Club Profile:Hull City

Hull City
Overview
Hull City will play their first season of top-flight English football in 2008/09, thanks to a previous campaign that exceeded many people's expectations.

Hull resided in the upper echelons of the Championship for most of the season and eventually sealed a third place finish.

They secured promotion by beating Bristol City in the Play-off Final at Wembley Stadium on 24th May 2008, Hull native Dean Windass' stunning 38th minute volley the only goal of the match. It is a superb achievement when one considers that the Tigers were only promoted to the Championship in 2005.

The Kingston Communications Stadium is now preparing to host Barclays Premier League football. The club moved there in 2002, having left Boothferry Park where they had played since 1946.

Heritage
Hull City Association Football Club was founded in 1904 after several attempts to establish a football club over the years. These were undermined by the dominance of rugby in the city. The club initially played friendly matches at The Boulevard (the home of the Hull Rugby League club), Anlaby Road Cricket Ground and Dairycoates. They were elected to the Second Division of the Football League a year later.

City moved to a new home in Anlaby Road where they stayed until 1941, before wartime matches saw a brief return to The Boulevard.
The 1909/10 season was the nearest Hull came to a place in the top flight when they finished third, missing out on an automatic promotion place to Oldham Athletic as a result of an inferior goal average.

Before the First World War, Hull reached the FA Cup quarter-finals, and they went one better than that in the 1929/30 season when reaching the semis. They lost 1-0 to Arsenal in a replay following an initial 2-2 draw. However, this fine run meant their concentration was deflected away from the league and they were relegated to the Third Division (North).

They were promoted in the 1932/33 season, with Bill McNaughton scoring a record 41 goals. Indeed, the club has spent most of its history in the 'old' Second Division and 'old' Third Division.
Hull, who have never won a major trophy, were the first club in the world to go out of a cup competition on penalties, when doing so against Manchester United in the semi-final of the Watney Mann Invitation Cup on 1st August 1970.

In the 1970/71 season, Hull pushed for promotion to the First Division, but eventually finished in fifth place, their best position in post-war seasons. However, relegation in the 1977/78 campaign ended 12 consecutive seasons in the Second Division.

Things would go from bad to worse in February 1982 when, with the club now in Division Four, they went into receivership. The financial situation was eventually solved, and Don Robinson became chairman of the club. Under manager Colin Appleton, Hull secured promotion with 90 points.

1985 saw the club promoted into the Second Division under Brian Horton and they would stay there until 1991 when they were again relegated.

The club could not stay out of financial difficulties and were hindered by a series of High Court winding up orders in the 1993/94 season. Key players Windass and Alan Fettis were sold to Aberdeen and Nottingham Forest respectively to ease the burden.

The end of the 1995/96 season saw Hull relegated to Division Four. They remained in the bottom league and went on to finish 22nd in the 1997/98 season, their worst-ever position, just two places away from non-league football. The following season, the Tigers only guaranteed their status in the Football League in the penultimate match of the campaign, a remarkable escape from relegation as they had found themselves well adrift in December.

In the summer of 2002, former owner David Lloyd, who had previously acquired the Hull Rugby League club and run the two in a joint operation, called in the bailiffs due to a wrangle over rent and monies allegedly outstanding from the rugby association. Hull were locked out of Boothferry Park, before being allowed back ahead of the 2000/01 season.

The club's financial plight continued and the club was placed into administration in February 2001 after Lloyd again called in the bailiffs. A creditors meeting was held in March that year where it was decided to accept one of the five firm offers that had been made for the club. The shareholders approved the deal and a few days later the identity of the new owner was revealed to be Adam Pearson, former commercial director of Leeds United.

In the new surroundings of the KC Stadium, manager Peter Taylor, who had been appointed in late 2002, secured back-to-back promotions in the 2003/04 and 2004/05 seasons, and they found themselves in the Championship.

Their ascent from the bottom division of the football league to the top in just five seasons is the third fastest ever.