About Opentopia
Opentopia Directory Encyclopedia Tools

Hull City A.F.C.

Encyclopedia : H : HU : HUL : Hull City A.F.C.

Hull City Association Football Club are an English football team based at the KC Stadium (Kingston Communications Stadium) in Kingston upon Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire. They play in black and amber stripes, hence their nickname: "The Tigers". Having achieved promotion two seasons in a row, Hull City are now playing in the Football League Championship.

Hull City's highest ever finish came in 1910, when they came very close to winning promotion to the top flight, finishing third in the old Second Division. Level on points with second placed Oldham, Hull missed promotion on goal average by the slim margin of 0.29 of a goal. Hull have never finished as high since, and as a result, Hull is the largest city in Europe never to have had a club play in the top division of its national league.

In cup competitions, the club's greatest achievement was in 1930, when they reached the FA Cup semi-final. Hull City is the answer to the old pub quiz question 'What is the only football club in the country spelled entirely of letters you can not colour in?'.

Hull are current in the second tier of the English league, which is so far their highest standing in football. Their darkest era came in the late 1990s, when the club became increasingly troubled by rising debts which almost put them out of business. They also came close to being relegated from the Football League. But a boardroom takeover in 2001 has seen Hull's fortunes revived and they now look set for a successful future.

Contents

Modern Times

1986 - 1991: Life in the Second Division

Hull reached the Second Division in 1986 after finishing Third Division runners-up under player-manager Brian Horton. They defied the odds to stay there for the next five years before finally going down in 1991, by which time the club's manager was Terry Dolan.

1991 - 1996: Third tier team

Hull finished 14th in the Third Division in 1992, meaning that they would be competing in the new Football League Division Two. In their first season in the rebranded division, Hull narrowly avoided another relegation but the board kept faith in Dolan and over the next two seasons they achieved secure mid table finishes. But terrible form in 1995-96 condemned Hull to relegation to Division Three.

1997 - 2001: Striving to survive

Dolan was fired and replaced by Mark Hateley after Hull failed to get anywhere near the top of Division Three in 1996-97. By this stage, financial problems were taking their toll on the Tigers and it was starting to look as though the club would go out of business before long. And Hull's league form was steadily deteriorating to the point that relegation to the Conference was looking a real possibility - which surely would have meant the death of the club. Hateley departed in 1999 to be replaced by 34-year-old veteran player Warren Joyce, who steered the club to safety after being anchored to the foot of the table - Hull City fans refer to this season as "The Great Escape". After this feat, Joyce was perhaps unlucky to be replaced in April 2000 by the experienced Brian Little.

Little breathed new life into Hull and managed to get good results out of the players, despite briefly being locked out of Boothferry Park by the bailiffs and with liquidation looking a real possibility. Hull qualified for the Division Three playoffs in 2001, and lost in the semi finals. But things could have been much worse - at least the Hull City fans still had a football club to support. A boardroom takeover had eased the club's precarious financial situation and all fears of closure were banished - had the club been relegated to the Conference the previous season, it is extremely unlikely that this takeover would have taken place.

2002 - present: Rising from the ashes

New Chairman Adam Pearson ploughed funds into the club, allowing Little to rebuild the team with the aim of immediate promotion. Hull occupied the Division Three promotion and playoff places for much of the 2001-02 season, but Little suddenly departed two months before the end of the season and Hull slipped to 11th under his successor Jan Molby.

Hull began the 2002-03 season as most people's favourites for promotion from Division Three, but a terrible start to the season saw relegation look more likely than promotion and Molby was sacked in October as the Tigers languished fifth from bottom in the league.

Peter Taylor was named as Hull's new manager and in December 2002, just weeks after his appointment, Hull relocated to the impressive new 25,400-seat Kingston Communications Stadium after 56 years at Boothferry Park. After this move, Hull's attendances were some of the best in the division but their results were rarely this impressive and they were unable to finish above 13th place in the final table.

Hull's new stadium was - and still is - one of the most impressive stadiums outside the Premiership and it has helped influence an upturn in Hull's fortunes after a decade of misery. The club's board have a long-term target of Premiership football, which if achieved will be a welcome triumph for the largest city in England never to have staged top division football.

The two seasons which followed the opening of the new stadium were hugely successful. Hull were Division Three runners-up in 2004 and League One runners-up in 2005, which took them into the Championship for the 2005-06 season. 2005-06 was hardly the most exciting season in the history of Hull City football club; it was more a season of consolidation after two successive promotions. Hull finished 18th in the final table - a comfortable 10 points clear of relegation - and their highest league finish for 16 years. By achieving survival, the Hull City team have shown how far they have come in the last three or four years, and everyone at the club is undoubtedly hungry for even more success.

The successful stint at Hull City saw Peter Taylor's name linked with the Charlton Athletic manager's job before it was given to Iain Dowie. On 13 June 2006, Peter Taylor left Hull to take up the job vacated by Dowie at Crystal Palace, a club at which he had enjoyed considerable success as a player, with Phil Parkinson being confirmed as his replacement on 29 June 2006. Hull agreed to pay Colchester (with whom Parkinson was still under contract) £400,000 compensation.

Managers

Honours

Current squad

| width="1%" | |bgcolor="#FFFFFF" valign="top" width="48%"| |}

Coaching staff

Assistant Manager: Frank Barlow

Development Director: Colin Murphy

Goalkeeping Coach: Mark Prudhoe

Youth Team Coach: Billy Russell

Fitness Coordinator: Stuart Ayles

Physio: Simon Maltby

See also

External links

 

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.

Search Titles
0123456789
ABCDEFGHIJ
KLMNOPQRST
UVWXYZ?

E-mail this article to:

Personal Message: