Fanzine Fanzone - Times Online - WBLG

Hull City: Relegation wouldn't be the end of the world

As the new season approaches, we asked our Fanzine Fanzone writers how they feel their club will fare in 2009-10

Nick Boldock

What is the feeling among the fans for the forthcoming season?
Split approximately 50/50 between cautious optimism and abject negativity. Too many fans have very short memories indeed ...
 
What is the best you can realistically hope for?
Realistically, a low mid-table finish is possible, depending on transfer activity between now and the end of August. Fantasising about anything higher than that would be the product of too much coffee, I'm afraid. 

And the worst?
The worst would be relegation, but it wouldn't be the end of the world. Those fans who've been going through the years when we've suffered Hateley, Dolan, Fish, David Lloyd, Nick Buchanan ... to them relegation to the second tier would be but a minor hiccup in a very long and unpredictable journey.

What have you made of the arrivals and departures over the summer?
Until this week, there haven't been any arrivals! The departure of Sam Ricketts was a mild shock, but if we can get Habib Beye as a replacement we'll have done some good business there.

Who will be your key player and why?
Jimmy Bullard, once he's able to play! He's due back towards the back end of this year and could be like a new signing for us. His impact could be huge. Aside from Bullard, we need another good season out of Geovanni - and more goals, not to mention consistency. Every team needs a touch of class and flair - we have that with Geo. On his day, he's as good as anyone.

Is there a young player or a new face we can expect to make a name for himself this year?
Tom Cairney has had a promising pre-season but it is probably still too early for him to be troubling the first team. Jamie Devitt is another one - though he could be a little closer to the action than Cairney this season at least. Those two have come throught the club's Youth system but watch out for new loan signing Jozy Altidore - the American international is an exciting prospect and could be a star this season.

If you could give the team talk before the season's first game, what would you say?
Lads ... 'AVE IT!!!!

Hull City: the search for a striker continues

Here at Hull City Towers, this writer is doing his very best to remain chipper and upbeat about City's lack of action in the transfer window thus far. Well, perhaps "lack of action" isn't entirely accurate - "lack of success" would be a little nearer the mark. There has certainly been action, and in actual fact we have been "linked" (whatever that means these days) with 76 per cent of the world's still-living and currently-playing footballers.

Early signs were good, with rumours we were after Newcastle United's Kevin Nolan prompting respectful nods of approval all round. As well as Nolan, the signing of Fraizer Campbell was obviously nailed on - wasn't it? And then there was the pursuit of Marc-Antoine Fortune, in which City were - according to Fortune's own agent - in "pole position".

Hull City: It was a marathon, not a sprint

I realise I'm a little late with the news here but I've only just finished celebrating so this is the first chance I've had to say - WE ARE STAYING UP!

Yes, the Tigers have done it - secured a second season in the top flight. Okay, it might have been a close-run thing (and then some), and come the climax of the season you couldn't get an American Express card between the alternate buttocks of success and failure, so tightly squeezed together were they - but whichever way you slice it, the end most definitely justified the means.

There's little point in becoming the 78th writer to ruminate on the winding path City's season took - you already know our list of scalps; you already know we were flying high before Christmas; you already know that things took a turn for the worse in 2009. You don't need me to spell all that out, yet again.

In fact, there's very little I can say that hasn't already been said, but I'll give it a go...

Hull City: Once more unto the breach

So.

This is it.

The end of Hull City's first ever season in the top flight, is nigh. Some might say that it's been a season of highs and lows, and while it's hard to disagree with that, I don't think it's quite that simple. There are undoubtedly some days that none of us will strive particularly hard to remember for long - Wigan at home, Man City away, Sunderland home - but for us true City fans, this season has been one long, beaming smile. Think of supporting football as one big party. We've been quietly stood off to one side grinning like closet serial killers as fans of other teams stroll past holding designer drinks and wondering what on earth the weird kids in the corner are looking at them in that disquieting way for.

What that odd look really means is this - "WE'VE WAITED OVER 100 YEARS FOR THIS... I CAN ASSURE YOU, WE'RE GOING TO ENJOY IT IF IT KILLS US."

And how we have.

Hull City: Toothless Tigers

Hull City - one; Stoke  City - two. There, that's that out of the way. I've just got back from watching hapless Hull City getting beaten by a frankly mediocre Stoke City side. I just thank the stars that the Potters weren't more clinical in front of goal, or the scoreline could have been even more embarrassing than it was. On the other hand, had clownish referee Howard Webb spotted that Geovanni's last minute shot took a deflection, and given the corner that 25,000 spectators correctly knew it should have been, then there could have been a different outcome altogether. Or maybe not. As it was, Webb rather inexplicably decided to award a goal kick to Stoke, so I guess we'll never know what might have been.

There is little point moaning about the referee, when to be brutally frank, City didn't look like they knew what a goal was, let alone how to score one of the blessed things. Phil Brown has often spoken of a "lack of quality in the final third", throughout the season - and oh, how right he is. How horribly, horrendously right.

Hull City: Reds under the bed

As a Hull City fan, I am surprisingly happy this evening. We may have been beaten today - 3-1 at home to Liverpool, in case you missed it - but the manner of the defeat pleases me. We played some very, very fine football and more than held our own against a team currently challenging for the ultimate domestic accolade. The goal we scored was a good one - and the ball from Daniel Cousin to Geovanni was possibly the striker's finest touch since joining us. It was, as a friend of mine would call it, a "Pro Evolution goal". If you've played the eponymous computer game, you'll get it. If you haven't - basically it means the goal was akin to the kind of move usually seen on the training ground - or, to put it another way - it was damn good.

Liverpool's goals were of equally high quality, not least Xabi Alonso's opener, when he swung a boot at a rebounded ball from what was actually a poor free kick, but hit that rebound with such sweet timing that Boaz Myhill quite possibly literally didn't see it. Such was the pace on the ball that it's likely Myhill merely felt the air ripple, whilst wondering why the ball had become invisible.

Hull City: Stand up and be counted

Oh. Dear.

As I write, City have just been beaten 3-1 by Middlesbrough - who, it would appear, had the insolence to make this week the week when they actually play quite a bit of decent football, after almost a full season of abject mediocrity. Damn them. Worse than that, the salt in the wound is that their third goal was scored by - who else? - Marlon King. Double damn them! Still, it seems they deserved the win, so well done to them.

But what of City? I'm concerned because, with all due respect, if we can't beat Middlesbrough (even if they did turn on the style to some degree) then who CAN we beat? With six games to go it looks set to be a nervous finish to a season that once promised to be a comfortable journey. It is, as Phil Brown put it recently, "squeaky bum time".

Hull City: More Mike Riley... and the arrogance of Arsene Wenger

Having just witnessed the spectacle that was the FA Cup quarter final between Hull City and Arsenal, I'm almost psychotically disappointed that profuse and frankly horrendous levels of swearing are not permitted on these pages. The only thing that could possibly make me feel better right now would be to either invent some new and thoroughly illegal swear words, or to spit at Cesc Fabregas (more of which later, once I've consulted the legal "team"), or maybe to stick pins in a small plasticine doll fashioned to look like Mike Riley. Or, as he shall forever be known in East Yorkshire from hereon in - M*ke R*l*y.

M*ke R*l*y is a unique phenomenon. We've been here before of course - after our home game with Sunderland I vented my spleen about the man himself, in my award-winning* piece "The Strife Of Riley", in which I basically accused Mr R*l*y (or Riley, as he was still known then) of being ever-so-slightly rubbish. Basically.

Hull City: The alternative league and cup double

Still flush from the sheer spectacle of being involved in the FA Cup semi final draw (and also elated, in my case, for finally having another computer that actually works - hence my absence from here for a while) when along come two Cup matches at once. "What?", I hear you cry...

It was a surprise to me as well, but apparently Saturday's match with the seemingly-doomed Newcastle United is (according to none other than a certain Mr Michael Owen) a "Cup final". Not my words. Michael Owen's words (Google it if you don't believe me). Now, I think this is exceedingly cool. I'd like to point out to Mr Owen at this stage, that Newcastle have had three "Cup finals" with us already this season (two of which were actually Cup matches - how funny is that?) and the running score reads - Hull City, played three, won two, drawn one. Or, as I like to put it - Newcastle, played three, won NONE.

Hull City: Millwall - who says hooliganism is a thing of the past?

I arrived home after today's FA Cup victory with a sense of relief that we don't have to play Millwall on a regular basis. This isn't a criticism of the Millwall team - they came to give us a game, and they did. In fact, with a bit more quality in front of goal, there could have been an entirely different result today, but as it was, City (with goals from Michael Turner and Ian Ashbee) coasted through to the next round with a 2-0 win. Credit to the Millwall players and coaching staff - they gave it their all (although I'd take exception to the number of elbows that were flying around, but hey - let's not be churlish in victory) and looked a decent side.

No, the reason why I'm exceptionally glad we won't have to play Millwall again (not for a very, very long time, with a bit of luck) is that we won't have to share our stadium with the assorted wildlife who call themselves "Millwall fans".