An ugly victory against Sheffield Wednesday, who were every inch a typical Brian Laws side - organised, dirty but ultimately a bit useless.

Report by Mark Gretton.

It was largely formless and, frankly, you wished it would end as soon as possible so you could get back to doing something worthwhile. It wasn’t that there was a lack of technique on show and the participants were clearly well into it but, like masturbation, you wondered why spectators were required. Eventually, though, it finished, to the relief of all. No, we could have done without the jazz trio at the after match pub, even though there were similarities with what we had seen on the pitch. But the comparisons are unfair, not least in the regard of masturbation, an activity where there is a clear goal in mind after which the act ceases, unlike jazz which meanders along meaninglessly and only stops once the initial lack of interest has descended into total torpor. But the comparison is unfair to City too; this wasn’t one of our better days; not the exuberant cuffing of Barnsley, not the professional dismantling of Wolverhampton. But we were dogged, we stuck at it and we got there in the end. So happily for all of us, it was more like masturbation than jazz. Or at least it was jazz mags rather than jazz music.

We lined up as we always seem to do these days,

Myhill
Ricketts Turner Brown Dawson
Garcia Ashbee Livermore Hughes
Folan Campbell

and with our usual scarifying bench including Windass, Marney and Barmby, the latter who has been the hammer of the Wendys since they returned to our radar screen a few years ago. And we played towards a North stand impressively full of South Yorkists; I’ve never really thought of the Wendys as real rivals of ours, in the same sense as their ludicrous and unpleasant city cohabitees or the WhiteShite, but, with the possible exception of Diddy Donny, they’re the only ones who can be bothered to travel here in anything like a decent number and credit them for that.

After a well-observed tribute of applause for former Owl Phil O’Donnell who died playing for Motherwell on Saturday we were soon into our work, Folan galumphing forward to win a corner. This came to nothing but shortly after a fluky deflection put in Campbell one-on-one with keeper Grant, but the boy wonder was surprisingly caught by 2 defenders before he could get off his shot, being forced to turn the ball into the path of Garcia who could make little of it. This failure apart, Garcia was starting to have his best afternoon in our colours, popping up on left as well as right flank and showing the industry and skill on the ball that hasn’t always been the hallmark of his work since his arrival up north.

We continued to advance on them methodically if without too much imagination. Ashbee should have done better at the back post from a corner than letting it skid off his bonce and Ricketts should have done, well, something anyway, after he was beautifully put through by the shimmering, shimmying Campbell. Sadly, it was the youngsters last involvement; he’d picked up a knock and was immediately pulled off by the manager – I mean he was substituted, I’m not still banging on about wanking. It may well have been more precautionary than anything; when you’re mucking about with one of Ferguson’s prized products whom you want to hang on to for a few months more, you’re probably wise not to urge him to run his limp off.

The disappointment at the departure of Campbell was assuaged by the appearance of the People’s Deano greeted rapturously by the faithful and ribaldly by the Wendyfolk with cries of ‘You fat bastard.’ Nasty men. It didn’t take long for him to shut them up, although he was reliant on a remarkable assist from Caleb Folan. The man with the sinister nineteenth century Mormon name gained possession deep in our half from a Sheff corner and muscled his way forwards, brushing defenders from his path and buffeting them with his slipstream. He’d got to within 25 yards of their goal when one of them sensibly decided that this had to stop and brought him down. Up stepped Windass, taking his time, savouring his moment and then doing it right as he so often does, curling the ball beautifully over and round the wall into the top corner to the keeper’s right. “One nil, to the fat bastard” we helpfully sang to any of the seething Sheffsters who might have missed it. Half time saw us quietly satisfied with a 1-0 lead.

Quiet we were, not least because no-one had managed a pre-match pint. That’s what tends to happen when you have a 1pm kick-off on Sunday on “Police advice.” And it’s what definitely happens when the police then go round to all the hostelries in the city and “advise” them not to sell any ale until 12 noon. This is not, of course, the sort of “advice” you receive that you can discount, assuming you want a sympathetic hearing when your licence is up for renewal; the publicans are hardly likely to say to Ch.Insp. Plod, “Well, thank you for that advice, but I got a second opinion from the Coast Guard and they say that it’s perfectly safe to sell alcohol legally as I would any other day of the week,” and clearly none of then had. Now, obviously this isn’t the place to muse over the stupidity in a democracy of concentrating power in the hands of an unelected body such as the police made up as it largely is of the ill-educated, the thuggish and the frankly stupid and giving them carte blanche to make decisions as an alternative to actually doing their job and policing things, as that would, I’m sure, be an unfair caricature of modern policing. They did, after all, work well inside the Circle; the two dozen or so of them positioned in the tunnel entrance situated between the South Stand and the Family Section of the West Stand doing a particularly stalwart job in calming down any potential trouble between 6 year old Tigerettes. I’m sure the club will regard that as money well spent. And in fairness, after the game we were allowed to have a glass of beer in a pub, just as though it was a free country!

The second half suggested that the Sheffield manager, the ludicrous Brian Laws, had suggested to his charges that he wasn’t quite happy with the level of commitment they had shown heretofore. They got hold of the game immediately and nearly levelled it within 2 minutes, the pacy Sodje spinning away from Brown, hitting his shot well and wheeling away in triumph as it beat Myhill only to hold his head in his hands as the ball came back off the inside of the post. The visitors are not an accomplished side, although they look dogged enough to get out of the bottom three and they were bright enough to see that Andy Dawson was having a dithering afternoon as they increasingly attacked our left defensive side; on one occasion a Dawson missed tackle as result of dodgy positioning being redeemed by him then hauling his opponent down at the cost of a booking. Neither side was helped by a fussy performance from referee Mike Jones, who repeatedly penalised both sides for mystery fouls, although I thought the visitors got much more the mucky end of this than we did.

We were still having good moments; another helium-fuelled run from the squeaking Garcia set free by Dean’s fine pass was halted at the expense of a freekick which Dawson wasted. Ashbee crossed and picked out Folan who might have been expected to get his header on target. A lovely whipped wide Windass pass again found Garcia and the Southern-hemisphere shrieker hit in an excellent cross with pace and must have been as disappointed as the rest of us that no-one had thought to get in the business area. Then Dean got himself out wide and crossed for Folan to again mistime his header. This was the big man’s last act, his hardworking but unproductive afternoon ending when he was exchanged for Barmby, to gibbers of fear from the visiting support.

The last ten minutes were more fraught than they ought to have been. Brown, having an increasingly uncomfortable time of it from Sodje, was reduced to fouling as his default defensive retort and one such shove just outside the area produced a freekick that saw our defence in an uncharacteristic slumber, long enough for big-eared, bandy-legged, pig-ugly sometime Tiger nemesis Francis Jeffers to line one up and hit it well only to be foiled by the alert legs of Myhill. In fairness, probably all of Myhill was alert, not just his legs, but I was too far away to say for sure. Custodian of the legs, nevertheless.

Dean was part of a time- wasting substitution, taking the salute of the faithful as he walked off slowly before breaking into a jog that was even slower – impressive stuff. But he had enjoyed a very good afternoon, as he so often does after an enforced rest. We spent the last few minutes on the back foot, though we might have made more of a hoick out that found Barmby who held the ball up wide with characteristic aplomb waited until support finally got there, saw that it was Ashbee and wisely waited a bit longer until Livermore arrived before playing a peach of a pass into his path and skipping off to get the return ball. It never came as Livermore tried a shot that was competently saved and, after a final Wendy flurry of freekicks and corners, we had the points.

Not great, then, even allowing for the fact that we had to watch it sober for once – not something I feel I could recommend. But we were solid, we created chances and over 90 minutes were undoubtedly worth the win. I missed the horror shows at Preston and Southampton so this was easily the scruffiest defensive display I’ve seen from us for weeks, and given that we kept it scoreless, making it just 2 goals conceded in 4 games and that Myhill made only one save to keep it so, this shows how high the bar is at the moment. Dean was judged the man of the match and his goal, awareness and ability made it a merited award, but it could just as easily done to the Dog Whistler, Richard Garcia. And we’re 8th. 8th! Playoff contenders, then. Not, I think, an unrealistic assessment. This division is the weakest, or at least certainly the flattest in terms of overall ability, since we’ve been in it. And our side is easily the strongest that we’ve had since we were promoted, meaning, I suppose, that it’s easily the strongest we’ve had for 20 years and therefore one of the best in the club’s often troubled and generally underachieving history. I think we should enjoy it whilst we can, starting at Stoke on New Year’s Day. I’ll drink to that, assuming the Police have, at least on this occasion, no objection.

HULL CITY (4-4-2): Myhill; Ricketts, Turner, Brown, Dawson; Garcia, Ashbee, Livermore, Hughes; Folan, Campbell.  Subs: Windass (for Campbell, 24), Barmby (for Folan, 81), Delaney (for Windass, 89), Marney, Duke.

Goals: Windass 33

Booked: Dawson, Livermore

Sent Off: None

SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY: Grant, Bullen, Hinds, Beevers, Spurr, Folly, Whelan, Tudgay, O'Brien, Burton, Sodje.  Subs: Esajas (for Folly, 67), Jeffers (for Burton, 68), Burch, Lunt, Gilbert.

Goals: None

Booked: O'Brien

Sent Off: None

REFEREE:  M Jones

ATTENDANCE: 21,252