Hull City….why on earth do you support them?

Perhaps my favourite question to be asked, often asked by Manchester United and Liverpool supporters who only support them ‘because their dad does’ …well my dad supported Ipswich as a kid and I was having none of that! I will be the first to admit that I have been privileged that Hull’s return to any kind of relevancy (the rise AND fall) occurred exactly between the ages of 5 and 21 for me so it's very much in my core memory. 

As a 3yr old, couped up in Hull Royal Infirmary (don't worry, I'm still alive), I got to watch the KC Stadium get built. The first football match I ever remember going to was Hull's 6-1 thrashing of Tranmere Rovers in 2004 in League 1, I was about 5. I was 9yrs old when Hull magnificently got promoted to the Premier League for the very first time courtesy of the greatest goal ever to be scored at Wembley (Unless your name is Chloe Kelly, I implore you to fight me on that) by local legend Dean Windass. Id say you couldn't write it, but here I am writing it. I was too young to understand the gargantuan cultural significance of a desperate northern fishing port, that'd been battered to bits over the previous century, and all whilst having absolutely nothing to blast about footballing wise (or indeed anything to shout about since that time a man called William Wilberforce ended the trans-Atlantic slave trade...). It was one of the first times the rest of the country took notice of us. I was too young to understand that but old enough to understand the absurdity of getting Dean Windass and John Terry (100 club btw) in the same pack of Match Attax football cards in the summer of 2008. This meant that on various European holidays, there'd inevitably be shouts of “Hull City Hull City!” Or “Geeooovanni” from excited Spanish market traders when my little brother would wear his full Hull strip out and about all day everyday. 

I guess that as I was growing up the (professional) football barren region of East Yorkshire, it didn't occur to me that it wasn't completely normal for most of your peers to support the same local football team. It wasn't until I graduated university and moved 'darn sarth' that I truly understood the importance of what it means to support your local (or 'lerrcul' if you're from Hull) team. 

The title of this piece comes from a conversation I had in a Madrid hostel in 2023 where at a fairly lively hostel pre-drinks I overhear some English lads talk about which match they're going to watch in Madrid (I was actually going to watch Griezman edge Athletico past Mallorca a day or two after this conversation) I ask them which team they support, both men with London accents state "Manchester United"  and the question is reciprocated to me, "ull city" I mutter back. "Hull? Why on earth do you support them?", as if Hull City is a shameful medieval disease I've caught through nefarious circumstances. It's honestly not occurred to me as a now 26 year old man that most people don't support their local team and instead follow whichever team their dad supposedly supported, or, they clutch onto the glory of whichever team dominated the era in which they were 10-15 years old. For my generation that's the Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney era Manchester United. Not the Jim Radcliffe era they're currently in...and to think i was once proud to say that the UKs richest man went to my school...

Supporting your local isn't glamorous, it leads you to spend evenings fighting the bitter winter breeze in places like Swansea and Luton. Spending evenings frantically googling the faceless Turkish central midfielder your team's been rumoured to be in advanced talks with. It leads you to to seeing your clubs owner taking a selfie with Ronaldinho on the set of his TV show and thinking....what if? Surely if he can tear up La Liga and the rest, he can rip apart Coventry City on a blustery Saturday afternoon in HU3.

Whilst I'm aware that hardship and poverty shouldn't be glamourised (especially when you're from neighbouring and slightly more leafy market towns), there is something that has to be said about a place that lives and dies by it's football team. When the team does well, the city is brighter, more colourful, and the daily everyman moans are turned into "Here, you see what city did last week?". When the team does poorly, the city feels it deeply. 

And because of all that I am proud to announce to anyone I meet that I'm from Hull (well, near Hull, it's like 15 mins away, shut up...) and support Hull City AFC. Whether it's because it reminds people of Phil Brown's halftime team talk on the pitch at Man City. Whether it's because I live in Bristol and all Bristol Rovers fans adore us for stopping Bristol City making it for the Premier League. Whether it's because my 1992/1993 tiger print home strip makes many stare in bemusement. Whether it's because I'm the first Hull fan they've ever met. Whether it's because I can laud about the exploits of Ahmed Elmohamady to my Egyptian barber. 

Whilst I might have been brought up in the church, the only religious passage that's stuck with me is that of Pope John Paul II who said "Of all the none important things, football is by far the most important". The acrobatics of Stuart Elliot, the world-beating skills of Jaden Philogene and his nomination for a Puskas award (*taps microphone* did you hear me? A fucking Puskas nomination in HULL!), and the clownery of Jimmy Bullard might not write their name in the history books, but they're memories that carry us through our working weeks, keep us looking forward to Saturday, and give us something to debate in the pub when it seems like the world is falling to pieces around us, and it very much is.

*SIDEBAR*

I started writing this just as the 2024/25 season was ending and Hull just about survived relegation. I promptly stopped writing it and refused to release upon our owner sacking said manager to who guided us to safety, attempted to appoint a criminally convicted racist (then said that racism doesn't exist in his home country, where said racist manager is from). That was topped off with a transfer embargo which made me want to scream into the void. Whilst I maintained my fandom obviously, otherwise what are we doing here. Quite honestly, I enjoyed the drama of it all (if you don't laugh you'll cry and all that), I was only slightly less proud to support the team than I am now, at the end of the summer where our owner has seemingly genuinely learned his lessons by giving us the most solid, sensible, and genuinely exciting transfer window of recent memory without really spending any money. Whilst Ronaldinho isn't living it up on Princes Avenue, the signing of signature Sheffield shithouse Oli McBurnie has given me cause for excitement...

I know that we will consider a top half finish this year a quality result, but when's that ever stopped us dreaming. SILVERWARE WE DON'T CARE, WE FOLLOW HULL CITY EVERYWHERE!

- Rob x

Everywhere we go, everyone will know, We're Hull City.