As the immediate chasing pack fails to win and Luton lose, the Tigers stutter to a rather fortuitous point against Port Vale with a last minute penalty winner from Craig Fagan.  It's a point that takes City to the top of the League, an honour barely earned by this performance.

Phil Prosser may not be the worst referee on the League list, he certainly isn't the best. We've had him before and he's been OK, if a bit fussy. But today he was dreadful, really indecisive and capable of giving strange decisions that angered the City crowd, amongst several other correct decisions that also raised the dander of those City followers with a looser grasp of the laws of the game. This had two effects - firstly it raised the City hackles across the KC - pitch and seats - and led to a better atmosphere than has been witnessed for a little while. It also, ultimately, led to the Tigers rescuing a point as the ref's apparent disinterest in penalising a suspected handball in the Vale box deep in injury time, was reversed as the baying hordes of the South Stand insisted he point spotwards. Point he did and after much ref chasing, ball replacing and general sledging by the gloomy Vale players, Craig Fagan rammed a penalty kick to keeper Goodlad's left. A point for a point.

To say that City got out of gaol today is perhaps a little overstated, but let's be honest - we were not at their best today and Port Vale, inspired by the impressive Matthews up front (he who linked so well with Brooker last summer at Vale Park as they undressed the early season Tigers optimism), were very near theirs. They had loan signing Dinning and floppy haired ex-Prem Sonner in midfield, and these two generally ruled the roost as Ashbee huffed and puffed and Hessenthaler just looked puffed, as though thoughts of the Watford manager's job were tiring him out rather than the day's match. It was a strange decision to drop the on-form Lewis for Hessenthaler, a decision made no doubt with an eye on Monday's away game at resurgent Oldham and rectified on the hour as Junior replaced Hess and helped turn the game with his neat link up play in the central midfield engine.

Elsewhere it was business as usual other than Ellison replacing Stuart Elliott, who elected to spend the afternoon on the Old Trafford left touchline not getting passed to at all:

Myhill
Stockdale Cort Delaney Dawson
France Ashbee Hessenthaler Ellison
Fagan Barmby

And strange to say that Cort was perhaps our most effective player in the first half. Well that in itself isn't strange, but the manner in which Leon won this accolade was - while his defending was often indecisive and weak in the face of the powerful runs of Matthews and Painter, he was simply unbeatable in the Vale penalty area and every corner and free kick was effectively a golden goalscoring opportunity for the tall, sleek Londoner.

Mr Prosser, the man in black, is clearly a referee with a sense of history and place. Two days after the passing of Michael Keane to the dark side (Rotherham) on a permanent deal he furiously crossed himself, kissed his wedding ring and performed other superstitions just prior to pheeping the game into action. If I told you that he also kissed his Gloucestershire FA badge and pointed to his name in the matchday programme you probably wouldn't believe me, but you get the general picture. Truth is he also doffed his cap to Delroy Facey's transfer to Oldham by carrying a few extra pounds around his midriff - it was doubtless pie and bovril at half time for this stout defender of 70s footballing tradition.

And all the early threat came from Vale. Birchall tinkled alarm bells as he ran down the left from deep into his half to deep into ours, before being feebly tackled by Stockdale, recovering the ball and crossing low and dangerously - thankfully Myhill was aware and swooped onto the cross at the near post as two strikers lurked behind him. Then on 13 a Myhill punt was headed away meatily by Collins, and the ball dropped amid the City back four between Cort and Stockdale. Both stopped momentarily, I felt it should have been Stockdale's ball, and by the time they'd discuss the matter and really talked it through like grown-ups, a Valiant had teed up Matthews 40 yards out who lobbed Myhill sumptuously to open the scoring. You could say that Myhill was postioned too far from goal but in truth a goalie rooted to his line is useless and we can therefore put the goal down to a splendid piece of opportunism by the Vale number 7.

City were woken up with a jolt and soon Ellison fired wide after Fagan and Barmby combined, then Fagan skied a difficult shot deep in the Vale box as the defence struggled to deal with Dawson's cross. The initial panic from that cross had been caused by Cort's towering presence and seconds later he again rose to meet a Dawson free-kick, but this was directed too close to the keeper who saved. While Leon was superb up front, he was less than great at the back. A Cummins shot was deflected after he'd advanced from left to centre and as the ball bounced up Cort elected to head back to Myhill. Alas, Matthews was stood between Cort and Myhill and he was gifted a golden chance to make it two, but he dithered momentarily and Boaz dived at his feet bravely to save. In the next move Stockdale was booked for hacking down Birchall on halfway after he'd skinned the Teessider far too easily, and the simple equation ...

Booking + Mistimed Tackles + Indecisiveness + Looking Knackered After Only 20 Minutes = Sub Him Off Pronto ...

... was totted up by Taylor, who brought on Price and withdrew France to right back, an all-round good move that quelled the threat down Vale's left for all but one fateful moment for the rest of the afternoon. Stockdale failed to engage eye contact with his manager as he trudged off the pitch and he cut a rather sad figure as he slumped alone on a set of three white seats outside the main City dug-out and watched the rest of the half with barely a bead of sweat yet formed on his forehead. No doubt he'll get over it by Monday, unless it was all an elaborate ploy to engineer the reappearance of Marc Joseph at Boundary Park. If it was, then Stockdale should perhaps have not made it so easy by playing so poorly for 25 minutes.

Vale striker Painter was matching Matthews for powerful running up front and it was his strength that won a corner which was delivered deep and fell to Matthews, whose tumbling low shot was struck just wide. Barmby was showing only flashes of brilliance (ha! brilliance! it's been a while hasn't it, long-suffering City fans...) but our first real threat on Vale's goal for a while came after Cummins crudely hacked down Ashbee 30 yards from goal and rightly saw yellow. Dawson crashed a tasty free-kick up over the wall and onto the crossbar - many thought the goalie had tipped the ball over, but I think his hand was only raised to pull the crossbar down and ensure the ball bounced away safely. It was this decision that first ired the City fans and raised the atmosphere which up to that moment had been as subdued as City's performance.

On 33 Ellison hurtled muscularly down the left before being fouled, and the resulting free-kick was played to Dawson whose left foot cross met Cort's bonce with a pleasing thud and the ball crashed into the net as parity was restored. City were now marginally on top and had the majority of possession, but the only other real chances before half-time were carved using the broadsword, not the rapier. First Cort punted a clearance deep into Vale territory and Fagan's chase was only thwarted by brave goalkeeping, then Barmby chased down a through ball being shielded out for a goalkick, and Dawson's cross was headed just wide by the towering Cort. In between these events Barmby talked his way into the referee's notebook for a three minute harangue-fest at a linesman who had failed to flag for a fairly obvious shove on Barmby by the touchline. OK Nicky, it was a foul. OK Nicky, we know you care passionately about City. But shut your effing trap, eh?

One all at half time at the KC is usually the cue for a second half City onslaught and a three point reward 45 minutes later. But try as they might to dominate the away team, City found the Vale defence a tough nut to crack. Fagan was a bit out of sorts and Ellison was anonymous, which didn't help, but was only later in the game when Lewis and Walters were introduced that you could reasonably say that City had anything approaching the upper hand. Things were compounded by too many high balls from Myhill being punted at Barmby, who was giving away six inches to the powerful Collins and the Rodney Trotter lookylike Pilkington. Cort continued to pose an aerial threat from free kicks and corners but apart from that City's chances were few and far between. Just past the three quarters mark another corner bobbled around in the Vale box before sitting up kindly for Delaney to smash goalwards, but his shot was inches the wrong side of Goodlad's left post. Almost from the restart Painter (I think) surged down the left leaving Price and France in his wake before firing a superb flat cross into the City six yard box that Matthews would probably have scored from had Delaney not dived spectacularly and powered a header into the roof of his own net. Port Vale's lead was restored.

And so it stayed until deep into injury time. Vale's tendency to slow the game down from restarts grew from irksome to infuriating, while shooting chances for Matthews (saved low by Myhill) and Walters (tipped round the post adeptly by Goodlad) were traded. With five minutes to go City reshuffled and put Cort, Walters and Price in central attack, Fagan wide right and Ellison wide left. And this bombardment in the end paid dividends as first a Walters header was saved low by the post, then a corner was swung over by Dawson and the handball perpetrated by a Valester. We scored the penner, we tried to get a winner but the ball wouldn't roll for Fagan, we settled for a point as though it was 3. For we are top of the league, albeit on goals scored. An uncomfortable day for City, but one we got away with. Better is needed on Monday.

HULL CITY (4-4-2): Myhill; Stockdale, Cort, Delaney, Dawson; France, Ashbee, Hessenthaler, Ellison; Fagan, Barmby.  Subs: Price (for Stockdale, 25), Lewis (for Hessenthaler, 62), Walters (for Barmby, 72), Wilbraham, Duke.

Goals: Cort 33; Fagan 90 (pen)

Booked: Barmby, Stockdale

Sent Off: None

PORT VALE: Goodlad, Rowland, Pilkington, Collins, James, Dinning, Sonner, Cummins, Birchall, Matthews, Painter.  Subs: Brain, Hanson, Innes, Lowndes, Eldershaw.

Goals: Matthews 13; Delaney 67 (og)

Booked: Cummins, Painter, Rowland, Sonner

Sent Off: Maher

REFEREE: P Prosser

ATTENDANCE: 17,678