After a two and a half week break the Tigers return to action and take three points off a lacklustre Coventry with a last minute winner.  Nice.  

Report by Mark Gretton.

Folklore has it that a thousand years ago Coventry's most famous resident, Lady Godiva, rode through the streets of the town naked as part of a campaign to persuade her husband to reduce the level of taxation levied on the local citizenry. As part of the deal, repetition of which is not thought to be currently planned by the lovely Mrs Sarah 'Chubby' Brown, the locals were commanded to stay indoors and shut their doors and windows, lest they gaze on their benefactress's revealed charms.

I do hope that the women and children, and the faint-hearted men too, who occupy the West Stand at the Circle had the good sense to avert their own eyes just after half past nine last night. For another individual with Coventry associations was at the centre of attention, and on this occasion you really would not have wanted to allow your retina to be contaminated by the sight, at least not without some degree of warning. Ian Dowie - for it is he - hurtled up the touchline in fury, whirled his arms in despair, contorted his features in ugly rage, bounced up and down like a frustrated baboon denied a juicy hand of bananas and, bawling like a kid deprived of access to his favourite cartoon channel, hurled his anguish fruitlessly into the clear night air of the East Riding. I don't know how things commonly stand in the Dowie bedroom - a mercy, no doubt - but should the good Mrs Dowie ever overcome her unfortunate long-term affliction of blindness I would imagine that, to get things started of a romantic evening, she might saucily encourage her husband to 'do that dance again, c'mon Ian y'know, the one when you lost in the last minute at Hull, ooo you were that cross I thought you were going to explode, you big hunk of a Picasso discard you'.

Lady Godiva has chocolates named after her. I don't imagine Ian Dowie ever will.

So! To the fray, and a game that was short on quality and on excitement but long on last-gasp satisfaction and dismay for the visiting manager. We 4-4-2'd it, Phil Brown handing what Ian Chappell would call a d'boo to midfield loan acquisition Simon 'Kent' Walton:

Myhill
Ricketts Turner Brown Dawson
Garcia Marney Simon 'Kent' Walton Hughes
Campbell Windass

Ashbee ill, Brown skipper. Coventry support paltry. Weather mildish. Walton sporting spats.

And the game bitty.

Well, 'bitty' is a shade generous. Bits can sometimes be good. A bit of peach in a creamy yoghurt, a bit of lemon in a gin and tonic, a bit of horseradish to go with your roast beef. Last night, after Hughes had dribbled skilfully into the box after 3 minutes only to let loose an over-careful shot easily stopped by keeper Konstantopoulous, there weren't any bits at all. It's scrappy, it's tepid, it's unadventurous. It was almost as if our team had been away on a bender in Dubai for a few days as a reward for getting pitched out of the FA Cup at the first fence. Coventry sported the impressively lively and mobile Malt Michael Mifsud up front paired with the ponderous but ominous Dele Adebola, and the giant Elliott Ward at the back, but in general they looked to play in the thudding monotone favoured by their manager. Half an hour in, and the game is going nowhere slow.

On 33 Dawson made a horrible hash of an attempted clearance, allowing Mifsud to intervene to strike a dipping shot from right to left. Had the ball soared a foot higher it would have flown beyond Boaz's outstretched glove but the trajectory is kinder and our netman saves splendidly to his right. The ball drops invitingly on to Adebola's forehead and he obligingly eases it up and over the crossbar. It was just about the only occasion all evening when Adebola evaded the attentions of Michael Turner, but such was our man's defensive mastery that I am convinced he barked a command at Adebola, instructing him to waste the chance, and Adebola whimperingly complied.

On 38 Garcia surges down the middle, sets up Ricketts for a forceful run down the right, he chips a well-judged cross into the centre, but Campbell's header is straight at the sturdy Konstantopoulos. On 39, a corner to them, a melee in our box, a clearance downfield, and all of a sudden Campbell is haring after the ball with the Coventry defence spreadeagled. He's felled by Osbourne, 45 yards from goal, and we howl for a red card. Not given. Yellow only. Red was frankly plausible but would have been a shade harsh, for although the miscreant was the last man, Cov cover would probably have been able to arrive from wider on the pitch before Campbell got into a scoring position. The ref's indulgence did, however, deny us post-match access to one of our manager's favourite bon mots and insights, namely how much harder it is to play against ten men than eleven. The things we who only watch the game just don't understand, eh?

Two added minutes, and then half-time. Wretched stuff.

It gets better. A bit. Only a bit.

It is, however, appreciably chillier as the second half gets underway. Not least for Dean Marney. He had an irritatingly anonymous first period, which, combined with the obvious need for Simon 'Kent' Walton to ease his way into our preferred playing pattern, neutered our central midfield and did much to rob the opening 45 of any fluency or sustained attacking. Manager Brown gives Marney just five second half minutes before hauling him off in favour of Barmby. Hughes moves into the centre, Barmby goes left-side.

On 53 a swirling cross from a dead ball causes consternation in the Cov box, and also some alarm in your match reporter's head since he didn't quite grasp what happened. The ball seemed to glance off the far post and bounce back into play. It looked as if Windass and Barmby too were a bit slow to react and the glimpse of a chance is lost. Poor Nicky looked oddly ill at ease last night. He miscontrolled the ball more than once, he wasted possession and he caused havoc among our defence a couple of times with ill-advised retreat sorties deep into our territory. He is our genius and has an obvious entitlement to indulgence. But I doubt he'll be around and playing when he's Dean Windass's age.

On 55 keeper Konstantopoulos careers off his line and out of his box with conspicuously disastrous misjudgement and Deano rounds him, only to be thwarted by a defensive toe-end as the goal gapes. The corner is knocked out to Walton, skulking on the D, and though his shot is scuffed it's helped on by Garcia only for Barmby, just eight yards out, to prove unable to connect with an extravagant attempt at an airborne volley. On 61 a thirty-yard boomer from Fox is tipped over by Boaz, who appeared initially to have underestimated the shot's accuracy.

The game has improved, but only marginally. This season has been a lot of fun so far and the remaining three (and a bit, good things, bits) months are rich in promise. But there are occasions on which you shake your head in horror at the thought of what might happen to us were we to get promoted. Plenty of such head-shaking during last night's game.

By this time East Stand was entertaining itself with merciless baiting of Jay Tabb. Fouled, he'd crumpled to the turf squealing like a girl. It was a pitiful noise, a miserable high-pitched shriek. So we copied it. Lots, every time he touched the ball. This was a good bit.

Deano off, Caleb on. A goal for us, offside flag up very early, no complaints. Garcia, one of our better performers on the night off, the hefty Pedersen on, and Barmby shuttles over to the right (but is still ineffective). We're slightly the better side, but there is no fluency and little suspicion we might take advantage of the majority of the possession that we acquire. And on 80 a powerful shot from Doyle draws an excellent save from Myhill as he tips the effort round his right-hand post.

This is going to be nil-nil. And, among nil-nils, quite a bad nil-nil.

Time's nearly up. Whereupon a giant Dolanesque hoof perpetrated by Wayne Brown sails high over their defensive back-line, which has pressed up close to the half-way line. A defender turns but looks woefully lacking in confidence as he tries to deal with a ball dropping behind him. All he can manage is a feeble wave of a leg and, wonders, he's contrived to present the ball to Folan who has time to size up the keeper, now the only man between him and the net. Now, I am increasingly an admirer of biblethumpin' Caleb's pace and emerging physical presence, but I confess I have not seen him as a man capable of coolly chipping an advancing keeper with a caress so deft that the opponent is left utterly stranded as the ball describes a graceful arc and plops happily off the inside of the far post and into the net. This, however, is exactly what occurred after 89 and a half minutes of yesterday's game.

I have a vague recollection of Davor Suker accomplishing something similarly majestic in Euro 96 - it may well have been Peter Schmeichel who was his hapless victim. If Caleb Folan becomes a regular in a 'reminds me a bit of Davor Suker' train of thought then I will be very happy indeed. And that 'Premiership dream', as I understand we all must call it, might just acquire a few firmer contours between now and May.

A superb moment of skill and craft wins a drab game. That is how this Division functions much of the time, I think.

Four added minutes, no alarms. Mr Dowie goes touchline disco-dancing and we chortle off into the night. A bit pleased, a bit relieved.

HULL CITY (4-4-2): Myhill; Ricketts, Turner, Brown, Dawson; Garcia, Walton, Marney, Hughes; Campbell, Windass.  Subs: Barmby (for Marney, 51), Folan (for Windass, 64), Pedersen (for Garcia, 78), Doyle, France.

Goals: Folan 90

Booked: Marney

Sent Off: None

COVENTRY CITY: Konstantopoulos, Osbourne, De Zeeuw, Ward, Davis, Tabb, Hughes, Doyle, Fox, Adebola, Mifsud.  Subs: Barrowdale (for Fox, 81), Simpson (for Davis, 84), Best (for Mifsud, 86), Cairo, Gray.

Goals: None

Booked: Davis, Osbourne

Sent Off: None

REFEREE:  C Oliver

ATTENDANCE: 14,822