A nervy start against promotion battlers Barnsley blossoms into another utterly dominant display as City cruise to victory with their game-in-hand and ease into the automatic promotion slots.

Report by Steve Weatherill.

You'll have seen it, you'll have heard it, you'll have felt it. The destructively fluent football, the exultation of the travelling thousands crammed into Oakwell's steep away end, the shimmering self-belief that flourished like victor's laurel as yet another tricky away game was seen off in utterly decisive fashion.

Upwards. Into the top two. Just three steps from the summit, a peak that, if attained, will require us to play just once in May and not again until the second half of August.

It's on. It really is. You've seen it, you've heard it, you've felt it.

Garcia's out injured, so's Pedersen and Windass takes a breather on the bench. On a bright evening in Barnsley the sun dips below the Pennine horizon just before kick-off, flashing windows of hilltop houses into golden rectangles. On amber duty are:

Myhill
Ricketts Turner Brown Dawson
Fagan Ashbee Marney Hughes
Folan Campbell

In the first minute a comedy headed backpass blunder leaves their keeper hopelessly wrong-footed, able only to get a fingertip on the ball as it trundles past him goalwards. But there is, unfortunately, not enough pace on the ball to reach the line and a defender lunges in to clear the danger.

The game settles down. Level, more or less. Lively. Barnsley are, one suspects, towards the bottom of the table largely because their FA Cup exploits stretched the resources of their thin squad and pulled their focus out of alignment. They're no woeful Leicester or gutless Southampton: they're a neat industrious passing side that belongs in the middle of the table. Nippy and hairy midfielder Diego Leon, part Ariel Ortega, part Willie Carr, slides passes around deftly, keeping the ball moving, while front pair Macken and notoriously unfreescoring Odejayi happily scoot around, posing problems for Turner and Brown who are not sure whether to go with the man or hold space. Hughes is playing well enough for us, the rest of the midfield isn't, and twenty minutes into the match it's the home side that are slightly the better.

Whereupon we unleash a man called Campbell.

Panic just inside the penalty area, down near the by-line. It is not a dangerous position, there is not the slightest need for a reckless lunge. But Fraizer's pace and presence addles the brain of defenders. Our boy's legs are whipped out from under him, referee Attwell quite rightly has no hesitation, and the ball is plonked on the spot.

I have no great confidence in Marney as a penalty taker. I think he just hits and hopes - they're really fifty per cent penalties in the sense that that a keeper who guesses right will stop them since they are not struck into the corner. He hit, we hoped, the keeper guessed wrong and the ball nestled in the back of the net.

A lead we did not particularly deserve. But a lead we would build on. As you'd expect of this side. Capable of fighting when under pressure, eager to take advantage should it present itself.

On 29 a melee in our box is marked by a blatant handball by one of theirs, not seen by the referee. We clear it, but Barnsley haven't given up just yet. What we need is a spell of calm possession, most of all we need our midfield to take control. Calm possession is not quite Ashbee's game, but he improves after a wasteful beginning to the game and Marney steadily increases his influence too. Fagan is a waste of space and of a place, but Hughes is by a distance the most impressive of our midfielders. A sensible, careful and skilful footballer. Good buy, Mr Brown.

32, Hughes shoots narrowly wide. 43, corner to them, absurdly given as a goal-kick, and a sharp rain shower sweeps the West Riding in South Yorkshire. Added time, half-time, not much of a spectacle, but we have the lead.

At half-time, on the thronged concourses and unusually spacious urinals of modernised Oakwell, the talk was of 'winning ugly'. It makes me cringe, hearing grown men parrot the banalities that pass as insight on the creepily repetitive and uncaringly dim-witted television and radio football programmes. Such simplistic trash infects the brain, stopping people crafting their own views. In a week where The Guardian features the unerringly fresh genius of Mark E Smith such lameness is doubly unforgivable.

For me, to be fair, you've got to earn the right to play, and City show they want it more than Barnsley from the off.

On 51 Folan and Campbell combine to win us a corner, taken from our right. It's blocked, but the ball returns to Marney who hoists a cross to the back post where Campbell, extraordinarily, finds he's been given enough time to bring the ball down and crash a low shot goalwards. It's scrambled away at the expense of a corner, but when that is lifted in by Marney towards the edge of the six-yard box there is Ian Ashbee arriving intent on his annual goal and able to convert courtesy of a muscular header.

Barnsley a shade short of commitment as their campaign winds down, us ready to take ruthless advantage. 2-0, the perfect way to open the second half.

There now follows a 20 minute masterclass.

Rarely have we been so dominant, rarely have we ripped opponents apart at will as we now do to Barnsley. Folan, fed by Campbell on the right side of the box, is pushed just too wide by defensive intervention. Campbell shoots, blocked by the keeper. Campbell and Folan attempt a devastating 1-2, just thwarted by a defensive lunge. Folan whips down the left, squares a superb low ball, it eludes everyone. Folan picks up the ball, runs down the middle with pace and aggression, simply keeps on going, thrillingly so, before being felled by a grotesque body check by Foster on the edge of the box which the referee inexcusably ignores. Campbell heads a corner just wide at the back post after a spectacular flap by keeper Steele. Hughes runs through confidently, slips a tame shot just wide.

The wonder is that we fail to add a third goal. But, make no mistake, this was a superb spell. Almost never do I watch games on television other than those that are live. What's gone is gone, life is too short to worry about what we did last week or even yesterday. But I may treat myself to a viewing of that twenty minute spell at Oakwell. This was marvellous football.

On 76 Myhill is a shade untidy, they win a corner, but it comes to nothing. That, half an hour in, really is the first moment of alarm they have been able to cause us since half-time in the final third of the pitch. Barnsley, one of the form teams of the Division remember, have been brilliantly dismantled.

Fagan comes off, France goes on. We are playing time down with a confident and calm display of passing football. Even Ashbee's doing it now, even if his passing does look a bit like the Uncle at the wedding reception who's just about getting the dance steps right for the time being but who's likely to tip over the edge into mortifying embarrassment once he's had another glass of that deceptively strong punch. And Campbell, clearly relishing the occasion and glorying in his own superb ability, is just unstoppable. He can do what he wants. Would be nice to think that what he wants is to sign for us ...

City support jubilant, Barnsley support on its way home.

Folan is replaced by Windass. Campbell backheels the ball in the box. Windass strikes a low left foot shot. Steele, also in receipt of that extra glass of punch, lets the ball creep agonisingly under his body. That's 3-0 and that's Dean Windass leading the celebrations in front of the ferment of the City support. He loves, this, does Dean Windass. The glory, the rapture, the showmanship. The state of the League table just three matches from the end of this extraordinary season.

Campbell departs imperiously, Walton takes his place waltonly. The game is won. On 90 Barnsley manage a header over the bar (only their second incursion into our box of the entire second half) and then in the 3rd of the 3 added minutes they contrive to sneak scrappily down our left and provide a cross converted at close range by willowy Magyar Ferenczi. 3-1, which will doubtless irritate Myhill but didn't dampen the joy among the away support. Though one or two might have reflected that we have missed promotion before now having conceded just one needless goal too many.

Enough! We win! Again! Celebration on the pitch and off it. Wayne Brown limped across the pitch towards the tunnel. His fitness is a matter of concern given Saturday's imminent exertions. So too is the venue for that game, the pit of injustice that goes by the name of Bramall Lane. It should be ferocious. So be it. 3 wins send us up. Matching Stoke over those 3 games probably sends up even if we don't win 'em all.

Last night was great.

HULL CITY (4-4-2): Myhill; Ricketts, Turner, Brown, Dawson; Fagan, Ashbee, Marney, Hughes; Campbell, Folan.  Subs: France (for Fagan, 77), Windass (for Folan, 82), Walton (for Campbell, 88), Doyle, Duke.

Goals: Marney 24 (pen); Ashbee 52; Windass 83

Booked: None

Sent Off: None

BARNSLEY: Steele, Van Homoet, Nyatanga, Foster, Souza, Kozluk, Campbell-Ryce, Hassell, Leon, Macken, Odejayi.  Subs: Coulson (for Nyatanga, 46), Nardiello (for Odejayi, 65), Ferenczi (for Campbell-Ryce, 77), Togwell, Letheren.

Goals: Ferenczi 90

Booked: None

Sent Off: None

REFEREE:   S Attwell

ATTENDANCE: 13,061