Biography

Powerful centre back Justin Whittle joined Hull City for a £65,000 fee on 27 November 1998. It’s worth noting the date because there is a strong case that this day marked commencement of the Tigers’ remarkable Great Escape from what seemed an inevitable relegation out of the Football League. Others joined the cause during the next two months – Whitney, Perry, Brabin, Alcide – but Justin was the first major signing of Warren Joyce’s tenure as manager as the amiable Mancunian was promoted from within to clean up the considerable mess that had been left behind by Mark Hateley, a trophy girlfriend in football manager form.
Where Hateley had deployed silk, Joyce chose grit. Where Hateley had favoured skill, Joyce prized determination. Where Hateley settled for being laid back, Joyce focused on hard work and organisation. And those skills were all available in abundance to Joyce in the form of Justin Whittle.
The results were not instant. The Tigers won against Carlisle United as Justin made his debut but then four straight league defeats left City stranded six points adrift at the foot of the table. Whittle was still settling into the City first team at that stage and was not beyond the occasional error. However as Joyce’s clenched-fist approach filtered through the squad and more signings were made specifically to propagate that style further, so the results began to turn. Justin was a central defensive rock around which the Great Escape squad was built, and by May relegation had been avoided with a game or two to spare.
The following season Whittle captained the side that consolidated in mid-table, at a time when player investment, especially strikers, might have justified a higher finish. Warren Joyce was replaced as manager by Brian Little and Whittle continued to be the no-nonsense fulcrum around which the City defence gathered. In the 2000/01 season, amid tales of off-field shenanigans and unpaid player wages, the City squad rallied together around talismanic figures like big striker Kevin Francis and – of course – Justin Whittle to power into the play-offs, where they were narrowly defeated by Leyton Orient. With Adam Pearson having taken ownership of the club, the City squad received considerable investment for a fourth tier side but Whittle was still at the heart of the first team.
However the arrival of Peter Taylor in October 2002 in the manager’s hot seat changed things, Taylor regularly preferred the slightly more prosaic defending skills of Marc Joseph to Justin’s all-action but occasionally agricultural style. Whittle drifted out of the team during the 2003/04 season, despite giving some of his finest performances for Taylor when called upon due to injuries to others. When City enjoyed a first promotion in nineteen years at Yeovil Town in May 2004 Justin was no longer featuring in the side and he left the club that summer.
Justin Philip Whittle hailed from Derby and took a less than conventional route into the Football League. He joined the armed forces after his schooldays, serving in the Royal Army Pay Corps for the Rhine forces in Germany. It was while playing for an Army representative side that Whittle caught the attention of Glasgow Celtic scouts and Bhoys’ manager Lou Macari acquired his services in June 1994 (alongside Gary Holt, another ex-squaddie) after a short trial. Justin spent just four months at Celtic Park and made no senior appearances, in October 1994 he (and Holt) headed to England and signed for Macari’s new club, League Division 1 side Stoke City.
Whittle served the Potters’ Reserves side for a year before making his first team debut against Southend United in November 1995. He returned to the first team in April 1996 and started the last nine matches of the season, including both legs of the play-off semi-final against Leicester City that Stoke lost by the odd goal. After spending the opening weeks of the 1996/97 season back on the sidelines Justin returned to the first team in October 1996 and kept his place for the rest of the season as Stoke finished in mid-table. He was used less frequently during the 1997/98 season as the Potters dropped into League Division 2, and was used as a versatile support defender during the opening months of the 1998/99 season that featured his only goal for Stoke City, against Reading in October 1998. When he left Stoke to join the Tigers in November 1998 Justin had scored one goal in 90 senior appearances.
Having left the Tigers in June 2004, Whittle joined League Two side Grimsby Town in August 2004 and made his debut a couple of days later against Darlington. He gave the Mariners four years of excellent service, helping the club reach the 2005/06 League Two play-offs only to lose the final at the Millennium Stadium to Cheltenham Town after defeating Lincoln City in the two-legged semi-final. Justin’s service to the Mariners perhaps peaked most gloriously and controversially in October 2005 when Justin came up against England centre forward Alan Shearer in a League Cup tie against Newcastle United, weeks after Grimsby had dumped another Premier League side Tottenham Hotspur out of the same competition. After Shearer delivered an early and ill-conceived reducer in the form of an elbow to the face of his centre back opponent, Justin treated the England man to a defending masterclass of a most robust nature, bloodying his lip with a stray elbow that had Shearer bleating to the press about how unfair it all was and claiming Whittle was trying to make a name for himself. Classless behaviour from the wimpering Geordie, marvellous behaviour from the ex-Tigers hero.
Justin drew his Football League career to a close in the 2008 close season having scored three goals in 147 appearances for Grimsby Town. He dropped into the non-leagues, signing for Conference North side Harrogate Town in July 2008 and making 23 appearances before switching to Northern Premier League side North Ferriby United in March 2009. He stopped playing in the summer of 2011 and took up a role of assistant manager at North Ferriby, although he quickly became caretaker gaffer in August 2011 when the managerial services of another uncompromising ex-Tiger centre back John Anderson were dispensed with. Weeks later a new manager was appointed, the highly successful Billy Heath, and in September 2011 Whittle’s short spell amongst the club’s backroom staff ended.
Justin remained active on the football scene for many years after his playing and coaching days were over. He combined an ambassadorial role at Hull City with a second career as a full-time postman in the Brough and Ferriby area. He was also a regular voice in the local sports press and media.
Justin Whittle was a key part of a pivotal turning point in the club’s history. Relegation in 1999 may well have heralded the end of the club entirely. Justin was crucial in City avoiding that demise and he then contributed richly to the club’s later rebirth under Adam Pearson. Justin Whittle is a proper Hull City legend.
Details
Nationality: England
Date/Place of Birth: 18 March 1971, Derby
Hull City First Game: 28 November 1998, Carlisle United H (League Division 3), 27 years, 255 days old
Hull City Final Game: 14 February 2004, Carlisle United A (League Division 3), 32 years, 333 days old
Clubs
Glasgow Celtic (1994), Stoke City (1994-1998), Hull City (1998-2004), Grimsby Town (2004-2008), Harrogate Town (2008-2009), North Ferriby United (2009-2011)
Hull City Record
Career: 219 apps, 3 goals
Justin WhittleSeason | LGE App | LGE Gls | FAC App | FAC Gls | FLC App | FLC Gls | EUR App | EUR Gls | OTH App | OTH Gls |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1998/99 | 24 (0) | 1 | 2 (0) | 0 | – | – | – | – | – | – |
1999/00 | 38 (0) | 0 | 2 (2) | 0 | 4 (0) | 0 | – | – | 2 (0) | 0 |
2000/01 | 38 (0) | 0 | – | – | 2 (0) | 0 | – | – | 2 (0) | 0 |
2001/02 | 35 (1) | 0 | 2 (0) | 0 | 1 (0) | 0 | – | – | 2 (0) | 1 |
2002/03 | 34 (5) | 1 | 1 (0) | 0 | 1 (0) | 0 | – | – | – | – |
2003/04 | 15 (3) | 0 | 1 (0) | 0 | 1 (0) | 0 | – | – | 1 (0) | 0 |
One of my all time favourite players. Despite the fact almost the only thing I can remember is an unfortunate last ditch own goal and having a car like a red Sierra or astra on local news
The epitome of a leader. A proper gentleman too. We need more Justin Whittles 👍🏻