City dominate big spending Wolves in a manner that suggests the Tigers are making genuine progress.  The win, inspired by JJ Okocha, lifts the Tigers into the top half of the Championship table.

Scenes I don't like to see at a football match: supporters applauding an opposition player as he is substituted. It betrays a fair-minded instinct which has absolutely no place in the adversarial amphitheatre of a football ground. It suggests slack-jawed incurious enjoyment of a sport which is designed to bring bitter pain, not mild entertainment. And most of all it is a sign of surrender.

After 83 minutes of last night's match Jay Jay Okocha was substituted. As he walked proudly off, he was applauded for his glittering efforts by all four sides of the ground. The City support was ecstatic, but the Wolves support too was on its feet in tribute to the departing maestro. Shameful.

They had surrendered.

This, my friends, was no ordinary victory. We've sneaked our way to victory on plenty of grounds as prestigious as Molineux over the last few decades, we've ridden our luck, we've planted our backs to the wall and defied superior opponents to quell our stout-hearted defiance. Wasn't like that last night. We were the better side. We outplayed Wolves for long stretches of the match and we deserved to win. Okocha was the conductor, the conjuror: but the rest of the team was mighty too. This was a marvellous night of supremacy.

And, as the mushroom peers out into the foggy morning light, the wind grows chill and the Autumnal Equinox looms, these are immensely exciting times for us and for our club.

On a clement Black Country evening we lined up as per Saturday, save with, as widely anticipated, Windass rested and Okocha starting:

Myhill
Ricketts Turner Brown Delaney
Garcia Ashbee Marney Hughes
Folan Okocha

And after just five minutes the tone of the evening was established. Okocha produces a superb touch and slips a gloriously inviting ball through the defence into the path of Hughes. An intelligent run by Hughes, but an appallingly wasteful shot, as he fails with a wild effort hit straight at keeper Hennessy. But already the lesson for our team is obvious. Just give the ball to Okocha.

Still, this moment of genius aside, it's a generally low-key opening in front of a largely quiet crowd. There are gaps all over the stadium. It feels as if Wolves expect us to provide easy meat. But we're a different side nowadays. A serious side.

The pacy Folan sets up Okocha for a shot, but the Nigerian instead returns the ball to Folan whose effort is blocked. Up the other end and a long ball to the back post is met by blond striker Andy Keogh, who has muscled up since we saw him last Easter, and his header is saved by Bo's feet. Not much in it at this stage, though Okocha's sublime first touch is enough to suggest we're the team slightly more likely to score.

But it is the home side that comes closest to bursting the 0-0. A long ball swirls to our back post where a towering header sends the ball flying back across the goal towards the far post. Myhill won't stop that, and the defence is shredded. Who will hurtle to the rescue? Why, it's Ian Ashbee! He's got his critics - mainly those people who've ever watched him play football in this Division - but never doubt his determination. This was a marvellous moment of attentive intervention. There's nothing pretty about hurling yourself into the Molineux dust in a desperate attempt to squirt a ball entering the net round the other side of the post, but Ashbee doesn't do pretty. He does committed. This moment, as much as any other in the whole 90, decided the course and outcome of the game.

We were helped too by Keogh's profligacy, as he batted a decent shooting chance over the bar under pressure from Turner, but overall half-time approached with our support, led in the front row by icon-in-chief Victor Markham, encouraged by the display. The only sore point was Folan's exit, limping, so Windass came on shortly before the break.

It wouldn't take Deano long to introduce himself. Four minutes into the second half we're ahead. Garcia is, I think, more surprised than anyone to be fouled. He's going nowhere in particular, no threat to the Wolves goal and tucked up unpromisingly in the far corner of the penalty box. Whereupon his legs are whisked away from under him in a manner of which Adrian Street would have been proud. It's a plain stupid challenge and it's a plain obvious penalty.

Referee Jones points to the spot, his assistant referee Dean Windass plonks the ball down and then belts it home nervelessly.

Wolves bring off Keogh and replace him with Bothroyd. And when was the last time that there were three Jays on a football field?

It's great now. We're winning, we're bouncing. Wolves are weary and short on ideas. We're solid, we're granite. Come on, impress us. Wolves can't. There are moments when it's hack and hope – at least when 21 of the players on the pitch are involved. Not Okocha. Adhesiveness is what he brings to the game. Punt him the ball and it's his, instantaneously. The ball doesn't bounce off him, he doesn't miscontrol it. It sticks. Adhesiveness. What a player. What an acquisition. Once, just once, during the second period he struck a crossfield pass straight to the feet of a Wolves player and there was an audible gasp from the City support. He's human after all, he does give the ball away. But not much. What's this man been doing wasting his talents over in Qatar? And, now he's back, why hasn't a Premiership team signed him? Bolton, for example.

Windass hasn't lasted long and is visibly uncomfortable. I suspect he's going to need seven days between games. He's 38, after all. I seem to vaguely remember that's when things start creaking. Or was that 28? Or 18? Anyway, Deano's off, Bridges is on.

A free-kick is teed up for Bothroyd, whose shot is deflected and then tipped wide by Myhill. Flawless last night, Boaz. Turner was composed and Brown undeterrable. Wayne Brown makes occasional mistakes and horrible things might happen to him if he faces up to sharp-witted and quick strikers (who will Chelsea bring?), but he will not shirk and he will not sulk. And he is a natural leader from whom the whole defence gains direction and purpose. Sam Collins was bought for many of the same reasons, but Brown is a whole class higher. And that is the current Hull City narrative. Improvement.

Seyi George Olufinjana, an elegantly leggy midfielder with an eye for a raking crossfield pass, was the pick of the home side and looked the man most likely to unsettle us. But 'likely' here is relative. 'Not very likely', really. This was not a lead we needed to cling on in desperation, this was not a battering survived. We're better than that now. We can outperform teams. Michael Kightly looked excellent down the right for Wolves against us last season. This season he's still a threat but we're much closer to having his measure, and he slips out of the game as the second half progresses. Freddie Eastwood has made a very bright beginning to this campaign, for both Wolves and his freshly-chosen Wales, but last night we were good enough ultimately to subdue him to the point of despair.

Ultimately, that is. Eastwood was the wolf who came closest to scoring with a meaty shot from distance. For once, we've allowed him too much space into which to advance and the effort slams into Boaz's left hand post like a cosh thudding into a skull. But the ball bounces straight back into play and we're saved. For us, it's a dicey moment. But Wolves can't build any sustained pressure.

On 79 a backpost cross is blasted wastefully high by whoever it was over on their left wing, while a minute later Hughes, suddenly finding himself in space in an inviting shooting position, can manage only a feebly tame effort. We're inside the last ten now, and the points are beckoning bewitchingly.

Okocha goes off.

We cheer and applaud, as we've every right to.

The Wolves fans applaud too.

Soft gets.

There are four added minutes but Wolves can do more than persist in the joyless unimaginative humdrum football they've practised for most of the second half. They'll get nowhere in this Division without a sorcerer able to switch play in an instant and able to pick a pass with the refined judgement of a sommelier intent on finding just the right vintage claret to go with that roast lamb. Not many teams in this Division can boast such adornment.

We can.

Shane Warne, asked to pick the best batsmen he'd faced, placed Tendulkar first, Lara second and the rest adrift by a distance. At this rate any list comprising the best silken-touched Hull City midfielders of recent times is going to have just one name on it and then a very long gap. And I bow to no one in my admiration for Leigh Palin, Theodore Whitmore, Garry Parker, Billy Askew and Bobby Doyle. Okocha is simply a magnificent talent.

And we now sit as high in English football's standings as we have done for a generation. With power to add. This was a terrific evening's football, and I'm so glad I was there. But fear not if you missed it. This could develop into a terrific season.

HULL CITY (4-4-2): Myhill; Ricketts, Turner, Brown, Delaney; Garcia, Ashbee, Marney, Hughes; Folan, Okocha.  Subs: Windass (for Folan, 41), Bridges (for Windass, 65), Livermore (for Okocha, 84), Dawson, Aspden.

Goals: Windass 49 (pen)

Booked: Windass

Sent Off: None

WOLVERHAMPTON WANDERERS: Hennessey, Foley, D Ward, Breen, Collins, Kightly, Olofinjana, Henry, S Ward, Keogh, Eastwood.  Subs: Gray (for D Ward, 53), Bothroyd (for Keogh, 53), Elliott (for S Ward, 79), Stack, Potter.

Goals: None

Booked: Hennessey

Sent Off: None

REFEREE:  M Jones

ATTENDANCE: 21,352