, while up front the goals were largely supplied and scored by ‘the three Smiths’, Joe (five goals), Jack (32 in 35 games) and Wallace (17). Davy and Dan Gordon were also crucial members of the squad. And in addition to Gordon Wright’s impeccable wing play, City’s forward line was usually completed by Arthur Temple – who contributed 16 goals that season – or occasionally the highly rated Alf Toward, who Langley deemed surplus to requirements and sold to Oldham for £350 mid-season.

City didn’t seem to miss Toward – who had contributed little that season anyway. Going into the final game of the season in second place, City needed to win at Oldham, who were two points behind but with a better goal average, which was how teams on level points were separated, or draw and hope that third-placed Derby didn’t win. As City went into the game unbeaten in 12 games, 11 of which were wins, top-flight football was City’s to lose. And lose it they did.

Derby did their bit, only managing to draw against West Brom, but City were blown away by Oldham. Missing the influential Jack McQuillan, City had no answer to the Latics attacking football. The home side went ahead on 18 minutes, and were two up on 25 minutes when – you guessed it – Alf Toward scored from what looked like an offside position. The third in the 80th minute compounded the agony. Oldham – who had spent much of the early part of the season propping up the Second Division – were promoted. City were left vowing to make amends the following season. And the season after, and the season after, and the season after…

And that was it. Of course we finished sixth in Division Two in 1986 – the year before the play-offs came into being –but until 2008 this was the nearest City had come to experiencing the upper chamber of the football league. It can only be speculated what might have happened had we won that day. Would we have gone on to greater things, build on the success and flirt with greatness in the way in which teams from similar-sized cities and towns with similar resources to City managed? Or would we have come straight back down and endured a very similar path to the one we were to tread anyway?

One thing we can be sure of, however, is that we wouldn’t have got to witness the too-good-to-be-described-in-words events of May 2008. Sure, promotion would have been incredible even if it hadn’t been our first time in the top flight, but knowing that we were prising a 104-year-old monkey off our back made the celebrations all the more elating and tear-inducing. So while our great-great grandfathers missed out on the opportunity to sup celebratory halves of milk stout down Canal Street, them being denied their bit of history made the bottles of over-priced piss that we got hammered on on the streets of Camden and Soho taste all the sweeter.

KC STADIUM MOVE
Talking points

A ‘super stadium’ in Hull had been talked about for decades. The more Boothferry Park and the Boulevard crumbled, the louder the calls for such a development came. However, a few things always seemed to be lacking: money, ambition, interest from the clubs’ respective boards and the ability to pull in the fans to fill anything worth building.

To make such a stadium work, a successful, well supported football team would be needed, as rugby league, despite what a handful of egg-chasing fuckwits will tell you, doesn’t have the interest in Hull or anywhere else in the country to make such a large-scale project viable. In a case of impeccable timing, Adam Pearson took over Hull City just as the local council became rather wealthy after selling a percentage of its shares in Kingston Communications.

The money was there, the ambition from Pearson certainly was, and the Hull City fan base, which seemed to swell to vaguely impressive levels as various ‘saviours’ came in and raped the club after the hated Needler regime was replaced, suggested that if they built it, we would come. The complacency and self-serving of endless Labour-dominated councils in Hull did the city few favours while other cities in the UK of a similar size were regenerating and making themselves attractive to investors, but in building the KC Stadium rather than spending the share money on worthy bottomless pit projects is something we should always be grateful to the then council – and Paddy Doyle in particular – for. The KC Stadium, and the change in fortune it helped bring about in Hull’s only sporting team that had any hope of becoming a recognizable name outside the confines of the M62, has done more to raise the profile of, and feelgood factor within the city than anything else in living memory.

Premiership football, international sporting events and concerts by internationally renowned pop stars mix seamlessly with community events, schoolkids playing on the many outlying all-weather pitches and corporate events. And it’s all surrounded by attractive parkland within walking distance of the city centre.

The KC looks at home in what is arguably the best, and richest, football league in the world. It’s a thing of beauty and it has done as much to turn around the fortunes of Hull City as any player and chairman. In fact, the campaign starts here: let’s have a statue of the KC erected. Just outside the KC.

BEST STAND DUST SHOWERS
Fan culture

Best: a superlative of ‘good’, meaning of the most excellent or desirable kind -- though the word is often loosely used to describe something that’s less shit than whatever is surrounding it. Hence, Mel C was the ‘best’ singer in the Spice Girls, Benidorm is the ‘best’ ITV sitcom of the past 25 years, Carlsberg is probably the ‘best’ lager in the world, and Boothferry Park’s ‘Best Stand’ was fractionally less shit than the South Stand, North Stand or Kempton.

The Best Stand had very little going for it, other than the fact that it wasn’t one of the three other stands. Yes it housed The Well, and it was where the dignitaries and sponsors sat, but it was still shit. In the final 30 years or so of its existence, when it had basically been left to rot, it had the added benefit of showering City fans with dust, rubble and bits of masonry whenever a clearance from a City player (or a pin-point pass from Steve Terry) hit any part of the stand’s upper areas. If the ball happened to hit the part of the stand’s roofing above the players’ wives, it was often the highlight of a Saturday afternoon watching these ladies, done up to the nines (well, more like threes for the most part), having to pick bits of concrete out of their Mark Hill hair-dos. The KC has yet to show any signs of fraying, but should the day come it can only be hoped that it does so in as comical a fashion as its predecessor.

A KICK IN THE BALKANS DOCUMENTARY (1990)
Talking points

The fall of communism brought a multitude of benefits to Bulgaria; free elections, a restructured economy, and, err, a visit from Hull City. Recently departed chairman Don Robinson saw the legacy of ‘Perestroika’ as an entrepreneurial opportunity, and involved himself with ‘dental tourism’ to the Balkan state. He also organised a three game pre-season tour of Bulgaria for the Tigers in the summer of 1990, and for commentator John Helm and a Yorkshire TV film crew to document the trip.

The result was a moderately intriguing half-hour programme which aired after the 10 o’ clock news on ITV, punderfully named ‘A kick in the Balkans’. Highlights include pre-game folk dancing, Dave Bamber’s critique of local cuisine, Paul Hunter’s Bart Simpson tee shirt and Don Robinson talking to camera topless. Iain Hesford’s contrived links counting down the days until the squad return home aren’t quite as mirthful as the corpulent ‘keeper believes.

MICHAEL TURNER
Dramatis Personae

From (very) briefly threatening to become one of the worst Hull City defenders ever, to the sight of a city shedding real tears of anger and distress at his sale, the three years Turner spent with the Tigers epitomised the growth and progress of the club as a whole.

When Peter Taylor left for Crystal Palace in the summer of 2006, he took Leon Cort with him in exchange for a seven-figure sum and his successor Phil Parkinson needed to find an imposing central defender quickly. He brought in Turner, a former Charlton trainee who had dropped down the divisions to Brentford and become a big hero there. The fee was £350,000 but soon it seemed clear that he was overpriced, overrated and, well, now over here.

There were many shaky games for the new centre back, though occasionally he would redeem himself with a crucial goal or two, notably an injury-time equaliser against Palace at the KC that ruined Taylor’s return and also mercifully stopped Cort’s awful over-celebration of his earlier strike in front of the East Stand being the defining memory of the day. However, Turner was culpable for at least two of Colchester’s goals in a dismal thrashing at Layer Road, the nadir of a wretched period for player, manager and club, and before long Parkinson was gone. Phil Brown took over and Turner seemed transformed.

A stunning volley at Luton later in the season as City battled like hell to stay up (and send Leeds down) became the official goal of the season but by now Turner had discovered his defensive attributes again and, aside from when he was bafflingly dropped for the awful Danny Coles on the opening day of the next season, neither he nor the Tiger Nation looked back. Unerring in his reading of the game, accuracy in the tackle, total dominance in the air and occasional knack of scoring immaculately timed goals (an injury time winner at Burnley, another injury time equaliser against QPR, a first minute header against Watford that settled everyone down) made him by a mile the player of the season as City reached the play-offs, then his immortal act of chucking himself at a late, obviously goalbound Lee Trundle shot at Wembley, deflecting said effort over the bar, provided the moment when we knew, deep down, we were going up.

In the Premier League he never missed a minute, never mind a game, and Fabio Capello had supposedly kept a bespectacled eye on him (albeit from a distance, and only after the Hull Daily Mail felt obliged to write to the FA), putting him in a provisional England squad though eventually leaving him out at the final stage. Turner never once, just once, looked forlorn or out of his depth, even scoring a few smart goals, and was again the runaway player of the year as City stayed up by a whisker. It seemed that for as long as Turner was around City, City would be around the Premier League, so when he was sold to Sunderland at the end of the summer transfer window with worrying enthusiasm by Paul Duffen and for a fee nobody would reveal, there was an outcry of atomic proportions that took Duffen and the hierarchy by surprise. Turner himself, befitting the serene, unaffected and affable figure he cut in interviews, never asked to leave and gave his all to the last moment, his parting gift being an eye-watering block with his wedding tackle on the goal-line which preserved a point at Wolves. Within 48 hours he was gone.

His character was enhanced further when he inevitably scored against City on his Sunderland debut (in one of those coincidences that happen, and one the club didn’t seem to notice) and offered a gesture of apology to the Tiger Nation before taking the celebration to which he was entitled elsewhere. When Adam Pearson returned to the club two months later and instantly disclosed that merely £4m, minus sell-on payments to Turner’s two previous clubs, was all City got for an all-time great, his legend was somehow enhanced within the shrieks of rage and idle threats aimed towards the departed, discredited Duffen.

The destiny of City without Turner remains unclear, but Turner’s own destiny surely is the international recognition he merited for some time and maybe a huge move to one of the biggest clubs in the land. The best we’ve ever had? Yeah.

Entries by Richard Gardham, Ian Thomson, Matthew Rudd, Mike Scott and Les Motherby

Missed part one? Read it HERE
Part two can be found HERE
Part three is housed HERE
Part four is situated HERE

Hull City has confirmed that skipper Anthony Gardner did not break his leg during Saturday’s 3-0 defeat at West Ham United.

However, they have yet to receive the results of an MRI scan which is expected to reveal ligament damage.

Gardner, who has been injury-prone all his career but had managed to play 21 times in the Tigers defence this season, fell awkwardly after challenging Matthew Upson for a header during the horror show at the Boleyn Ground. He was stretchered off in agony, with the whole stadium applauding him, and left City with just nine men on the pitch as all three substitutes had been deployed and Craig Fagan had been sent off.

Phil Brown expressed worries about tibia and fibula damage in the post-match press rounds, but that initial fear has been allayed. News of the actual damage should emerge later today or tomorrow, although it seems certain that the ex-England defender won’t be fit when City return to action at Everton on March 7th.

Gardner’s absence would smooth a path back into the back four for the popular Kamil Zayatte, while the captain’s armband is likely to go to midfielder George Boateng.

Groan.

For all of City’s magnificence against Chelsea and Manchester City, such results against top six teams aren’t what keep you in the Premier League, it’s results that deny points to the teams around you at the bottom that keep you off the last three rungs of the top flight ladder. When it comes to the so-called six pointers, we fail miserably more often that not, with this defeat in East London another example.

Phil Brown says the experience of staying up last season will stand us in good stead, but that implies we showed mental strength and dug ourselves out of a hole late last season. We didn’t. We simply clung on in the hope that three teams would finish the season with a shitter overall record than us, and so it proved. Similarly, our best hope of staying up this year seems to be the ineptitude of other teams rather than a display of genuine worthiness from us.

Late last year, the games against poor sides that were supposed to save us, versus Stoke, Sunderland and Middlesbrough, nearly proved our undoing, and following consecutive defeats at clubs previously within leapfrogging distance at the foot of the table, we appear to be following the same dispiriting pattern.

Against West Ham, level on points with us before kick off, the game was effectively lost after the first ten minutes. Events later in the game confirmed defeat; a sending off, sloppily conceded goals and an injury to Anthony Gardner that left us playing with nine men in the latter stages, but it was the home side’s desire and application in the first ten minutes that left City stunned and without an answer, lacking either the nous or determination to force our way back into the contest.

The Tigers lined up thus: Myhill; Dawson, Gardner, Mouyokolo, McShane; Hunt, Cairney, Boateng, Fagan; Zaki and Vennegoor of Hesselink.

From the off West Ham looked fired up and full of attacking intent, Italian fop Alessandro Diamanti forced a diving save from Boaz Myhill in the first minute after Hunt carelessly gave away a free kick near the touchline to our left. Soon after Bo was picking the ball out of the net, Andy Dawson’s ill advised pass inside to a quickly closed down Tom Cairney allowed Valon Behrami to steal the ball and sprint goalwards, his pass to Franco was poorly controlled but became a one-two pass for the still advancing Behrami to sweep the ball home. Two minutes in, 1-0 down.

The Hammers’ fast tempo approach continued, Mouyokolo twice foiling Carlton Cole at the expense of corners, sparing the blushes of Dawson and Gardner who had feebly failed to stop the forward. Scott Parker’s shot from a short corner was thankfully straight at our netman.

Myhill had a brief period of respite when City made their first advances of the game, but two successive Fagan crosses from the left were gleefully taken by the Hammers’ Hobbit-esque keeper Robert Green. A Vennegoor of Hesselink header from a free kick was similarly claimed by an unthreatened Green.

Twice Myhill denied Behrami a second goal, first beating away a shot for a corner after Dawson’s dithering allowed the Albanian-Swiss a chance on goal, and then pulling off an amazing save from a header after McShane’s pitiful attempt at stopping a Cole cross. Both of our full backs were having ’mares and the recently reliable Gardner was also having a torrid time.

Mercifully, after their high octane start, the home side took their foot off the pedal a bit, they didn’t really need to keep going at us, so inept were we when in possession. Both wide men, Hunt and Fagan, had thoroughly fruitless afternoons and for the first time since his elevation into first team action Tom Cairney looked a little overwhelmed, at least by his defensive responsibilities, when he had the ball at his feet he was one of the only Tigers able to find an amber clad man when passing. Up front Vennegoor of Hesselink and Zaki weren’t getting much service. JVoH’s mobility has always looked suspect and was highlighted here and the Egyptian Zaki looks quite portly and certainly lacks match fitness. The decision to drop the in form Jozy Altidore was a poor one by Brown.

Only George Boateng could be described as having a good game, and he fashioned City’s only clear cut goalscoring opportunity of the first half. Jumping to chest down a headed clearance, the Boat brought the ball under control with his feet, side stepping left to evade a defender before unleashing a ferocious left foot shot that was bound for the top right hand corner of the goal until Green intervened, tipping the ball over the crossbar.

After forty minutes of ragged, indecisive play, City finally imposed themselves on the game to some degree and the half-time whistle, not so long ago eagerly awaited by the Tiger Nation, was an inconvenience when it came.

A note about the game’s atmosphere, it was practically non-existent. If the Match of the Day highlights are soundtracked by a crowd in full voice, then it has been added in post production rather than recorded in real time by the Beeb’s squeegee like microphones. A ragged bunch of shaven headed meffs in the home stand to our left scorned our near silence by opining “there’s only two of you singing”, curiously overlooking that only ten of them were piping up out of some thirty-two thousand home fans .

Ignoring consideration of a wretched first half, the talk on the Premier League’s most cramped concourse was of three coaches, having deposited their passengers near the ground to look for Elijah Woods, heading back to Hull as the game commenced. Instead of “Don’t wanna go home…”, the Sloop John B remix became “We ain’t getting home…”

Encouragingly, City started the second half as they had ended the first. Stephen Hunt looked to feed Zaki in an advanced position, but his through ball into the box was poorly aimed and cut out by a defender, much to the Egyptian’s visible disgust. One ball that did reach Zaki was timidly crossed in by McShane and didn’t allow the portly forward to get in as strong a header as he would have liked, instead the ball arced slowly into Green’s waiting hands. Lack of possession suddenly wasn’t a problem for City, a lack of ideas was and though the Hammers had gone off the boil somewhat, any chances of City fashioning a goalscoring chance fizzled out before they’d really started due to a frustrating combination of indecision and poor execution.

We were at least putting our foot on the ball now and attempting to play it around the park, we just weren’t doing it well. Any hope desperately gleaned from this patch of possession was snuffed out however on 53 minutes, when Craig Fagan was dismissed. Booked midway through the first half for a foul on Scott Parker, he lost possession on the touchline and in his frustration grabbed at Diamanti’s shirt as he sped up the wing. Diamanti, being Italian, fell theatrically to the ground and his reward was, not a BAFTA, but a second yellow for Fagan followed by a red. It was perhaps, a little harsh on Fagan, but given his waspish nature always a likelihood.

And there you had it, confirmation of what we suspected ten minutes in, that we were not getting back into this game. More confirmation followed, free to try speculative passes West Ham looked to double their lead and did so on the hour mark when Faubert’s through ball wasn’t cut out by a poorly positioned Gardner and Carlton Cole coolly placed the ball beyond an exposed Myhill. Faubert’s team mates congratulated him on the pass that wasn’t quite the work of genius it will undoubtedly be made out to be in the press, nine times out of ten you’d expect, Gardner would have smartly intercepted the ball, but Gardner’s play was not at all smart today.

The day got worse for the lanky central defender, with ten minutes to go he fell awkwardly and had to be stretchered from the field, leaving us with nine men. A quarter of an hour earlier Phil Brown made a triple substitution, withdrawing Cairney, Hunt and Zaki and replacing them with Olofinjana, Barmby and Altidore.

These three gave the Tigers some renewed endeavour, Altidore certainly so, showing why he should have started with some bustling forward play and he nearly scored, hitting a shot just wide amid defensive pressure.

With nine men (and Andy Dawson hobbling) you always suspected West Ham would grab a not entirely deserved third, in stoppage time Faubert struck a shot that appeared to go through Myhill’s hands and in. The Hammers are probably too good to go down but they’re not a good side, certainly not as good as we made them look today.

The Tiger Nation filed out of the Boleyn Ground with an outlook as bleak as the surrounding streets. You can’t fail to be amused by West Ham fans claiming we’re from “the shithole of Britain” without a trace of irony, given that there isn’t a single part of East Yorkshire with half the shitholeivity of Newham.

This result leaves us hoping that Bolton and Burnley will fail to take advantage of their games in hand to go above us in the table. Our Premier League fate is once again slipping from our grasp and we are at the mercy of the results of others. The draw against Chelsea and win against Manchester City did us a short term favour but for long term reward we really needed to have beaten Wolves, who thanks to Chelsea today, are still level on points with us but enjoying a better goal difference.

Next weekend will prove immensely frustrating as other teams try to move ahead or away from us while City are playing a friendly in Ireland because of Aston Villa‘s cup exploits. Unless City show infinitely more intent and ability than displayed at West Ham, that feeling of helplessness might last until mid-May. Groan.

A meagre two minutes had elapsed when Andy Dawson and Tom Cairney combined to lose possession, allowing Valon Behrami to exchange passes with Guille Franco and shoot past an exposed Boaz Myhill.

It remained this way until early in the second half when, as City were putting promising pressure on their hosts, Craig Fagan committed an imbecilic foul and received his second yellow card, rendering him very much absent for the rest of the game. The Tigers couldn’t regroup as ten men and Carlton Cole slipped a low shot under Myhill for 2-0 to make it safe.

Anthony Gardner was stretchered off with a worrying-looking leg injury after City had used all three subs, meaning that just nine men – or eight when you consider Dawson was hobbling for the last 20 minutes – had to prevent an onslaught. The impressive Julien Faubert thumped in a conclusive third deep into time added on.

Not good, not disciplined and not undeserved. Match report later, if heart and stomach permits.