The season opener sees City ride an early storm and take an unlikely lead at Stamford Bridge, but two Drogba strikes see Chelsea claim a win late on.  A promising start.

Report by Steve Weatherill.

Ah, frustrating. Encouraging. As good a way to the start the season as we could have hoped for, defeat notwithstanding. But frustrating.

Even though I fondly believe that in the main I care nothing for the drivel that is spewed forth across the limp pages of our country's foreign-owned media, I can't deny that in recent days I've felt rising indignation at the lazy discard imposed on our club by prattling journalists who pay nothing to watch their football, who sit in pampered luxury as they fondle their laminated press pass and who sneer at any club that isn't able to hurl eight figure sums at the purchase of second-rate full-backs bound for the subs' bench. 'Relegation', every pundit intones, 'that's nailed on for hit-the-buffers Hull City'. O, I know I foretold much the same only last week in my observations on the defeat against Aberdeen, but I support Hull City, I do the hard yards and the pricey ones too, and I am allowed to dress myself in doom. Journalists have earned no such entitlement, and I want them off our case.

And the way to expel these gloomy prophets is to get results, to pile up points, to explode inflated reputations. And we so nearly did it yesterday. Well, in a way, we did do it yesterday: we played with defiance, with superb organisation, with commitment and with no little skill. That's already more than some were expecting from us this campaign (and, with the sole exception of that excellent draw at Bolton back in May, it is more than we have served up in any fixture since the last time we came calling in West London), and I'd dearly love to believe Mr Brown has found the key to the fresh start we've been needing for months. But it would have been so much better had we pinched a point. So much deeper would our righteous defiance have been thrust back down the choking throats of our detractors.

Sunny day - the first game of the season is always blessed by warmth - and another silly waste of a minute remembering someone unconnected to either club who is dead, and off we go, with an, ahem, sturdy-looking 4-5-1:

Myhill
Mouyokolo Turner Gardner Dawson
Mendy Marney Olofinjana Boateng Hunt
Folan

Ah yes, we've not come to be expansive, have we? The 'keep it tight' motto is almost left looking exceedingly foolish inside the first minute as Drogba, unmarked deep inside our box, misses an inviting chance from a cross supplied by Essien, and then, just sixty seconds later, Lampard barges through all too easily to provide Drogba with another opportunity, which he flails wildly wide. Crikey. This is looking tricky. On 5 Obi Mikel laces a crossshot narrowly beyond Boaz's far post, and it's all looking as ominous as we might have feared.

But what's this? It's a shot. From Olofinjana. It's a toepoke and flies far too high and wide to trouble Cech, but c'mon, we're in the game. A bit. In fact we enjoy a decent spell. Hunt, roundly booed for his (innocent) role in the incident that has Cech nowadays imagining himself a waterpolo player, has quickly established himself as a lively and exciting presence down our left and he provides a cross which Marney heads over the bar. They win a corner, we win two. And then we score. Incredibly. We score.

A Dawson free kick, a good touch from Boateng, a hopeful shot, it's blocked, but the ball runs loose to Hunt in space on the left side of the penalty area and calmly, predatorily, he thumps the ball into the net.

Total Tiger Mayhem.

This is a great great moment, and the jubilant players whoop and holler as if at an American golf tournament directly beneath the seething travelling support.

Of course there was good fortune here in that the deflection fell so very kindly for Hunt. But we had deserved that fortune because we had got men up into the box able to exploit the moment. We are playing 4-5-1 and even when we're in possession there was limited readiness to commit men forward to support Folan. Keep the shape, that's the plan. But we are offering more than a defensive brick wall and Hunt's alertness has handed us a precious lead. Hunt was on occasion wasteful in possession yesterday but in general his vigour was inspiring, and he has already added more value to the team than poor Halmosi has managed in his twelve limp months at the club.

Chelsea equalise.

It looks a soft free-kick from where I'm standing, just two places away from the legendary Victor Markham, though it's hard to know from such a distance. But it's centrally positioned and very dangerous. Drogba's clever run up gives Boaz no clue which side of the goal he's targeting and by the time our keeper realises, the ball has flown past him into the sidenetting. Scores level.

One or two home fans even cheered. Stamford Bridge served up the pallid combination of consumerised football and tourist trap with which we have become wearily familiar on our visits to the 'big four'. Tat on sale, tat being eagerly bought in industrial quantities, accents from all parts of the world though Londoners a rarity, cameras flashing as if on a slack-jawed family day out at Alton Towers. The Tig support was confined to a corner of the Old Shed end, a smaller portion that we were granted last year and we gazed out on a sea of blue-shirted silence. The lack of self-awareness at this club, long stolen away from its true fanbase, truly shocks me. Was there any more pitiful sight last season than the banner hanging limply from the stand opposite the City support - 'JT, Captain, Leader, Legend'? Spontaneous fan-driven admiration? Not a bit of it, such indulgence has been stamped out at Corporate Chelsea. Instead it's a feeble marketing (wo)man's attempt to replicate how (s)he imagines the 'proper footie fan' would behave. Which is already profoundly to miss the point that football culture comes from below, it's not handed down by a hired PR firm. Still, I imagined that for the new season the offending banner would have been, if not discarded, then at least updated. Perhaps: 'JT, New Contract, New Salary, New Hypocrisy'. Or maybe keep it simple: 'JT, all that is stinkingly wrong with modern football'. But no! Who can say that stability is not occasionally on show in our game. It's still there. 'JT, Captain, Leader, Legend'. Utterly laughable. I wonder what it does for team spirit to have a captain who brazenly spends the summer holding the club's owner to ransom. I wonder how the new manager, Mr Ancelotti, feels when he arrives in London to discover his captain has a hot-line to Mr Avramovich whenever he feels the need for a cuddle. Yet another Chelsea manager is expertly undermined by these big-headed contemptible players, in this instance even before he's taken charge. Still, Chelsea's problem, not ours. We support our local team.

On 40 Boaz saves a low shot solidly, and then on 42 he does the same again, from Drogba after a break of lightening speed by Chelsea. Teams like this move the ball from deep in their own half into advanced goalscoring positions in a matter of seconds if they are allowed space to pass and give. Cautious is the only way to play. We'd get murdered otherwise.

Marney's not been murdered but he has been hurt, and he comes off on 44, replaced by Nicky Barmby. There are three added minutes, during which John Terry takes exception to a tackle by Mendy and places a personal call to Mr Avramovich, who duly instructs referee Wiley to issue a yellow card. Half-time.

Another infuriating feature of 'the Premiership experience' shows itself at five past four. The second half kicks off. And half the home support hasn't even bothered to retake its seats. In the corporate decks there's not a face to be seen. Still troughing. Sooner rather than later I expect the half-time break to be officially extended to half an hour, maybe more, for the benefit of the rich and famous who really don't like to be rushed. Even then plenty of them won't be lured back from their pangolin-stuffed vol au vents and bluefin tuna nibbles. Too many people come to the football nowadays who just aren't interested in football. And they're the ones the game's rulers pander to.

Obi Mikel is off, Ballack on. Chelsea's subs' bench isn't the worst. As in the first half, so in the second: the home side could and should score inside the opening minutes, as Drogba sets up Anelka, but his shot is weak and safely stopped by Myhill. On 52 another of the mildly terrifying crisp passing moves in which Chelsea specialise rips deep into our defence but Turner and Dawson combine superbly to save the team. Two corners result, both survived. On 57, an insane melee inside our box ... once more, survival. On 58, a superb close-range block by Myhill to thwart Drogba. On 59 a perfectly judged long ball sails onto Drogba's toe end, but the Ivorian miscontrols the ball, allowing to elude him as he tumbles to the turf. He lies prone having a tantrum of which a spiteful three-year old would be proud. Top-drawer football player. Deplorable human being.

We're hanging on anxiously here, desperately. But the shape of our team is sound and all the players are maintaining the organisation that gives us a chance of resisting the howling barrage of pressure. Olofinjana's readiness to drop deep and thump away defensive headers is noticeably helpful. And I realise I haven't yet mentioned Gardner. Well, he was very good. Composed, sensible. Zayatte will be a fine player but he could learn a lot from Gardner's utter imperviousness to panic under pressure. Mouyokolo's calm effort in the problem right-back position was encouraging too, and though it'd be hard to suggest Folan did much to trouble Terry or Carvalho, he did at least maintain a high-tempo workrate, aiming to limit the time Chelsea had to build from the back, which is as much as you can expect of the lone man up front in a 4-5-1.

On 69, Hunt off, Ghilas on. Algerian. Lively. Promising. Malouda off, Deco on. Brazilian. Pouting. Preening. Pillock.

On 75 Boswinga's shot tests Myhill but Boaz saves low to his left, at the near post. Mendy comes off, Geo comes on, and Ghilas switches to the right side. 78, Ballack's shot is deflected over the bar, but a corner is wrongly refused, some compensation for Drogba's incessant attempts to con the ref all over the field. Despicable yet so predictable. On 79, a Deco break, a cross, but sub Kalou heads wastefully over the bar.

We're stretched, we're hanging on.

90 minutes up. Up goes the board. Plus 6! You're kidding? 4 at most. But the home side needs only two.

Deco slides the ball down the inside left channel, Drogba hares after it, he has space but his angle is tight, unpromising. He curls his boot round the ball, lifts it up and over Boaz and it sinks gently just inside the far post. And the game is won.

This was extravagantly brilliant by Drogba. It was perfectly obvious that he intended to cross the ball rather than attempt to score, as he openly admitted afterwards, but given that he was running at speed and was faced with an extremely awkward angle it was very hard for him to do anything with the ball other than slice it behind for a goal kick. Drogba was a shade lucky to see the ball enter the net but to make anything at all of such an awkward position was a remarkable feat in itself.

A chip onto the roof of Cech's net by Ghilas is all we can muster in deflated response and all three points stay at home. And Chelsea deserved to win, of course, and we didn't deserve a point, of course. Let's be clear about that. We performed splendidly yesterday, showing immense resilience and determination. But it's a step from praising our obstinacy to claiming we were unlucky to lose a game in which we spent large parts hanging on grimly, unable to retain any serious possession. And it's a step I won't take.

Last season we stayed up by taking more points from the top ten clubs in the table than from the rest of the bottom ten, a bizarre - perhaps even unique? - pattern of results, but I doubt that's going to be replicated this season. We need to be more sober, picking up points methodically against the weaker sides. In pursuit of that objective the way we played yesterday is of no value, no relevance. We cannot be so unadventurous against Blackburn, Bolton, Wolves, and so on, and there are real questions whether we have the craft and wit to gather enough goals in the dour games to come. But that's a thought for another day. Yesterday was Chelsea away and we performed with great credit. They'll steamroller better sides than us this season but we got the formation right and the attitude right and we unnerved them. No reward, though.

Frustrating. Encouraging.

HULL CITY (4-5-1): Myhill; Mouyokolo, Turner, Gardner, Dawson; Mendy, Marney, Olofinjana, Boateng, Hunt; Folan.  Subs: Barmby (for Marney, 44), Ghilas (for Hunt, 68), Geovanni (for Mendy, 78), Zayatte, Halmosi, Cousin, Duke.

Goals: Hunt 28

Booked: Barmby, Mendy

Sent Off: None

CHELSEA: Cech, Bosingwa, Carvalho, Terry, A Cole, Mikel, Essien, Malouda, Lampard, Anelka, Drogba.  Subs: Ballack (for Mikel, 46), Deco (for Malouda, 69), Kalou (for Anelka, 79), Ivanovic, Sturridge, Hutchinson, Turnbull.

Goals: Drogba 37, 90

Booked: Drogba

Sent Off: None

REFEREE:    A Wiley

ATTENDANCE: 41,597