Hull City, minutes from not existing as a soccer club
It's five days before Christmas 2008 and a whole lot of people—in this case, fans of Hull City, a soccer team in the English Premier League—are having their holiday ruined. Playing the role of the Grinch is a team called Sunderland, which comes to Hull in a sour mood, languishing near the bottom in the EPL. Right now, they're dominating the Tigers on Hull City's home field.
Hull City's fans, though, are full of Yuletide cheer. And why not?
Their team is coming off an impressive 2-2 draw at first-place Liverpool. Earlier in the season, the club traveled to the Emirates Stadium in London and defeated Arsenal. Sure, the team lost at Manchester United, but scored three times against mighty Man U, earning a ton of respect in the one-goal defeat.
Hull is now favored to beat Sunderland, but even with the home sell-out crowd of 25,000-plus on their feet, Sunderland thumps the Tigers, 4-1, tallying three goals in the game's final 12 minutes, all at the end of the field where Sunderland's fans are standing. The celebrations are raucous as the 2,000 or so red-and-white-clad away fans enjoy the opportunity to drown out the home crowd with their songs and chants.
That's when, with apologies to the Good Doctor, there was a sound. It was a sound most American sports fans would find implausible in defeat.
Like all those Whos down in Whoville, the fans of Hull City rose en masse. "City 'til I die!" the song began. "City 'til I DIE!"
Then, it became deafening.
"I know I am, I know I AM! I'm City 'til I DIE!" Two choruses, then three, then four. And then, as if a conductor was giving them cues, the song changed. "We love you City, we do! We love you City, we DO! We love you City, we do. OHHHHHHHH! City we love YOU!" Over and over again, full-throated and glorious as the final whistle blew.
The Hull City players lifted their heads as they walked off the field, raised their hands and applauded, the same way they did at the beginning of the match, when they were serenaded (as always) with Elvis' "I Can't Help Falling in Love with You."
SOME CONTEXT
Pop Quiz: What's the dumbest saying in American sports? Easy.
"Second place is for losers."
It's this lack of perspective that now has New York Giants fans calling this past season a disaster, as if a 12-4 regular season was just a series of warm-up games. It's this outlook that has baseball fans singing, "Wake me up when September ends," and college hoop fans snoozing until they can see a bracket.
And it's this rationale that, season after season, year after year, in all of the sports that Americans love, sends fans of all but one team home less than satisfied.
It's time for an attitude adjustment.
The Magazine would like to invite America to get behind a team that could change the way we look at sports and a group of fans who can laugh at even Cubs fans for calling themselves "long-suffering."
Meet Hull City: America's (new) Team.
If it seems incomprehensible that fans could stand up and sing after a three-goal defeat, it helps to know the backstory. This is, after all, the first year in the 105-year history of Hull City that the club is playing at the highest level of English soccer, the Premier League. Not long ago, they were scraping a bottom that's nearly 100 teams deep. And one loss—even to a toad like Sunderland—is hardly enough to make City fans forget their fairy tale journey to the EPL.
What would constitute a successful season this year? For Hull fans, anything above the bottom three.
Second place is for losers? Ha. Seventeenth place would be cause for a massive celebration.
Hull, as pictured in early 1935.
HARD-LUCK HULL CITY
Situated in Northeast England about 20 miles from the North Sea, Hull is the seventh-largest city in Britain. It's a city full of history, much of it sad. Hull went from being one of the UK's most important port cities to being thoroughly bombed during World War II. The Hull Blitz left nearly two-thirds of the city's population homeless. It built itself back up to become a major fishing hub, only to lose the industry in the mid-70s when the Icelandic Cod Wars led to prohibitions on fishing within 50 miles of the country. The last three decades have seen Hull try to rebuild itself around a university and a cultural center.
"Unfortunately," says BBC broadcaster David Burns, the voice of Hull City, "it seems whenever Hull has gotten national publicity, it's been for things like rampant obesity, teen pregnancy and drugs."
A book written in 2003 entitled "To Hull and Back (via 49 other c**p towns in Britain)" described Hull this way: "Hull smells of death&on Judgment Day, the town should be leased out to Satan, to provide housing for the damned."
Turns out the authors had never even been to Hull.
Even with this rep, the Third Division—essentially the fourth tier in English professional soccer leagues:mdash;is no place for a football team representing a city of Hull's size. Yet that's where Hull City found themselves during the 1998-99 season. Look back at the teams Hull matched up against that year: names like Mansfield Town and Torquay United and Scarborough. Clubs that now toil in the low, semi-professional ranks playing before friends, family and pets. Through the system of relegation and promotion in English soccer, this could've easily been Hull City's fate.
"When you fall down to Third Division," says Duffen. "It can be near impossible to get yourself up again."
THE JOURNEY
When Hull City went to Old Trafford to play Manchester United on November 1 of last year, the Hull Daily Mail was full of stories on The Great Escape and Warren Joyce, who now coaches Man U's reserve team. Back in December of 1998, Joyce became player-manager for Hull City and rescued the Tigers from the indignity of being bumped down to "conference football" (basically a division made up of mostly semi-pro clubs) and, perhaps, extinction.
"It was a joint fight, players and fans," Joyce recalls, "joined together to try and keep the club in the league. Even then we had tremendous support."
Legend has it that Hull City supporters began to serenade the team with the theme song "The March" from The Great Escape that season. That, and the steady leadership of Joyce helped the Tigers to a 21st place finish in the 24-team league, good enough to keep if alive for another year. But the club was still on shaky ground.
Former British Davis Cup captain David Lloyd, had owned the team for a spell, but by 2001 he'd given up his stake in the team while remaining owner of the stadium, Boothferry Park. In February of that year, he locked Hull City out of its home ground for a day because the new owners had failed to pay rent. There was legitimate fear the Hull City would be liquidated. On the field, however, Hull City began to show a little more promise, finishing sixth to earn one of four spots in the "promotion playoffs." They did not earn promotion that season, however.
In December of 2002, the city of Hull opened the 25,000-seat Kingston Communications Stadium, which was seemingly built more for Hull's two professional rugby clubs. The new ground gave Hull City a bit more vibrancy, even if the team was still a fourth-tier side.
The results started to improve and, in '03-'04 and '04-'05, the Tigers jumped a division a year, all the way from the basement level of the Third Division to the penultimate league, known as "The Coca Cola Championship." This was living.
"For us, the supporters," says lifelong Hull City fan Ian Garmston, "Getting to play teams like Leeds United and Southampton, teams with real history, was quite a thrill. Staying in The Championship…that was a great goal for us. That'd have been quite satisfying."