Hull City v Stoke City

[TygerTyger]

I’ve not written much about this season’s campaign simply because I’ve become disillusioned by the abject cynicism surrounding Premier League Football in England.

Despite the fact that Hull City went to Stamford Bridge, London, to open the 2009-10 season against Chelsea they were a team written off by the ‘experts’. Scoring the first goal of the season against a team hotly tipped to win the Premier League Championship really didn’t win us any favours. When Chelsea got an equaliser from a freekick that simply wasn’t, well the tone had been set – we just didn’t know it then! Chelsea went on to win that fist game with one of the freakiest goals yet seen, although they had the character to admit that it was indeed a freak occurrence, unlike the media who painted the result as inevitable.

Subsequent events and a string of curious refereeing decisions saw Hull City down in 19th place at the start of this match. The manager, Phil Brown, definitely had his head on the block. It is a curious trait of the people of Hull that they can always find a black cloud to go with every silver lining, in fact they don’t even need the silver lining to paint everything black. It’s a habit that I frequently find frustrating!

However, we did have a silver lining; Jimmy Bullard was back! Having cost the club £5 million and delivered barely 40 minutes of professional football in over 6 months he had to show some spine to step out in front of a packed house at the KC Stadium. He wasn’t the only one to be returning from injury, in goal we had Matt Duke who missed last season due to battling testicular cancer, Anthony Gardner who has been plagued by injury, and Craig Fagan who has taken a long time to recover from a broken leg inflicted upon him halfway through last season.

These represented brave choices but Phil Brown knew he had to do something, previous selections just weren’t working. Hull City switched back to a more conventional 4-4-2 with Jozey Altidore, USA international, leading the line in one of his first starts.

Stoke City are a good team but they do tend to play what is known as a ‘physical game’; pushing, barging, upending, late tackles etc. They like to intimidate the opposition and they didn’t disappoint. Some people like it, this kind of football harks back to the (non-existent) golden days when players regularly ended up in hospital with broken bones. I’d rather that they just played the game and demonstrated their skill, I kind find thuggery on the streets of Hull any Saturday night if I want it.

Any thoughts that the Tigers would be too terrified of defeat to play were quickly dispelled as Stoke found themselves having to defend for the first ten minutes. Even when they did get the ball they were frequently robbed by players more determined than them. The crowd could see it; Hull City were up for the fight. Ironically, the first goal went to Stoke City! Bernard Mendy is an infuriating player, when he’s good he’s brilliant, when he’s bad he’s just downright lazy. He was lazy and Stoke’s Etherington sailed past him like the proverbial hare to the Hull defender’s tortoise. Matt Duke did what he could but he was still picking the ball out of the net.

“You’re getting sacked in the morning!” Sang the Stoke fans to Phil Brown. Witty that.

Despite applying some pressure Hull City went in at the break still a goal down. Many a knowing type around us pontificated on how Hull City were doomed and Phil Brown was doomed and Christmas was doomed! Fortunately no one seemed to have told the players who came back onto the pitch early; just raring to get going again.

The Tigers started to live up to their name. Jimmy Bullard commanded the midfield and laid clever balls off to the forwards. Jozey Altidore belied his youthful 19 years of age and battled manfully with the Stoke defence, often coming off physically worse and even getting his shorts ripped. Craig Fagan began to torment the self-same defenders with agile runs and determined chasing of apparently lost causes. You could feel it coming but when it did it was from a most unsuspected source. The ball popped out to Olofinjana, Hull City’s strapping centre midfielder who had already missed several good chances. He curled his foot around the ball and sent it curling past the despairing Stoke goalkeeper who could only watch in disbelief as the ball curled sublimely into the top corner of the net! It was a curly goal worthy of Rooney or Ronaldo!

The stadium erupted but even more telling was the response of the players – they went ballistic. This meant something to them and it showed the lie in the words of all those knowing types who said that Phil Brown had lost the players’ support.

Stoke City responded by bringing on the talented Turkish player Tuncay (wish we’d bought him) and we were set for 25 minutes of thrilling competition. Well, almost. Hull City’s Nick Barmby, barely 5’ 5’’, got hacked down by a much bigger Stoke winger and when he protested said winger thought that he could push the little man around. Maybe he could but not in front of the referee who booked him for the second time and sent him off!

Stoke’s manager Tony Pulis then did one of the most bizarre substitutions ever, down to 10 men and drawing 1-1 he took off the dangerous Tuncay after only 6 minutes and replaced him with a defender?! No, we didn’t get the logic, neither did the stoke fans and neither did Tuncay who stormed off down the tunnel refusing to even look at his boss!

The Tigers scented blood and went for the jugular. Jan Veneggor of Hesselink replaced the tired Altidore and what a substitution that proved. Jimmy Bullard led the charge and sent a bouncing shot into the penalty area. The Stoke goalkeeper was caught flat-footed and could only punch the ball out, straight to the waiting foot of the mighty Hesselink; WHAM! He hit that ball so hard it almost ripped through the back of the net!

Bedlam ensued.

After some degree of order had been restored they played out 4 minutes of extra time but the decision had already been made. Against the experts expert knowledge Hull City turned over a team considered to be their superior. More than that they recovered from a 1-0 deficit to show admirable character to keep fighting against a team who like a scrap.

For a few days the black clouds have dissipated over Hull, well, until the next home game anyway!