The Tigers are off and running!  Much pressure was soaked up before a tremendous strike by Michael Bridges opened his City account and secured our first League win of the season.

We quite liked the look of Michael Bridges on first acquaintance at Birmingham on Saturday, didn’t we? We liked the look of him a lot more after last night’s romp at the Walker’s Bowl. Bridges lit up this match with a quite wonderful goal, dazzlingly audacious in its concoction, shimmeringly brilliant in its execution, and quite sufficient to put the feeble home side to bed. Take control of the ball with purpose, stride forward with menace, smash a vicious curving left-foot shot high across a floundering goalkeeper who doesn’t get within an arm’s length of the football, watch the top corner of the net ripple gustily and the listen to the visiting support howl with glee.

And with relief too.

In truth this moment of magnificence was wholly out of tune with the rest of an evening of yeoman effort generally bereft of craft or wit. It was a dull game between two tentative sides with little evident ambition beyond a season of consolidation – meaning a finishing place anywhere north of third-bottom.

Whatever. We chortled away back into the dark streets of Leicester after this win feeling much as I imagine Coventry’s fans felt as they trooped out of The Circle a few weeks ago – never mind the quality, feel the points. And we needed ‘em. I think I am not telling you anything you don’t already know there.

On duty as a warm late afternoon sank slowly into balmy dusk:

Myhill
Ricketts Collins Turner Dawson
Fagan Livermore Ashbee France
Bridges Forster

So that’s Marney dropped and replaced on the left not by the left-footed Elliott but rather by the right-footed France. Our new manager really doesn’t fancy Elliott and judged on his displays over the last twelve months (i.e. since that breathtaking chip at Plymouth), who can blame him?

The opening spell was largely formless.

No, it really was. They had a bit more possession than us but nothing happened.

On 14 a poor first touch from Bridges robs him of a shooting opportunity after a decent move and then, three minutes later, Porter stabs a left-foot effort wide of Boaz’s goal after Leicester’s first modestly intelligent move of the half. Half-an-hour had gone before they did it again. This time Boaz blocked a shot after a busy push down their right, our left. Then, on 37, the nippy Forster tried a right-foot shot, beaten away with relish by ‘keeper Henderson.

Leicester looked ordinary, a grey mouse lacking attacking flair, but we in turn were also looking pretty feeble by this stage. Ashbee (whom I like) and Livermore (whom I don’t, yet) are never likely to put watchers in mind of extravagantly gifted footballing dandies and necromancers such as Giancarlo Antognoni, Gunter Netzer, Gerson or Ken Knighton, and as a pairing they scream DEFEND! HANG ON FOR A POINT! And we were playing a waiting, fearful game by the later stages of the first period. Now, I’m not one of these bores who yelps “You’re playing too deep City” as soon as powerful opponents pen us back even briefly inside our own half – I’m a bore alright, but in other ways (lots of ‘em) – but Leicester had little to offer and still the Livermore/Ashbee axis allowed them a camp deep inside our territory.

But we survived. Largely because Leicester really are inept. But – I suppose – our holding midfielders deserve credit for holding them at bay. But don’t say it too loud or else I think Mr Parkinson will have us playing six in defensive midfield before too long.

Half-time, 0-0. Very 0-0.

Last season, on my first visit, I sneered at this Walker’s Bowl, but suspected that my antipathy was largely driven by the fact that (a) we lost and (b) it took half-an-hour or more for the incompetent buffoon on the turnstile to get me into the ground. Neither (a) nor (b) applies this year. But I still didn’t like the ground. Soulless. Single-tier, more or less symmetrical, not particularly steep. Unimaginative, flat-pack one-size-suits-all. Boring. You’d hope football clubs and their architects would take a certain pride in building something special, something memorable – try all the grounds used in Germany this summer excepting Stuttgart, and in our own Division Coventry, Sunderland (I expect, haven’t been there yet) and a certain Hull City deserve credit for a dashing approach to ownership of a cavalier and baroque homestead – but in Leicester dull conformity has won the day.

Filbert Street? That was rubbish too.

And Leicester’s fans, they’re rubbish an’ all.

Into the second half, and Forster fails to re-appear, presumably in consequence on injury. Which, given his recent career record, is not encouraging. Marney takes the field, taking on the job of right-sided midfielder, while Fagan is freed to join Bridges up front.

Two minutes into the half Leicester win a sequence of three corners, the last of which generates a dangerously powerful header, sturdily deal with by Boaz. The football is generally a bit better now – no serious chances, but more flowing, with both sides showing a higher degree of adventure. It’s fun in the stands too, as the not-particularly fabled Hull City Wall of Sound dominates the East Midlands evening air. Parkinson’s black-and-amber army, sung with the requisite maniacal glee. Now, I’ve been watching City for a long time now, and I think our away support is generally pretty good. For size and racket we at least punch our weight. Alan Boom-Boom Minter, though sadly not Marvin Hagler. But I’ve noticed, this season and last, that clubs whose support would traditionally be thought to be more-or-less on a par with us seem to have had their vocal chords ripped out. Stoke, Coventry, Derby, Leicester, maybe Ipswich. They’ve come to Hull with dismally timid supports. We travel away with much greater force and conviction. Is it that we’ve not (yet) been spoilt by these glossy but soulless new stadiums, with their all-seater misbah-coddled obsessions laced with poisonously officious stewarding, soppy family areas and the obscenity of edible food?

Anyway. We’re singing and it’s fun and then Bridges scores and it’s even more fun.

It really is a glorious goal, as I’ve explained already, and it sends a surge of excitement and hope through a City support that was quite understandably getting a bit twitchy about how this season’s shaping up. And, yes, our manager must have been wobbling too. Big money – I mean, lots of money, not those silly giant-sized cheques that are always presented by Nerys Hughes to winners of important competitions like the Ford Sporting League or Whose Greyhound? – has been directed on the Parky say-so at gents such as Turner, Marney and Livermore whose joint contribution is so far troublingly small, so the manager-in-grey must have been delighted that Bridges is already delivering.

He really does look a player, this Bridges. I remember him as a skilful youngster, before injury hauled him down into deep dark Cumberland. He seems a lot bigger now. There’s power to add to skill, an eye for goal, pace and team-play and, best of all, a real determination to make the most of this chance to succeed. Great buy.

There’s a bit more than half an hour left but Leicester aren’t going to do anything with it. The game is played out in midfield with neither side able to gain any ascendancy, and neither side showing any glimpse of verve in the final third. That stalemate suits us just fine, of course. So much so that Mr Parkinson sees no reason to disrupt the grip we’ve got on the game – no more subs are used, doubtless to the exasperation of the benchwarming Barmby.

The clock ticks to 87 before Leicester create any sort of scare, a scramble inside our box which is terminated when Boaz clutches the ball firmly to his gut, and the game is surely won. There can’t be more than 2 minutes added at most, we reflect with satisfied glee ….

It’s 4. And blundering ref Jones plays 6.

Flabby Leicester, however, can make nothing of this undeserved gift of time. In fact, the only major incident in the add-on arrives when a raking crossfield ball from Bridges takes a generous deflection off a defender and, duly cushioned, lands quite perfectly in Fagan’s path as he closes in unmarked on goal. He’s got time to bring it under control and slide it past the exposed Henderson, or time to bring it down and dance round the ‘keeper should he prefer. In fact Fagan’s got time to run through all the Derby winners since 1970, list the name of all his pets since he was a kid and reveal his favourite food (steak and eggs), TV programme (Countdown) and colour (crimson) before banging in the second goal of the game.

Instead – CLUNK! – a grotesquely clumsy first touch simply gifts the ball to the startled Henderson. Natural Born Goal-Scorer? Nope.

And that was that. We are officially UP AND RUNNING.

HULL CITY (4-4-2): Myhill; Ricketts, Turner, Collins, Dawson; Fagan, Livermore, Ashbee, France; Forster, Bridges.  Subs: Marney (for Forster, 46), Barmby, Yeates, Thelwell, Duke.

Goals: Bridges 58

Booked: Livermore

Sent Off: None

LEICESTER CITY: Henderson, Kenton, McCarthy, Kisnorbo, Johansson, Low, Hughes, Johnson, Porter, Hume, Fryatt.  Subs: Stearman (for Kenton, 45), O'Grady (for Low, 70), Logan, Hammond, Wesolowski.

Goals: None

Booked: Stearman

Sent Off: None

REFEREE: M Jones

ATTENDANCE: 18,677