A further huge step towards promotion, and a nudge towards the League 1 leader's title, as play-off contenders Bournemouth are swatted aside 4-0 by rampant Tigers.

It gives me the greatest pleasure to report to you on yet another glitteringly imperious performance from our wonderful side. Does this dominant display go right to the top of this season’s “City thrash hapless adversaries” tree? I rather think it might. Bournemouth came into this fixture an optimistic, upward-mobile side, soaring into the play-off positions courtesy of some decent results. Even before half-time was reached they were staggering glassy-eyed around the Dean Court pitch as if struck by a speeding train. The Tiger train. Destination Promotion. Only Tranmere can halt us now, but if we offer up even glimpses of yesterday’s mastery in the eight games that now separate us from the end of the season then there is not the slightest risk that we won’t finish top two.

On exhilaratingly fine form:

Myhill
Stockdale Cort Delaney Edge
France Ashbee Junior Elliott
Fagan Barmby

And off we went, on an English Spring day fit to fill the heart with joy. Crocuses abound, trees in bud, birds nesting, bright sunshine – o how marvellous it is to have filled your wallet at the Cheltenham Festival. So to delightful Dorset, and not only is three-sided Dean Court close to packed, there are even three children who have clambered high into a tree at the end that lacks a stand in order to inspect the action. Trilbies thrown in the air! Woodbines! Well, not quite – but not much beats the sense of anticipation generated by a full football ground.

We start encouragingly well, as France plays a ball in from the right and Fagan deftly sets up Junior for a shooting chance in space on the edge of the box, but a left-foot effort devoid of any confidence flies hopelessly high. Bournemouth now take control of the bulk of possession and move the ball around midfield with a degree of composure, but there are no serious alarms for our implacably well-organised defence. Cort and Delaney are fearlessly sturdy and with Ashbee catching the eye through another committed and selfless display and France breaking up the 4-4-2 with some intelligent running across the middle of the pitch, it’s the travelling Tigs that are on top come the quarter-hour mark.

On 21 France scoots down the right and sends in a cross which eludes the tall central defenders and arrives on Barmby’s unmarked forehead towards the back post, but our genius is startled the ball has reached him and he heads tamely over. But five minutes later the same two players are involved in a peach of a goal. Stockdale wanders infield with the ball from right-back and, surprised by the disinclination of the home side to close him down – he is, after all, a Full Scottish International, like Jim Baxter -, he continues and picks out Barmby on the far side of the box with a well-judged long pass. Barmby, you will remember, is better than everyone else in this Division. He doesn’t pause. He flicks the ball first-time inside, where no one at all is lurking … what a waste of a ball? ... except that France is speeding directly through the middle, collects the sublime pass, and, with the defence shredded, stabs the ball into the net via the despairing hand of the horribly exposed Moss in the Boscombe goal.

I’m not sure even France himself spotted the run France was making any earlier than Barmby did. A brilliant pass, a breathtaking moment of skill, instinctive genius. A glorious goal.

Five minutes later we scored a better one.

I have let you down, gentle reader, for I failed to count the number of passes that prepared the way for our mesmerising second goal. Was it ten? Twenty? Five hundred? I could not say, but, for sure, it was a flowing move of polished magnificence, in which we swept the ball across the turf with supreme confidence, treating the Bournemouth midfield and defence like so many training-ground cones. Elliott was involved, Ashbee too, Junior contributed a delicious first-time flick to change the direction of the play in Fagan’s favour, and our new man surged ruthlessly past his man down near the by-line before providing a low cross as inviting as freshly-cooked haddock and chips for Elliott, racing in from the opposite side of the pitch in a defence-busting late run, to shove home from the edge of the six-yard box. Breathless, breathtaking stuff.

We’d started this game like the great Liverpool sides of the late 1970s and 1980s, taking on tricky opposition on foreign soil and calmly, confidently quelling the home side and their fierce support with the sheer quality of our football. Bournemouth isn’t quite Poznan or Krakow: but make no mistake, they fancied themselves in the game. For about fifteen minutes. Now we’ve left Liverpool behind. We’re 1950s Real Madrid. We’re knocking the ball around as if losing possession isn’t an option, we attack with chilling incision at a time of our choosing, and one football club we don’t look like is the dismal Hull City that a woeful generation has had to put up with since our descent towards near-oblivion commenced in the late 1980s. Fagan streaks clear, shoots, Moss saves. Barmby cleverly sets up Stockdale, but he shoots well wide. We’re 2–0 up, we’re ten goals Bournemouth’s superior, and the home side is visibly, palpably bemused. On the rare occasions they get hold of the ball, their players scan the horizon hopefully, searching for a colleague who has a clue how to make headway against this perfect Hull City side. No one takes responsibility. Glumly, the give us the ball back again. And we play with it a bit more.

It’s half-time, it’s marvellous.

And it’s as good in the second half too.

Bournemouth begin after the break by deploying the only option open to them – never mind the football, let’s get stuck in, let’s get muscular. Yeah, right. Like Damien Delaney’s gonna whimper and recoil. Pur-lease, Whatever. Talk to the hand. (Does any of this make the slightest sense? I do hope not). The biff-bang option might have troubled us earlier this season, but with Delaney and Cort both in the sort of enduringly excellent form that has me wondering whether they might be our centre-back pairing for a decade to come – including in Division 1 – Boscombe are getting nowhere despite enjoying a decent slice of possession. And we counter-attack through Elliott, Fagan, Barmby and France before Junior strikes a feeble shot.

We have no need of any advantage beyond our superior footballing ability, but Bournemouth generously donate us an extra man. Barmby crumples to the turf. It’s on the far side and, with a bright Southern sun shining directly into my eyes, I have no clue what occurred. But the linesman, right on the spot, had no doubt and quickly communicated the offence to the referee. Any Bournemouth protests seemed to concern the identity of the miscreant rather than the guilty act itself, and eventually Maher was red-carded.

With that, the home side’s chance they might catch us idling in front vanished, though the ten men did enjoy a brief flourish when a free-kick on the right was allowed to travel too far across our box to the back post where a fierce shot was rammed goalwards. Myhill hadn’t been busy but had stayed alert and he blocked the shot superbly well. A shiver of 2-1 rapidly became the reality of 3-0 just 90 seconds later. We sweep down the right and the ball is passed inside by Barmby to Fagan, whose ball retention has been a shade feeble at the beginning of the second half. But now he turns away from the defence and conjures up the most magnificent floated pass, skimming the head of the full-back, who is taken completely out of the game by the accuracy of the delivery, and dropping like a perfectly-struck sand wedge on to the advancing Elliott boot. All that’s needed now is the little matter of a cushioned side-foot volley into the near corner of the net, a job which Elliott completes with disdainful nonchalance, bringing his tally to 85 for the season, not counting loaves and fishes.

Some of the goals we’ve scored this season have been astonishing. The speed, the intelligence, the passing – we regularly tear apart perfectly competent lower Division defences. Three times yesterday we scored goals that were simply majestic confirmation of what a beautifully balanced team our managed has constructed.

And soon after, in slightly more brutal fashion, it was four. We won a free-kick hard by the by-line, over on our right. Delaney and Barmby stood over the ball. The angle was too tight for a shot, so a cross looked the safe option and Bournemouth packed the box to defend. Delaney runs over the ball and continues a few yards back up the field to give himself a better angle for a shot, Barmby rolls the dead ball backwards into his path, and the Lion of Cork thumps a powerful left-foot shot which flies through the thicket of limbs and bulges the side-netting inside Moss’s far post. 4-0, just superb.

There are fully 25 minutes left, and it’s time for relaxed glee. Our players stroll around regally, passing the ball with supreme confidence, while poor old Bournemouth, heads sunk low on their chests, check nervously with each other – “We don’t have to play this lot again this season, do we?”. A couple of off-target efforts from Hayter and a badly wasted shooting chance for sub Stock are the limit of their contribution. In the stands reserved for the Tigs, the euphoria of the banked three points abounds. Sweeping the City support was the vivid humour of our newly-minted “We’ve got more goals than you’ve got stands” song and by the later stages, as at Tranmere, it’s the jubilant City fans that populate the stadium as the defeated homesters slink away in recognition of their abject inferiority.

Fagan departs for Walters, who has our best chance of a fifth goal when he cleverly beats the offside trap but then, with the defence labouring far adrift in his wake, he contrives to shoot too close to the keeper and his shot is blocked. Elliott wastes the rebound. Price replaces Barmby, Hessenthaler comes on for Edge (and Junior moves to left-back). And we win the game 4-0.

Terrific performances all over the pitch yesterday, but let me pick out one man for special awe. It’s Nicky Barmby I wish to praise. His whole CV screams “Flaky! Unreliable!”. Mr Pearson offered him a season’s contract and no more. I expected Barmby to find some reason to flounce out of the club mid-way through the season, blaming everyone but himself for things going awry. How poor is my judgement. He is outstandingly talented and he is an honest hard-worker too. I hope he plays hundreds more games for us, and I will relish every minute. But if I am handing out plaudits to our very own Nicky Barmby, I’m not going to finish there. Step forward the man who has extracted the very best from the hitherto unfulfilled Barmby talent. Peter Taylor. A superior manager to the several more high-profile names who have, Terry Venables aside, failed to get Barmby to play to his full potential? I am happy to take that view. These are great times for our club.

HULL CITY (4-4-2): Myhill; Stockdale, Cort, Delaney, Edge; France, Ashbee, Lewis, Elliott; Fagan, Barmby.  Subs: Walters (for Fagan, 67), Price (for Barmby, 75), Hessenthaler (for Edge, 80), Ellison, Duke.

Goals: France 26; Elliott 31, 58; Delaney 64

Booked: Edge

Sent Off: None

BOURNEMOUTH: Moss, Young, Mills, Maher, Green, Elliott, Spicer, Browning, O'Connor, Fletcher, Hayter.  Subs: Connell (for Green, 80), Stock (for Spicer, 80), Rodrigues (for Fletcher, 80), Stewart, Coutts.

Goals: None

Booked: None

Sent Off: Maher

REFEREE: A Penn

ATTENDANCE: 8,895