The aerial bombardment offered by clogging Stoke City is not enough to divert the Tigers who extend their unbeaten run to five league games with a 1-1 draw that could easily have ended in victory.

Report by Steve Weatherill.

New Year's Day in scowling Stoke. What's not to like? And another seething Tiger travelling support was tempted out on to the roads for the trip over to the prickly Potteries in the hope of a repeat of last year's post-match performance art. In that we were disappointed, for yesterday the home support slunk away like a whipped cur after their team's drab display. But there was no sense of disappointment about what we'd witnessed on the pitch. This was another capable and imaginative performance from our team and even if you'd shelve it alongside the visits to Palace and to Charlton as 'games that overall we really should have won' you'd still be wise to reflect that being demonstrably the better side against clubs of that ilk offers vivid proof of the rapid current rate of improvement at our club.

Throw your flat cap in the air! It's 2008 and City are ace. Wooo!

With Campbell wrapped in Mr Ferguson's urgently delivered cotton-wool we lined up:

Myhill
Ricketts Turner Brown Dawson
Garcia Ashbee Livermore Hughes
Windass Folan

Off we go, on a mild if grey afternoon, and on 8 a Hughes jink, a Hughes shot, and Stoke are rescued by a desperate defensive intervention as the ball flies beyond keeper Simonsen. On 21 we win a free-kick, and Dawson and Windass loiter, sharpening memories of the genius of the Wednesday-terminating moment last Sunday, but this time Deano blooters the ball a huge distance over the top. Hooting derision from the Stoke fans. Deano loves it. He loves all of it. On 26 a throw-in to us, touched on into the box, and an overhead kick from Hughes sails comfortably into Simonsen's gloves.

Crikey, half an hour gone, and it hasn't been very good. We are slightly the superior side, but there is no ambition in the final third of the pitch at either end.

Stoke City are a typical Tony Pulis side. Big, strong, ugly, well-organised, ruthlessly stripped bare of even a shred of flair. In fact, Stoke City are a typical Stoke City side. No football team in England more precisely replicates its environment. Grey, forbidding, weary, lumpen. Ah, and though, as you know, I firmly believe that pompous history lessons should be reserved for months with a r in them, there is so much previous in City v Stoke fixtures that I cannot resist picking once again at the scars. Like subtropical mosquito bites, they will never really heal. The linesman's larceny at the bitterly crucial moment of the Quarter Final of the Cup in 1971, the graceful arc of the home fans' bricks before, during and after the Cup 5th Round game at the baleful old Victoria Ground a year later, the defeat in the Watney Cup Final at Stokie hands, getting cuffed by 4 at Boothferry Park more than once in the late 1980s. Bring me the Quinine Miss Fortescue.

Set-pieces. The resort of the banal. I don't imagine Mr Pulis wastes even a moment on the training-ground in practising flicks, feints or even basic passing. Win corners, win free-kicks, hoof it in and try and make things happen. That's his limit. Footballing stodge. Throw-ins too. And here Rory Delap is the villain in chief. I don't think I have ever seen such a delivery. Fans of a certain vintage think back to Ian Hutchinson of Chelsea as the first man to win televisual acclaim for the length of his chucks, and there have been plenty of others since. Little Andy Legg springs to mind as particularly hurlworthy. But Delap can not only easily reach the six-yard box he can also ensure that the ball is still travelling at pace when it gets there. These aren't huge looping throws, they're flat vicious ones. And they are every bit as hard to defend against as a corner.

Stoke score on 32. It's from a throw-in. But o, it is a wretched rotten goal. The Delap throw-in sails towards the near post, it seems to glide over the top of a group of straining necks and heads, Boaz is horribly unsighted and the ball continues on its way, bouncing tamely over the line. It wasn't at all obvious that anyone had got any sort of touch - which would of course mean 'no goal' - but our defence didn't complain. Presumably someone got a faint touch on the ball, and subsequently Leon Cort was picked out as the man responsible.

That we did not deserve.

The next five minutes are spent exclusively in the Stoke half, but we can't conjure up any chances. Stoke resist, break upfield and on 38 arrives the crucial moment of the match. A deft pass releases Jon Porkin inside our box, he hammers a low shot which looks unstoppable, but Boaz gets down brilliantly well to beat away the effort, and Ricketts cleans up before a Stokie can feed off the scraps. Liam Lawrence, a man for whom the word feckless was fashioned, suddenly looks lively down the right and Stoke, for the first and only time in the whole match, look fluent. A Delap throw and then a curving shot put us under severe pressure.

We survive. We're good enough. And, as the half draws to a close, there is a glimpse of an equaliser as a silky move culminates in Livermore nicking the ball inside to Deano whose blasted left-foot shot is blocked by game keeper Simonsen.

Half-time.

By the way, our away support is tremendous. I don't suppose it's the biggest in the Division, but I do suppose we are higher up the 'away' than the 'home' crowd league table, should such things be capable of calculation. And, adding in the point that our proud port is ill-served geographically when compared to more centrally located clubs such as Wednesday and West Brom, it could be that Hull City supporters have put in more collective travelling miles this season than any other club in our Division.

Re-start. On 49 a decent move ends in Deano, under heavy defensive pressure, heading over the top. The second half begins to take a shape closely resembling the first, which means that we have much the better of the possession and look far more purposeful coming forward than the home side, but find our efforts thwarted by the stodgily well-organised giants of the Stoke defence. They are, after all, a Tony Pulis team. They are, after all, a Stoke City team.

Justice strikes on the hour.

Livermore carelessly squanders possession in midfield, but it's promptly retrieved, and Ashbee strides forward through the centre-circle. The skipper sweeps a fine pass out to the left where Windass maintains the momentum, cutting on to his right foot to deliver a well-struck cross to the back post. The speed and accuracy of the move has stretched the home defence to breaking point and biblethumpin' Caleb Folan rises majestically to head powerfully into the corner of the net. Mayhem, glee, equaliser.

Folan was terrific yesterday. A few weeks ago I mused that searing pace alone couldn't justify his selection, but already he is showing much more. Yesterday he used his strength much more advisedly than in any game since he joined us, and he looked uncommonly like a proper effective target-man. Certainly Leon Cort, of whose ability we need no persuading, had a miserable afternoon and by the later stages had simply given up trying to get close to Folan, whose consistent ease of touch on the ball was a pure delight. And Folan took his goal with admirable coolness too. He really could be a star. Hughes too has vastly improved just lately, showing vigour, purpose and he is the possessor of a mean delivery from out wide. Andy Dawson too - suddenly left-back doesn't look quite so pressing a concern. The only player about whom I have a slight concern is Wayne Brown, whose effortless command of the space around him dominated the early stages of the season but who is now finding it increasingly awkward to get a grip on big strikers able to beat him in the air.

Onwards. There are thirty minutes left. We can win this.

But not if we defend as badly as we do on 63, when a dangerous cross from their right is allowed to trundle its way right across our penalty box and, unattended, out the far side. A minute later, however, play has been whipped up the other end, and a glorious combination between Folan and Hughes leads to an inviting cross to the back-post, where Windass, straining to reach a ball that is an inch too high for him, heads back across goal and on to the top of the crossbar. Now we are on top. Now we are storming forward. Now we look a really good side.

On 73 Deano is subbed, and, had this been a Test match, he would have been docked a large slice of his match fee for visible dissent and dismay. But you've got to love his honesty. He just hates not to be playing football. He's a treasure. On comes Barmby, who is one too, of course.

Porkin departs. He was a treasure. He's not any more. Those of a small and vindictive mind will have noted that he is developing an obvious and faintly ludicrous bald patch atop his head. I didn't notice it myself, of course.

Hughes is replaced by Elliott on 81, a double surprise given the excellence of Hughes and the season-long vanishing act performed by Elliott. I hope Stuart has a future with us, though he didn't do much to make his case in the short period on the pitch he was allowed yesterday.

On 84 Stoke hoof it long, Pericard, a large-framed (no, really) substitute striker, chases after it and falls over in the box. One of our defenders was quite close, but even the home support's appeals for a penalty are muted. Pericard is, I suppose, one of what Mr Pulis describes as 'the black lads' in his unfunny programme Q&A. Hasn't that sort of comment been kicked out, I ask mildly?

90 minutes are up now. The 'added three' begin with a corner to us, good contributions from Dawson and Livermore and then a Garcia shot which is blocked. But then things get a bit infuriating as Garcia indulges in the silly 'take the ball into the corner and shield it' timewasting nonsense. Why are we wasting time? We're the better side. The referee looks fed up and gives a foul against Garcia, presumably for witless stupidity, and now Stoke, having been second-best all afternoon, show ambition we'd lacked and shove almost all their players forward in search of an ill-deserved winner. From the set-piece. Mr Pulis was doubtless salivating but he can go get himself some Werther's Originals because Stoke's last chance turned out to be no chance, and a point apiece was the outcome.

So we are into 2008, we are into the second half of the season. And the PlayOffs are in sight, quivering like a ripe peach on the end of the branch. Are there six teams in the Division better than us? Well, if you judge us on the flabby surrenders at Preston and QPR, then there are 23 teams in the Division better than us, but if you instead rate our chances on the basis of consistently sturdy central defending, largely effective though rarely pretty midfield and exciting attacking choices involving youth and pace and age and (footballing) wisdom, and if you add in decent luck in avoiding injuries and the acquisition of a left-sided utility man (who may also be a utilitarian to boot, though I fear that age and injury has now caught up with Steve, the energetic bald-headed former Forest, Villa and Portsmouth midfielder, so we won't be signing a Philosopher's Stone), then (working breathlessly through to the end of this lumpy sentence) we can realistically suppose that no, there aren't 6 teams better than us. Certainly on yesterday's evidence Stoke wouldn't be one of them. Next up, in the League: West Brom, who may be. Don't watch it on telly. Be there. We are ace.

HULL CITY (4-4-2): Myhill; Ricketts, Turner, Brown, Dawson; Garcia, Ashbee, Livermore, Hughes; Folan, Windass.  Subs: Barmby (for Windass, 73), Elliott (for Hughes, 82), Delaney, Marney, Duke.

Goals: Folan 61

Booked: Turner

Sent Off: None

STOKE CITY: Simonsen, Wright, Shawcross, Cort, Pugh, Lawrence, Delap, Eustace, Cresswell, Sidibe, Parkin.  Subs: Dickinson (for Sidibe, 66), Pericard (for Parkin, 77), Zakuani (for Wright, 83), Pulis, Phillips.

Goals: Cort 33

Booked: None

Sent Off: None

REFEREE:  N Swarbrick

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