Not without its scary moments, the Tigers nevertheless continue their Phil Brown inspired progress beating Sheffield Wednesday at Hillsborough, with Nick Barmby bagging his usual brace.

And so to Owlerton for more sport at the expense of our bunnies, the recently eyebrow-raisingly improved Sheffield Wednesday. Ha! You’ll need more than the shrewd if often over-wrought Brian Laws to stop the Tigs treating Hullsborough like home. This is the third season is a row that we’ve visited the towering ramparts of Sheffield 6, and this victory slides our profits over that period up to seven gorgeous points. And even if this win wasn’t quite as astonishing in its execution as the 4-2 demolition meted out a couple of years ago, it was still a tremendous way to welcome 2007 and, in its own way, it may perfectly well prove of more long-term significance to the club. For results like this – and, even more so, committed, fast-paced and skilful displays like this – will surely protect our League status come the end of the season, and thereby ensure that our club doesn’t slip backwards after the superb progress overseen by Adam Pearson in recent times.

It’s grey, it’s dark, it’s the usual slightly fragile New Year’s Day atmosphere and we line up:

Myhill
France Turner Delaney Dawson
Marney Ashbee Livermore
Fagan Parkin Barmby

Well, sort of. In this set-up Marney plays further forward than the other two midfielders, Barmby plays deeper than Parkin and Fagan, and there’s lots of movement both up and down the pitch and right to left. I worry a bit that Mr Brown is over-complicating the tactics but with Barmby in glorious form there’s enough mobility and support play among the advanced six to sustain a periodically high-tempo attacking game while, more important again, the back four looks assured and appealingly well-organised.

And off we went, doused by the driving West Riding rain and sporting hideous orange shorts (what’s wrong with black?) that clash with the amber-and-black stripes of our shirts. The game began steadily and the home side lived with us for, oo, all of ten minutes. Whereupon Nicky Barmby put us in front.

It’s funny, that. You pick your best player and then let him score goals. It doesn’t seem that difficult, does it? Then again, I don’t have access to Prozone, nor do I even possess any coaching badges (though I do have a cub scout swimming badge, one of those triangular green ones with a figure of a swimmer on it that you got your Mum to stitch on to the arm of your jersey), so I wouldn’t wish to be thought critical of Mr Parkinson.

I can’t tell you much about the goal really, because it was up the other end and my view was obscured by the buffeting clouds sweeping Pennine rain hard across the pitch, but it seemed that the Wednesday defence had got together to compare Christmas presents, allowing Nicky an uninterrupted run from the left side through into the penalty box, where he stroked the ball past the portly Mark Crossley with breathtakingly contemptuous ease, almost as if he was a highly-regarded England international and Premiership regular for several seasons.

1-0 to us, glee unconfinable in the well-populated away end, and a feeling of real optimism about the way we’re playing.

It’s no false dawn. A minute later a long looping cross reaches Parkin at the back post and his header is tipped over by the stretching Crossley. On 19 another delivery to the back post finds Parkin in space but he swipes a wild shot wastefully wide and high. The Beast scored a thrilling volley at home to Wednesday earlier in the season but his post-injury touch is rusty right now. On 21 a shimmeringly brilliant through ball from Barmby sends Fagan clear of a gaping defence but his attempt to fool Crossley with an early shot hit with the outside of his right boot is fruitless, as the experienced netman stands his ground and blocks the effort.

This is warmingly fine football on a raw winter’s afternoon, but the anxiety spreads that we need to take these inviting chances. And on 23 the point is rammed home with force as Tudgay sprints down the middle, looking suspiciously offside, but if the linesman’s not going to save us, Boaz is, and he stops a firmly-struck effort.

But it’s been a fine opening half-hour. Livermore’s straightforward ability to receive the ball and transmit it unfussily to a colleague was seen to as good effect in this game as at any time this season, while Marney’s lively, forceful and occasionally imaginative performance was also a considerable pleasure when contrasted to his frequently anonymous displays since he joined us in the summer. Both men seem much improved without instruction from Mr Parkinson. Turner too suddenly promises much with his most recent steadfast defensive performances, while Delaney’s reallocation to centre back, where he was so splendid throughout last season, serves as another rather obvious improvement over the obscure preferences of our lately dismissed manager. Add in Nicky Barmby, a supremely gifted footballer whom our previous manager seemed content to ignore, and a great deal has happened in a short time to underscore just how disastrously muddled and ill-conceived the brief reign of Phil Parkinson really was.

The later stages of the first-half are a little tamer than the opening stages. On 39 Barmby deftly passes to the Beast in an advanced position, but he hasn’t got the pace to get clear of the converging defenders and though Parkin dribbles round a couple of opponents, he’s eventually crowded out. There’s just a single added minute advertised, but referee Atkinson allows one to stretch to two and, as the time ticks by, we give the ball away a shade foolishly more than once, ultimately allowing Simek to thunder a 25-yard shot just wide of Myhill’s right hand post.

That’s half-time. That’s a hugely encouraging display.

Into the second half, and Mr Laws brings on noted ex-Scunthorpe diver Steve MacClean to replace the meek Tudgay. We begin brightly, as Parkin muscles a defender aside and strikes a low cross into Marney’s path. He turns, shoots, but it’s too high. But then we pay for our failure to add the second goal that our dominance has fully deserved.

For your reporter, it’s another tricky goal, up the other end from the massed City support and not easy to read. A dose of indecisive defending, a smattering of ill-luck as the rebound fell kindly for the home side? Anyway, Deon Burton found himself in space and calmly rolled a well-aimed shot beyond Boaz. That’s 1-1, and infamy attaches to a grand old club as Sheffield Wednesday disgustingly join the sordid ranks of those who Play Music After Goals.

It is not acceptable, and it never will be.

We’re wobbling now, as, for the first time in the game, Wednesday manage to wrest control of midfield and pass the ball around adventurously. And it gets more alarming still on the hour as Myhill, who’d been feeling his thigh gingerly during the first half, drops uncomfortably to the wet turf and has to be replaced by Duke.

Dodgy moments. On 61 we win a free-kick deep inside the Wednesday half and a soaring delivery reaches Turner at the far post. His header is directed straight at Crossley who seizes the opportunity to hurl the ball out and begin an immediate and horribly dangerous counter-attack. Turner’s stranded upfield, the ball reaches Burton with space to test Duke … but he chips weakly and wide. That is a real escape. And poor Duke, not even properly warmed-up yet, must have been immensely relieved at Burton’s profligacy.

Are we hanging on for a draw here?

No, we’re not. We’re better than that. We’re more committed than that.

On 65 Livermore chips a looping free-kick into the penalty area. It’s Turner’s run that grabs the home defenders’ attention, but the ball just eludes our marauding central defender and careers beyond him to strike a surprised Barmby in the chest and deflect over the line past the wrong-footed Crossley. On the touchline Brian Laws howls at the linesman, claiming Barmby has handled the ball, but he’s wrong. Still, Barmby didn’t intend to divert the ball, it simply bounced off his chest. Lucky? Not a bit of it. Nicky’s run, from left to right, was brilliantly intelligent. Goals like that are scored precisely because good players get into positions where they’ve got a chance of feasting on unplanned morsels.

It wins us the game.

Barmby now comes off in favour of McPhee. This was an astonishing decision, and one that clearly amazed Barmby as much as anyone. Had points been squandered we’d be asking just why Mr Brown removed our best player, who was showing no sign of fatigue, especially given that Parkin was giving out visible distress signals as the pace of the game was maintained. The plan, I suppose, was to retain Parkin as target-man for hoofs from our under-pressure defence. The plan, I suppose, worked.

We defended solidly and well as the minutes ticked down under a crisp night sky. Most of the Wednesday efforts were confined to long-range shots that posed no threat, with substitute Wayne Andrews particularly laughably wasteful in his hapless punts high on to the Wednesday Kop. Duke’s kicking was poor, but the rest of his game, in particular his handling, was encouragingly sound. I’d be misleading you if I suggested we ever felt secure – one up, away from home, and third bottom of the League is hardly a recipe for security – but objectively it’s right to conclude that we’d got Wednesday’s measure.

Parkin eventually came off on 89, replaced by Coles, and the board signalled an extra 5 minutes. Nervy, of course, but we remained clearly the better side. On 91 Marney strikes a shot into the side-netting, on 94 a cross whisked in from the left only just eludes Marney at the near-post and then McPhee at the back-post. It’s Wednesday that are meant to be troubling us in search of an equaliser but in fact we are the more menacing side even now. Crossley trots upfield for a corner, but the home side are bereft of imagination. They are beaten. Deservedly.

I recall that our Chairman remarked, in sacking Mr Parkinson a month ago, that he had inspected the forthcoming six games, concluded that he saw no prospect of our erstwhile manager leading us to any success in that spell and had therefore determined to call time on Mr P while there was still time to save our season. Those six games have been played now. And we’ve taken ten points from them. That, of course, is a rhythm that, if sustained, will see us safe from relegation well before the beginning of May. I doubt it will be that simple, but Mr Brown has done enough to deserve the manager’s chair until the end of the season (and even if he hadn’t, I’d still gleefully take him over Gary Megson, Joe Royle or, most grotesque of all, Peter Reid). That those sorts of name have been in the frame at all suggests to me that Mr Pearson was heartily fed up with his morose and listless squad and had in mind the appointment of a bully as manager, but, happily, that crude strategy doesn’t look necessary or even wise right now. Things are on the up.

HULL CITY (4-3-1-2): Myhill; France, Turner, Delaney, Dawson; Marney, Ashbee, Livermore; France; Fagan, Parkin.  Subs: Duke (for Myhill, 59), McPhee (for Barmby, 72), Coles (for Parkin, 89), Elliott, Forster.

Goals: Barmby 9, 65

Booked: Dawson, Fagan, Parkin

Sent Off: None

SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY: Crossley, Simek, Bougherra, Bullen, Spurr, Lunt, Folly, Whelan, Brunt, Tudgay, Burton.  Subs: MacLean (for Tudgay, 46), Andrews (for Lunt, 55), O'Brien (for Spurr, 78), Adamson, Coughlan.

Goals: Burton 53

Booked: Brunt

Sent Off: None

REFEREE:  M Atkinson

ATTENDANCE: 28,600