FAN’S VIEW: 24/25 – No.41: HULL AWAY

HULL CITY 2 OXFORD UNITED 1

Doom and gloom. Doom and gloom. But on a positive note I was picked up at home just gone 1 o’clock and despite there being delays on the M1 was walking through the door of the St Johns Hotel just before 5. So very different from Norwich away.

St Johns is grade II listed. It’s an old fashioned street corner pub that hosts live music and open mic sessions. These take place in a larger room at the back but we placed ourselves in the front L shaped public bar. Philip Larkin used to drink in this establishment. The landlord was very welcoming and replaced a pint that was being drunk but end of barrelish. A barrel he replaced. In fact he replaced two and handed us the hand pump clips so we could make our choices. Some of the beer was very good although one of the pints wasn’t to one of our party’s liking. That’s the way it goes. There were already a handful of locals in there when we arrived. About half a dozen or so were clearly fans of Hull City FC probably ranging in age from early to mid-30s through to late 40s. Everyone looks way younger than me these days. Friendly conversation was soon struck up not only about football but music and drinking too. This is what away days and nights are all about. If only the football didn’t get in the way and spoil it. One of them categorically stated that they would win. He wasn’t being arrogant or provocative, he just had such a firm belief. I’ll be honest and say that I thought the chances were that we would lose. When describing their team this season compared to last they pointed downwards. Three “shit teams” were named and kindly this didn’t include ours. I don’t think the way we’re playing at the moment we should have been excluded. Some of them had visited the Manor so perhaps I’d underestimated their ages. The usual quick discussion of “proper ground,” “we miss it,”  “three sides now” and “we’re moving again”. They knew their beers and pubs. We swapped notes about Sheffield. Kelham Island same pubs but they’d ventured further than us from the KI Tavern and the Fat Cat. They also gave us tips on where to go in Hull. As for the music talk: Happy Mondays and Inspiral Carpets. Very much on the same wavelength particularly re the latter. The Inspirals were my favourite band for a while.

And then they were gone into the night to their next pub or home for a quick bite before football. Hands shaken and as is always the case wishing each other luck for the rest of the season but obviously not for this game.

Next stop for us was the Station Inn. Another traditional pub. This lacked the customer numbers of St Johns but not the beer quality.

Final stop before the quarter of an hour walk to the MKM stadium was Pave, an away supporter friendly café bar serving regional and local brews. It was busy without being crowded. All we had to do was follow the crowds to get to the stadium. No need for google maps as was often the case when we were lower down the pyramid and little sign of football taking place anywhere nearby when we left bars with kick-off fairly imminent.

Hull’s home is quite impressive and shows how far we are behind just about every other club in the Championship – as if we didn’t know it. The total attendance was 19,024 with the away following tbc. We’ll likely never be told but I suspect it could be our lowest away turnout of the campaign topping – or should that be bottoming – the 413 loyalists that went to Burnley in mid-week. I know it will never happen and I know that some will strongly disagree, but for me these are the people who need to be at the front of the queue for tickets should we ever be in a similar situation to last year’s play-off semi-final second leg at Peterborough.

Home fans in close proximity

The no man’s land between us and the home supporters was very small indeed but nothing really untoward other than a few gestures. Makes the vast wasted space at the Kassam seem ridiculous. I know the reason is the concourse design and need for separation in that area but one would have thought something could have been sorted after all these years. Or perhaps not as we don’t own our own ground. I think we might just need a new one that we do own. How much revenue have we lost over the years by not selling those extra seats?

Watching this it didn’t take me long to conclude that we look like a League One team. That’s always the way now. We are what we are. It’s no criticism of anyone or anything. Well perhaps a tiny bit. We’re small fry up against much bigger fish on nearly every occasion but Hull were not as good as I thought they would be. In fact it’s questionable as to whether they were even better than us. If they were it was only marginal which makes it all the more galling that we came away with nothing. If we can’t pick up points in games like this I hate to think what will happen when Leeds, Sunderland and Sheffield United roll up in OX4.

The stats show a fairly even encounter. We had 45% possession and took 12 shots of which three were on target. Hull had 14 shots. Two of theirs were on target. The number of touches in the box was 21-17 in their favour. They played 419 passes, 81 more than we did and were a bit more accurate, 77.3% against our 70.7%.   

The first half was goalless which is probably what the game deserved. It came as no surprise to me that our best efforts came from set pieces. Elliott Moore headed a Matt Phillips corner only just wide. A low Will Vaulks free-kick found its way through with keeper Ivor Pandur having to go down smartly to keep it out. Lewie Coyle put the ball just wide after good work from Leeds loanee Joe Gelhardt. Then Geldhardt had an effort that Cumming could stop but couldn’t hold.

Pandur presented us with a gift at the beginning of the second half, playing the ball out to Ruben Rodrigues. He fed Mark Harris but his attempt was poor. Going for goal was absolutely the wrong decision. Stan Mills was free to his right and in a much better position. This wasn’t Championship football. I don’t blame Mills for not being happy.

After some decent play we won a corner on the right. Phillips took an out swinger and Michal Helik, having easily lost his marker, placed a side footed volley beyond Pandur.

Were we good enough to see the game out? It was so incredibly important that we did. Many of us saw this as a pivotal game even before the previous night’s results. If we got nothing here Hull would go above us and with Luton winning at Cardiff and Derby beating Coventry at Pride Park we’d only be 4 points from 22^nd place and 5 from 23^rd place. Bottom club Plymouth also went on to have a win whilst we were being tested here. And just to compound the pending doom and gloom Stoke also picked up three points to leapfrog us in the table.

Ten minutes after we’d taken the lead it had all “gone-to-shit” as the saying goes. Well truth be told it had probably actually started four minutes before our goal. Moore had to leave the field with a hamstring problem. I think he’s massive for us.

We only held the lead for seven minutes. We had a decent 4-4-2 shape but Kasey Palmer got away from Alex Matos with the tiniest of feints. Easy from the stands and armchairs but shouldn’t our man just have stepped goal side? Palmer slipped Geldhardt in. Helik attempted to get the ball with the outside of his right foot where a more forceful putting his other foot through it looked the more logical option to me. Geldhardt thus ended up with possession and the inevitable happened.

Three minutes later we were behind and this was one almighty cock up. “That’s why you’re going down” is threatening to set itself up in my head as the most annoying of ear-worms. Matos was easily beaten but the guiltiest of the parties involved was Cumming. It was a terrible error, the most basic of errors. He’s been one of our best and most consistent players this season but if he keeps making mistakes like this we’re screwed. The gap he left as Gustavo Puerta took the ball along the goal line was begging to be exploited. And it was via post and then our custodian’s leg. Awful. No wonder we don’t pick up points.

Shemmy Placheta had replaced Mills in the 63^rd minute and after Ole Romeny and Siriki Dembele came on for Rodrigues and Phillips in the 78^th we at last looked like we had genuine attacking threat. Too little too late as it turned out but Placheta hit the bar with a fantastic controlled volley from 25 yards out after a free-kick had been cleared. Oh yes, those dead ball situations.

Gary Rowett is here to do a job. Initially with the new manager bounce it fully looked like he was doing it but that early form when we were picking up points for fun and at one time had the best record in the Championship over six games is long gone. Over the past six games we’re the worst. Both Luton and Derby have picked up seven points to our miserable two.  

We have not won for nine games now and in that time have gained just four points. Carry on like that and we’ll without question go down. Before the Norwich game I heard a few saying that we needed another six points. If achieved that would give a total of 45. I never thought that thinking was correct. Too low, possibly by a few points. But the rate we’re picking up points we won’t even reach 45 so it will be irrelevant.

I don’t think the bookies have quite twigged how poor we are. Here’s the relegation odds starting with most likely: Plymouth 1/5, Luton 4/7, Derby 5/4, Cardiff 13/8, Oxford 2/1, Stoke 4/1 then a big jump to Pompey at 20/1.

Rowett will be livid with the way we collapsed and if there’s a bollocking or two around I can understand it. I absolutely understand we need pragmatism to get points, except it’s not really working now, but can’t quite understand why we didn’t get these attacking subs on earlier and went for it rather more than we did when it became clear that Hull themselves were no great shakes.

These Championship games are getting bigger and bigger. The Watford match has just grown some more.  It’s going to be a hell of a tense one and a massive challenge, yet look at our remaining nine fixtures and this is probably one of the two easiest along with the visit of QPR. Looking at our away record and the fact that Leeds, Sunderland and Sheffield United are still to visit it is scary indeed.