A second excellent performance in four days sees City claim a point with a late equaliser courtesy of a Bullard spot kick - a goal that allowed the Tigers to exorcise some ghosts from the previous visit to Eastlands with a hilarious "ticking off" sit-down goal celebration.

Report by Steve Weatherill.

Just occasionally football serves up an incident so warming, so glorious that it just forces you to scream with glee, hug friends and strangers with uncontrollable abandon, chatter all the way home with a big grin on your face, go to bed with a smile and wake up with a bigger one.

Bigger smile, that is.

So, unforgettably, was yesterday's entertainment.

After 82 minutes of an absorbing game in the giant Eastlands bowl we are attacking the end housing the boisterous City support, the end made notorious by tedious media dissection of Phil Brown's half-time teamtalk last season. Today we are 1-0 down. Deservedly, no. This City side has played with passion, positive spirit and plenty of quality, but the clock's ticking down towards a brave defeat. Whereupon a ball is played into the box towards astute Dutchman Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink (man or lyric). He nods a sly ball back across the face of goal, inviting a panicking defender to stick a stray hand on it. Lescott obliges, though I can't deny I thought his upper arm was involved, not his hand. But splendidly eagle-eyed referee Probert sees it as a handball.

And that, in the immortal words of BA Robertson, 's a penalty. And Jimmy Bullard will take it.

Breath held, twinkle toed run up, firm rising shot. Shay Given gets a finger to it but that won't keep the ball out, and the net's rippling, the game level at 1-1.

Blitzed euphoria caused by another high in our Premier League story sweeps the travelling support, and Bullard and the rest of our doughty team race over to celebrate in front of the fans. In fact, they gather on the very spot where Phil Brown ranted in full view of the watching world. But what's this? All bar Bullard drop to the turf, forming a circle around our goalscorer. Who wags his finger at the group in mock admonishment, brilliantly mimicking that moment of invented outrage eleven months earlier. Hilarity, all collapse in joy, the City support, already delirious at the equaliser, turns hysterical.

Closure! No more lazy journalists drooling on about lost dressing rooms and disrespect for the players. That's gone, that's past. The weary jape was put to sleep yesterday at Eastlands by an inspired moment of sunny tomfoolery.

And watching Hull City is officially fun again.

Duke
McShane Zayatte Gardner Dawson
Garcia Marney Bullard Hunt
Geovanni Altidore

So, just the single change from Wednesday night's triumphant exploits, as Bullard replaces Boateng. A positive move. Geo, pushed up front, was given a generous ovation by the home support as the names were read out. Soft gets.

Man City had quite a lot of good players in their team, including Carlos Tevez who was sporting a ludicrous broad white bandana and looked as if he had just emerged blinking from the forests of Burma wanting to know if Japan had won the Second World War, but no matter, it's a bright and positive beginning from our newly bright and positive Tigers.

On 8 Robinho attempts an utterly comical dive in the box, which is so spectacularly inept that we laugh with derision before converting the mood to one of outrage as it becomes apparent that referee Probert is not reaching for his card. But it's a pleasing early indication that the scything football that tore us to ribbons here last season might not be on show today. In fact, all the evidence presented to us yesterday suggests that Mark Hughes's attempts to piece together a team out of a batch of talented individuals has not only stalled, but in fact gone backwards. Adebayor, most of all, mooched around thinking about the size of his pay packet once it became clear that this set of opponents wasn't about to fold tamely, but though he was the most culpable of the home side's feckless millionaires, he was by no means the only one.

On 12 a poor decision hands Man City a free-kick close to the edge of our box, but Tevez lumps it into the wall. Andy Dawson raises a quizzical eyebrow. 'How much do you get paid a week to produce that sort of incompetence? Banzai!'

On 16 a decent ball into our box by Micah Richards, one of their better players, reaches Stephen Ireland, whose clever flick flies just over the bar. Then on 19 Garcia tackles Robinho, wins the ball and strides upfield purposefully, with a disconsolate Robinho very much not in his wake. It's a sentence worth re-reading, and re-reading again. Honesty, making the best of your ability, getting on with the job unfussily. That's what we have to do if we're going to take points from games like this. Right now our players really seem to grasp this.

Robinho, meanwhile, will doubtless be switching on his telly tonight to watch Barcelona v Real Madrid while asking his agent to sprinkle the newspapers with a few more stories about how much he loves Manchester, but well, if Spain came calling, how could he resist? We should doubtless apologise to this fine gentlemen for doing nasty things like tackle him. After all, what's Hull City to a preening posing billionaire like Robinho? Sorry to trouble you, sir.

On 21 Adebayor has a glimpse of space and sets up Tevez, but Duke blocks with his legs. I was surprised to see Duke selected again ahead of Myhill, but Duke played as well as I've seen him play yesterday.

On 30 the home side unleashes a wonderful flowing move, the only one they managed all match, whisking the play from side to side with lightening quick first-touch passing, culminating in a shooting opportunity for Wright-Phillips cutting into the box on the right. His shot is low and powerful but crashes harmlessly into the side-netting. Duke, I fancy, had it covered anyway. That flash of footballing excellence is not followed up by a leaderless home side, and the next chance is ours, as a good move finishes with a header wide by rampaging and newly self-confident right back Paul McShane. On 40, Garcia and Geo combine, good shot, safe save.

It's been a hugely encouraging first-half and as the board is held aloft to indicate an extra 2 minutes there's every reason to feel confident. Whereupon Man City score. Wright-Phillips shoots hopefully from distance, Duke has it comfortably covered, but a deflection by a diving defender diverts the ball wretchedly into the corner of the net.

That is officially unlucky. I thought the deflector was Andy Dawson. Others though Antony Gardner. I doubt this can be cleared up by reference to video, since the two players are more-or-less two peas in a pod.

Half time, 1 down. Not fair.

Eastlands is, in general, a very good stadium. It's immensely impressive as one approaches it across sparse wasteland and industrial pre-history. It's grandly theatrical inside, and splendidly stewarded, and I do like a ground where you walk down from the concourse to find your seat, not up. Athletic Bilbao is best of all for this, it really adds to the sense of descending into the bearpit. But what are the ludicrous faux exhortations and commands scattered about the upper tier? 'We're not really here'? - sorry, what? And 'Stephen Ireland Superman' is not quite as cringingly self-regarding as Chelsea's plastic tributes to the loathsome John Terry, but it gets mentioned in the same breath and if Man City have any wish to retain a link with the truth and beauty of footballing tradition then that is not a cash-laded sneering breath they should ever wish to inhabit.

Far be it from me to tell others how to live their life, of course. It's not my money.

It's not Mancunian money either.

Out for the second half, and we need a fast start to erase the bitter memory of the home side's fortunate end to the first one. And we get it. A gloriously fluent move involving Bullard, Hunt and Altidore transfers the ball across the pitch to Garcia, who is in the 'Dalglish scoring the winner against Bruges in the 1978 European Cup Final' position. And Garcia does a Dalglish, deftly lifting the ball over the advancing Shay Given despite the difficult angle. That ball's rolling goalwards but it doesn't quite have the necessary pace, and Lescott (I think, could've been Glyn Pardoe) races back to clobber it to safety.

A few rows in front of me a man spent most of the game waving a crutch at the home fans. It looked wildly menacing and, impressively, he didn't seem to fall over once. I love stuff like this.

On 53 a decent dribbling move brings Man City inside our box and, from a long distance away, they seemed to have a decent shout for a penalty as one of theirs (Francis Lee?) is bundled clumsily to the floor. Not given (but Lee's reputation goes before him, after all). For a while the home side bests the possession, but the game is open and we are right in it.

Our manager chooses to freshen things up, and exchanges Geo and the improved Marney for Barmby and Boateng, which allows Garcia and Bullard to play a little further forward. By now both defences are looking pretty solidly organised and there are fewer sights of goal than during the first half. Jozy, our only slightly disappointing player yesterday - perhaps starting three games in seven days is still stretching his match-fitness, came off for the slower but more positionally aware JVoH, and we settle down to give it a right go over the last 20 minutes.

Some of the crisp passing is excellent, the spirit is top-class. The very notion that anyone in our squad could be mentioned in the same breath as Jimmy Bullard seems quixotic in the extreme, but yesterday Steven Hunt justifies the stretch. His touch was immaculate, his passing error-free, his movement off the ball urgent and clever. This was a wonderful effort by the Irishman. But there were terrific displays all over the pitch. I haven't even mentioned Zayatte: he was superb. Whatever has happened since Adam Pearson returned to the club - and it's hard for us as fans to know who should be getting the tiger's share of the credit for the evident improvements - the bare fact of the change in mood is astonishing. End October, doomed. End November, most definitely nowhere near the poorest 3 teams in this Division on current form.

And then arrives the penalty. The equaliser. The celebration that was heard around the world.

The minutes that remain witness a wonderful display of urgent pressing football from our team, committed to retain the hard-won point. A free-kick on 86 offers the home side their only serious opportunity of a winner, but Bellamy crashes an unsubtle shot into our wall and the danger is swiftly suppressed. Once again Andy Dawson shakes his head and suggests to the errant Welshman that he might want to find the newly-produced video 'Take free-kicks the Andy Dawson way' in his Christmas stocking.

There are 4 added minutes but we have the ball for more of them than do Man City. We'll take our point, and we'll have deserved it. 'This is the best trip we've ever been on' - sung with a gusto missing for a year and more. Long may this continue. It's suddenly just great being a City fan again.

HULL CITY (4-4-2): Duke; McShane, Zayatte, Gardner, Dawson; Garcia, Marney, Bullard, Hunt; Altidore, Geovanni.  Subs: Boateng (for Geovanni, 62), Barmby (for Marney, 62), Vennegoor of Hesselink (for Altidore, 73), Kilbane, Mouyokolo, Ghilas, Myhill.

Goals: Bullard (pen) 82

Booked: Dawson, McShane, Zayatte

Sent Off: None

MANCHESTER CITY: Given, Toure, Bridge, Richards, Lescott, Wright-Phillips, de Jong, Ireland, Robinho, Adebayor, Tevez.  Subs: Santa Cruz (for Adebayor, 68), Bellamy (for Robinho, 76), Kompany, Onuoha, Taylor, Johnson, Weiss. 

Goals: Wright-Phillips 45

Booked: de Jong

Sent Off: None

REFEREE:    L Probert

ATTENDANCE: 46,382