Hull hell-bent on confounding the doubters

SOCCER ANGLES: A victory at home over Stoke City this afternoon would go a long way towards securing Hull City's Premier League survival

HULL CITY posted an advertisement on the club's website this week: Scouts Wanted. This was not for a summer camp in Scarborough, but rather a search for those men who are fabled to wear sheepskin coats, trilbies and who talk in whispers about players who have not yet had a shave. Several areas of Yorkshire have been identified as being within Hull City's scope now. It is the sign of a club with a plan.

Given that Hull today face Stoke City in what George Boateng has described as "the biggest game in the club's history", and that failure to win it would leave Hull looking ever more like a team on its way back down to the Championship, planning of any sort is usually on hold.

So Hull deserve credit for their confidence in the future; in fact they deserve credit for this season. Although arguments in their favour could be undermined by a run of one win in 21 league games stretching back to early December, Hull remain one of the Premier League tales of the season.

By dint of a more attritional approach, Rory Delap's arms and the inspired January signing of James Beattie, Stoke sit five points above Hull, with whom they were promoted last May - and Stoke thereby possibly merit more praise. But for all the noise at the Britannia Stadium, Stoke have not had the dramatic impact on the division that Hull have.

Stoke have won 10 times and nine of them have been at home. Five of those wins were 1-0. Hull have won eight games but only three have been in front of their own fans. Hull have instead reserved their high-points for trips to Arsenal, Tottenham and Newcastle.

And what high-points. That diagonal bullet from Geovanni at Arsenal at the end of September was one of the most thrilling goals of the season, in every way a surprise.

Eleven minutes earlier Hull had fallen behind to a Paul McShane own goal for a start. Geovanni's intervention was quickly followed by Daniel Cousin's header and may well have fuelled the enmity revealed in Cesc Fabregas six months later in the FA Cup. Fabregas had been on the pitch for the whole 90 minutes in October.

A week later Hull returned to north London and won at White Hart Lane. Geovanni again. They were third in the Premier League and even as the New Year turned they had dropped only to eighth place.

Hull were producing sparks. There was talk of Europe. It was the sort of fairytale drama everyone, even Leeds United fans, could enjoy. Well, maybe not Leeds fans.

This is, after all, Hull's first season in the top flight after 104 years of trying. On this day last year, Hull were still getting to grips with the play-offs having spurted into third place with a run of six wins in their last nine games. Few saw them coming. Certainly not Arsenal.

The second leg of the play-off against Watford was the biggest game in Hull's history. Ten days later Hull were at Wembley for the latest biggest game in their history. Bristol City were beaten 1-0. Dean Windass. Hull born and bred got the vital fairytale winner.

But now Hull are part of a very different drama. This is the one that all had thought they would play a part in: relegation. It's just that most predicted Hull would be taking West Brom's bit-part role, having finished six points behind West Brom last season.

But due to their prosperous beginning to the season, Hull are principal players at its end. As West Brom, Middlesbrough, Newcastle and Sunderland look aghast, Hull hold the key to the trapdoor.

Assuming Sunderland lose today at Bolton, and that is not an outrageous assumption given Sunderland's last two performances, should Hull beat Stoke, then they would move above Sunderland. More significantly, with Newcastle and Middlesbrough staging a relegation derby at St James' Park on Monday night, a Hull win would move them six points clear of those two with two games left.

Hull would not be safe; then again they might be. That is why today is so important.

It was not meant to be this way, which is another reason why Hull have a claim to be team of the season. Last season survival in the Premier League was considered more telling than ever because the three promoted clubs were seen, from afar, as certain plucky failures. How wrong those survivors were.

A personal hunch is that Hull will win today and if they do then two established clubs will fall with yo-yo West Brom.

That is Stoke's achievement, that would be Hull City's achievement.

Hull manager Phil Brown is not everyone's cup of Fanta but he got it right yesterday when he said: "The emphasis has been on proving people wrong and that hasn't gone away, it probably never will until we are established as a Premier League outfit. We are still classed as little Hull City and that will take years to get rid of."

Little they may be, but Hull City have grown, and their plan shows they don't intend to stop.

Two tribes go to war

THE THEORY that hooliganism has not really gone away and is in fact making a comeback should be tested today in east London.

Millwall meeting Leeds United at any time is recipe for friction, but in an end-of-season play-off? There are 1,000 Leeds fans heading south for the match. Have they got travel insurance?

Drogba pays the penalty

WHAT GOES around, comes around. So they say. Whether you believe in this sort of thing or not, on Wednesday night at Stamford Bridge it felt appropriate as Didier Drogba imploded.

Drogba has gone around diving for quite some time, or at least falling over when brushed by even silken touches.

This has eroded not just our patience, but our admiration for him as one of the best strikers of his generation, a man who made a difference to Chelsea that can be measured in medals. Then there is the petulance, the look-at-me melodrama.

Drogba's finger-pointing end was not justified by the means against Barcelona. The TV told us Drogba's first-half fall in the penalty area was "a definite penalty". It was one of four allegedly. But it wasn't, and there weren't four. There was one, for definite.

But Drogba's blood boiled. You could see the disdain on his face when he was substituted by manager Guus Hiddink, even though Drogba had limped around for the previous several minutes. So he must have stewed on the bench then erupted when Andres Iniesta's glorious shot tore into the top corner of the net.

Thursday brought an apology, but not a full one. There was also speculation that Chelsea have finally got fed up with his histrionics. Welcome to the club.