When City were third in the table, and on a run of four wins in five games, including back to back victories in North London, luck played no part in it.

We were there because we had the best Manager and some of the best players in the Premier League.

At least that was the idea….

Now we are slipping inexorably towards the trap door luck, in the fans eyes, is the main reason for our seemingly unstoppable slide down the table.

I admit to cursing the rub of the green a good few times yesterday but the real scenario is that we are woefully short of quality where it matters; in the centre of mid field and up front.

The first half and hour saw City secure the lions share of momentum going forward but we came no where near seriously working Reina in the Liverpool goal.

The visitors were no great shakes, extremely nervous and prone to mix ups in the back four, but Folan’s ponderous approach plus the other City players need to take the extra touch meant we failed to take advantage and score despite oodles of pressure.

Michael Turner was, once again absolutely top drawer and he kept Torres down to one chance in an amazing defensive display. He will no longer ply his trade here come next season even if we stay up as it is inevitable and deserved for him to have a crack with a big club.

Liverpool’s opener came from a free kick that never was, the second involved handball but if we had better quality players (Geo, Barmby, Boateng and Turner excepted) then luck would never be such a great factor.

Caleb Folan stupidly kicked Martin Skirtel and was red carded. There was an argument that we should have been awarded a penalty. It would have been harsh but we shouted for it non the less.

Folan walked, eventually. Brown ignored him and said this to the BBC;

“I have no excuses for the sending off. I feel it was justified and it will be dealt with in-house.”

Phil Brown deservedly has many critics within football and I cringe on a regular basis at his antics, but he is an honest football man and I feel that certain Managers in the upper echelons of the game could take a leaf from his book and not defend the indefensible on a regular basis.

Hull City: Myhill, Ricketts, Zayatte, Turner, Kilbane, Fagan (Mendy 62), Boateng (Manucho 79), Marney, Geovanni, Barmby (Cousin 62), Folan.
Subs Not Used: Duke, Hughes, Garcia, Halmosi.

Att: 24,942

The raising of the upper tax band for the richest 1% will levy a paltry amount of money and may actually cause revenue to fall, as these types will now feel justified in finding more imaginative ways to avoid paying tax at all.

This is Darling’s fig leaf when he next stands in front of the PLP, or any other Party meetings appealing to the old prejudices, as this has to be the most underwhelming Budget of recent times.

Where is the NEW money? It seems to me that this statement was just a series of re hashed policy announcements jotted down on the back of a fag packet allied to a series of tinkering which don’t actually deliver much.

Darling seems on the one hand terrified to upset Daily Mail Land (he could have done something with National Insurance at the top end), but on the other he indulged in grandstanding to the Left with the un enforceable hike on the top few earners who will now take that money overseas.

Then there are these idiotic, nebulous catch all statements such as £750m investment fund to provide financial support to emerging technologies, £435m extra support for energy efficiency measures for homes, businesses and public places and £405m new funding for low-carbon technology projects.

All fantastic sums of money on worthy causes, but where is the detail, how will we know what has been done and measure it’s success? Hot air if you ask me.

If he wants to stimulate the economy then abolish tax credits and instead raise child benefit and take millions at the bottom end out of the system by upping the allowances.

The savings to the Treasury from the abolition of the incredibly inefficient and bureaucratic tax credit system allied to the scrapping of Trident and ID cards would balance this outlay.

We needed to be truly, and accountably radical. We needed to seen to be actually delivering now. We needed to expose the Tories.

I fear we have done none of these things and this fiddling whilst Rome burns may cost us the Election.

“My wife’s gone on holiday.”

“Jamaica?”

“No, she went of her own accord.”

“My dog has no nose”.

“How does it smell?”

“Bloody awful”.

"My mother in law is so ugly….”

Etc, etc….. ad nauseum for an hour or so from Bono and the boys who make Coldplay look like Laurie Anderson in the inovation stakes.  

The above only really applies to two tracks from Depeche Mode’s twelfth long player Sounds of the Universe, and that’s being a bit harsh.

Jezebel is sung by Martin and sounds like Home (from Ultra), and the lyrics focus on his rather bizarre fixation on religion and deviant sexual practices, a theme which is picked up on the albums closing track, sung by David, Corrupt.

Otherwise I rate this as another step back towards Basildon’s finest best music which culminated in the stunningly raw, passionate and actually quite scary lyrically, Songs of Faith and Devotion (1993).

Martin L. Gore is right up there in the pantheon of great British songwriters that include Morrissey, Mark E. Smith and Elvis Costello due to his ability to craft wonderfully soulful music allied to brutally honest lyrics about himself and the human condition generally.

The album opens with some Fall like sensory deprivation which is spooky when listened to through headphones, but then launches into the reflective In Chains, and is an interesting way to start the record.

After four listens the stand out tracks for me are Wrong (the single) with it’s electro rock signature with stunning words which has been crafted by Blur producer Ben Hillier, and Fragile Soul whose opening gambit is almost son of Just Can’t Get Enough and then launches into a delicious soaring guitar riff with a brilliant vocal from David, one of his best yet.

Depeche Mode continue to thrive because Martin is prepared to challenge himself, they have a producer who expects nothing but the best and David, instead of relying on rock God status, has developed his vocal range and contributed to the composition side of things.

David, Martin and Fletch have a notoriously stormy relationship, but this tension has been channelled into creative energy and the urge to relax in the comfort zone and watch the money come in has truly been baulked.

I can’t wait to hear these songs in a live environment, which is a heck of an achievement when, for the most part, fans of our creaking age are just waiting for most bands to cut to the greatest hits bit.

We four travelled to the Stadium of Shite (overflowing toilets, a cramped concourse, tight seats and a disabled ramp that could have graced the Krypton Factor) with mixed feelings. A Must Not Lose for us? Definitely. A Must Win? Ho hum…

As it turned out we should have claimed victory in this game hands down but stunning profligacy in front of goal means that the gap is down to three, and in a similar vein to the Spurs and Blackburn games in March, back to back fixtures where we would have relied on banking points has resulted in huge disappointment for everyone connected with the Club and the City it represents.

The first time I felt real gloom was in the wake of that defeat to Sam Allerdyce’s Rovers side and those same feelings of inevitability are back.

Two wins in twenty three games says it all, and one of them was a complete fluke at Fulham.

We created by my reckoning EIGHT, count ’em acceptable chances but failed to work the ’keeper once. Not good enough.

I want to believe. I want us to pull together. I want to keep cheering. I want to keep enjoying it. I just want one more win. Please? Pretty please?

Two points to round off on.

Credit to Kieran Richardson. Bernard Mendy had a go at the former England man, pushing his head into the Sunderland mid fielder, but fair play to Richardson. When it was the easy option to go down as if shot, he kept his feet and remonstrated with our Frenchman in a combative, but honest way.

Secondly it was great to have my City soul mate back in tandem joining Pete, Conor and myself.

Mike Nolan and I spent many days and nights together following the Tigers from the late ‘Seventies onwards, two promotions made it a great time and it was brilliant to have the main man join us and link our past with what I hope is a future consolidating a Premier League place.

Hull City: Myhill, Ricketts, Zayatte, Turner, Dawson, Fagan, Geovanni (Mendy 74), Boateng (Barmby 77), Marney (Folan 68), Kilbane, Manucho.
Subs Not Used: Duke, Doyle, Halmosi, Cousin.

Booked: Turner, Kilbane, Fagan.

Att: 42,855

As with everyone that exists in this world of ours, there are certain things that don’t bear contemplation if you wish to retain your sanity.

Excepting personal issues for me these things include Hillsborough and the war in Northern Ireland.

Having been an observer of the war and its impact on those around me, I perversely find the unpackaging of those events via art a very necessary conduit towards understanding the processes that led to deaths of over 3,000 people and the fracturing of Society that has produced such a dysfunctional set up in the North.

Jimmy McGovern’s “Sunday” and Steve McQueen’s recent tour de force “Hunger” are invaluable contributions reflecting on what happened. Both are fact rooted but deeply existential and never lose sight of the human element.

Guy Hibbert’s “Omagh” was in a similar vein, but with “Five Minutes of Heaven” he takes a different tack via a fictional “What if…” type scenario.

James Nesbitt is absolutely outstanding as the brother of a Catholic man gunned down in cold blood by the UVF during one of the interminable tit for tat spirals that dogged Ulster throughout the war.

He is asked to take part in a documentary about the impact of the war where he will meet his brothers Loyalist assassin, played with stunning detached coolness, and ultimately raw hurt by Liam Neeson.

The casting is a masterstroke as each man is actually from the opposite community, thus it carries even more conviction as they cross Society and find that the suffering process is the same, just with a different narrative.

The anguish of the two men is quite something to behold, and it raises for me that the single most difficult process we have to endure as humans is finding true forgiveness and acknowledging this.

I look at the set up in the North and my mind is boggled. McGuiness and Robinson. How can that be?

My cynical mind then tells me it’s all about power for these boys. That’s all they ever wanted. Power and above all recognition that they are players. Somebodys.

But what about those who were brain washed and manipulated? Declan Moen springs to mind. What’s going on for him? Do I give a shit? Well obviously I do because I wouldn’t be writing about him otherwise.

I imagine him in the Neeson role. What would he be after? Pity? Don’t worry about it son, it wasn’t your fault? I will never know but it doesn’t stop me wondering.

Hibbert challenges us to let go of the past, not necessarily with forgiveness in tow, but moving on and living life in the here and now.

Difficult, but a necessary process in all conflict zones and Hibbert has produced a gem of a piece with a good back story and riveting narrative complete with action sequences to go with the more reflective material.

Sommers Town is an uplifting little film from Shane Meadows and an interestingly low key return in the wake of the phenomenal This is England.

Shot in black and white with a runtime of just 75 minutes, we see teen runaway Tomo (Thomas Turgoose) form an unlikely friendship with the son of a Polish migrant worker and a French café waitress in the shadow of Kings Cross/ St. Pancras Stations.

This is as far from Five Minutes… as you can go in filmmaking as the characters are so engagingly niave and un street wise, and it’s great to see the innocence of child hood portrayed like this in our age of cynicism and the painting of teens as sex mad, drug addled and non spiritual consumers.

We drive to the Park and Ride in Hessle.

We are marshalled by stewards onto a bus, part of a continuing flow leaving every few minutes full of men and women of all ages, and children happy and smiling.

We alight on Anlaby Road and stroll through a parkland environment.

We have a choice of the lift or stairs.

We emerge onto the smoke free concourse and can either dawdle over a pint whilst watching the live game carried on TV on the wall, or take our place with it’s panoramic view over the Circle’s lush green pitch even though it is mid April.

“We” being a forty one year old bloke, his disabled mate, and a six year old lad.

Go back twenty years and it’s a very different story….

Being a football fan in the 1980’s automatically made you one of Thatcher’s “Enemy Within”, treated with at best distain, and at worst contempt. We were fenced into pens and treated like the contents of a sewer by a considerable minority of the Police.

All of us of a certain age who followed their teams through the ‘Seventies and ’Eighties can relate the stories of rotten treatment in decrepit stadia, and of the ways in which the authorities rode their luck and why Hillsborough was no surprise to any of us.

Hillsborough is a microcosm of the era.

The era of conflict, the era of the systematic destruction of the organised Northern Working Class, the era of Tory inspired division where the aspirational white Working Class Londoner was encouraged to despise his free loading, scrounging, grasping lazy Northern compatriot, the era where the Middle Class Mail reading woman was constantly fed the drip drip drip of sickening propaganda about the “Enemy Within”, whether they be immigrants, Trade Unionists, gays, Lefties or football fans, the era of Thatcher, the era of “No Such Thing as Society”. 

“I went to a football match and I learnt that people really do go blue and shit themselves when they are suffocated to death”, said a Final Year History Student at University of Ulster, and a good friend of mine. There he is, stupid Scouse grin, in my wedding pictures taken four months after he uttered those words as we sat in the Riverside Coffee Bar, Coleraine Co. Derry on Monday 17^th April 1989.

Today's Football Focus, the History Channel's documentary on Wednesday, Phil Scranton’s book “Hillsborough the Truth“, and Jimmy McGovern’s 1996 film “Hillsborough” should never have been produced.

You don’t expect to go to a football game and end up either dead, injured or severely traumatised.

But that’s what happened on 15^th April 1989 when 96 souls lost their lives attending the FA Cup Semi Final between Liverpool and Notts. Forest on that fateful day in Sheffield.

Just think about that for a moment. A bloody football match.

Simple and mundane. An everyday activity.

They weren’t going to War, out on the Beat, or dressed in Fire Fighters gear. These are the sorts of activities where you stand a slim, slim chance of the unthinkable coming true.

But football? It seems unreal and almost stupid that anyone would consider that risk now.

Phil Scranton has produced a forensic examination of the events the unfolded at Hillsborough.

It is necessarily academic in it’s approach but the author never loses sight of the fact that this is a human tragedy, thus this makes it desperately hard, but required reading for everyone who wants to understand how and why this terrible event was allowed to happen.

Containment of hooliganism over ran even the briefest nod to health and safety, meaning this disaster was depressingly predictable, and as the day unfolded very few football people were surprised.

Basic errors in organisation, coupled with the Police obsession with disorder produced a lethal cocktail of circumstances which led to Match Commander Supt. David Duckenfield firstly being dismissive of the potential for disaster, and then panicking, ordering a gate to be opened in order to relieve the crush developing in Leppings Lane.

This in itself needn’t have produced mass slaughter on a balmy Spring afternoon, but the Police simply didn’t do their job properly.

A delay in kick off, and calm stewarding of people away from the main tunnel and into the outer pens would have prevented tragedy.

But the attitude of Senior Officers Duckenfield and Murray led the Police to assume trouble and simply push people into the tunnel, and certain death.

The criminal negligence of South Yorkshire Police, borne of contempt for those that they were there to serve was the major and over riding factor as to why these people died.

But what followed just beggars belief and would shake anyone’s faith in the Police, the Press and the Justice System.

Here is what Lord Justice Taylor concludes about Duckenfield, the fans and the aftermath;

“Hooliganism played no part in the Hillsborough Disaster”.

“Fear of disorder had an undue influence on Police strategy”.

“The real cause of the disaster was overcrowding and the loss of Police control“.

“Failure to close off the tunnel

“Duckenfield’s ability to maintain control and show leadership seemed to collapse. He froze”.

When Graham Kelly entered Police control at 3.30 Duckenfield told him in front of a number of witnesses that “drunken fans forced the gates”.

A simple, cold and blatant lie.

This created the atmosphere of hooliganism as the cause and allowed the FA to (collude is perhaps to strong a word but that’s what it amounted to) be party to the absolutely disgusting, under hand briefing that went on whereby the Police wanted to make the press blame the fans.

I generally reserve hatred for those who really deserve it, Hitler, Stalin, Saddam and the such like, but Kelvin McKenzie, editor of the Scum appears on my radar, firstly for the following which appeared on Wednesday 19^th April;

The Truth is that some fans picked pockets of victims; some fans urinated on the brave cops; some fans beat up a PC giving kiss of life.

And then on Question Time in January 2007 he refused to apologise, going on to say that his act of contrition in 1999 was forced on him, and he didn’t mean a single word.

Reading the above now, it seems unreal that this appeared in the National Newspaper, and Taylor places the blame squarely on the shoulders of Duckenfield.

He says; “Duckenfield misled Kelly because he could not face the enormity of his decisions and all that flowed from them”.

“This set off a chain of rumours, all of which are untrue, that caused enormous distress to the families”.

The Taylor Report was published in the Summer of 1990 and it seemed that Justice had been done. The British System worked and was justifiably the envy of the World.

Scranton goes on to prove that the Taylor Inquiry was in fact an aberration, the system had malfunctioned in coming up with the truth, and it was now time for the Authorities to close ranks and protect each other.

I read the last half of the book in a fog of anger.

From the Coroner’s ludicrous ruling that NO EVIDENCE AFTER 3.15 was admissible, thus letting the Police and the Emergency Services off the hook, to Michael Howard’s callous dismissal of calls in Parliament for a Judicial Review, and then the overt pro Police bias of Justice Hooper when Duckenfield faced a private prosecution, makes you realise that the doors of Justice slam firmly shut in the face of ordinary Citizens when they take on the Establishment.

This book is important and should act as a catalyst for a full Judicial Review that takes evidence from all aspects of the disaster, irrespective of time limits and finally gives closure to everyone that has suffered.

It is a scandal that tarnishes us all.

A footnote; In April 1999 I found myself at Anfield and standing in front of the Hillsborough Memorial.

I had been privileged the previous week to witness perhaps the best Semi Final of the Modern Era when Arsenal lost out narrowly to Man. Utd, and standing there in Liverpool looking at those names just chilled me to the bone.

I took my ticket from that epic encounter, scribbled something inane but heartfelt on it, and placed it at the foot of that horrific list.

Blokes who should have been my age.

It just should never have happened. Simple as that.

Hull KR clung on by their fingernails to edge out the Airlie Birds after an incredible fight back from the home team.

This was a pulsating and intense a Derby fixture as I can remember, the tension got to both sides resulting in a number of basic errors but Rovers seemed to be far more in control of their nerves than we were for most of the game, and if I am honest this was the right result as once again we played in such frustrating fits and starts that Rovers were in the ascendancy for the majority of the game.

But when we managed to get it together Hull FC were capable of reproducing the high tempo and intense football that saw us win five on the bounce at the start of the season.

Rovers opened the scoring as they isolated Yeaman with an intelligent Dobson kick which allowed Webster to out jump the FC centre and touch down.

Then against the run of play FC suddenly produced a decent flowing move, and the novelty of a clean break was seized upon and Tom Briscoe crossed the line. Game on.

But infuriately there then followed a succession of stupid errors, dropped balls, poor kicking and a collective loss of Black and White nerves.

The visitors took full advantage, upped the pace and deservedly went in at the turn around 12-4 to the good.

Whatever the coaching staff said at halftime must have fallen on deaf ears as once again a schoolboy handling error, this time from Hall, saw the ball turned over and KR made it count as Fox was sent over despite a desperate tackle from Briscoe which saw him leave the field on a stretcher.

Right from the kick off Rovers scythed through a static home defence and just as a score seemed inevitable the ball was dropped by an attacker right on the line.

Was this the turn of the tide? It seemed so as Berrigan waltzed through KR otherwise solid defence for a fine solo try and when Calderwood’s hack from broken play put Whiting over we were buoyed.

Tickle’s profligacy with the boot will be blamed by some, he missed two out of three conversions, but despite laying siege to Rover’s try line we lacked composure and quality when it mattered and this is why we lost.

As for Rovers, they have a fantastic work ethic, togetherness and an international quality full back in Shaun Briscoe who marshalled the defence brilliantly and was often the spring board for imaginative attacking play.

Hull FC: Hall, Calderwood, G. Horne, G. Horne, Yeaman, Briscoe, R. Horne, Thorman, Dowes, Berrigan, Thackray, Thackray, Manu, Tickle, Radford, Radford, Cusack, King.

Replacements: Thackray for G. Horne (53), Radford for G. Horne (66), Berrigan for Briscoe (46), King for Dowes (44), Lee for Berrigan (27), Cusack for Thackray (14), Dowes for Thackray (60), Whiting for Radford (30), G. Horne for Radford (60), Radford for Cusack (40), Thackray for King (70).

Att: 22,337

An impressive Salford side deservedly took the plaudits and ditched last years finalists out of the Challenge Cup, but the winning try resulted from an excellent flowing move from the visitors which was marred by a pass so forward that even a Union referee would have spotted it.

We blasted out of the blocks and Kirk Yeaman went over after a lovely clean break from the midfield and, given the Reds abysmal defensive record (38 points conceded on average so far this season) we sat back and waited for the team to fill it’s boots.

The result was as flatter atmosphere as I can remember, and this torpor osmosified onto the pitch as we simply stopped playing and only poor finishing from the visitors prevented Salford from having more than an eight point half time lead.

Shaun McCrae’s team played open and attractive football, despite their atrocious form and appeared to have a surprising faith in themselves as a collective outfit and 18 year old scrum half Steven Myler had a cracking game, including having the gumption to actually try and disrupt the base of the scrum, such cheek seemed to get right under the skin of Thorman in particular.

We created virtually nothing for a whole hour of the game, and when we did Washbrook spilled the ball when it seemed easier to score.

We finally woke up and scored twice to take the lead until the Reds superiority was rewarded even if it was controversial.

For me Calderwood had another poor game and Rovers will target him on Friday, make no mistake about that, and Thorman’s diminutive stature at stand off was something that McCrae had obviously highlighted and the former Huddersfield man was a spent force early in the game in any creative capacity.

If we play like this on Friday it is going to be one painful Bank Holiday Derby Day experience.

Hull FC: Hall, Calderwood, G. Horne, Yeaman, Briscoe, R. Horne, Thorman, Dowes, Berrigan, Cusack, Cusack, Manu, Tickle, Radford, Moa, King.

Replacements: Moa for Dowes (32), Lee for Berrigan (55), King for Cusack (20), Berrigan for Cusack (65), Washbrook for Radford (28), Cusack for Moa (50), Dowes for King (53).

Two poor sides fought out a scrappy scoreless draw and despite ideal footballing conditions, mistakes littered a nervy game where neither team seemed capable of working the other’s goalkeeper.

Brown’s selection and tactics were spot on and we defended solidly and had the lions share of possession in midfield, but somehow we are into the last seven games of the season without a decent striker save for the injured Cousin, in the first team squad.

Neither Barmby nor Fagan are out and out front men, and it seems that Folan and Manucho are far from being of the quality needed in the Premier League so a striker must be the Manager’s priority in the Summer.

Overall we did enough for the point, but when Pompey hit the post with Duke well beaten in the last minute of injury time I felt that this could have just been the bit of luck we need to stay up.

Seven games left and the cushion is five points. My head says we will survive but in my heart of hearts I know that we will have cheated justice due to that extraordinary start we had, since October we have only managed a paltry two wins in 22 Premier League fixtures which should be sounding massive alarm bells for next season.

Hull City: Duke, Ricketts (Folan 85), Zayatte, Turner, Dawson, Mendy, Ashbee, Barmby (Marney 74), Geovanni, Manucho, Fagan (Kilbane 71).
Subs: Myhill, Garcia, Halmosi, Featherstone.

Att: 24,820

Whilst perusing the wonderful Spotify free music website with Mairin on Sunday morning, discussing the most influential musicians of the rock era I was shocked to discover that one of our choices, John Martyn had died some two months previously.

Being an avid follower of news and current affairs via Sky News and the Guardian, I was amazed that this event had passed under my radar but on further investigation it seems that Martyn’s demise had barely troubled the media.

I had a copy of Solid Air and Live at Leeds in the ‘eighties and remember them being really bathartic as Martyn slipped from the jaunty folk Over the Hill to the heavier rock influence of I’d Rather Be the Devil in the twinkling of an eye.

Recently I had compiled some more of his back catalogue through the Library, and although the sobriquets influential and innovative are often done to death, they are wholly appropriate for John Martyn as one minute you are tapping your feet, the next you may be wondering what was really going on in the studio for ten minutes, and then you are carried away on a soothing sonic pillow. Marvellous.

Martyn worked with a large variety of people but I wonder what would have come out of a collaboration with another loss to music over the last twelve months, namely Rick Wright?

Here are John and Danny Thompson performing his obituary to Nick Drake, Solid Air.

Gordon Brown stuck his head squarely on the block by convening the G20 in London. It was a massive gamble that could have ended in bitter recriminations and the finger of blame pointing right at the Prime Minister.

Incredibly the gamble has paid off. Brown led and the World followed as, beyond even his wildest dreams the major economies of the 21^st Century were persuaded to sign up for a rescue package that includes, and this is crucial, massive aid for those countries who can least deal with the blows that Capitalism has rained on them in the last year or so.

We can indulge in the blame game all we like, and frequently do. Six blokes in an Irish pub during the Summer of 2006 posed the question about how sustainable matters were, so if we could see it why couldn’t the guys at the top?

But we are where we are, and Gordon Brown has gone a long way to repairing his battered Premiership with this triumph. The Tories have no answers, and nothing to contribute to this debate.

Emboldened and revitalised the prime Minister should come up with a radical Budget and then put it to the people in a June General Election.

The polls are poor, but they were for Major in 1992 and he had nothing like this to bolster his successful campaign.

Flush the Tories out, secure a mandate and get on with Governing the country. Baulk now and there will a running tide of election speculation right through the next year or so, it will be debilitating and mean we aren’t setting the agenda or are in control of out own destiny.

Just do it Gordon.