City approach the verge of automatic promotion with a fine win at Valley Parade in front of over 5,000 cheering away supporters and 7 or 8 thousand silent home ones.

Were you getting twitchy?

Ah, come on, you were ... I was ... We lose this, Tranmere win at Brentford on Tuesday, the gap’s down to four points, they’ve got a comfortable run-in, we do NOT want to be needing anything at home when Wednesday come visiting at the end of the month, we do NOT want to go to Griffin Park on the last day needing ...

Shelve it, doubters.

This team is teak-tough, well-led and adorned with the ability to rip flesh from defensive bone in this Division. This victory didn’t have the exuberance of Hillsborough, nor the triumphalism of Prenton Park and there was never a whiff of the imperiousness we put on shimmering show at Dean Court, but it was another ruggedly-won, fully-deserved victory, testimony to our excellence and a dagger of despair to doughty but doomed Tranmere. We’ve got 85 points now – it’s probably enough. And we won’t be going empty-handed over the four games that remain either, not when we’re playing this convincingly. Title’s still on, chaps.

Lining up was what looks uncommonly like our “get tough early on, get skippy once we’ve got some space” first choice eleven for away games (no, officer, I refuse to use the phrase “earn the right to play”):

Myhill
Joseph Cort Delaney Dawson
France Ashbee Junior Elliott
Fagan Barmby

City defend the old Town end, now housing a small double-decker away stand for away fans and, in its terrace days, home to the Tig support when we won a magnificent Cup tie here 2-1 in the late 1980s, and inside the first minute we’re in trouble. A long ball is skillfully headed down by target man Andy Cooke to Dean Windass, who collects in space and thrashes a powerful shot, just too high, just a shade wide. And then Dawson limps off injured for treatment, so we’re down to ten men as well as on the back foot.

Whereupon we take a brilliant lead. Delaney breaks up a Bradford attack, looks up and sends a soaring pass from left to right towards Fagan, inside the Bradford half. Our new forward controls the ball quite superbly and turns inside wolfishly, sniffing Bradford defenders ripe for torment. He turns in, then out, ball exquisitely under control, then he cuts inside on to his left foot, obviously eyeing a low finish of the type he produced thrillingly for the third at Tranmere, but a defender holds a blocking station and instead Fagan astutely transfers the ball inside to France, who has arrived intelligently and at pace but makes a complete mess of his first touch … but the move hasn’t collapsed, though the Bradford defence has, and the ball capers on across the face of the box to Elliott on the far side, totally unmarked and with time enough to pick his spot and ram a low left-foot shot past the hopelessly exposed Henderson.

“Pick his spot”, I wrote, and damn me a sinner, o Lord of the Church of Cliché Suppression, but this man Elliott has been picking his spot all season long, and it’s the same one every time. Back o’the Net. Ruthless, confident finishing – he’s up to 28 goals already, and what he’s done for us deserves to be written high on the (admittedly not very lofty) pillar of mighty Tiger feats.

1-0 for us, and a couple of minutes later a quite breathtaking move slices Bradford into a bleeding heap of despair. Barmby grabs possession, plays a wonderful ball in behind the defence, Fagan has made the run, pirouettes around his startled opponent and, with the goal gagging to receive a cool finish, spoils the moment with a hasty shot which flashes wide.

Six or so minutes into the game and the frame is fixed: Bradford are going to get what most of the teams in this Division have been getting since August. They’ll play their football, they won’t give up. But we’re faster, sharper, cleverer.

Ooo, I love Hull City at the moment. And how much more is to come the rest of this decade? And beyond?

I might even love our manager too, though I never expected to. Bradford, remember, are the only team to beat us at the Circle this year, and it happened in a dull brainless sort of a game, in which they eventually muscled their way to the edge of a stalemate and then snatched a win with a long-distance punt. But we were rotten that night. All long ball and cumbersome moves. We learn. Or at least our manager teaches. At Valley Parade yesterday we moved the ball around slickly and, crucially, we kept it on the floor, where no one in this Division can match us. In David Weatherall Bradford have as good a centre-back as you’ll find in the whole Division whose name is not Leon Cort, but we kept our play fluent, kept the ball low, and did as much as was necessary to avoid playing to Weatherall’s strengths.

The first half unrolls in richly entertaining style. Deano is feted by both sets of fans, though obviously he likes us better, but he’s less effective than he was in Hull in August and it may be that with 22 goals in his bag for this season he feels it’s now time to head for the beach. For Bradford, Muirhead is tricky down the right but can’t shoot, while Cooke, the target man, is very impressive – strong and mobile. Down the left Emanuel is, as on every occasion I’ve seen him play, completely useless. Bradford play with width. But not as effectively as we do.

On 25, France and Fagan combine but the final pass to the advancing Barmby is played just behind our hero ... one yellow, then another, as Bradford defenders employ the scythe ... Joseph whacks in a long cross which swerves and becomes a shot, but slips away just beyond the far post ... Cort heads firmly downwards from a corner but the ball bounces kindly for Henderson to push it away for another corner ... Muirhead has a chance to play in Schumacher down their left but instead helpfully lobs the ball straight into Myhill’s gut ... Ashbee and Cooke collide in a 50/50, but theirs is the quickest to make like a heap and Ashbee collects a yellow from weak referee Pike (stupid boy!) ... Weatherall loses the ball to the alert Barmby, trips him, and he’s culpable as the last man, but the confused ref waves play on ... Boaz and Marc Joseph dither as a ball is played long to the back post but the tawdry Emanuel fires his shot high into the side-netting from a narrow angle ... Barmby gets narked at the ref for ignoring a couple of defensive elbows shoved into his face and though his histrionics are unwise and could earn a booking, I really love it when the red mist sweeps over our boy like this: he might’ve played for Everton and Liverpool, he might’ve played for England winning 5-1 away to Germany, but playing for Hull City – that’s what he’s always really wanted to do.

There’s three minutes added on, the sun has come out over the mills and mosques, and it’s been a breathless and rather fantastic half of football.

And I feel I was not alone in enjoying the rather splendid half-time entertainment from the delightful dancing troupe the “City Slickers”, especially the simulated strap-on moves.

Bradford come haring out at the start of the second half. Thuggish full-back Tierney is denied his chance at a red card and is hauled off in favour of Owen Morrison, who I remember as a dismally ineffective fop in his brief spell as a City loanee, but who now looks like a tricky wingman with a turn of pace and an eye for goal – much like myself, as many readers will fondly recall. They’ve changed their formation to a more attacking 3-5-2 sort-of-a-thing and, more significantly, they’ve changed their attitude too, and we’re under pressure. Joseph, Morrison’s immediate adversary, takes a knock and is replaced by Stockdale and, you know, I feel we were not weakened thereby. Anyone care to disagree?

On 49 Bradford’s best moment arrives. Break down the left, cross whipped in, lands on the half-volley at the eager feet of Muirhead deep inside our box. I’m in the stand replacing the old Midland Road side and I’m right in line ... Muirhead’s connection is perfect, he drives the shot with extreme pace, Myhill can only watch. As the effort flies an inch wide of the post.

It’s open, it’s lively, it suits them a bit better than us to make it chaotic, but this is very watchable football. Bradford get on top, but we can defend. You know this. But we really can defend. Cooke is giving our central defence as testing an afternoon as any opponent has all season, certainly since Parkin and what's-his-name in the sleet at Swindon, but we are able to protect Myhill to the point of ensuring he is called on to make but one serious save in this match, and that right at the very end. Delaney is excellent, Cort is breathtaking, a marvel. On 63 the home side steals its only serious sight of goal during this impressive spell. The admirable Cooke turns brilliantly into space, he’s created a shooting opportunity from nothing. But he mis-kicks desperately and the chance is gone. Five minutes later another one looms but Junior, on the edge of the box, effects a courageously brilliant block.

Our problem is want of possession, and this prevents us getting the ball upfield to test the Bradford defence which has been short-handed since they came out with such adventure at the beginning of the second-half. We’re second best and the home “crowd” knows it. Lordy, they were that excited, I almost heard them,

On roughly the mid-way point of the second half something rather beautiful occurred. Our team needs lifting. Now, our support is not the most passionate on the planet. Look, I’m part of it, have been for decades, trust me, I know. “I may not be much of a passionate man ..." No, that’s not the sliding identity I seek: we’re not Schalke, we’re not Boca Juniors, and, I’m sorry, we’re not Sunderland. I like us as we are, restrained at times admittedly, but yesterday, on 68, we got to singing, we did it well, we did it energetically, and suddenly the team, subdued for twenty minutes, responded. They grabbed possession, they heaved the pattern of play back upfield and they scored the decisive second goal.

Ball up the middle, Elliott cushions a pass off his instep to Barmby, he plays it out wide to the right to France, he teases his defender mercilessly, and then rolls the ball back towards the penalty-spot, where there’s Barmby tracking intelligently into space and thrashing a low first-time right-foot shot into the corner of the net.

Exultation, relief, belief – superb technique, match over. Barmby scored a remarkably similar goal at home earlier in the season (at South Stand end, though I don’t recall the opposition), but I suspect no one else outside (what you young people call) the Premiership has done so. Vision and ability of the highest quality.

Did I mention that we are completely fantastic?

Deano is becalmed. Bradford are dispirited, the sun is beaming down on the Tigers support, and we are playing possession football of a type that looks to me ideal preparation for imminent two-leg European adventures. Delaney and France combine to block a neat passing move up the centre: Myhill provides us with his sole moment of virtuosity late on when he blocks a deft free-kick from just outside the box, and then follows up with a second save from a narrow-angled Weatherall shot. And that is pretty much it. The rest of the time – and we ran the clock down serenely for a full twenty minutes - we caress the football around the pitch like a Ming vase.

Cool superiority. It’s not the Hull City that I know and love, but I’m getting to know it and I already love it a lot.

Sunday lunchtime, it’s no time for football. We were there, more than 5,000 of us, gleeful, expectant, jubilant, though all the same a shade more peaceful than we might be at 3 o’clock on a Saturday. Bradford City’s season is over and minds were visibly already on the beach. Not their team, who played with commendable vigour and impressive honesty. But their fans. From Wibsey and Buttershaw, they descended in their tens: Dudley Hill and Eccleshill, even Tong - the pubs were emptied of as many of one carload. The sparkling, if architecturally disproportionate, post-Premiership Valley Parade was sparsely filled on two sides, the TigerNation en vacances packed the other two. I don’t dislike Bradford City, though I despise Martin Fish and, as a city I like Bradford a lot – it is perhaps England’s most fascinatingly varied (outside grubby London) and none matches it for its setting, in a bowl of the Pennine foothills. But I fear the football club’s downward flight has not yet been arrested and I fear the dutiful readers of the T&A know it. Those Tig fans who directed the “We’ll never play you again!” song at the homesters are newcomer buffoons ignorant of our history – and few joined in, I am happy to report – but it may be a while until we do. Bradford are sliding.

Whereas we are going up.

HULL CITY (4-4-2): Myhill; Joseph, Cort, Delaney, Dawson; France, Ashbee, Lewis, Elliott; Fagan, Barmby.  Subs: Stockdale (for Joseph, 51), Price, Hessenthaler, Wilbraham, Duke.

Goals: Elliott 4; Barmby 68

Booked: Ashbee

Sent Off: None

BRADFORD CITY: Henderson, Holloway, Wetherall, Bower, Emanuel, Muirhead, Bridge-Wilkinson, Schumacher, Tierney, Cooke, Windass.  Subs: Morrison (for Tierney, 45), Ricketts, Forrest, Bentham, Swift.

Goals: None

Booked: Bower, Tierney

Sent Off: None

REFEREE: M Pike

ATTENDANCE: 13,631