City visit a committed Chesterfield side and emerge with a point despite playing 30 minutes against ten men - Junior Lewis's goal was cancelled out by a rare Myhill howler.

A point’s a decent result at Chesterfield, I suppose, but the City throng wending its grumpy way homewards last night will have felt dissatisfied. We were second best for the majority of this game. Still, with fifteen minutes to go, City 1-0 up, and the home side reduced to ten men, we were gleefully hugging ourselves in the expectation of achieving precisely the sort of theft that grinds out a route to promotion. An individual error from Myhill denied us that, but overall it was a tepid display from most of our team.

A mild night, a heavily policed Saltersgate (“there’s a few tasty lads around, Stephen”, as a good friend of mine advised me on the walk into town from the station), and a 4-4-2 with a duo of Tigers on what Ian Chappell would call “d’boo”.

Myhill
St Ockdale Cort Delaney Dawson
Price Junior Hessenthaler Ellison
Barmby Wilbraham

And the first ten or so minutes were as frantic and fabulous as any I’ve seen in a long while. Our turn first. A cross sails long to the back post where it is flicked wide by a leaping salmon – it’s Wilbraham, I think, though the far end is a long stretch from our perch on Chesterfield’s old-style cramped away terrace. Nearer at hand next, as Chesterfield stream forward, and Delaney carelessly watches the ball instead of the man, so is beaten to it all too easily by Evatt. A firm header is acrobatically pawed away by Myhill. But moments later Myhill is the culprit as he advances with gross feebletude to meet a cross. The loose ball drops into a wild melee in the six yard box, a couple of desperate defensive lunges temporarily rescue us, but the ball spins wildly into the air and behind our spreadeagled cover. It’s going in, and no Tiger’s about to get back to intervene … in fact, it’s almost crossed the line already …. Whereupon Allott slides in and blatantly handles the ball into the net. It’s an easy spot, it’s no goal but it’s a booking for Allott and it’s a moment of crass stupidity. For which we can be most grateful.

The crazy, breathless opening’s not over yet. Wilbraham turns smartly inside the box and carves out a close-range shooting opportunity for himself, only to be foiled by a brave diving stop from balding netman Muggleton. The ball spins up onto the bar and out again to the advancing Price, whose header is a shade tentative and is hoofed off the line to the sanctuary of the stand by a retreating defender.

Woo! Mad stuff. Honours even, superb entertainment.

You’ve had yer lot, though. The game dies.

Scrappy, messy, niggly. Trainers on and off like Helen Mirren’s kit in an art film. And a series of utterly atrociously wasteful free-kicks from us.

On 30 Cort effects a quite wonderful tackle deep inside our box, a long graceful leg snaking round his opponent and winning possession, but, in the stretch of over half-an-hour between that Wilbraham crossbar/ Price header moment after 10 or so minutes and the electronic board signalling to us that 3 extra minutes would be added to the 45 there was otherwise quide liderally nothing to cheer about – not that a roofless away end encourages cheering anyway (as Donny, so too Chesterfield – bring on the lovely Luton bearpit). In added time, however, there’s a spark of football, as Barmby slides a delightful ball to Price who whips it on to St Ockdale, haring down the right, and he wastes it with relish. St Ockdale has five Scottish caps, and one came in a win over Hong Kong in a match that was deemed a full international only in a brazen attempt to improve Berti Vogts’ stats, so can safely be discarded. Use your skill and judgement to guess the common result of all the other four matches. Master Robbie looked to me last night uncommonly like a player who Rotherham were happy, nay overjoyed, to free and I have to tell you with regret that I do not feel our problem at right-back has been solved by this week’s transfer wheeling-and-dealing.

The first half concluded with a free kick awarded to them on the edge of our box for wholly intransparent reasons, but happily blootered miles over the bar, and we went in at 0-0 slightly the more disjointed of two ordinary-looking sides.

The second period began with a loud howl from the home fans for a handball penalty up the far end – I have no clue whether it was justified, though couldn’t claim our creaky defence is incapable of such folly. Play then settled down into the scrappy pattern that had marked most of the first half. Until Barmby won us a red card.

It was a delightful turn away from his man and Barmby scooted clear of the back-line with the ball at his feet. The defence was covering across and he was too far from goal to expect to enjoy an uninterrupted run, so he quite deliberately altered his angle to cut back across the retreating defender and cunningly allow the dough-brained Chest to clip his heels. Down went Barmby in a heap, off went Niven, in receipt of his second yellow card. Clever stuff. International-quality, in fact. Like Michael Owen against Argentina in the World Cup, Barmby could have chosen to avoid contact with the defender. But why should he, if the defender’s hanging his leg out like a tart and connecting with it is the best option?

From the consequent free-kick a cross is whipped in at pace and just as Price appears to be about to nod it into the net a superb defensive intervention saves Chesterfield. Then a sublime Barmby/ Price exchange threatens again. Good stuff now.

So Mr Taylor takes off Barmby, and brings on Facey.

After 62 minutes. He can’t be tired, can he? He didn’t look injured. He did look to be ripping ten-man Chesterfield apart with an array of delicious one-touch footballing treats.

And once he’s off, we look ordinary.

The team was performing patchily because most of its components were doing the same. Barmby had been full of inventive flicks and intelligent deception, but the other five members of the midfield and attack ranged from the in-and-out to, in one instance, so far out that he might as well have been in Wales. New South Wales. I suspend my horror, and take you through the in-and-outs first. Price – some decent wide play, too much wastefulness on the ball. Lewis – as ever, sensibly holding his position, a careful if unadventurous pass here and there, physically unimposing. Hessenthaler – ooo he’s short! Shorter even than our last “experienced tough-tackling midfielder with a Germanic name”, one W. Bremner. Seemed out of rhythm with his team-mates, but could be a useful short-term acquisition when he gets to know their names and favourite foods and holiday destinations. Wilbraham – impossibly clumsy at times, astonishingly deft at others.

Leaving only our left-sided midfielder. I’ll make a Big Call here. I’ve never seen a Hull City player turn in a worse display than Ellison last night.

There, I’ve said it.

I won’t dwell on it. He can’t be that bad, can he? Though, I muse, as if watching a car crash, a glass-shattering, bodywork-splintering, flesh-lacerating one on the fast lane of the motorway, he was pretty rotten on his first couple of outings for us too. A total lemon? It’s hard right now to avoid that conclusion. One moment during the first half, when his favoured left foot sent an inviting bouncing ball sailing high and horrible into the night sky, had the Chesterfield fans hooting in derision. I almost joined in. In my head, I did. I don’t now think Ellison is anything like doughty Tiger Andy Saville. I have him pegged as that foppish designer on the frankly peculiar Ford ads, except that for Ellison precision is not everything, it’s nothing.

Still, chin up chaps, he got booked last night, so he’s facing a suspension. A lengthy one, perhaps.

Home manager Roy McFarland, a very fine player in his time, is banished to the stand after protests against referee Graham. We did have the better of the decisions, but McFarland would’ve done better to stay calm and reflect on how easily his team is holding their supposed betters while a man short.

Whereupon, as if by magic, the shopkeeper appears. Jason Price dribbles a laughably poor corner towards the near post, where it is turned out for another corner. We’re hopeless from them, aren’t we? Ha! It’s a trick! Price sends his second chance flying long to the back post, Cort climbs high and confident, heads back across the face, Junior slides free of his marker and turns the ball into the roof of the net.

We didn’t deserve that, but we lead, and it’s time to crow in painfully patronising fashion about how any promotion campaign is always made up of a few ill-shaped bricks signifying ill-gotten gains. “1-0 away at Chesterfield on a night game playing badly” is an anagram of “Bring on Leeds, West Ham and Southampton next August”.

Whereupon it’s 1-1 away at Chesterfield on a night game playing badly (which you can’t make an anagram of). Corner from their right, deflected miserably into his own net by Myhill.

Price is already off for France, who has our only chance to re-establish a lead when he meets a Dawson cross with a diving header, but he puts the effort across the face of the goal and wide. We didn’t deserve to win – we only just deserved to draw. On 86, Ellison was mercifully released from our torment, and Green trotted on. Well! A full four minutes for the Cumbrian maestro to weave his necromancy? Generous indeed! Chesterfield were the better side and gleefully hurled long balls into our box, and we looked shaky enough to concede. Eleven men against ten? You had to count to be sure. There were five extra minutes beyond the 90, but happily the home side called off their victory hunt. The game was now settled at 1-1 to the satisfaction of both sides, though on 90 a Myhill fuble under no pressure at all reminded us that our team is all of a sudden noticeably light in self-confidence. It all started with not taking the Cup seriously.

HULL CITY (4-4-2): Myhill; Stockdale, Cort, Delaney, Dawson; Price, Hessenthaler, Lewis, Ellison; Barmby, Wilbraham.  Subs: Facey (for Barmby, 63), France (for Price, 77), Green (for Ellison, 86), Duke, Allsopp.

Goals: Lewis 74

Booked: Ellison

Sent Off: None

CHESTERFIELD: Muggleton, Bailey, Nicholson, O'Hare, Evatt, Allott, Hudson, Niven, Fowler, Allison, Folan.  Subs: Innes (for Allison, 56), N'Toya (for Fowler, 78), Dawson, De Bolla, Richmond.

Goals: Myhill (og) 82

Booked: Allison, Allott, Fowler, NIven

Sent Off: Niven

REFEREE: F Graham

ATTENDANCE: 5,517