City maintain their 100% home record in League games played on a Sunday.  But it was a far from convincing performance against a Chesterfield that, remarkably, featured strikers that finished even worse than ours.

What a curious game this was. From the fact that it was Sunday lunchtime, to the lack of a pre-match libation, to walking to the ground through the dormant rides and stalls of Hull Fair, to finding that the East and North stands were without electricity and, hence, any form of refreshment, to the fact that we won a game that we probably shoud have lost, past many selection and subsitution oddities after taking the lead as went down to 10 men and completely under the cosh. It's been said that it's better to be a lucky manager than a good one and Peter Taylor, who according to today's Guardian speeded off immediately after the game to Humberside airport for a charter flight to Baku and his part-time job as England Under 21 Coach, is, in the Pythonesque phrase, a lacky, lacky barstard.

Queasily sober at 12.15pm we watched as City set off playing towards a North stand that was perhaps the most densely occupied we have seem this season, perhaps a third full. Are we the only fans in this division interested in travelling, I wonder? No matter. We lined up thus:

Myhill
France Cort Delaney Dawson
Price Ashbee Keane Green
Lewis Walters

Yes, that's Junior Lewis. The holding midfielder. Who has recently given sterling performances at the centre of the defence. Now transformed into a striker. It's perhaps best to see this as Taylor's tribute to Jacques Derrida, the influential philosopher who died on Friday. Derrida, along with contemporaries Lacan (pronounced 'lacking') and Foucault (pronounced, 'fuck all') was the leading light of the decontructionist movement. Basically this means that someone would write something and then Derrida would light up a foul-smelling cigarette, give a comedy French-accented laugh, Ohihoiho!, then proceed to tell you what the writer had actually meant, this 'interpretation' generally being diametrically opposed to the actual meaning of the words on the page. This profoundly irritating behaviour went down very well with the sort of impressionable and stupid people who populated Eng. Lit. Departments in American Universities between the 60s and the 80s, whilst everyone else tried to ignore the damage being done to philosophy as a discipline and more importantly to our understanding of the world in which most of us have to live.

But seemingly Peter Taylor is a man who, like Quincey Jones, can say 'I know Derrida, that's where I am.' And just as Lewis might seem to most of us to be a midfielder, or a defender, or a colander, anything, really, except a striker, when the manager correctly deconstructed his performances he discovered, as Derrida would have told him, that talent and skill and the ability to play with your back to goal are, like gravity and the movement of the planets, relative contructs rather than precepts by which we all must live. So Junior took his place in attack as the latest answer to our striking difficulties that the manager assured us were all in our imagination last week. (Q. How do you know when Peter Taylor is lying? A. It's when he opens his mouth and words come out).

To be fair to the manager, and perhaps to Derrida, too, Lewis didn't make a bad fist of it. He tried hard, had an early run into the right channel before getting in a right-footed cross that Green headed over, and generally got into space as best he could. From this you can see that he was much more effective than a really useless get like John Hartson or Aaron Wilbrahim, but, as with post-modernism in general, it's high time we said, "Hmm, that was an interesting experiment, now let's try and find something that actually works."

Not that much worked up front for either team in the first half. Lewis was unsurprsingly generally out-jumped and outfought by the frightening Blatherwick, Walters was industrious but quieter than recently, Chesterfield paired together the ageing Barnsley loanee Mark Stallard and the ancient and much-lampooned Wayne Allison. It's easy to laugh at Allison, indeed it's practically part of the match reporter's job description, but in truth you can see why he still finds work. He's big and awkward and, just when you're thinking that whatever pace he once had has long since left him, he skipped away from our cover and was one-on-one with Myhill, forcing the happily returned netman to essay a sharp save with his foot. This was after 31 minutes and was the first time either keeper had been called on to make any sort of stop.

Not that either team was bad. Chesterfield kept the ball well, when we got it off them we passed it around nicely with Green, nominally on the left, keen to drift around and see more of the ball. But our final delivery was poor, Price and France being particularly culpable from the right. We did come to life towards the end of the half, Jon Walters almost breaking free before his shot was blocked, this just after our best moment where Keane did very well to hold up the ball before releasing it perfectly to Price who struck it sweetly from 20 yards but slightly high. Right on half time Chesterfield should have taken the lead, Stallard and Allison combined to put in Davies free on Myhill and under no pressure. Credit Myhill for staying upright as long as he could, but the Chesterman should have done a lot better than screwing it wide for a goal kick. Easy to sympathise with the lad, though; apparently Chesterfield had plucked him from Buxton, where he was probably dreaming that one day he might be spotted by Alfreton or Matlock Town. To be signed by crooked spireite giants Chesterfiddle must have been beyond the boy's wildest imaginings and then to find himself in a proper stadium like ours with 15,500 watching, well, it's a big step up. Half time, no goals, no electricity, no pies.

Second half we kicked off in sunshine, no changes to our personnel, but with an immediate increase in tempo. Green did seem to have taken up a more central role, swapping over with Keane, and got in a good shot on the drop after the ball had bounced around outside the Chester area rather sloppily. But the visitors then decided they had seen what we had got, were not overly impressed, and took over the game completely for the next 20 minutes. First, Boaz managed to scramble away via his chest and his arm an Evatt effort after Blatherwick and Allison had caused consternation in our box. From the corner Myhill saved well after his defenders hadn't defended at all but was unable to prevent Stallard turning the loose ball in. We were then treated to a fine 'loan -signing desperate for a contract celebrates in front of 'his' fans moment' which we were able to enjoy to the full seeing that the referee had already disallowed it, apparently for offside although this wasn't actually very apparent, if you see what I mean. The Chesters then got in a very crisp shot from the corner of our area which Myhill plucked from the air with the aplomb of a parent at a hook-a duck stall across the way. Keane then flattened Allison with an elbow that earned him yellow when it might have been red and the resultant free kick was swirled just over.

In the midst of all this, Taylor had managed to rouse the crowd with a substitution as, to considerable disbelief, he pulled off Walters and Price, sent on Facey to play up front with Lewis and brought on Joseph to play in the middle of three defenders, with Delaney and Cort flanking him. This looked like more post-modern bollocks to this reporter, but perhaps I'm not deconstructing it properly. Certainly it had an immediate impact; whereas Chesterfield had been in the ascendancy, they now took the game completely by the throat and only woeful finishing prevented them from killing it off. Delaney was predictably exposed on our left, couldn't prevent an excellent cross, Stallard lost Joseph and, with only Myhill in front of him in 'boy stood on the burning deck' mode, managed to skim his header wide from just 3 yards out. Then Cort was caught out on the right and Joseph watched a looping cross on to the foot of Allison who volleyed over from 7 yards. In the inevitable next attack we suddenly saw Smith on the floor in a heap with Ashbee jogging away, whistling innocently. To be honest, whatever happened happened so late that I, and I think most others, were already following the ball, but the officials had seen enough and Ashbee walked from a straight red.

And then the glorious unpredicatability of football took over, reminding us that the game is no great respecter of either theories or commonsense. Facey had announced himself by linking well with Lewis to set up a Green shot which had been awkwardly pawed away by Muggleton. This time Lewis found a clever pass that found Green on an enterprising run into the inside right channel and he found a cool left foot finish at the near post and we were 1-0 up.

We re-organised again to 4-4-1, with Joseph going to right back, Dawson coming back from midfield, Cort and Delaney visibly relieved to be back in the middle and Facey alone upfront. And in truth we were probably at our most impressive as we protected the lead. The defence kept their shape and Lewis, Green and Keane all charged around with suitable tigerishness to protect them. They had most of the ball, but we restricted them to just two good chances, Myhill reaching to flick over an Evatt header and then, at the death, lively substitute N'Toya evaded Joseph with a dribble and slid a shot across the face of the goal whilst 3/4 of the ground held its collective breath. On a rare foray up the other end, Green shot just over after Facey had done well to hold up a long ball. I'm not completely sure what to make of Facey's contribution; he was certainly involved at some key times and his job after the sending off was a hard one, but there were too many times when he stared accusingly at a passer who wanted him to chase one into the corners rather than charging after it. A bit harsh, perhaps, but for those of us who saw how Walters scrapped and barged in the same situation in the LDV at Hartlepool, sometimes looking like a rugby union loose forward holding up the ball with 3 or 4 opponents hanging off him as he waited for Elliott and Green to get close enough to pick up the pass, and that he was on the pitch for 2 hours then as opposed to Facey's 35 minutes, Facey's effort was pallid in comparison.

But we won. We won because Lewis played with tremendous heart and no little skill in a variety of positions, because Michael Keane had his most effective game so far, because Stuart Green is currently the best player in this division, because Myhill was back in goal, because Taylor, as he showed with his last reorganisation, can organise a team to do a specific job, and because Chesterfield's far superior approach work was let down by their inept finishing. And because we got lucky.

The result didn't neccessarily make sense, football doesn't always make sense. But somewhere Jaques Derrida, who we are told dreamed as a young man of being a professional footballer, is looking on and a hint of a knowing smile is crinkling the edges of that famously penetrating glare. RIP, you brilliant, barmy bugger.

HULL CITY (4-4-2): Myhill; France, Cort, Delaney, Dawson; Price, Ashbee, Keane, Green; Walters, Lewis.  Subs: Facey (for Walters, 53), Joseph (for Price, 53), Wilbraham, Edge, Allsopp.

Goals: Green 64

Booked: Keane

Sent Off: Ashbee

CHESTERFIELD: Muggleton, Bailey, Blatherwick, Evatt, Nicholson, Allott, Davies, Smith, Clingan, Allison, Stallard.  Subs: N'Toya (for Smith, 72), De Bolla (for Stallard, 82), O'Hare, Downes, Richmond.

Goals: None

Booked: Bailey, Davies

Sent Off: None

REFEREE: M Cowburn

ATTENDANCE: 15,500