Adam Pearson's call to arms pays spectacular dividends as an attack minded City swot promotion hunting Cardiff aside in front of a full house encouraged to attend by Pearson's £5 ticket deal.

Once upon a time, our beloved football club appointed this ambitious, highly-regarded young manager, who rode into town promising a feast of high-tempo, relentless, attack-minded football. However, for reasons which never really became fully apparent despite waves of sweeping rumour and speculation of a scale and variety of which the natives of no other community on earth would have been capable (invariably prefaced by "ey, 'ave you 'eard?"), this brand of football was never actually delivered save in a tiny number of fleeting cameo flashes of at best a quarter of a game's duration, whilst many of the players brought in to the Club at considerable expense to deliver this revolutionary phenomenon simply flattered to deceive.

Perhaps inevitably, hindsight being the most perceptive of all the senses and all that, this failure to proffer the promised goods meant that it never quite worked out for the young man in question, and after a mere handful of games at the start of the season which left the Club's League standing looking alarmingly precarious and included a most humiliating reverse at the hands of his former charges, his tenure of the Hull City manager's parking spot was no more.

Yes, I often wonder what became of Jan Molby, and after today's events also wonder what he and, more particularly if I'm honest, the recently-departed Phil Parkinson would have made, had they been there to witness it, of what was serevd up at the Circle this afternoon , that is to say a feast of high-tempo, relentless, attack-minded football. Granted, our South Walian friends' storming start to the season has faltered somewhat of late, and their injury problems are, oooooo, at least half as bad as the ones which plagued City all last season, but nonetheless our opponents will still have gone into the game as firm favourites, if for nothing else on the basis of the sheer paralysis which seems to have gripped City since the Norwich game, and which the performance at Plymouth, as more committed as it was, gave little indication would be about to ease.

And even up until kick-off time, the whole mood in and around the city was palpably sombre, as the Tiger Nation contemplated a whole list of current woes, such as a list of potential candidates for the manager's position reading like a restaurant menu where you don't like any of the dishes apart from maybe just one which the waitress promptly informs you is "off", a forthcoming run of half a dozen fixtures in which we absolutely have to get points but which looked very daunting in the light of recent showings, the fact that we were a point closer to going bottom after Southend's draw at Luton the previous night, the fact that the preening prat Andy D'Urso was to be referee and, needless to say when the men from the Land of Song are in town, the city streets populated to saturation point with constabulary, menacing of pose and in many cases paramilitary of garb, single-handedly securing the Chrsitmas bonuses of workers in the camcorder battery-maufacturing industry. To make matters worse from a personal point of view, your correspondent, having enjoyed an eventful and alcohol-charged evening (and morning) at his firm's Christmas do, which ended in a Derby casino watching the WACA scoreboard move round more quickly than the one in the Harlem Globetrotters cartoon programme, finally made it to the sack at about a quarter to five for three and a half-hours' slumber before heading north, and as a result was feeling decidedly less spry than is the norm. And so it was a near silent file of individuals, albeit healthy in number thanks to Pearson's £5 ticket initiative that swelled the gate to a healthy 23 089, that trudged over the railway bridges and along the path from Argyle Street shortly before kick-off; even the December sun seemed low, watery and wan despite it being a relatively clear late autumn day.

Little did we know just how our spirits would be lifted. OK, there's no guarantee that this will be the benchmark for the rest of the season, but this was absolutely storming stuff from almost the first whistle till the last. The Tigers out-thougt, out-fought, out-muscled, out-tackled, out-verballed and out-ran their visitors for almost the entire game, performing with levels of confidence and assurance that cocked a long and very hard snook at our current predicament and the pressure that (you assume) the team is under. There wasn't really a weak link out there today; every man jack of them played his part. One of the most hackneyed expressions in football, especially among the hyperbole-addicts of East Yorkshire, is that "you'd have thought it was us at the top of the table and them at the bottom", but today that was genuinely true; if anything, Cardiff got off bloody lightly today.

Oh yes, and 'ave you 'eard? Marney scored! And McPhee started!

On to the match facts. We lined up as follows, although I accept that there might be a question mark over whether Fagan is in the correct line:-

Myhill
Ricketts Coles Delaney Dawson
Marney Ashbee Livermore Fagan
Barmby McPhee

The observant among us noted that Bill Frown was wearing a suit. The mark of a man who would be permanent manager? Who knows, but we barely had time to think about it as the game erupted into the first nine mind-blowing minutes. Actually, on reflection that's not quite true, as for the first five minutes there was little indication of the treats that were in store for us. Cardiff, kicking away from their 500 or so characteristically-belligerent fans, moved the ball around quite nicely during that spell, and it looked as though we might have our hands full, our anxieties over this being compounded a mere ninety seconds in when Delaney headed a Chopra cross straight up in the air, only for the City defence to keep a respectful distance as it came down to earth in front of the unmarked Thompson. We braced ourselves for bad news, but thankfully the big Cardif frontman is a shadow of his early-season self these days, and fluffed his attempt on goal badly.

That was about as shaky as it got for us. And better still, the game then roared into life; it was like sitting in a speeedboat as it goes from idling to full power in a couple of seconds. On 4 mins our first real attack, and Barmby just fails to control a knock-down for the keen-as-mustard-looking McPhee. A minute later, and we're in front. A Fagan cross is deflected into the path of Marney, whose sidefooted effort from 18 yards is deflected wide. From the resultant corner Ash gets a head to the ball but it's deflected wide. From the resultant corner Ash again gets a head to it, it's goalbound this time but blocked on the line, and Delaney reacts first to force home the rebound.

Four minutes after that, and it's two. McPhee chases a through ball into the corner, brilliantly turns his man and leaves him for dead, then rolls the ball into the path of Marney (for me our man of the match, but you could have permed any one from four or five to be honest) just inside the box, who pauses, switches the ball onto his left foot, and curls a magnificnent drive into the far corner, well out of the reach of the diving Alexander.

This is mercurial stuff, and it's almost impossible to believe that these are the same players who have looked so bereft of drive and inventiveness for so much of this season. The Tiger faithful, and for that matter the £5-ticket spongers (to be fair, this was a sound piece of work by Pearson, and it was nice to see the ground virtually full) are of course lapping it up. The away fans, however, are perhaps not so enthralled, and as a group of them make their feelings known towards chav corner the constabulary (although not the large crowd of them, maybe as many as a hundred, watching the game from the tunnel in the south-west corner (i.e as far away as possible from the site of any potential trouble)), move in swiftly to restore order.

The booking of Livermore a minute later for going in high on Purse did nothing to stem the Tiger momentum, and on the quarter hour Fagan - having his best game for yonks - loops a header just wide from an Ashbee cross. A minute after that and Fagan goes close with his head again, Ricketts being the provider this time. Another minute on, and the City number 27 is away again on the left and feeds McPhee. There should be something on here, but his cross is put out for a corner.

Cardiff are still plugging away though and looking composed in the face of dour Tigerish resistance, and as the game enters a spell of maybe ten minutes in which we don't create any real chances one or two of the more angst-ridden among us start to have flashbacks to the Barnsley game, although we are looking much more solid at the back, one or two moments of uncertainty notwithstanding, and the Welshmen don't get any real chances either.

On 29 Marney gets his toe end onto a Dawson cross but puts it over, and then on 34 generates a penalty appeal when he goes to ground while trying to take a Barmby pass round the outside of his man, but Mr D'Urso is having none of it, and on this occasion correctly so.

This is a minor setback though, as the game is then effectively ended as a contest nine minutes from half-time, when Fagan, just inside the Cardiff half, times his run onto a McPhee flick to perfection and, as the visitors' back line await the offside flag is played onside by Loovens, who generally had an afternoon he'll want to forget (the word "hapless" just about does it justice). It's one-on-one, but in reality no contest as our Craig coolly, almost nonchalantly, rounds Alexander and gleefully despatches the leather into the onion bag.

As the strains of "You're getting mauled by the Tigers" thunder around the Circle, many Cardiff fans are already heading for the sanctuary of the bar, and miss their team's first attempt on goal on 40 minutes, as Chopra, by a country mile their best player, but so manifestly not on the same wavelength as his colleagues, makes space some 12 yd out and hits a low shot which Boaz pouches comfortably. But then, deep into injury time McPhee heads wide from a Dawson cross, and soon after the Tigers withdraw from the field to a thunderous and well-merited standing ovation.

The concourses, pie-queues and latrines are buzzing with exhilaration and excited chatter at half-time, fuelled by the news that the White Shite are behind at Ipswich. It's been a while since there was a mood like this at the Circle.

Into the second period, and we carry on where we left off. On 50 Dawson is caught out of position as we press forward, but wins the ball back and pings a cross over to Fagan, whose header is saved at full stretch by Alexander. Fagan then has the Cardiff and Scotland netminder at full stretch again on 54, firing a low drive back in from a fisted free-kick.

Another goal looks inevitable, and sure enough one is conjured up on 55. Sadly it's at the other end and very much against the run of play. We're caught a bit square as Alexander clears quickly, allowing Chopra to hare away and despatch the sphere past Myhill's left hand.

The Cardiff fans find their voice, and for the first time for over an hour I remember that I have a hangover, not helped when Cardiff, now taking the game strongly to us with their supporters getting behind their team instead of watching sullenly, look a little bit menacing, and on 58 Myhill does well to block an attempt from (inevitably) Chopra to force home a cross.

On the hour Bridges comes on for Barmby, the latter having picked up a groin strain (did anyone hear Alex Burgess on Humberside collapse with laughter on air after the game when Brown, asked about the injury, opined that Barmby "will have his hands full" with the injury, and then clearly had no idea why Burgess found this so funny), and hopefully this is an indication that his the condition of his ill twins is improving. The City no 17 soon attracts the attentions of Purse, who becomes the first Bluebird to go into D'Urso's notebook as a result.

There's another brief scare on 68, as Thompson turns well and steers his shot wide with Myhill looking wrong-footed, but there's still plenty in this Tiger's tank, and we respond in the most effective fashion three minutes later. Livermore finds Fagan in space near the left hand corner, and the City number 27 moves along the by-line and drills in a hard low cross. To me it looked as though it was blocked as McPhee and a Cardiff defender challenged for it by the near post, although some say that Alexander spilled it, but whatever the truth of the matter the important bit of news is that the ball fell to Bridges who gleefully poked it over the line.

It should have been five soon after as well, when a Marney ball finds Fagan, who is tackled, regains possession and then has his feet swept from under him as he tries to find room to pick his spot for an easy fifth. The resultant penalty ought to have been given to Fagan really, as it was a great run from him that set up the position in the first place, but instead the leather was handed to McPhee, who opted to chip to Alexander's left as the latter dived right. The ball floated languidly through the air like a fart wafting gently on the breeze, but struck the bar and came back into play, the tireless Fagan's attempt to bang home the rebound being blocked.

A pity in some ways, as we were by a very conservative estimate at least four goals better than our guests, but we won't begrudge our favourites a little bit of piss-taking, or even a more outrageous one ten minutes from time, when Boaz, taking a free-kick some 40 yards form his line, sees that Alexander has strayed forward and goes for goal, forcing the visiting netman to scramble back in order to avert what would have been considerable embarrassment.

We don't have much in the way of goal attempts after that, but I do have to mention one incident late on that - although it occurred in front of the City goal - epitomised graphically City's approach to the game throughout. Within the space of ten seconds there must have been two or three last-ditch tackles, a couple of blocks from defenders and a fine point-blank stop from Boaz as Cardiff looked to pull one back. It would have made sod all difference to the result, but nonetheless the fierce determination to stop Cardiff from scoring was there. That's the sort of spirit that will get us out of this mess, and the crowd loved it.

Not much else happened apart from the attempts of Bridges and Fagan to wind Purse up, but we kept it together for the last few minutes, and the final whistle was greeted by a deservedly huge roar of appreciation from the exultant City support.

So, it's you-know-who next up, followed by Leicester and Allen Bagshawe's carol-singing on Boxing Day, wih every indication that there'll be a new man at the helm for one if not both of these games (and can I add my voice to those who have expressed the hope that it's not Megson, whom people claim to have spotted at the game today, but feel free to take that as meaning no more than that there was a ginger-headed man at the game today). But today's showing puts Pearson in a bit of a dilemma: does he go ahead with the appointment that he's said to have decided on, or allow Brown a bit more time based on the excellence of today's showing? And if so, how long can he give Brown, given the rapid approach of the transfer window? And, let's be honest, who's to say that we can keep this up if we stick with Brown?

Life's never easy, is it?

HULL CITY (4-3-3): Myhill; Ricketts, Coles, Delaney, Dawson; Marney, Ashbee, Livermore;; Fagan, Barmby, McPhee.  Subs: Bridges (for Barmby, 60), Elliott (for McPhee, 83), France, Turner, Duke.

Goals: Delaney 6; Marney 9; Fagan 36; Bridges 71

Booked: Livermore, Ricketts

Sent Off: None

CARDIFF CITY: Alexander, Gunter, Purse, Loovens, McNaughton, Flood, Ledley, Scimeca, Parry, Chopra, Thompson.  Subs: Kamara (for Flood, 42), Glombard (for Kamara, 78), Campbell, Johnson, Wright.

Goals: Chopra 55

Booked: Chopra, Loovens

Sent Off: None

REFEREE:  A D'Urso

ATTENDANCE: 23,089