A second manager in a week is dispatched by the noose-swinging Tigers as early Windass and Campbell goals see off a Preston side that began dispirited and worsened considerably as the game went on.

Report by Steve Weatherill.

This morning I've been doing some research. Yes I have.

This time two years ago, 16 games into Mr Taylor's attempt to shore up our Second Division status after two consecutive promotions, we'd inched our way up to 13th in the table, with a haul of 18 points, but anxieties that the squad was too thin and the quality far too patchy were very real, and rapidly deepened as we promptly went five games without a win, tumbling into the netherworld just above the relegation places where we spent the nervy remainder of the campaign. 16 games into last season we sat uncomfortably in third bottom position, with just 13 points on the board. Jokes about our new manager's fast-passing game had worn as thin as the costings for the 2013 Olympics, the grotesque surrender at Colchester was looming and Mr Parkinson was in the final month of his gloomy tenure. Now, in 07/08, we're contemplating the two-week international pause having posted Played 16, Points 22, we're 11th in the table and just a win shy of a PlayOff place.

This is seriously exciting.

Plenty of bold and imaginative decisions have been taken. Some by our chairman. Yes, I worry about overstretch in our finances. Really I do. The Division is flat in quality this season and the lure of a tilt at promotion have may tempted Mr Duffen to gamble at poor odds. I just don't know. I do know we're 11th and climbing, and I'm going to allow myself a sniff of optimism. (Yeah, I know, how long have I been supporting this wretched football club, and still I don't learn? But you don't learn, do you, that is the pleasure and the curse of being a fan). And our manager has got an awful lot right too. He doesn't convince me in so many ways, from tan face to tan shoes via a steaming pile of the most cliche-ridden inanity available this side of the ghastly Peter Reid, and yet, since that opening day debacle against Plymouth, Mr Brown has kept it simple, picked a sensible formation, chosen players for positions they are most comfortable in, acquired vintage genius in Jay-Jay Okocha and youthful purpose in Frazier Campbell and right now he presides over a side that is making steady progress up the Division. Only a churl would fail to be impressed, and even though I am a churl, a Grade A, 24 carat, Gold Medal churl, I come to praise Mr Brown's achievements.

Oh, I know, it's a mere seven days since we were humiliatingly poor in Shepherd's Bush. But, as Mr Brown observed yesterday in rather hurt tones in his occasionally illuminating programme notes, that meagre effort was atypical of a season in which we have generally been slowly improving. And now, Tuesday to Saturday, we've lined up a pair of wins. Good response, City.

Duffing up PNE in front of the Duffen:

Myhill
Ricketts Turner Brown Delaney
Marney Ashbee Hughes
McPhee Windass Campbell

So, 4-3-3, a more adventurous formation that of late. This could work well - it could be vibrantly exciting - if Marney and Ashbee play as positively as they have been doing lately, if Hughes relishes the extra responsibility and space consequent on lining up as one of a midfield trio rather than a quartet and if the appealing idea of three up-front results in damage to Preston rather than our men getting in each other's way.

All these good things happened.

Courtesy also, it should be added, of a supine display from dismally gutless opponents.

Preston have plotted a route into the PlayOffs two years running, initially under Billy Davies and lately with Paul Simpson in the manager's traditional Big Tracksuit, but the current League table has them enlisted in a dour relegation dogfight (it's always dogs, isn't it? Why not badgers?). Well, I have consulted my Boys Big Book Of Football Cliches (foreword: Phil Brown, who's 'chuffed to bits' to be able to contribute) and I understand that it's at times like this that the players have to stand up and be counted. They have to do it for their manager. Indeed. Paul Simpson might perhaps have begun to worry when his players trotted out at 5 to 3, and gathered together to present him with a framed and fully autographed version of the Situations Vacant page from Friday's Preston Evening News.

On an unseasonably mild afternoon the game had a listless beginning and though Preston had the only shot of the first ten minutes - a tame effort easily stopped by Myhill - they already looked a tentative and skinny bunch. On 11 we unveiled our first decent move of the game and it was quite enough to shred PNE's hapless defence and earn us the lead. In fact, let me do justice to this glittering goal - it was a damn' sight more than decent. McPhee picked the ball up on the right side of advanced midfield and struck a quite superb pass between centre-back and full-back, allowing the alert Campbell to exploit the space created by this moment of extraordinary Scottish vision. Campbell picked up possession inside the box with keeper Lonergan to beat and defenders at his heels but unable to intervene for fear of a red card, and though Lonergan blocked the shot the ball looped goalwards where Windass's nimble football brain ensured he was there first ahead of the defence to nod the ball over the line.

Play three attackers, watch them combine to score from the game's first serious attack. Mr Brown must've been purring. I know I was. No dogfight for us.

We're on top. Really on top. Ashbee has suddenly emerged from months of inadequacies to look a highly respectable Div 2 holding midfielder. Credit. Marney's getting better almost game by game. Hughes - at last - showed good footwork and sensible passing. Ah yes, proper football. On 19 Ricketts loses the ball, but wins it back from a feeble Northender, feeds McPhee, he crosses, Windass strains but heads over the bar. On 21 Windass crosses low from the right and, with the defence astonishingly static, Campbell, near the edge of the box, has time to control the ball, pick his spot and biff a jubilant low shot past Lonergan. Savage, decisive, gleeful. 2-0. Dangerous scoreline? Not today.

Ah, Preston. Proud Preston, the first great team of English football, champions in the competition's inaugural season, 1888/89. Their success was largely dependent on shrewd recruitment of a powerful cadre of Scottish players, a historical insight worth remembering next time you hear Sepp Blither blattering on about the supposed need for football clubs to be based around local players. What would they think, those doughty nineteenth-century Scots as they marched South towards Preston - or if they talked like Sean Connery, 'towardsh Preshton' - were they to learn of their modern counterparts' fecklessness and concern only for inscribing pretty pink 'Thanks for the memories' farewell cards for their beleaguered manager?

On 30 Preston get a free-kick quite near our penalty area. Woo! They waste it with a foolishly over-elaborate routine. A couple of their players trot back past the away bench. Startled, they look across. 'You still here, boss?'. Not for much longer, I fancy.

On 34 space is created down the right for Marney but on this occasion he wastes it with a cross that is too long and flies out beyond the far post. On 37 Marney and Campbell combine down the left, Preston defenders flee, the ball is whipped out to Windass on the right but, to the frustration of Marney who has scooted into an inviting central position awaiting return of the ball, Deano wastes possession. On 40 Windass archly backs into his marker and handles the ball as well, yet is awarded a free-kick by the referee. It was an absurd decision yet the state of mind of the Preston players can be measured by the fact that they couldn't even be bothered to protest. Glumly they trudge back and make a wall, though it resembles one recently bashed by a large truck, and Deano is easily able to thrash his shot through it, only to be denied the third goal by Lonergan who fubles the ball but keeps it out of the net.

The referee, by the way, is Scott Mathieson - arch villain in the infamous last-game-of-the-season at Swansea few years ago, when his preference to stay alive rather than give decisions against a home side threatened by relegation to the Glamorgan Sunday League earned him bitter contempt from the travelling Tiger support. He was a much more relaxed presence yesterday. And, mellow old soul that I am, I might perhaps now confess that he had a point. At the Vetch Field it wasn't so much that the police were unable to hold back the marauding fans, it was more that the police were leading the maraud. Scary place.

Anyway, three added minutes, a yellow card for the mighty Wayne Brown, and there's as agreeably cosy a first half as we've witnessed in a while.

Half-time came and went, marked in the Preston dressing-room by the presentation of a charming carriage-clock to Paul Simpson ('we got it for 2.99 out of one of them magazines you get with the Sunday papers boss, you only need to get some batteries for it and it'll look a treat in your new house, where is it you plan to move to again?'), and the second period took shape 'neath the magnificence of a roseate Western sky.

On 50 we lost Wayne Brown, as he limped off dolefully. Nothing serious, we hope, and we could cope by simply shifting Delaney over to centre-back and bringing on Andy Dawson at left-back. Preston could and should have tested the formation which was briefly a shade defensively indecisive, but, as I may perhaps have implied, our opponents yesterday were a dismal bunch and they didn't bother much. The game's a bit flat for a while in fact. Which suits us just fine.

On 62, while we wait to take a free-kick 25 yards out which had been rather generously awarded, Campbell is replaced by the forgotten man Stuart Elliott. And so to the free-kick. Sitting next to me is a fan whose perception is so acute that she is regularly referred to as 'Bob', a tribute to an awesome ability to read the game that she shares with that Pythagoras of modern football, Bob Wilson. 'No' she groaned, 'don't let Dawson take it, he's useless with free-kicks'. Wise words. Dawson sent a powerful left-foot shot arrowing beyond the wall and inside the far post, with Lonergan glued flat-footed to his line, probably having expecting Dawson instead to try his luck at the near post.

3-0. 'Sacked in the morning, you're getting sacked in the morning' came the mordant chant of the dismayed travelling support, led by a bare torsoed beach ball of a gent, as they sought to bring down the curtain on poor Mr Simpson's torture. The chant was promptly picked up by large chortling sections of the East Stand too, and the game's re-start was delayed as the majority of the Preston players joined in too. It was the most animated they were all afternoon.

Deano strolls off to a huge ovation, replaced by Jay-Jay. Savour the one, savour the other, savour them both. You'll not see many like these two in a lifetime of watching Hull City. Showmen both, and very fine footballers.

On 76 McPhee does excellent work hounding PNE down the right, and skips into the box with the ball. He sweeps it across to Okocha who brings the ball down with a wonderful first touch before smashing a vicious half-volley towards the top corner of the net, drawing a marvellous diving finger-tip save from Lonergan.

Lonergan, in fact, did as much as could have been expected of him. Of the rest of this craven Preston side, it's hard to find anyone who could look their gaunt support in the face. Whaley, industrious down the right, perhaps. Carroll, up front on loan from Newcastle, was physically and mentally weak and an utter disgrace. Still, at last he lasted only 45 minutes. Callum Davidson and Paul McKenna are decent players who yesterday spent the full 90 shaming themselves, their family, their friends, their butchers and their newsagents and, most of all, their pets (not just dogs). Dreadful stuff. Perhaps their minds were on other things, such as adjusting Paul Simpson's SatNav so that it can no longer direct him to Deepdale football ground in Preston.

Minutes tick down and it is all placidly relaxed. On 87 Ashbee glides into midfield and pings a serene pass inside the full-back for Ricketts to chase (and waste). There's plenty you can say about Ian Ashbee during his time at Hull City but 'would be worth a place in the French midfield of the 1980s alongside Alain Giresse, Michel Platini and Jean Tigana' would not normally be muscling its way on to the list. Did yesterday.

On 90 Preston have an attack. I wouldn't normally trouble you with such trifling inconvenience, save only that by this stage it has seemed inconceivable this terrible shambles of a team might ever win a throw-in, let alone actually attack. But attack they did. Two of them. They both mis-controlled the ball. And they both stumbled offside.

Boaz chalked up a clean sheet in this game. Never has a sheet been so clean.

There are just two added minutes as referee Mathieson decides to show mercy, and on 91 Elliott punts a cross shot narrowly wide after more sterling industry from McPhee. Final whistle, and the Preston players skulk off in the hope that they can get on the bus and on to the motorway before their manager notices they're gone. Parting is such sweet sorrow.

Super Tigs. PNE were woeful, and I like the idea we're playing them again soon. In fact, I like the look of the fixture list generally, we seem to have a few imminent fixtures against teams that are wobbling. Most of all, though, I like the look of our squad and the way it's playing. This is obviously the best we've had for twenty years. Question is, can this side go beyond the ultimately thwarted efforts of Don Robinson and Brian Horton to take us up one more Division? On verra, as that fat Preston fan would doubtless have it, but frankly I am optimistic right now. Yes I am.

HULL CITY (4-4-2): Myhill; Ricketts, Turner, Brown, Delaney; McPhee, Ashbee, Marney, Hughes; Windass, Campbell.  Subs: Dawson (for Brown, 50), Elliott (for Campbell, 62), Okocha (for Windass, 73), Livermore, Duke.

Goals: Windass 11; Campbell 21; Dawson 63

Booked: Brown

Sent Off: None

PRESTON NORTH END: Lonergan, Halls, Mawene, St Ledger, Davidson, Sedgwick, McKenna, Hill, Whaley, Hawley, Carroll.  Subs: Agyemang (for Carroll, 46), Carter (for Sedgwick, 46), Ormerod (for Hawley, 71), Neal, Chilvers.

Goals: None

Booked: Davidson

Sent Off: None

REFEREE:  S Mathieson

ATTENDANCE: 16,358