The Sky cameras hoodoo is over - City go behind early but roar back with a fine Jon Parkin pair to beat Sheffield Wednesday on the telly.

So, the curse of Sky is broken. Not that it was much of a curse, not like the Curse of the Bambino, whereby in 1920 the Boston Red Sox, then the most successful team in baseball, sold a young pitcher to their rivals the New York Yankees and watched powerless as he transmogrified into Babe Ruth, the most talismanic hitter in the history of the game and the Yankees became the most powerful and successful sports franchise in the world while the Bosox run of failure was only broken in 2004. That's a proper curse. Or the Curse of Dad's Army, when so many of the cream of the Walmington-on-Sea home guard actors died surprisingly early, some of them not living beyond their mid-eighties. No, ours was a rubbish curse compared to those. But it's still nice to consign it to history. So goodbye horrible night at Spotland, 3-0 defeat and racist abuse of Clive Platt by some of our fans that clearly upset Colin Alcide, farewell buttock-clenchingly tedious 0-0 draw at Belle Vue, so long miserable Circle night as we so desperately wanted to teach Bradford who were biggest and best and could only watch as Deano bounced us around for the only goal and au revoir, crappy Turf Moor last season as 2 poor teams played for another 0-0 until Damien politely shepherded Akinbiyi into a scoring position. And for any I may have forgotten, you can bog off too.

For we scored and we won! How about that? And we were good as well, and the crowd of 17000 plus including maybe 1500 Sheffsters made for a noisy and impressive atmosphere despite the TV cams and we were the better of two perhaps limited but undeniably enthusiastic teams. We kicked off towards the North Stand as follows:

Myhill
Ricketts Mills Turner Dawson
Fagan Ashbee Livermore France
Parkin Bridges

So more or less a 4-4-2, although Bridges drifting between midfield and front in now characteristic fashion and that bastard Danny Mills (as he was known before this week) day-booing in the middle of defence in his new guise of hard-working and committed performer whom you'd always want in your team.

The writing on the wall that this was going to be a page turner came after just 3 minutes when the Wendies, having established some early pressure, forced 2 corners. The second came over towards Mills and Burton and both writhed and stumbled as and referee Salisbury gave a penalty. Much indignation from assembled tigers although not, interestingly, from Mills, as though he was unsure whether he was the author of his own downfall. Burton himself took a stuttering penalty but tucked it away neatly to Bo's left. 1-0, and news relayed to the stadium from TV viewers that it was apparently Burton who had handled the corner produced much dark muttering amongst the faithful.

Hugely to their credit our players refused to sulk, claim sightings of single magpies or request emergency supplies of lucky rabbit feet (unlucky for the bunnies, of course, but I digress). We suffered a couple of minutes of scuffling South Yorkie attacks before getting hold of the ball and starting to move it effectively, although not before Livermore essayed a late tackle and not surprisingly went into the book. The first inkling of this being something other than our usual well-thumbed Sky offering came from Parkin, as the big (though reducing) striker turned well, shed a marker and hit a good shot wide. Better was to come as on 10 minutes we were level. Fagan was already having a good evening on the right against Spurr who looked about 13 and had the demeanour of a child expecting a Mallory Towers bed time story and finding out that he'd picked up 'The Exorcist.' Fagan isn't a great crosser of the ball. Often he isn't a crosser of the ball at all, but on 10 minutes he lobbed one over and Parkin got up well and, equally impressively, got enough power on the dropping ball to find the corner of the net. 1-1 and no more than we deserved.

And it got better. Fagan continued to bully the unhappy Spurr and on 17 minutes again wrote his name on a move leading to a goal, twice causing problems on the right that the Owls didn't deal with which led to a corner, half cleared to Fagan whose touch found Dawson whose speculative cross dropped over Parkin's shoulder before the beastman swivelled and volleyed refulgently from 12 yards past their netman. A really wonderful strike although the Wendies didn't seem to enjoy it as much as we did and moaned that the Parkinator was offside.

For the remainder of the half we were in control, first to the ball, enthusiastic and enjoyable. Bridges, quieter than he has been, looked like he was about to write another exciting chapter in his early tiger career as he produced another swaying shimmying run through the defence (a bit like Jeremy Guscott used to do from the centre for England's rugger team in the days when he was good, though of course there's no reason to suspect that Bridges is like 'Jerry' a total git) ending in a shot just wide. The visitors struggled against Ashbee and Livermore though Lloyd Sam gave trouble and was tricky and compact. Their keeper Jones produced a novel approach to net minding, flinging himself at a shot going 6 feet wide and managing to get a touch to concede the corner which he then, under no pressure, cleared straight to touch. Witless, but great fun.

More quality beasting won us a corner which produced another cross that the advancing Turner headed wide when he should have done better. At the other end the underemployed Bo watched calmly, his demeanour unruffled as he casually plucked a rare, well-struck shot from the air above his head in text book fashion. Half-time came and we shuffled off to bog and bovril with the pleasureable air of someone putting down a Dick Francis thriller to make a cup of tea knowing it will be there to be picked up again just as soon as he's ready.

Of course it wasn't quite like that as the Wendies came out bristling and moving the ball around attractively. But initially at least we refused to sit back and with Fagan typically industrious carved out more chances, the advancing Turner this time volleying over from a corner. The visitors though gradually were gaining control and Turner had to go back to his day job, turning a well-struck Sheffster shot over the bar. On 70 minutes a swerving shot from distance was well read by Myhill to turn it round the post and from the corner Tudgay hit a clever and acrobatic overhead kick just wide.

The longer the game went on, the more likely it seemed that they might produce a plot twist that would presage an unhappy ending, but we never lost our shape and Mills and Turner, impressively for a new pairing, seemed largely to be reading from the same page. Impressively, too, we never lost the ability to hurt them and might have done better on 87 minutes when Parkin and Fagan combined well to slip the ball in for a cross from a free kick but no-one was on hand to apply the finish. As on Tuesday at Leicester, so on Friday with Wednesday, tigerfolk were again dismayed at the added time, 5 minutes, suggesting that the official was enjoying his night on the telly. We nearly came to grief, too, as little Tudgay was given too much room in our area and volleyed a shot that bounced wickedly and powerfully. In the momentary hush Bo produced a poem of a save, marrying excellent reflexes with immaculate judgement of height and distance to beat the ball wide. Custodian of the leather! This was as close as they came and we should have made it safe at the end, as Mills showed what might be if we play him at right back by bombing forward intelligently and effectively out of defence to chase a tiger clearance and remarkably got close enough to the substitute Barmby who bravely and cleverly won a header that he shouldn't have done. Mills raced on for the flick with Nicky in support as we screamed at him to square it to the Nickster. Sadly, he held on to it just too long and when he did pass it was slightly behind Nicky and disappointingly Our Boy could only tap it straight at the keeper.

Impressions? Dear reader, it was a very enjoyable game, a good win and, I think, our best 90 minute performance of the season so far. And suddenly 7 points from 8 games looks a tolerable return, given that we were well adrift at the bottom just a week ago. There doesn't seem to be any reason why we shouldn't kick on from here; West Brom and Birmingham are far more accomplished than us, but we could have nicked points from both. Everyone else has looked much of a muchness, suggesting 1) that the relegation scrap might be a really tough one this time and 2) that there's probably going to be one or two clubs who make the playoffs who are not that special. And suddenly we've remembered how to win and our new signings are gelling and perhaps even our elderly supporters can stop panicking, at least for a while. Football seasons are marathons, not sprints, or, if you like, novels rather than short stories. And in my view that makes for far more interesting and satisfying reading.

HULL CITY (4-4-2): Myhill; Ricketts, Turner, Mills, Dawson; Fagan, Livermore, Ashbee, France; Parkin, Bridges.  Subs: Barmby (for Bridges, 78), Marney, Yeates, Collins, Duke.

Goals: Parkin 11, 17

Booked: Ashbee, Dawson, Livermore

Sent Off: None

SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY: Jones, Simek, Coughlan, Bougherra, Spurr, Sam, Whelan, Adams, O'Brien, Burton, Tudgay.  Subs: Lunt (for Adams, 45), Brunt (for Spurr, 69), Bullen (for Sam, 69), Adamson, McAllister.

Goals: Burton 4 (pen)

Booked: Lunt, Sam

Sent Off: None

REFEREE: G Salisbury

ATTENDANCE: 17,685