Let me take you back. To Saturday 12 August 1995. Do you remember it? I do.  I remember it like it was nine long tortuous and tortured years ago. It was a nice sunny day and we played Swindon Town at home. They beat us 1-0. And what – you may ask - is the relevance of this? It was, before yesterday afternoon’s entertainment, the last time we began the season in a Division other than England’s basement.

I remember that after that defeat against Swindon the general feeling was that we hadn’t played badly at all. “Swindon’ll do OK this season, and we’re weren’t much worse than them, I reckon we’ll have a decent season, mid-table at least”. Ah the earnest hopes of football fans! “Might make the PlayOffs translates in reality to “pleased to stay up”. And “mid-table at least” is the diehard fan’s way of confessing that the season is already doomed. So it proved. Swindon finished top. We finished bottom. Cut adrift.

Well, we’re back from a graveyard shift that’s lasted eight cold years, we’ve cheated the doom-laden fate invited by the incompetent Fish, the unbalanced Lloyd and the criminal Hinchliffe, we’ve watched sparkling cameos from Andy Mason, Phil Brumwell and poor Jon French and we’ve waved goodbye to Boothferry Park, the mausoleum of our nightmares. And we’re not about to greet the new faces that peer anxiously at the resurgent Hull City with a defeat to chime with that of nine years ago against Swindon, are we?

No!

I mean, really “no”! We won yesterday and we won handsomely.

Look, this is getting serious, yesterday’s main event was all set up for the real Hull City to reassert itself. Our true colours went incognito throughout last season’s majestic strut to promotion, but now surely we could splutter to a dismal halt with a dire display against mighty Bournemouth, restoring to our fans’ faces that habitual scowl, that ready whining complaint. No! The sun shone, there was a big crowd, our stadium shimmered, and we glided forward to victory.

“Might make the PlayOffs”? Ha! We are here to SEAR our way through Division 3!

Myhill
Hinds Joseph Delaney Dawson
Green Junior Ashbee Elliott
Barmby Alsop

4-4-2, sort of – though Barmby was really playing as a free man roving with intent in the space between midfield and the powerful Alsop up front. The only City player I recall trying to assume this challenging role before Barmby took it on was the enigmatic Christian Sansom. But that notorious duffer wandered about “in the hole” because he didn’t have a bloody clue what he was meant to be doing on a football pitch. (Nor did anyone else). In Barmby’s case it’s his teammates who are left bemused by his speed of thought and slick off-the-ball running and most of the first half featured “almost but not quite” moments as the recent England international played on a level far above that commonly on view in English League Division 3.

But not to worry, for we’d gone into the lead good and early – just three minutes in, to be precise. Alsop surged down the left and appeared to have selected the wrong option when he hoofed a hopeful cross into the box instead of laying a ball square to teammates in support. A foolish visiting defender raised his hand, the ball struck it – penalty. The Boscombe defenders encircled the referee to protest and if they were unsighted they will likely have believed it was a harsh decision. But I had an excellent angle of vision and the ref got this dead right: it was hand to ball, not ball to hand. And then it was ball to net as Stuart Green stroked the penalty into the Spring Bank corner of the net while keeper Moss hurtled haplessly off towards Boothferry Road.

We assumed control. On 20, Green slipped the ball through to Alssop, whose first shot was taken early and blocked by keeper Moss’s legs. The Australian then scuffed a feeble second effort which was easily ushered to safety. On 30 Green tried a weak shot in preference to a pass to Barmby, supporting intelligently. It was boiling hot – into the 80s and higher at pitchside – and Bournemouth, a willing bunch of triers, were feeling the pain. They showed a more adventurous spirit than most of our visitors last year and even managed to rustle the ball into our net, but didn’t even pretend to claim the goal, so blatant was the offside, and then enjoyed a decent spell after the half-hour. But in truth they were second best all over the pitch.

Dawson crossed from the left, Alsop took the ball just above the half-volley and the keeper tipped the shot over. Then, in the first of two added minutes at the end of the half, Alsopp strode clear of the visiting defence, with Junior making a positive run to his left and Barmby scuttling into glorious space to his right … Danny chose the wrong option: a mishit shot which bobbled tamely goalwards. Half-time, and only the fact that we hadn’t scored more goals was cause for concern. We’d played well.

But Green missed it. The shot was on target and to the keeper’s left, but it was that comfortable height for a goalkeeper to dive and stop, and that’s what Moss did. So now we led by a single goal and our job was all the more awkward because we were facing that most notorious of foes, the ten men.

Alsop was replaced by Walters and shortly after that Joseph took a nasty bash and was removed in favour of Cort. He is a willowy chap, and speaking of that particular wood, it is good to know that we are contributing to expanding the range of answers to that favourite quiz question, “name footballers named after methods of dismissal in cricket” – Carl and Leon Cort, Steve Bould, etc.

Stuart Elliott’s display had been dismal so far – the effort was plain, the end product lousy, with squandering of possession when under no pressure the main flaw - but all of a sudden he zipped into action and slammed a ferocious shot via the Moss’s fingertips on to the angle of post and bar. A couple of minutes later he headed only a couple of feet over. Fine player Elliott, not yet at his best.

Young Walters had arrived as if determined to stake his claim for a starting place, and his efforts were both vigorous and shrewd. It was Walters who released a divine through ball for Barmby to scoot clear of the beleaguered defence and size up a one-on-one on Moss. It brought to mind a similar incident involving my own personal favourite former England midfield wizard, Geoff Thomas, but Nicky did better than that – he hit the target but he also rapped the keeper’s shins all too firmly and the chance was wasted surprisingly tamely.

Walters picked up the loose ball and transferred it swiftly and cleverly out to Elliott. Who fell over.

Barmby took a breather and was replaced by Wilbraham, who has something of the manner of Peter Swan about him, though he isn’t quite as physically powerful or as journalistically inept. The game had become a shade scrappy now as players tired in the early season heat and Bournemouth took risks in pursuit of an ill-merited equaliser. We had some reason to be grateful for the fact we had an extra man at this stage, because we’d lost our earlier firm grip on the pattern of the afternoon’s play. And on 89 Ashbee gave away a clottish free-kick near to the edge of our penalty area. O dear. The last game I attended where this sort of thing happened a chap name of Zidane intervened and struck not one but two goals past the stunning male model who masquerades as England’s first choice goalkeeper and I have to tell you I was still laughing with glee at breakfast in Lisbon the next morning. In fact, I still am laughing. I would have been less amused had the same reversal overtaken the Tigs yesterday. Marseille and Bournemouth are both ports offering a pleasing Southern aspect but gratifyingly Dorset journeyman Brian Stock is no Zidane and he lumped the ball high over the crossbar into the throng of travelling Boscombe fans behind the goal and we were cantering downhill into the four added minutes.

The only moment of mild concern arrived towards the very end of that period, but Junior stepped in with a well-judged tackle and the points were ours.  Played well, did Junior. Kept his position, covered back when needed – a sturdy example of the holding midfielder’s art. Dawson too had a perfectly unspectacular and entirely satisfactory afternoon – sound leftbackery. We were, in fact, generally pretty good in most positions, even if Elliott was patchy and Alsop occasionally slow to pick up the patterns of (especially Barmby’s) play. Overall? Make no mistake about it, we were thumpingly well deserving of this win. We played some fine football which was frequently only a precise final pass shy of devastating. Someone soon is going to get a pasting off us if we carry on in this vein and if connections can be soldered between the ingenious Barmby and the lesser mortals that populate the rest of our team then not only are we going to go up, we’re going to do it in even more impressive style than last season.