Far from looking refreshed and raring to ensure Championship survival after their five day trip to Portugal, the Tigers looked sluggish and jaded as they crashed to defeat against a spectacularly poor Leeds team who we inexplicably let dominate this game.

Starting this Yorkshire derby for City were Myhill; Dawson, Turner, Delaney, Ricketts; France, Ashbee (Capt.), Windass, Marney; Parkin and Forster.

Fifteen minutes later than advertised because of crowd congestion, they kicked off playing towards the North Stand, populated by some 2700 of the White Shite’s cretinous supporters. If the people who waved an ‘East Hull Whites’ flag prior to the games start were to be erased from existence by a falling meteorite on their way home then more people would subscribe to the theory of karma, we can but hope.

It was a scrappy opening to the game, contested by Leeds, who are shit, but not by City, who were shit earlier in the season but recently showed that they’re not really. However on this occasion, the Tigers decided not to bother turning up for this one after a week in the Iberian sun, so it was up to the supporters to entertain themselves with some vocal battling. “You’re going down” sung the Tiger Nation, “You’ve never won fuck all” retorted the Wessies and despicably treacherous East Hullers, “You’re not famous anymore” blasted the East Stand. 2-1 to the Tiger Nation on the chant score, but you could tell after just 5 minutes of football that City weren’t going to be victorious on the pitch.

The Tigers were abysmal, truly abysmal. It’s no exaggeration to say they couldn’t string two passes together, in fact they were struggling to make just one pass to a team mate, instead perpetually giving the ball to Leeds who evidently under boss Dennis Wise’s instructions, punted the ball over our defenders for their forwards to chase. It was ugly stuff, but it was pretty effective, and the Tiger Nation, boisterous earlier, fell into nervous silence.

Ref Phil Joslin, starting as he meant to go on, gave Leeds a free kick for pretty much nowt near the left touchline. The boyish Howson drilled a fast and low ball square into the box while City‘s players just watched, allowing Douglas to chip a shot thankfully high over the bar. Soon after The Boy was given space to lash a shot high over the bar. This encouraged the away support who belted out ‘Marching On Together’, yeah, marching on together to League One in ever decreasing numbers.

We might be joining them if we repeat this performance, we were unfocused and listless. Maybe the trip to Portugal was a bad idea, it was ostensibly ‘warm weather training‘ with the Millhouse Woods training pitches waterlogged and a big gap between games. Based on this, the players saw it as a holiday and a pat on the back for the recent good results and thought the job was done. That may not be the case, but that’s what it looked like.

Leeds were given another free kick that Bo Myhill did well to get to, pushing Thompson’s shot round the post to concede a corner rather than a goal. We survived that but with our passing getting worse, we gave up on it completely and settled for just clearing the ball when we won it. This gave Leeds the chance to pin us back and launch wave after wave of thankfully, poorly thought out attacks. Leeds are dogtod, no doubt about it, yet here we were wilfully playing second fiddle to them.

So desperate where we at this point, when we won a corner, Turner fell to the floor in a feeble attempt to win a penalty, the ref was having none of it but blew up for a mystifying free kick as Ashbee crossed the ball. Marney whipped the ball into the box, it flew beyond the keeper and onto the head of Damien Delaney who could only direct it wide of the goal. Shortly after, Nicky Forster did his man on the left wing (this really happened, a record KC Stadium crowd saw it) but his cross was deflected harmlessly to Sullivan in the Leeds’ goal.

Man in the middle Joslin granted the White Shite a glut of free kicks but they came to naught. Dim Yank fadge Eddie Lewis clattered France and was merely told off. He appeared to use an elbow, an offence that could be deemed worthy of a red card, at the very least a yellow, but Lewis is so fey that an assault is deemed to only warrant a stern rebuke. From the free kick, Marney clipped the ball in but nobody could be bothered to get on the end of it.

Such fare deflated the atmosphere like a let-go, untied balloon, the earlier banter replaced by near silence. The Leeds fans soon had something to cheer though, on 21 minutes ex-Celtic man Alan Thompson directed a free kick into the box, City flapped and failed to cut it out, allowing Heath to hook the ball beyond Myhill. 1-0 Leeds.

The White Shite didn’t deserve to be a goal up, but playing like this City deserved to be losing. Our defending was erratic, our midfield play woeful and up front we created little and forever fell foul of the linesman’s flag. Rather than making a triumphal return on his second City home debut, Dean Windass was simply anonymous. He waved at the crowd before kick off and that was the last anyone saw of him. Ashbee stunk the place out with his performance, we needed a leader out there, a totemic, all action midfielder calling the shots and dictating play. Ash has been this before, but he was as far from it as you can get this day, we really missed David Livermore, the Leeds ploy to make him ineligible for ties against us paying dividends in a game when only Alan Thompson for them looked to have any footballing worth. A pretty strong indictment on City’s showing that, in addition to our most notable player at this point being Nicky Frigging Forster.

Parkin had a shot deflected wide before a Leeds type lay on the floor as if dead. This action was repeated throughout the match, any chance they got Leeds chewed time off the clock, a free kick to them? A chance to take two minutes before restarting play that, and the inept ref Joslin cheerfully went along with it.

With the midfield passing to the opposition every time they got the ball, Rickett’s thought better of giving the ball to any of our midfield four and instead thwacked a long ball to Forster who couldn’t lose his man and the desperate move broke down.

It wasn’t until some forty minutes in that City shook off their inertness and really threatened Sullivans goal. The Beast smacked a shot skywards and Dean Windass, still around apparently, was too fussy in his approach play and had his effort on goal blocked. In a game liberally peppered with free kicks, City were awarded one now and then. Given a free strike on goal from about 22 yards out, Windass clipped it over the bar.

Michael Turner crunched Heath from behind just in front of the East Stand leading to a brief scuffle and a booking for our defender. As gratifying as it was to see Heath clobbered, it played into Leeds hands, as they wasted another three minutes before restarting play, fracturing the game even further. Eddie Lewis saw the yellow card he should have been shown earlier for kicking away the ball after Marney was fouled.

Rickett’s directed the ball to Ryan France who was unmarked running into the box on the left, his shot was parried by Sullivan and after a mêlée Forster failed to put the ball into the net. Still, the torpor appeared to have been shaken off and soon City were back in the game. Attempting to flick the ball over a defender, Marney was felled near the touchline. He got up to deliver an exquisite ball into the box, Turner’s header was blocked by Sullivan but Forster was on hand and so close to goal he could barely miss, he didn’t and parity was restored. Well into the 3 added minutes, and it was 1-1. A deserved goal? No, but we’ll have it, and that was pretty much that for the first half. All even at the break then.

Early into the second half City put the ball in the net, but Jon Parkin was eventually adjudged to have made his run too early, after racing onto the ball, taking a few touches and then hammering the ball into the bottom left corner of the goal, the linesman raised his flag to the disgust of the Tiger Nation.

Instead of being a goal up, the Tigers soon found themselves a goal down again. Turner failed to head a dropping ball away and found himself on the wrong side of Tresor Kandol. He tugged the cock-kick needing Kandol back before throwing himself on the floor in the hope the ref would figure it was he who was fouled. Irritatingly, after a whole host of shitty calls, the ref got this decision right and awarded Leeds a free kick 25 yards out.

Alan Thompson territory that, and predictably, he fired the ball beyond Myhill and in, 2-1 to Leeds. He ran the show for the White Shite, Thompson, for all their recent laughable signings, they’ve gotten themselves a quality player in a man once suggested as ‘the answer’ to England’s long standing ’left side question’, and having fluked their way back into this game once, it was difficult to see us doing it again.

A goal up, Leeds upped the time wasting antics, one time City loanee and Angolan World Cup ’star’ (hey, he came on as sub against Iran!) Rui Marquez rolled around on the floor much to the annoyance of a finger jabbing Jon Parkin, but all it achieved was a telling off from the ref and more seconds down the plughole.

City boss Phil Brown, no doubt aghast at what was unfolding in front of him, sought to change things. He sent Bridges on for France and it nearly paid instant dividends, the ball was drilled across the face of goal and headed upwards in a mad scramble, Bridges lashed at the ball and sent it blazing over. Still, his guile improved City’s chances, or at least it would have done had those around him been on his wavelength. He put some really cute through balls ahead of team mates but too often they weren’t read and were wasted.

Damien Delaney spared Dawson’s blushes after the full back mucked up controlling Bo’s pass from our box but our main problems were further up the pitch where we failed to unlock Leeds’ frankly jenk defence. Windass had a forgettable game, looking to cross he flicked the ball across the face of goal, but ludicrously high and up and over the goal, dropping for Parkin who made an equally ludicrous decision, smashing the ball behind when he had absolutely no chance of scoring, the angle wasn’t even tight, it was non existent. Windass was replaced by Stuart Elliott.

The attendance was announced, 24,311, a new record for City at the KC, but this was a game memorable for little else other than that statistic from a City fan perspective. Michael Bridges played a clever long ball for Stuart Elliott to volley and he struck it sweetly enough, alas just wide of the goal. News filtered through that Southend were hammering Birmingham and Barnsley were winning too. While this meant Leeds would go bottom even if they won, that thought brought no cheer to the Tiger Nation, only too aware that City were being dragged back into the relegation scrap they had looked to have been leaving behind.

Duffy came on for Parkin and City went with four up, but it yielded little in the way of positive result. In fact the next few chances were from Leeds, and both for a suspiciously offside looking Kandol. The first chance he squandered, allowing himself to be taken away from goal by Delaney, the second time he got a shot in but Myhill was alert and swatted it over the bar.

Time for one last City chance, Forster was put through, it would have been clean through if he still had any pace, but he wasn’t quick enough to go beyond Douglas’ last gasp sliding tackle which just slowed down the ball enough to take stop Forster shooting, he didn’t know where the ball was anymore and by the time he’s worked it out it had been hacked away. 4 extra minutes were added, but depressingly they passed without further scoring chances for City and it was soon over.

Wins for Southend and Barnsley were confirmed, dragging us back into the dogfight, we lie 20^th, just a point above the drop zone and facing West Brom and Derby next. Turning up is a prerequisite because City didn’t bother today after their fun in the Portuguese sun. (LM)