Ian Ashbee on the rise of Hull City

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Wembley Remembered: Three promotions, two home grounds, one serious injury - Ian Ashbee on the rise of Hull City

The club's most successful captain recalls the rise of the Tigers from the basement to the very top

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When the first figures were inducted into Hull City ’s new Hall of Fame in January, there was only room for one member of the club’s history-making class of 2008.

Not Phil Brown, the manager whose ambition and drive made it possible, nor the hometown hero Dean Windass, whose unforgettable volley proved enough to sink Bristol City at Wembley. Even Nick Barmby, the much-loved playmaker turned manager, will have to wait for his inevitable entry into the greats.

Alongside Andy Davidson, Chris Chilton, Ken Wagstaff and Billy Bly instead was the reassuring heartbeat of that cherished play-off final winning side.

City have never known a more inspiring captain than Ian Ashbee. Not once, not twice but three times he skippered the Tigers to promotion inside five remarkable seasons at the KCOM Stadium.

The back-to-back successes to climb from Division Three to the Championship had restored pride in a football club dragged to its knees in the 1990s, but in completing a hat-trick Ashbee was the captain to lead City to places it had never been.

“Every footballer has their critics along the way, but to say you’ve been the captain of a football club that has gone from the bottom division to the top is something I’ll always be proud of,” he said.

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“I understand Hull as a place because I’ve been here for a long time. I’m not saying the others didn’t get that same feeling (during the promotion year) but I’d lived in the city for a long time and I understood where the football club had come from.

“We’d left a little stamp that no-one will ever be able to take away from you. That always makes me smile.”

Ten years on Ashbee now considers himself an adopted son of Hull. Life might have begun in Birmingham, an accent he still carries, but it was in East Yorkshire where the best memories have come.


“Those were the best days of my life, 100 per cent,” he added. “To do it in a place I call home now was incredible. I came here in 2002, my children were born and raised here and I still live here. It’ll always be special to me. My son is a Hull City fan and that’s how I want it to be.”

Ashbee’s three promotions do not require any additional layers but his story has far more depth. As a free transfer recruited from Cambridge United in 2002, he encountered critics prepared to write off his talents at each step up the ladder. Very few, if any at all, saw a Premier League captain in the making.

And then there was the first of two serious knee injuries suffered in 2005. A degenerative bone condition invited fears over his future soon after arriving in the Championship only to launch a comeback 11 months later.

“I wasn’t sure if I could come back and the club was moving forward all the time,” said Ashbee. “Those dark days when you’re in the gym on your own, you can either sink or swim. But I had good people around me and got there in the end. It only made what we achieved even better.”

City, as Ashbee readily accepts, had not been good enough in the season that preceded promotion in 2007-08. Relegation had been avoided but huge improvements were needed to ensure the momentum of previous years was not surrendered.

Fitness levels improved, he says, along with the calibre of signings made under Brown. Revised ambitions were even noted on four wheels.

“I was having a massage and getting my ankle strapped when I saw this Ferrari driving down the car park at Cottingham,” explained Ashbee. “I think we had Cavaliers and Escorts, stuff like that. I think I still had an electrical aerial on my car where I had to push a button.

“When I saw a Ferrari rolling in, I thought ‘Wow, what’s going on here?’ It was Jay Jay Okocha.

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“That type of signing changed things. The core of the squad, players like Andy Dawson, Ryan France and Bo Myhill, welcomed it because better players were coming in. We wanted that little bit of help.

“If I could hear Jay Jay asking for the ball in a middle of a game, you were only too happy to let him do the rest while I did the running.

“Having players like that was great for us who were trying to get to the Premier League level because it showed what you needed to be. There was a mix of the old and the new, the rough and smooth, and it worked.

“Everyone knew Browny, he didn’t want to settle for mediocrity did he? He’d always back himself and wanted to show what he was all about as a manager after all those years learning under Sam Allardyce’s wing. When he got the chance with Hull City, he flourished.”

The impact of Brown and his signings took City to third in the Championship and into the play-offs. Imaginations were captured and a city held its breath at the possibility of what might come next.

“The back-to-backs were great and you could see what it meant to people but that year was different,” said Ashbee. “You could feel the buzz around the whole city.

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“Hull had been slagged off for many years. The football club, the city itself, unemployment and low pass rates at schools, all those things brought bad press on the city. To be the ones that helped bring some light to Hull was massive for us. People were proud of their city and the football club.

“There was a little bit of pressure but as a club we’d not been to Wembley in 104 years. That meant you’d already made people happy but we weren’t satisfied. We wanted a little bit more. I go back to a core of the squad and they knew what it meant.”

So, what did it mean to be the flagbearer of that side, playing at Wembley for the very first time?

“I tried to show I was calm but inside me it was eating me away,” Ashbee admitted. “I couldn’t show that. If people are looking at the captain and think he’s a bag of nerves, that doesn’t send a great message.

“On the outside I was ‘just another game, no dramas, let’s crack on’ but who knew what would happen on the day. I was confident but a lot of the lads were heading into the unknown.

“It wasn’t the greatest of finals was it? It was shocking from what I remember but we probably played like that for 15 games before the final. We just knew how to get the job done.”

Dean Windass’ volley proved decisive as 40,000 City fans celebrated wildly at the Eastern end of Wembley before Ashbee led his team-mates up the 107 steps to lift a piece of silverware that confirmed a £60m promotion.

“What happened next? Three days on the p*ss I think, probably longer!” joked

Ashbee. “Paul Duffen and Brownie put on a great spread at the Grove but I was quiet in the corner with my family. It was like a massive, massive weight lifted. The pressure I’d put on myself. I felt I’d done something that no-one could take away.

“All the people from the offices were there and that was nice. Footballers come and go because that’s how it works but there was people who had worked at the club for years and years. That was what it was all about to me. That gave me pleasure seeing them all smiling.”

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Ashbee has walked away from professional football after retiring aged 36 but the deep impression he made during eight and a half years with City will never be shifted.

“I’m not a well-known footballer and that doesn’t bother me one bit, but I know myself what I achieved,” he added. “To have those three promotions on my CV with a club that means as so much to me isn’t bad is it?”

 

Ian Ashbee ‏@AshbeeIan
Would of been happy to stay at city in some capacity, and I’m a young man you never know, hopefully 1 day.