City's first ever game against franchise style MK Dons ends in thrilling victory as a deficit is turned around with two late goals.

I'd so much wanted us to win this one and, with less than 2 minutes to go, we are losing it. We start the game like a hurricane, this blows down to a 20 minute gale and then blows out completely as we go through the second half, letting a limited side establish a lead even after missing a penalty. We look like we are going through the motions, waiting for something to happen. And we get a break. A Keane-conceived move breaks down on the edge of their area when a defender, facing his own goal but under no immediate challenge unaccountably sweeps the ball behind for a corner, under the bemused eyes of his team mates. Dawson takes the corner, he gets the distance but not a lot of shape and the ball is half-cleared to the edge of the area where Keane swings, spanners it, scuffs it, but crucially keeps it down and on target and it has the legs to escape the clutches of netman Bevan. We're level, we celebrate in relief at the point, we mock the traveling army of 27 fuckwits and charlatans who have ventured north from their horrible new town. But it's still not over. Keane, revitalised, goes forward again, crosses hopefully only to receive the clearance back. Creditably he gives himself a moment, picks out the enduringly excellent Green with a fine raking pass and Green, from the corner of the area volleys refulgently into the net. 3-2 , deep into injury time, there's hardly time to kickoff, as Tigerfolk celelebrate madly on and off the pitch as 3 of the visitors harangue the ref whilst one has collapsed to his knees and is holding his head in his hands. That's Izale McLeod, scorer of their first goal but, more importantly as he now knows, misser of their penalty, and he knows and we know that we've won.

It's events such as that last 5 minutes that keep you coming and watching. There's nothing quite like it.

Ultimately jubilant on a night when the surface was so greased by the rain that players on both sides struggled with their footings, we started off thus:

Myhill
Wiseman Joseph Delaney Dawson
France Green Lewis Elliott
Barmby Facey

But I'd only got as far as writing 'Myhi' when we were ahead. They kicked off towards the South Stand, we won the ball, Barmby reminded us what we'd been missing these past weeks with an immediate clever short pass to Facey, and Big Dean was away, galloping into the inside left channel, bouncing opponents off him effortlessly before firing in a shot that Bevan blocked, but nice and bouncily for someone. That someone turned out to be Stuart Green who finished with characteristic aplomb, as footy writers used to say in better days. Apparently the goal was timed at 16 seconds and its effect on our confidence was immediate.

Another Facey run was blocked at the expense of a corner, he then had a header saved. On the right Wiseman was assured and linking well with France who was lively and effective. One particularly potent France run found Barmby in the area but he fell over his feet and the chance went.Then Green found Facey with a fine ball but the burly striker had wandered offside, as lazy John Fieldhouse would have written.

So far, so good. But after 20 minutes, having passed attractively and moved forward with purpose, we gradually lost our grip and the visitors started to show that, limited though they undoubtedly were, they had some players to watch. Joseph had already cushioned a header beautifully into the path of McLeod who volleyed wide. If Lewis didn't bollock Joseph for this, then he ought to have done. Then McLeod and Small combined and only an excellently timed tackle from Dawson recued us. They won a free kick 20 yards out and Edds struck it swirly and well and just as you thought Boaz was leaving it dreadfully late he flicked it over, like a teacher taking the mickey playing in goal in a game of 7 year olds. But we were backpedaling, and then we were behind. It was the old how to beat Hull City play very popular a few years ago that we thought we'd eradicated, of luring the left back out of the way, isolating the central defender who hesitates before making an ill-judged challenge that he misses, and suddenly there is no left side of defence and a free run on goal. Ah, memories of Andy Holt and Nicky Mohan and terrible nights at Hartlepool, Mansfield and Shrewsbury. But no need to mourn their passing, as Dawson and Delaney showed that though former players are temporary, crassness is permanent and the beneficiary was Kamara who skipped past them, fired in a shot that might have been a cross but was in any case touched in my McLeod. 1-1, and it could have been worse as Dawson and Joseph then respectively foiled Small and McLeod. Our boys trooped off, perhaps rather relieved to be level at the interval.

We shouldn't have to play this team, you know. North American style franchising has it's place in sport, but that place is North America. We should all be grateful that the Washington Senators baseball franchise was moved to Minneapolis in 1961 as that begat the truly wonderful Minnesota Twins. But Washington's rump team died in 1968 and has stayed dead ever since, until this year, when the Montreal Expos have been killed by Major League Baseball and sent to Washington, dumping all over the thousands of Canadian fans who stayed loyal to an ailing team. Long ago hearts were broken in New York in the 1960s when the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants relocated to Los Angeles and San Francisco respectively, becoming fake teams in a fake State, as a character in Don DeLillo's 'Underworld' succinctly dismisses them The reason it's done is money, to make more where you are going to compared with where you are now and fuck the fans because there'll be more at the next stop along the line.

We don't do that here. Except that now we do. Instead of forming a team, joining a league, trying to get better and then getting promoted, and doing this for as long as it takes, last nights opponents have moved a club from its South London home to Milton Keynes, symbol of all that is dreadful about new town planning, in the hope of hoovering up the local cash and fuck the Wimbledon fans who, to their immense and everlasting credit, have gone back to scratch, formed a team, joined a league, got better and got promoted. Last night's opponents, amusingly, are now rightly detested and have no fans at all, thus removing even a financial justification for existence. If you are a football fan you probably hate certain teams, as is your right. But Bradford, Sheffield United, Thewhiteshite, Manchester United, Whoever, can at least justify their existence by being objects of hatred. These just shouldn't exist. They need to be kicked out of the league, their players given away to anyone who'll have them, their debt hung around the neck of their chairman. They're scum and they know it.

Well, that's better. Second half and we looked anxiously at our opponents, having been told they often looked like a different team in the second half. Who would they be now, the Chorley Crackdealers, the Derby Drivebyshooters? Surprisingly, they seemed to be wearing the same shirts and representing the same town as they had before the interval. We started as pleasingly as we had in the first half, with Green prominent. Delaney carried the ball forward well, Barmby flicked superbly to Facey whose run on goal was stopped by an effective tackle. Then a sweet interplay betwixt Green and Barnby set free France whose crisp shot was saved. But the best chance came on the hour, a superb header flicked on by Barmby found Facey on one of what we should perhaps consider now a characteristic charge. But having advanced to 6 yards from the goal he screwed the shot wide. A truly Walterian finish. This seemed to deflate him as well as us as when Barmby's anticipation gave him another chance immediately afterwards he flicked it abjectly and ineffectively goalwards.

Then the midden hit the windmill. Lewis was having a poor night, he pulled out of a challenge and suddenly McLeod was free and goalside of Dawson. The defender tracked back desperately and put in the challenge that he had to but that was always likely to be problematic. McLeod went over and it was a penalty. The man stepped up to take it himself and hit it firmly low to Myhill's right, but Boaz was it's equal, and turned it round the post. Custodian of the leather! But credit, too, to our fans who had been let into the virtually unpopulated North Stand. They produced a fine and appropriate display of advertising hoarding banging that must have unnerved a player more used to playing in front of 200 pre-pubescent hockey fans.

Taylor changed it on 75 minutes, bringing on Keane for the again ineffective and overly casual Elliott and Allsopp for the faded France. We went 4-3-1-2 with Barmby in the hole, but it made little difference as they were now controlling it. From a corner we left the hefty Chorley free and he nodded simply past Myhill. 'Everywhere we go, people want to know, who we are' chanted their carload of fans, and we were certainly wondering just that. The Mexborough Moorhens? The Miles Plattings? 'Who are you, who are you' we chanted back, in some puzzlement. But they are a hard team to love. The undoubtedly gifted Kamara swung the lead shamelessly, gulling incompetent and fussy Referee Hegley frequently. On his third dramatic plunge to earth our players were sufficiently riled to keep the ball and advance towards their goal as he thrashed around grounded. That this immediately preceded our equaliser was further cause for mirth. In truth they should have buried us by this time, as Delaney had to essay another penalty risking tackle but got away with it. And so the game meandered and so we grumbled and so some left, right up to the remarkable denouement.

I so much wanted us to beat this lot and we did. I don't care that we scarcely deserved even one point, I don't care that a limited team gave us far too much trouble all night. This team shouldn't be playing, and they'll only stop when they accrue more and more defeats and more and more relegations and their owner pulls the plug. They are ersatz and new money, wannabees who will never, ever earn it and ultimately we did our bit by pissing in their swimming pool in the grand manner; from the high diving board. And I am so very, very glad.

HULL CITY (4-4-2): Myhill; Wiseman, Joseph, Delaney, Dawson; France, Lewis, Green, Elliott; Barmby, Facey.  Subs: Allsopp (for France, 69), Keane (for Elliott, 69), Price (for Barmby, 82), Brock, Hinds.

Goals: Green 1, 90; Keane 88

Booked: None

Sent Off: None

MILTON KEYNES DONS: Martin, Edds, Ntimban-Zeh, palmer, Lewington, Kamara, Chorley, Herve, Tapp, Small, McLeod.  Subs: Puncheon (for Tapp, 74), Oyedele, Crooks, Pacquette, Heald.

Goals: McLeod 33, Chorley 76

Booked: Lewington

Sent Off: None

REFEREE: G Hegley

ATTENDANCE: 14,317