Another barn-storming performance, inspired by the restored Jay Jay Okocha, sees City claim a point against another of the division's form teams.

Report by Steve Weatherill.

Another cracking ninety minutes' entertainment, another display of doughty resolve laced with flashes of vision and imagination, another very fine point harvested.

I really don't have a strong view on whether we are going to make the PlayOffs. Not quite, probably. Not far off though, and last night offered yet further evidence of our entirely legitimate place in the upper reaches of the table. Norwich are the form team of the Division, hoisted out of early-season relegation ignominy by robot-voiced serial failure Glenn Roeder, but they had slightly the worse of it last night as the Tiger Express hurtled into East Anglia promising fun for all.

O dear, though, it didn't begin well.

Can it be so difficult?

I mean, you take their money, you let them in the ground, you give them a spot each, a seat nowadays, and everyone's happy. Football fans don't want or need much.

And at Carrow Road they don't get it.

A pleasing bustle outside the floodlit ground promised a bulging crowd inside it. But this enticing anticipation quickly gave way to absurdity once we entered the City section. We'd come in numbers but until about two minutes before kick-off not the slightest attempt was made to steward the section properly, whereupon, as the match was ready to begin, heavy-handed stewards started trying to shift City fans who were standing in the gangway towards the back of the stand, eager for a better view. There were (presumably) seats to be had, but they were scattered in ones and twos across the section and the fans in question were not about to surrender their vantage points readily as the football got underway. There'd've been no problem had the stewards done their job conscientiously in the run-up to kick off instead of waiting until 7.43, but they doubtless had better things to do, like swigging tea, polishing their tattoos and flicking through the latest issue of Pit Bull Monthly. Sour-faced, the stewards laid into the City support, assisted by grim policemen. Mayhem was averted only courtesy of the good sense and patience of the travelling support. Other clubs' fans would have reacted with more hostility (doubtless leading to a youth slipping down a step and twisting his ankle, leading to tearful protests from relatives in the national press - 'he was a good ankle, never hurt a fly, never got involved in any trouble' - and a large transfer of government money to local 'community leaders' dedicated to 'helping these kids make something of themselves').

In Hull, we don't like to push ourselves forward.

Of it we should be proud.

As I understand it, promotion to the Premiership next season will bring us a whole range of new styles of stewarding. The splendid plans to export our favourite spectacle as a flagship of freedom and modern capitalism have now narrowed down likely hosts to Saudi Arabia (where I fear the Archbishop of Canterbury has not fully grasped Sharia Law's approach to littering the concourse with an empty pie tray), Burma, Zimbabwe and selected penal colonies of Inner Mongolia. Frankly for me it can't come soon enough. If I'm going to get treated as a criminal for daring to spend an evening paying a club to let me watch football in their ground I might as well experience the full brutal brunt of totalitarian nastiness. On the ball City! Norwich, shortly to compound their felony by playing music after goals, are a club to despise. Let their decline, temporarily arrested these last couple of months, inexorably continue.

To the football.

Myhill
Ricketts Turner Brown Pedersen
France Ashbee Walton Barmby
Okocha Campbell

4-4-1-1? Well, sort of. Okocha doesn't really play with anyone, so he's a 1. Still, there were spells when there was sufficient combination between the front two for the set-up to resemble a more orthodox 4-4-2. And later on, once we fell behind, Barmby advanced purposefully so it became 4-3-3-ish.

First fifteen minutes, us slightly better, Campbell's pace already alarming the homesters, France prominent down the right, Okocha dismayingly indolent. And the stewards in the way of my view.

The idiocy in the stands finally calms down, and we can enjoy an evening in a packed football ground under floodlights, with the town twinkling beyond the main stand on the opposite side of the pitch. Proper stuff, this is what we come for.

And then they score.

It's the third time they've raided down their right, and on this occasion a rather hopeful delivery reaches Dion Dublin just inside the box. He contrives some sort of a touch with his head, unplanned I suspect, and the ball loops up horribly and soars over the exposed Myhill. It was just a messy goal, a freak.

But with Norwich in such good current form, it didn't look promising to have conceded so early.

Stattos? Would Dublin last night be the oldest man to have scored against City? I don’t think even Phil Stant went on that long.

On 20, a melee in their box, they clear. On 22, same story up our end, but this time a dipping shot results and Myhill is forced to produce a magnificent one-handed diving stop. As at Stoke on New Year's Day, when he thwarted Parkin from close range, Myhill managed to serve up point-saving excellence last night.

On 30 a rubbish corner by us, a rubbish move, and a scuffed shot from Ashbee bounces (deservedly) off target. On 38 a free kick from the right, Wayne Brown heads (wastefully) off target.

It's been an off target half. Two added minutes complete it, but though we've just about had the better of the possession we have created too little, and the ball has been lofted forward aimlessly far too frequently, which is hardly excusable when Campbell and Okocha are our advanced players. And hardly useful when Okocha is anyway wandering round as if dazed and bored.

Off we go again, and we start out the second period immediately looking the stronger side. And we get stronger.

In fact, I'd suggest that the twenty minutes that now took us up to the mid-point of the second half offered football that was as good as, and likely better than, anything we've served up this season so far - and that therefore it was the best we've played for a long while (twenty years or so, I mean). We were simply tremendous. Passing, giving, moving, ceaseless support to the man on the ball, intelligent running all over the pitch. Norwich were shredded, their support hushed. Truly it was a Tiger masterclass.

On 51 a ball in from the right is allowed to bounce inside the box and Campbell flicks a header goalwards, only to be thwarted by Marshall's alert fingertips. But we're soon level. A rapid break down the centre, a flummoxed defence, a befuddled defence, and Campbell's low shot squirms under Marshall's body and rolls on in to the net. Two minutes later, and a defence turning in a convincing imitation of a unit that's just spent half an hour spinning in a revolving door presents the ball to France inside the box, and he spins to hook a shot on target but within Marshall's grasp. We are completely dominant now. It is, if anything, 4-2-4, with Campbell pacy and dangerous, France heavily involved in the aggression, Barmby more effective and on his toes than of late and, best of all, Okocha unveiling his tricks and feints, and, in a flash, looking twice the player of anyone else in this Division. Glorious vision. In fact, 4-2-4? There were bits of 3-2-5 as the splendid Ricketts bombed forward down the right to discomfort gasping Norwich still further.

It was an exhilarating dose of slick attacking football, and the only disappointment was that we hadn't scored the two, even three, goals that it merited. The final pass didn't quite get the correct weight, the long defensive leg just intervened. But make no mistake, we were superb for a good chunk of that second half last night.

On 66 a booming shot from distance by Fotheringham clears Boaz's crossbar to signal the re-balancing of the pattern of play. We are promptly caught dozing at a short corner, but survive, and from now on in there's little between the sides.

They bring on Darren Huckerby who (yet again) looks tormentingly good down the right, and causes more than one alarm as he seeks to surge into the penalty area. But the admirable Pedersen defends doggedly, supported by Brown. The best chance for the home side to steal an ill-deserved three points arrives on 73 as Boaz is forced to produce a marvellous save leaping to his right, leading to a stramash in the box in which two Naaaarrch strikes are fearlessly blocked before finally a low shot snakes just outside the far post and out behind to safety.

Marney for Barmby, and we're looking a bit leg weary now. Campbell most of all. But he's a gem and Mr Brown knows that managers should do what their opponents want least and Norwich would have been overjoyed to see Frazier depart. He doesn't. Okocha, having served up flickerings of majesty, does, and Nicky Featherstone comes on to run about a lot and deny the home side space to build from deep midfield.

The last ten, and the added four, are generally level, though understandably by now we are happier to run the clock down than Norwich. Run down it duly is, via the collection of a yellow card by an admittedly non-time-saving Myhill, and we parcel up a point for the long haul home across the foggy flatness.

That journey was enlivened by Podcasts hosted by the urbane Matt Rudd, though at this stage I am not sure I really wanted to be reminded by the amusingly self-regarding Terry Neill (who avoided name-checking only the Pope, Nelson Mandela and Lucinda Prior-Palmer as those world figures for whom he takes personal credit for advancing their early careers) that our 1970/71 promotion bid fell short only as a result of inadequacies at home against the Division's weaker teams. We do, after all, face Colchester at the Circle on Saturday. But even if that goes awry, be clear of one thing. We're not in a false position. We are PlayOff contenders. And there remains no one in this Division that I rate as demonstrably stronger than us at full strength with the sole exception of West Brom.

HULL CITY (4-4-2): Myhill; Ricketts, Turner, Brown, Pedersen; France, Walton, Ashbee, Barmby; Campbell, Okocha.  Subs: Marney (for Barmby, 73), Featherstone (for Okocha, 81), Doyle, Welsh, Tyler.

Goals: Campbell 53

Booked: Myhill

Sent Off: None

BLACKPOOL: Marshall, Bates, Shackell, Doherty, Gibbs, Croft, Fotheringham, Russell, Bertrand, Dublin, Evans.  Subs: Otsemobor (for Bates, 58), Pattison (for Gibbs, 58), Huckerby (for Croft, 72), Gilks, Pearce.

Goals: Dublin 19

Booked: None

Sent Off: None

REFEREE:  A Hall

ATTENDANCE: 25,259