More About Hull City
I never really cared for the commentary of Barry Davies preferring the more factual style of The Motson but Davies has one riposte that comes to mind in City’s current situation.
When asked who he thought would win a match Davies would give the same cheery reply of “If I knew that I would not be here.”
Davies believed that the beauty in the game was the inherent unpredictably. The fact that anyone could win a game was - for Davies - the game.
He would have a shock at Valley Parade where the Bantams chances have been declared done.
All over Bradford the defeat to Darlington has seen City’s hopes for the year consigned to history as if the season had already been played out and this were just a rerun. As if from these past six games a season could be extrapolated.
Perhaps such a bit of sooth-saying is possible but my quarter of a century plus watching City has told me otherwise. I’ve seen City roar to the top of Leagues which they later finished 17th in - 2001 under Jim Jefferies springs to mind - and I’ve seen City get two points from the first seven games in 1998/1999 and we all know how that ended up don’t we?
The Bantams have played a dozen games which at the moment seem to be split between the good half dozen and the bad ones - although at BfB we call them the pre and post-Paul Arnison eras - and it seems to have crystallised in many supporters conciousness that the poorer games are some how more of a representation of the players true abilities than those good ones were.
All of which requires you to believe in the idea that teams and players are either “good” or “bad” as if they could be given numerical ratings and quantified. Teams either play well or they do not. There is nothing else. The City team that celebrated at Wolves in May 1999 were no better footballers than the one that kicked off the season at home to Stockport County they just played better and by that one could qualify with the words got better results.
Today phrases like “dire” are being thrown at City - nothing is ever as bad or as good as reactionary opinion says - but after the round of League Two matches on the evening the Bantams sit in a play-off place in seventh four points off the lead and two off an automatic promotion slot while some supporters are saying that the Bantams are doomed to another season in this bottom division. One doubts that Gillingham and Darlington fans - whom have both got results from City in the last four days - are considering all to be lost and they fill the two positions below us.
Like the team of 1998/1999 Stuart McCall’s team need to build the confidence to minimise defeats and the mental strength to move on to the next three points which are no less available the next time the team takes they field as a second head is on a coin that has just flipped a first.
It is somewhat upsetting though that those players have to build that confidence without the assistance of supporters who are so used to negativity that they look at a play-off place as being an indication that the team will not be promoted. Perhaps it is a self-fulfilling prophecy? Certainly no one could accuse you of looking at the situation with rose tinted glasses if you suggested that a team that is in the play-offs might get promoted.
Why predict at all? Barry Davies would not have because the game is at its heart unpredictable - yes Hull City we mean you - and to be honest saying that a club will not get promoted is a little like betting that any given horse will not win the Grand National. It sounds smarter than it is.
Where did this negativity come from? Why has it taken a grip at Valley Parade and all over football? Moreover though why is it that when given to predictions supporters indulge in this negativity?
Why not look at these six games as the blip and the six before as common form?
I’ll admit it. I never saw it in Nathan Doyle.
Yeah, yeah, yeah I know what you are all thinking. Here comes Harris trying to be all controversial again but as honestly as we all realised it wasn’t in Bruno Rodriguez or Ashley Ward and just did not see what Doyle had that made him player of the season.
He was a right back and a decent enough one but he looked raw around the edges and it seemed that his greatest attribute was not being Darren Holloway and when he left around the same time as Dean Windass the Bantams had a massive down turn but it was more to do with losing Deano than Doyle and I think the way their Hull City careers have gone have proven that.
Doyle was very good but player-of-the-season reason-we-got-relegated? Not so much.
But Doyle did have some talent. He could use a ball for sure but he could use his body too and he had some positional sense although that needed a bit of experience. He had a cool head under pressure and he passed the ball using his brain as much as his feet. None of these skills were as polished as they should have been but he was learning and in his months at Valley Parade he showed visible improvement.
The longer he was in the side for City the more assured he looked as well and the more he looked like he was wasted at right back. Most good right backs look like they are wasted in that position on the fringes of the action.
Hull City’s reserves are the fringes of the action for sure. They are nowhere for a player who had looked like he was going somewhere. City’s moves in the Premiership transfer market don’t suggest that a place will be opening up for Doyle soon. The guy needs to get back to first team football.
And City have a place for him but not at right back where Paul Arnison has been signed but back in the number four shirt and in the number four role. Doyle has the attributes needed to be Stuart McCall’s Stuart McCall.
He can win a ball and uses it smartly. He gets struck in but is not dirty. His instinct is to attack when defending is done and not leave his back door unlocked just like Stuart did. He has all the attributes needed to take games in League Two by the scruff of the neck and be the main man in a City team that aims for promotion. Throw in the fact that he is a popular player and he could be a summer headline signing for City.
And then he might do something that makes you see why he is player of the season.
William Hill are offering Bradford City at 10/1 to win League Two next season. After Darlington, perpetual four tier club Rochdale and relegated Gillingham we are the shortest odds in the division as the bookmakers take a look at the Bantams and see potential.
Stuart McCall is - we believe - abut to make Chris Brandon a Bantam at last as he rounds on ten players to increase the quality of the squad at Valley Parade. Brandon might be followed by Luke Beckett of Huddersfield Town, by Alan Marriott of Lincoln City and by Darren Moore of Derby County or all these players may never set foot in BD8 but it would seem that City are making a noise.
Mark Lawn is optimistic that the Bantams will make the 9,000 adult season ticket marker he has set down and should ticket sales be akin to last season then the Bantams would be the 20th best supported club in the Football League.
A further look at those figures tells you that only Leeds United and Nottingham Forest have bigger attendance in the bottom two divisions and that City’s average bums on seats is bigger than at least one club in the Scots, German, French and Italian top divisions.
Add to that the rumoured £250,000 coming City’s way following Dean Windass’s guiding Hull City to the Premiership then it is not hard to see why the bookies are starting to take notice. Lawn, Julian Rhodes and McCall must ensure that the momentum is built on in the coming weeks and month.
Perhaps though we should not pay much attention to bookmakers. Hull City are 5,000/1 to win the Premiership, Stoke 2,000/1. Bono of U2 is 1,000/1 to be the next Pope. These 1,000/1 Papal odds are the same price should one want to bet on Father Dougal Maguire of Father Ted to become the Holy Father.