Hopefully this is accurate. Most of the info comes directly from the OWS and some from Wiki. If anything is wrong let me know and I'll edit it.
1904 Hull City was founded, playing friendly games at The Boulevard (the home of the Hull Rugby League Club), Anlaby Road Cricket Ground and Dairycoates. A year later they were elected to the Second Division of the Football League.
1909-10 is the nearest the Tigers have ever been to top-flight football until eventual promotion to the Premier League in 2008. They finished in third place, and missed out on the runners-up spot on goal average to Oldham Athletic after losing 3-0 at Oldham on the last Saturday of the season. The gap between City and Oldham was 0.29 of a goal, one of the slimmest margins to determine promotion in the history of the Football League.
1914-15 The outbreak of World War One had little effect on the Football League during the season and a full League programme was completed, City finishing 7th in Division Two
1920s Financial troubles began to emerge and City had to sell their best players. Whilst City retained their Second Division status throughout the whole of the 1920s, they never finished higher than fifth.
1929-30 Best ever run in the FA Cup, beating First Division Newcastle United and Manchester City to reach the semi-finals. They then lost 1-0 to Arsenal after a 2-2 draw.
Relegation to the Third Division (North) due to an inferior goal average to Bristol City.
1932-33 The Tigers won the Third Division (North) Championship, finishing with 100 goals and 59 points. Bill McNaughton scored a club record 41 goals during the season.
1935-36 Relegation and The Tigers spent the remaining years before the Second World War in Division Three (North), coming close to promotion on each occasion.
1946, the Tigers faced the new season with a new Board of Directors led by Harold Needler, a new manager - Major Frank Buckley, and equally as important a new ground - Boothferry Park, which had been built on the site of an old golf course.
1948–49 Promotion. Managed by former England international Horatio (Raich) Stratton Carter, City won the Division Three (North) highlighted by an attendance of 49,655 for their top of the table clash at home to Rotherham United on Christmas Day, was a Divisional record that still stands. 55,019 spectators packed into Boothferry Park to see Manchester United defeat the Tigers 1-0 in a closely fought cup battle.
1956–61 City yo-yoed between The Second Division and Division Three (North).
1963 With funds pumped into the club by Harold Needler Manager Cliff Britton re-built the team bringing in the most free-scoring forward-line in the club's history, including Ken Wagstaff, Chris Chilton, Ken Houghton and Ian Butler.
1965-66 ended with the Third Division championship, 109 goals, 69 points and a number of other best performances, including an attendance of 40,231 for the top of the table clash with Millwall, which at the time was a record for the Third Division. An even larger crowd of 45,328 turned up to see the Tigers take on Chelsea in an FA Cup quarter-final replay, but after drawing 2-2 in London, they lost 3-1 in the second meeting.
Early 70s – Terry Neil was manager, City finished fifth in second division and we lost first ever English penalty shoot-out to Man U.
Mid 70s - The Cod Wars, football violence, industrial unrest but not much happening at Boothferry Park.
Late 70s – Managerial merry-go-round; John Kaye, Bobby Collins, Ken Houghton (Relegation to Division 3), Mike Smith (Relegation to Division 4 for the first time)
Early 80s – Tigers go into receivership. Don Robinson takes over as Chairman and Colin Appleton as manager with Brian Marwood, Steve McClaren, Billy Whitehurst and Les Mutrie. Resulting in promotion back to Div. 3 in 83
Mid and late 80s - Promotion to Division 2 in 86 under Brian Horton where we remained for the next five seasons.
Early 90s – . Financial troubles again result in selling Dean Windass and Alan Fettis to fight off winding-up orders. Relegation to Div. 3 in 91 under Terry Dolan.
Mid 90s - Relegation to Div. 3 (previously Div. 4) under Terry Dolan in 96. David **** Lloyd buys the club and installs Mark Hateley as manager in 97. Tigers finish 17th in the table.
Late 90s – Lloyd sells the club in 98 but retains ownership of Boothferry Park. Hateley leaves with City at the foot of the table and Warren Joyce takes over. He steers The Tigers to ‘The Great Escape’ and saves us from the abyss with games to spare.
Early 2000s – Warren Joyce is shamefully replaced by Brian Little in 2000. Lloyd locks us out of Boothferry Park, but City still make the Div. 3 play-offs . Adam Pearson takes over, sorts out the finances and saves us from closure. Little leaves, Molby takes over, Molby is then sacked and Peter Taylor takes the helm in 2002. City move to The KC Stadium.
Mid 2000s – Taylor guides City to back-to-back promotions in 2003–04 and in 2004–05 to get us back to the second tier of English football. He then leaves for Crystal Palace and Phil Parkinson briefly takes over before Phil Brown (who brings Dean Windass back to the club) is permanently appointed in 2007.
Late 2000s – Pearson sells the club to a consortium including Paul Duffen and Russell Bartlett. In the season 2007 – 2008 City qualify for the play-offs. We beat Watford in the semis to book our trip to Wembley and then the incredible moment came as Windass struck his wonder goal to floor Bristol City and take The Tigers to the top tier of English football for the first time in our history!!!
City’s ascent from the bottom of the football league had taken only five seasons .
In 2008 – 2009 (Despite being relegation favourites) Phil Brown guided us to our highest ever position after nine games. We sat in third place on 20 points with only Chelsea and Liverpool above us on goal difference. Unfortunately the rest of the season developed into an arduous struggle, but City survived relegation in 17th position on the last day of the season.
2009 – 2010 saw the bubble burst for The Tigers. A series of bad results left the club spiralling down the table and Adam Pearson returned to replace Paul Duffen. Phil Brown was finally put on ‘Gardening Duty’ after a run of four defeats pushed City into the relegation zone but his replacement Iain Dowie proved inept and City were eventually relegated at Wigan on the 3rd of May 2010.
Early 2010s – Phil Brown’s rollercoaster tenure at Hull City officially ended in June 2010 and Iain Dowie was also shown the door as Nigel Pearson became the new manager.
Pearson was left with the thankless job of transforming a forlorn team that had become accustomed to losing. The task was made harder still without the luxury of transfer funds because the previous regime had left City with the crippling burden of a £39 million-per-year wage bill. Nevertheless, Pearson achieved a respectable 11th placing in 2010-2011 (including a new record for the club of 14 away matches unbeaten) after the team spent much of the season competing to reach the play-offs. Adam Pearson meanwhile managed to recruit Assam Allam (a successful and wealthy local businessman with Egyptian roots) to buy the club. With Mr Allam’s financial input Hull City AFC are now in a healthy financial position with a very promising young squad competing for promotion in the 2011-2012 season and once more we can ‘Dare To Dream.’
