All the hoodoos have been smashed. We’ve won at home. We’ve held on to a lead. We’ve managed to come from behind to win. We’re off the bottom. And, at last, the national football-consuming public don’t think that Hull City are always complete garbage on the telly.

One of my favourite chants of last season came in the death throes of the freezing Friday night defeat at Burnley when the travelling Tiger faithful, aware that yet again the Sky curse was breaking our backs, started singing to Mr Murdoch about where exactly he could place his cameras. Black humour in adversity, though the adversity we faced yesterday was ten times more precarious than any strife we encountered on the hard, square seats of Turf Moor.

We’d just won at Leicester in a grinningly satisfying smash ‘n’ grab job in which defences – or, to be more precise, our defence – ruled. Our four points had all come away from home. Now was the perfect time to remind the home support of just what we can do at the KC when circumstances allow, and to remind the away support that their delusions of grandeur will grow ever more delusional as the weeks rattle on. Wednesday have never been more irrelevant.

Phil Parkinson, impressively clad in short-sleeved training gear next to Paul “Geldof” Sturrock in his baggy whistle, made two changes from the win in the Walkers Cemetery. Nicky Forster’s groin strain allowed a recall after that ban for Jon Parkin up front, while Danny Mills – an odd but undoubtedly welcome signing – lined up at centre back for probably the first time in his eventful career in place of the luckless Sam Collins, a tower of strength in the Walkers Morgue but subsequently feeling a neck injury. So, the City register was called thus: Boaz Myhill in goal; Mills partnering Michael Turner in between Sam Ricketts and Andy Dawson; Craig Fagan and Ryan France flanking the “shalt not pass” superduo of David Livermore and skipper Ian Ashbee; the Beast accompanying Michael Bridges at the top.

Prior to kick off, there were extra special welcomes for Mills (debut), Bridges (home debut) and Ashbee (first game at the KC since the 1-1 crossbarfest with, erm, Leicester 13 months ago). Bridges applauded, Ashbee saluted, Mills didn’t seem to notice. Ah well, he’s a Premiership full back, y’know. They have a bad reputation to maintain right now.

So, settle down in your seat, be it mildly cramped in the KC or of the comfy variety in your drawing room. Any prospects of a Friday night snooze with occasional breaks of wind and wonderment of what’s being repeated on ESPN Classic – as is often associated with televised Friday night Championship matches – were quickly dispelled by a ref who couldn’t tell that Danny Mills was Caucasian. A hand went up as a Wednesday set-piece hit the City six yard box, ref Salisbury decided it was the palm of Mills and the penalty was given.

The City players angrily surrounded the official but my initial instinct was that he was right, as I thought it was Mills who had deeded heinously. However, the Sky replays – described to me by a mate watching the game in Cheadle Heath – made it clear that Deon Burton – not Caucasian in skin tone – was the player who’d connected fist with leather. I’m in the East Stand, opposite halfway, but the referee is in the penalty area. He had no excuse for getting such a crucial decision so wrong, so early, and Mills later used this Sky coverage thingy to dare him to apologise. He can afford the disrepute fines, I suppose.

Burton himself stroked the penalty with absolute perfection low to Myhill’s left hand, with the keeper guessing right but powerless to prevent. Three minutes, one down, no justice. Gumph.

With the KC faithful choosing to re-urge the Tigers on as we restarted, City responded in kind. Livermore, the least heralded yet easily the best-performing Parkinson signing, dumped Marcus Tudgay with a robust ankle-cracking challenge and saw yellow. It immediately is clear, despite the early advantage, that Wednesday are largely free from footballing ideas in terms of real attacking, a factor confirmed by their sole tactic of dishing all-too-early balls to wonky-kneed winger Lloyd Sam, whose pace and close control never once managed to help him to our byline.

City picked up the momentum. Parkin and Bridges show some fine touches as a pairing – Bridges doing his dropping and running routine; Parkin winning the flicks while hearing the shout of where Bridges is headed – and such telepathy opens a gap for Parkin, returning after his one-match ban for sitting on a Birmingham defender in mid-air, to try curling a long-range shot past rent-a-keeper Brad Jones and only a yard or so off the target.

Jones, a Middlesbrough reserve whom I once saw pretty much throw the ball into his own net during a previous loan elsewhere, then flapped like a swan on thalidomide as Craig Fagan lofted in a tester of a ball which the Beastly bonce met with vigorous accuracy at the far post. A quick response had been sought and achieved. City level, 11 minutes gone.

City now wanted all of the ball, and our magnanimous and entirely characterless opponents seemed content to hand it over. Livermore and Bridges both delivered sublime angled balls for Fagan to chase, the second of which forced a corner. Dawson swung it in, got a second go from the clearance and re-angled it to the near post where Parkin swivelled to unleash an unstoppable, textbook volley past Jones. 2-1, 17 minutes, glad tidings of comfort and joy, or something like that.

The work of Fagan was not unnoticed as he scuttled after these diagonal balls from the midfield, as the flat-footed full back he was facing was easily outstrippable, even for Fagan’s overegged pace. However, whenever the ball was played directly to the Fagan feet, his first touch was invariably awful, thereby negating his effect as an orthodox wide midfielder. We know he isn’t that anyway, but nonetheless his capabilities on the chase and disappointing ignorance of technical basics in more withdrawn positions made us look more like a 4-3-3 at times, which clearly foxed our visitors.

With Ashbee winning and giving, and Livermore winning and spreading, City had an outright grip on the midfield and Wednesday were forced to avoid the centre of the pitch altogether to prompt anything worthwhile as a reply. They detected a weakness in Mills, for whom a World Cup quarter final appearance is never going to make up for a lack of height, and frequently he was nodding fresh air as ball after ball was sent his way from the Wednesday defence. All attempts proved ineffectual, however, and City remained in control.

A glorious turn and flick from Parkin – this is no parallel universe; he really was that oafish dunderhead at York and Macc – sent Bridges away but he strayed offside by little more than a yard. Bridges then used impeccable control and steely determination befitting of a man who has lost half his career to injury to skip through three challenges from an innocuous position and find room for a shot which didn’t quite dip enough. The crowd warmly applauded him. No centre forward in City’s recent history – good or bad ones – have had a touch and sense of awareness quite like this player. What a good buy.

Wednesday’s prime contribution at this stage was to provide a talking point as to the whereabouts of Burton O’Brien’s shirt number, which had somehow managed to extricate itself from its regular location on the back. I can’t recall any Beastly teeth-ripping act, nor a carefully administered scrape of the Livermore studs, but it was gone nonetheless. Maybe someone found a steward at half time and handed it back.

A skirmish between Sam and Dawson, broken up by Mills (who has never had a bad temper himself, oh no) added some extra toxicity to the occasion, with both getting yellow – Sam for a trip, Dawson for reacting. Parkin, who again seemed to suffer on the infringement front for being Rather Big and Hefty, then bulldozed through numerous soft challenges but couldn’t quite make enough room for the shot.

Wednesday created the last chance of the half, with beachbum-haired Yank midget Frank Simek blasting a swerver at Myhill which the keeper – who isn’t a fellow American, of course – managed to deal with without too much conviction. Are we using those ultra-light sidewinder footballs which World Cup custodians whinged about? Last night’s did seem to shift a bit in flight. Or maybe Simek just connected properly. Far be it from me to credit a Wendy for anything.

Half time, 2-1. As it was the last time a South Yorkshire team had visited us, and we all recollect, with a shudder, what Barnsley managed in the second half. But this time we’d hit from behind and had a tick in the formbook to back us up. We wouldn’t throw this away. And as an intermission bonus which the snack bars simply cannot supply, I’d got my shiny new Amber Nectar badge from our semi-bearded and worshipful gruppenführer Les. I felt honoured, like a member of the Secret Seven. All was well.

Wednesday made a sub for the second half, bringing on admirable ex-Crewe creator Kenny Lunt for the unknown and unnoticed Steve Adams, while City didn’t. There was no need. There also seemed to be no need to include John Welsh or Stuart Elliott on the bench at all, clarifying the Parkinson position on these two even further. I can’t help but wonder whether the chairman has double-checked exactly what the manager’s precise thoughts on Welsh are, bearing in mind how much money was paid out for him. The Elliott situation is less interesting.

Wednesday hit first in the second half, with Myhill shaping to stop Glenn Whelan’s uninviting long drive, again with curly-wurly effect in mid-air, before it was ultimately deflected from danger by the reflexive head of an awake Livermore.

City responded. Sam Ricketts picked up an ankle whack during an attack which left him out of position, sprint-limping back, as Wednesday surged up the other end, but when City wellied it clear towards him, he comically lost the hobble as he advanced on the penalty area with great purpose before setting up a left-footer for the Beast which went over. Livermore and Ashbee then hungrily robbed Wednesday again in the City-centric midfield and gave Fagan a half chance which touched a defender and was de-stung into the arms of Jones.

Wednesday summoned further reinforcements, with Chris Brunt and Lee Bullen joining the onslaught which was approaching. Instantly, Bullen whapped one from a full 30 yards which Myhill struggled to beat away in the swirling KC air; then City abjectly failed to clear a long throw and Tudgay scared the crap out of us with a glorious overhead kick which was a certainty to go in until the moment it didn’t.

City panicked and, with crushing familiarity, fell backwards. Ashbee was cautioned for handball as Wednesday kept pinging balls our way. In a brief spot of respite, Parkin nodded down a Dawson set piece and Turner hooked it over, before Bridges took a massive ovation as Nicky Barmby replaced him. Parkin went into defence and won several thousand headers. Wednesday chucked further men into the attack. City fans felt tense, although somehow it wasn’t half as nervy as those six excruciating added minutes at the Walkers Crematorium.

City could still have made the game easier to play out when a timewasting tactic in the corner earned Parkin a free kick, which he slipped through to a free Fagan on the byline, but City’s typecast winger-who-isn’t crossed to nobody except the cameraman on the opposite touchline. Then, after the signal of five superduper-long minutes of added time, City cleared one which Mills – God knows why, but it really was Mills – chased from halfway to the byline with no challenge forthcoming. He should have shot, but played it instead to Barmby in the six yard box. Barmby also should have shot, but instead just offered a weak poke of the ball. Honestly, 42 England caps between them and they couldn’t beat the decidedly dodgy Jones in a two-on-one.

It mattered little as the whistle sounded and the relief and joy reverberated round the stadium. Hell, maybe the city too. After all, our reputation isn’t that good, but not winning televised football matches is something which can now be erased from the reasons-to-hate-Hull list. “We all love Sky”, chanted some – those who probably recorded the game just in case we actually got round to winning it. Whether this new-found amorousness extends to watching the new series of Brainiac when Vic Reeves starts presenting it is open to debate.

Livermore and Parkin caught the eye most – the former for completely flawless midfield play which connoisseurs adore; the latter for two wonderful goals and an uncompromising attitude which hasn’t been remotely curtailed by officials’ mistrust of his rather spherical build. He’s our only Championship goalscorer at the KC; he lasted the full 90 for the first time; he looked properly fit; and he leapt iconically as a last-ditch cameo defender when we absolutely needed it.

It’s not perfect, of course. Mills is no centre back, and just experience got him through, because aerial ability certainly didn’t. Also, at least Mark Yeates’ unused presence on the bench is a start, as we suffer still for the lack of craft associated with having a striker as a right winger and a right winger as a left winger. Yeates can eventually avert that obvious anomaly when he is fully fit. Fagan and France have the industry but not the technique to achieve what authentic widemen should. Fagan has the speed – sometimes – but his first touch is terrible, while France has the touch but not the pace. Hopefully Yeates will provide a healthy combination of the best bits.

But the team as a whole deserves all the praise in the world for slicing up abysmal Yorkshire rivals and putting to bed numerous unflattering stats in the process. We’ve beaten Wednesday and gone above Leeds. Quick, when are we next on telly? (MR)