Cardiff City head to Hull today on their worst run and in their worst form of the season to face a side which has done the double over them in each of the past two seasons. Hull were in their own poor run (two straight defeats) until they came from behind to win at Middlesbrough on Wednesday to maintain a position close to the top six somewhat similar to ours, but I get the feeling that Hull’s Play Off hopes are more realistic than ours.
Will our poor results and poorer displays convince Erol Bulut that changes, both in personnel and formation, are needed tomorrow? I doubt it and one position where I hope he sticks with what he picked on Wednesday is at right back after Perry Ng was substituted just a quarter of n hour into the game. Ng has, arguably, been our Player of the season so far, but my concern is more to do with Bulut’s post match comment that the ex Crewe man was not able to see properly when he came off – presumably, the situation will be clarified at our manager’s pre match press conference today.
Hull’s home record isn’t that good, so you’d like to think that we could get ourselves a point to stop the rot, but it would have to be in a 0-0 or 1-1 because the evidence of the last few games when we’ve been up against eleven men is that we don’t have the firepower or creativity to score twice or more.
Anyway, here’s seven Hull related questions dating back to he sixties for you.
60s. Old enough to be called an inside forward, Hull was this Cheshire born player’s second club. His biggest moment at his first club came when he scored twice after deputising for a club legend to set up a bigger game for the team in which the legend took his place and got the goals that won the game and a trophy. A year later, our man signed for Hull, but, despite a goal against the City, he was unable to get a regular place in the starting line up in his two years at Boothferry Park. His next move took him west to what is very much the third club in the city in question and, over the next three years, his goals came at a healthy rate as he played more than a hundred league matches while finding the net nearly forty times. After that, he became a non league Latic for a while, but who am I describing?
70s. Who was the Hull player who was sent off in a game against City during this decade after a frank exchange of views with Don Murray which also saw him being given an early bath?
80s. His first three clubs were Retford Town, Bridlington Trinity and Mexborough Town and his last three South China, Voicelink and Frickley Athletic. In between times, he played for seventeen other clubs (eleven of them in the Football League), but there’s no doubting that it was at Hull that he made the biggest impact. Retirement has seen him, among other things, training Greyhounds, running various South Yorkshire pubs and receiving a suspended sentence for benefit fraud. Who am I describing?
90s. Striker ordered to guard Lyn. (4,4,)
00s. Weather beaten decline of a survivor from the Hull stubs match by the sound of it?
10s. He started his career with the Boss of the Peasants and then turned out for the Master of the Petroleum clubs before arriving in the country where he played most of his football – he won ninety two caps for his country and played most games for Hull City. Currently, he’s working in the commercial department of his last club before retiring, but can you name him?
20s. Owner of vibrant garment passes it to family member and laments perhaps?
Answers:
60s.Ralph Gubbins became a Bolton Wanderers hero in 1958 when he deputized for Nat Lofthouse in an FA Cup Semi Final and scored the two goals which sent his team to a Wembley Final against Manchester United. The fit again Lofthouse replaced Gubbins for this game and got the goals to secure a 2-0 win and Gubbins moved on to Hull a year later – among his ten league goals for the Tigers was one in a 3-2 defeat at Ninian Park as City closed in on their promotion in 59/60. Gubbins scored most goals for Tranmere though during a stay which ended in 1964 with a season at Wigan Athletic.
70s.Jimmy McGill (Hull’s club record buy at the time) was sent off with Don Murray in the thirty fourth minute of a game at Ninian Park in September 1973. Ken Wagstaffe’s goal had Hull 1-0 up at the time, but Gary Bell soon equalized with his headed penalty, only for two Malcolm Lord goals in the second half to secure a 3-1 win for the visitors.
80s.Notorious football hard man Billy Whitehurst scored forty seven goals in his one hundred and ninety league appearances for Hull, next best after that for goals for him was Reading with eight and for appearances, it was Oxford United with forty.
90s. Gary Lund.
00s. Wayne Brown played in the Hull stubs match on 12/3/08 – keeping the stub for your ticket for this game was a way of ensuring City fans could get a ticket for the forthcoming FA Cup Semi Final with Barnsley.
10s. Ahmed Elmohamady won ninety two caps for Egypt. His first two clubs Ghazi El Mahalla and ENPPI were from that country and it was from the latter that he was sold to Sunderland in 2010. Elmohamady was initially on loan with Hull for their 2012/13 promotion season and then signed permanently for them a few months later before signing for Aston Villa, his final club, in 2017.
20s. Jacob Greaves.