by Ethel Smith

Created on: February 26, 2009   Last Updated: March 03, 2009

As a born and bred Hull-ite I can safely say that I have read, heard and seen much news, often bad, about Hull City football team, over the years. I am not a footie fan, and Hubby has more than a passing fancy for Manchester United, but it is hard to ignore Hull City FC these days. Hubby, on the whole loves football and, despite following Manchester United, he will watch any half decent football match on the television.

When he and I were young Hull City, or The Tigers as they are usually called, had some successes. They had a time when Ken Wagstaff was a leading player and they also had the late Don Revie at another time. In recent years though Hull City have had more than their fair share of defeats. The standing local joke at one time locally was, if The Tigers won a match, -'Who were they playing?. Blind Institute?'. Not politically correct these days I know but you catch my drift.

Not so long ago their home ground was a crumbling, undersized, outdated old football stadium adjoining a large supermarket, and the club was looking at a mountain of debts and bankruptcy. For a short time there was insufficient money to pay any debts, and even wages, and it looked as if the club would fold.

However, a few years ago, a brand spanking new football ground was constructed. It is situated next to a large park and is nearer to the town centre. The club moved there in 2002. Sadly part of the local park and some of its best trees had to go to accommodate the stadium. The old Hull Cricket Circle vanished from its regular venue also. A new walkway was constructed so that, if necessary, visiting fans could be police escorted straight to the stadium and back to the train station afterwards, thus avoiding local pubs and, hopefully, the running battles which had been seen on the city's streets in the past.

From when Hull City Football team was founded, in 1904, they had never reached a higher position in the football divisions than the second division. Plus they had never even reached any dizzying heights in that division. They had also had many low rankings over the years and been relegated into lower divisions more than once.

So 2008 saw the City go overboard with pride and football mania as The Tigers went into the Premier League that season. Despite many doubters assuming that the team would be slaughtered they initially did very well. Due to the timing of games they were around the top of the premier league for a few weeks and seemed to have the Midas touch.

For a while they

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