A wonderful season ends in less-than-wonderful defeat against Brentford stiffs.  No matter, this has been a fabulous nine months of football.  Let the Championship challenge commence!  In the meantime ...

2004-05 is officially over, the finest season for twenty years, or perhaps more. It's worth reflecting on that as we pick our way through the rather gory details of this post-season friendly against Brentford. The Bees had signalled their intent to take this match not a jot seriously, by announcing a reserve side a day or two before the fixture. Entering into the spirit Peter Taylor also carded a couple of our most promising youngsters, Russell Fry slotting in alongside Ian Ashbee in midfield and Scott Wiseman making a late bid for City's least worst right back and making rather a good job of it, putting himself streets ahead of Stockdale and Joseph in 45 minutes. So City lined up:

Myhill
Wiseman Cort Delaney Dawson
Ellison Ashbee Fry Elliott
Fagan Barmby

And within a minute City had won a corner, a Brentford defender at the near post contrived to merely head it backwards across the face of goal and Leon Cort nodded home tidily at the far post. The post-season celebrations had begun. City stroked the ball around pleasingly for 20 minutes or so and carved out some half chances as the youthful Brentford XI, with a few gnarled old heads thrown in, largely chased shadows. The turning point came on 32 minutes when serial non-scoring ex-City striker Christian Hargreaves clattered into the capable looking Russell Fry with a challenge that was so late, the time delay could have conceivably been measured using a calendar. Fry had played the ball forward intelligently and Hargreaves slid in with clear intent to maim, catching the youngster just below the knee of his standing leg. Fry was reduced to a heap of mangled limbs and required extensive on-pitch treatment before being carried off. It was the sort of over the top challenge that top referees are explicitly advised to clamp down on heavily and a red card was the expected treatment. Unfortunately our game yesterday was a brief staging post in the rapid descent down the league structure of once-decent referee Uriah Rennie as he quite scandalously showed a yellow card to Hargreaves, who had the demeanour of someone who was anticipating first use of the soap.

Lewis came on for Fry and didn't do much. Neither did anyone else in the City team, this horror tackle seemed to bring about a collective drawing in of Tiger horns (manes?) and Brentford started to exert some pressure. When Peters clattered Elliott and sent him cartwheeling up in the air with five minutes to go before half-time - another yellow card offence - the City minds switched off further. A couple of minutes later Tabb curled over a left foot corner, Ashbee missed his near post header and lanky centre back Sobers applied the merest of touches to guide the ball into the net at the far post - in truth it may well have swung in direct from the corner anyway, such was the assistance that Tabb received from a passing gust of wind.

On the stroke of half-time Ellison found space in the box and effected a reasonable looking bicycle kick, which was clawed away by Brentford keeper Bankole for a corner.

Into the second half and Ashbee was withdrawn in favour of Joseph. Joseph slotted in at right back, Wiseman played right midfield (and did an equally decent job as the one he performed in the first half), Barmby played centre midfield and Ellison was cut loose up front. Within 30 seconds Fagan had latched onto a through ball that ex-Chelsea-when-they-were-crap left back Myers should have headed clear, but the young striker's shot whistled six inches over the crossbar as the exposed comedy-bearded keeper looked on. Just before the hour Uriah Rennie was at it again as Peters, the aggressive young tyke that had already been booked for sending Elliott in the direction of a Heathrow landing slot, was cleverly wrong-footed by last man Delaney and reacted petulantly by hacking the ruddy faced Irishman down in a manner that screamed "second yellow!!" Quite how Rennie could justify not administering a further booking - beyond extreme homer-ness or ludicrous incompetence - was unclear to all who witnessed it. Not least Bees manager Martin Allen who galantly and utterly professionally withdrew Peters instantly from the tightrope that he would have walked for the rest of the game. Sound and honourable management, that.

Elliott had three chances, one a shot blocked by a last gasp tackle after Ellison set him up with a header, another a shot from 12 yards that went off for a throw-in after good work down the right by Fagan. The third was a swift turn and shot that went just over the bar after neat midfield passing down the left wing that revolved around Barmby. The hard-working Ellison was replaced by Burgess with 20 to go, Ben then proceeded to ming utterly with a remarkable display of "second-touch-a-tackle" craptitude. This came to a head with four minutes left on the clock as Ben's attempt to control a pass out of defence was so poorly miscontrolled that it was blatted deep into the heart of the wrongfooted City defence - the nippy Tabb took advantage by getting to the spinning ball first, skipping between Delaney and Dawson and placing a tidy shot past Myhill's right hand for the winner.

Let's pick out some performances from the match. As already mentioned both Fry and Wiseman did a decent job, it is especially hard to see why Wiseman has not been given a first-team chance sooner given the paucity of our squad's right back resources. Ashbee looked way off the pace for a third successive game and during the summer break needs to do one or all of: recover from injury; lay off the Ginsters and Stella; and/or have a damn good rest on a beach somewhere. Ellison did his usual stuff, running around willingly, getting in the way and occasionally clattering inattentively into mostly - but not exclusively - Brentford players. Ellison is pretty limited if truth be known but I really like him and I can see why Taylor sticks with him - if he can work on his technique such that it can match his workrate he'll be an asset next season, particularly in away games where we are pushed back into our own half and need a willing outlet alongside Fagan. Elliott didn't do much, neither did Fagan. Barmby tried his best but couldn't get anyone else interested in getting on the end of his visionary flicks.

I've saved the worst until nearly last. Marc Joseph. He has been spending recent games playing for an extended contract at City. He has only succeeded in proving how totally unwarranted such a contract would be, and this came to a head at Brentford. I'm no Opta stats man, but I'd estimate that 90% of Joseph's passes ended up either at the feet of a Brentford player or the hands of a Brentford supporter in the stand. His positional play was dreadful. He inspired nothing but panic in his defensive colleagues. It is sorry to report that it looks as though the affable Joseph has reached the end of his term in black and amber.

But let's not finish on a downer. What a splendid season this has been, and one is always apt to look for turning points and defining moments. The late and thoroughly undeserved last-second comeback at home to Milton Keynes was definitely one, as was the late equaliser at MK's frozen hockey pitch four months later at a time when compiling an unbeaten run was vital to keep the squad's focus and determination intact after a run of January and February games without victory. There was the cool penalty of Keane at Hillsborough followed by Barmby's brace - the second of which was my personal goal of the season - in that exhilarating thirty minutes of December Wednesday night football. There was the utterly witless decision of Brian Little to accept Theo Whitmore's suggestion that he'd be willing to go in goal during the 6-1 caning at the KC. There was Allsopp's brace-from-the-blue against the 'flu-ridden Wrexham at a time when we'd lost the winning habit down the back of Peter Taylor's sofa (the MK Dons draw followed four days later). There was the introduction of Fagan and the subsequent snuffing out of Tranmere's revenge rebellion. There was the unexpected clattering of Bournemouth that saw a ten point chasm emerge at just the right time of the season.

It's been a wonderful season that in the end was crowned on a spring Sunday afternoon at Valley Parade, as the Tigers exorcised a few ghosts by swatting aside Bradford in front a 13,000 crowd of which roughly half were supporting the "away" team, with Windass playing like an arse for the Bantams. Sure, after that the performances have been middling to dreadful - only the second half of the Wednesday home game saw us play like a team worthy of promotion - but after such a long and unexpected haul it is fair to forgive our squad. After all this is essentially a Fourth Division squad that has just cruised to Third Division promotion.

But reflect on this - for Mansfield we can substitute Wolverhampton. For Kidderminster we can substitute West Ham. For Macclesfield we can substitute Southampton. For the odious Scunthorpe, we can substitute Leeds. We might not win all that much next season, 12th will be a wonderful achievement. We've got the chairman, we've got the manager, we've got the nucleus of a Championship squad - we've come a thousand miles in two and half seasons, what a spell-bindingly fantastic achievement that has been. Remember that when we lose at Crewe next March.

HULL CITY (4-4-2): Myhill; Wiseman, Cort, Delaney, Dawson; Ellison, Ashbee, Fry, Elliott; Fagan, Barmby.  Subs: Lewis (for Fry, 32), Joseph (for Ashbee, 45), Burgess (for Ellison, 72), Edge, Duke.

Goals: Cort 1

Booked: Ashbee

Sent Off: None

BRENTFORD: Bankole, Osborne, Sobers, Fitzgerald, Myers, Lawrence, Hargreaves, Tabb, Charles, Harrold, Peters.  Subs: Moleski (for Peters, 56), Watts (for Harrold, 78), Ide (for Tabb, 89), Steele, Masters.

Goals: Sobers 43, Tabb 86

Booked: Hargreaves, Peters

Sent Off: None

REFEREE: U Rennie

ATTENDANCE: 9,604