Hey guys! I am a graduate student at Mississippi State in the US and a regular poster on one of our sports boards. A ton of us got swept up in World Cup fever, and didn't want it to end after it was over, so 40 of us got together, divided into pairs, and drew EPL teams to be fans of. Myself and another guy drew you guys, so I fully intend to be the biggest possible fan that I can be from thousands of miles away. I already have it set up so that I can watch all of the weekend games this Fall, and if I really get into it, I'll purchase a kit and try my best to create a mini Hull City fanbase in my corner of the world. What I ask from you all: Can you fill me in on the need to know knowledge if I want to become a good long distance fan? This includes things like: 1. Best players on the team 2. Who are your bitter rivals? 3. What is your play style? 4. What is your best known chant/song? (I want this for my signature on the forum I originate from) 5. Expected success level for the season? I've heard lower half from most, but this does not bother me as my college Am. Football team is historically awful, though we are peaking right now. 6. Any other cool stuff a fan ought to know. I could look up a bunch of this information from websites, but that would be boring, so I want to hear this kind of stuff from real fans. Any knowledge is appreciated! Cheers.
Hey man, an American myself from Virginia. I used to play baseball down your way in the summers for a traveling team that I was on. Great area, minus the freaking humidity in August. Anyway, thats a lot of questions. I think you are going to get more than one sarcastic response from people. If you are just jumping on board this is def the site for you to come to for conversations about the club. You should also check out http://www.ambernectar.org/blog/ its great for well written pieces on the club. Their forum is pretty dead but they write some amazing pieces. I chose not to answer any of your questions except the song one. You are required to love the irish messi. [video=youtube;ne5NFVAnzhw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne5NFVAnzhw[/video]
I appreciate it. That looks like a good info site. I don't mind the sarcasm- there is new guy hazing on basically every sports forum in the world.
Sounds great that mate! 1. Curtis Davies (Captain and should have been in the world cup this year), Tom Huddlestone is one of the best passers in the premier league, Alan McGregor is the best goalkeeper Hull City have ever had. More people will say others so i'll stop there. 2. Leeds United are the main ones. Others are just any teams geographically close to us. 3. Our play style varies. At times we'll look to counter-attack and at other times we'll play a much slower approach. This year we'll be set up in a much more attacking formation due to the signings we've made and should be much more exciting than most of the teams at our ability. 4. I wouldn't say we have a signature chant/song, we have many. We used to play 'Wise men say' by elvis presley before every game and many sing it before kick off. You could say it's our 'anthem' 5. A lot of pundits believe we'll be in the lower half, but we have the ability to get into the top half if we play how we can. Extra stuff you'll find out is that a large amount of our fans are locking horns with our owner over his marketing of the club. Last year he attempted to change our name to Hull Tigers, which many feel would damage our history. This was denied by the governing body and we remain hull city. However, he has just changed the badge so our name is not on it. Anyhow, you'll get into it. Its a fantastic thing to watch, the beautiful game. Oh, and Steve Bruce (the manager) is a god around these parts despite the fact he is abused by other fans for having a big fat head.
There's even a couple of players on this forum such as myself welcome mate! never ever refer to us as 'hull tigers' hull city tigers' melton tigers though (I knkw you haven't, but just a warning;p
Great info! I can actually draw a pretty solid parallel between your manager and our coach (When I mention our coach, I mean our American Football coach- that sport is religion around here). He is a God to us, but the other teams give him hell for looking like Cousin Eddie from Christmas Vacation. I can sort of understand the pain over changing club names. My Uni has changed names a few times (all before I was born). We went from Mississippi A&M > Mississippi State College > Mississippi State University, and our mascot went from the Aggies > Maroons > Bulldogs. I'd heard of Tom Huddlestone and watch a few of his highlights. Those passes were amazing. I'll have to look up the others on youtube for sure. Rivalry question: Do you all prefer having Leeds in the division below yours, or would you rather the get promoted to the EPL so you can play them more often with actual stakes? Also, when I drew this team, some of the guys who know more about the EPL said that Hull City runs a defensive, counter attack style play, and that it was kind of boring, so I am really happy to hear that you will be attacking more. I can appreciate a suffocating defense, but everyone loves a beautiful attack.
1. I'd say our best players are Tom Huddlestone and Curtis Davies. 2. We don't really have any bitter rivals, I'll say Leeds United though. 3. We are a very disciplined team, the majority of our players are British and Irish so our chemistry is also very good. Our wingers like to beat the opposition's full-backs and cross the ball to our strikers, Ahmed Elmohamady is one of the best crossers in the league when it comes to statistics. Tom Huddlestone is also one of the best passers in the league so we like to keep possession as well. 4. Flying high, up in the sky, We'll keep the Hull flag flying high, From Boothferry to Wembley, We'll keep the Hull flag flying high... 5. Our first season back in the Premier League was really good, we finished 16th in the league and reached the FA Cup Final. Surviving relegation is obviously important, I'd like to see us push for a top 10 finish. There's also the Europa League as well! This is best period in the club's history in my opinion. 6. We were involved in the first ever penalty shoot-out, we lost against Manchester United. Hope this helps.
1. Huddlestone, Davies, Livermore, Jelavic, Snodgrass, Ince, Long, Brady, McGregor. 2. Technically we don't really have bitter rivals but - Sheff Utd, Leeds, Sheff Wednesday, Sc**thorpe, probably Arsenal now and most Yorkshire teams. Technically it would be Leeds but there isn't many clubs that are that close to us. 3. Usually attacking football with two forwards and two wing backs who like to get the ball on the floor and pass it about. Very disciplined and hard to break down. Clubs rarely score many goals against us and have to work really hard to do so. 4. Elvis song Wise Men Say Only Fools Rush In. 5. Expectations would be to avoid relegation. I would think between 10th and 13th is realistic. Although we are playing European football this year and usually teams who play in the Europa league do badly in the league so we hope this won't happen. 6. We are as a club a 110 years old this year. 10 years ago we spent around 8 years in the lowest league in English league football. During this time we had attendance of only a few thousand and we were terrible. We nearly went bankrupt and would have no longer been a football club and had pretty much no reputation in the world as a football club. 10 years later we are achieving the best things in the clubs history and expanding a worldwide audience and changing the whole perception of the club. People are now beginning to realise we are a good club and have a good team and manager and have potential to be much better than we are now.We reached the FA Cup final, stayed in the Premiership and have this year signed some really good players. We beat Liverpool last season 3-1.
Personally, I much prefer Leeds being in the division below, seen as though their fans still seem to think their club is more attractive than ours. And its just nice to see them lose. Leeds used to be a very large team in England and we now have many Leeds fans in Hull due to their past successes. Its nice to see the young lads down here starting to support the local team again. As we were newly promoted last year, we were much more focused on not losing games rather than winning them. This year we've bought players with a much more attacking feel to them and it should be good. I admit i may be looking at this through rose tinted glasses though as its hard to judge your teams football when you're so focused on the results! [video=youtube;JIhZKu60QQM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIhZKu60QQM[/video] Heres a bit of brief history in song form If you want to get into the full swing of things hand about here. You''l soon pick everything up!
Welcome to heartbreak hotel...as rovertiger suggests. Couple of sites you may be interested in 1) http://www.player.hullcityafc.net/home/ Spend a few bucks a month on the Tiger Player...if you miss a game on cable tv, you'll be able to watch their games in full a couple of days later. Invite a few mates round & charge each a buck (or a beer) for the privilege ! You can listen to audio commentary live for every game they play also. Good value for money - 2) http://www.newsnow.co.uk/h/Sport/Football/Premier+League/Hull+City This site is running 24/7 scouring most media sources for news on Hull City - sometimes they are even ahead of some of the members of this board with scoops ! PS. I know bugger all about Mississippi, other than 'gators and this band - one of my favorites. Play 'em loud...they always did [video=youtube;qFhM1XZsh6o]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFhM1XZsh6o[/video] [video=youtube;q0JrV86EKCs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0JrV86EKCs[/video] I've waited almost 60 years for my beloved team to reach these rarified heights...you've come in at a brilliant time - enjoy & spread the word.
Welcome mate! I'm from Sydney, Australia myself so the Tigernation is truly a global phenomenon. We're in for our best season yet hitting Europe for the first time, so a great time to jump aboard. As others have said, with our signings we'll be a pretty attacking side, with solid defensive foundations, so expect to see the side perform pretty well if we don't pick up too many injuries.
Here is the clubs youtube page, lots of highlights and stuff there [video]http://www.youtube.com/user/HCAFCOfficial[/video]
Nice one ellewoods. You're becoming a "reverse" pioneer, or maybe even a "retro" pilgrim father. Who needs AA & his bizarre marketing gimmicks ? I'd better button it or the topic will rapidly degenerate !
Thanks for all these links everyone! I will look at all of them over the next few days and hopefully I'll have a working knowledge of the team by kickoff vs. QPR. The other guy who was assigned Hull City will make an account here as well. Allow me to share some quick facts! The state of Mississippi is: 1. The poorest state 2. The fattest state 3. Has the most teenage pregnancies per capita. 4. We have amazing fried food. The state specialty is catfish. Last I checked you all love some fried fish. 5. There are a lot of racists 6. There are too many beautiful women to count. 7. It is about half the size of the UK (I laughed when you guys talk about near and far teams) 8. It is hot as hell 8 months a year, comfortable for two, and cold for two. Facts about my school and team I cheer for: 1. Mississippi State University is located in Starkville Mississippi. The school has 22k students and the town (not counting students) has 35k. 2. Founded in 1887 3. Best known academically for its agricultural and engineering programs 4. MSU plays Am. Football in the Southeastern Conference, which is the premier conference in college football 5. Sadly, we have the worst all time record in the conference 6. Our newly expanded stadium holds 61000 fans please log in to view this image That picture is a rendering of what it will look like on opening day for us (August 30th). Here is a video of what it looks like today: https://m.facebook.com/johnmpemberton/posts/10202382304214981 7. Our biggest tradition is the use of cowbells at football games please log in to view this image 8. Our school colors are Maroon and White 9. Our biggest rival is the Ole Miss Rebels I can answer any other questions you have or post cool videos from the team if anyone cares. Otherwise, keep the info coming. I am loving this atmosphere.
Sounds like hull apart from 4, 6, 8! Yeah, the size of our country in comparison to yours is ridiculous, and its stupid to think of near/far teams like your NFL teams. Think more like your college teams. Imagine if someone from your college supported another college in your state because they were more successful than you. Thats what it is like when people support other teams here.
Greetings, gents! I'm the other "owner" of Hull City from our newly formed EPL group. You guys have provided some amazing info to help us get started. In the interests of full disclosure, I should say I haven't really chosen a rooting interest in the BPL yet. The idea behind our group and draft was that everyone gets assigned a random BPL to follow for this season and we are required to post one update a week on the other forum where we participate. This gives everyone a team to root for in the upcoming season while allowing us to see all the other teams in the BPL. At some point, the idea is that each person will fall in love with a particular team's style of play and discover their new full time rooting interest. Essentially, it helps those of us who don't know much about football like myself, to ease into the sport and learn in a fun way. One thing I will say, I really like the offseason moves Hull has made to date. It looks like you guys are putting together a good nucleus of young talent. And it could improve even more if you manage to land Harry Maguire from Sheffield United. Really rooting for that to happen. Anyway, I look forward to interacting with all of you as the season goes along!
Bloody 'Ell MSU, apart from items 6,7 & 8 in your State facts, you could be describing Hull ! edit ....Jezz511....you beat me to it . Lots of fried food, not amazing mind.
I, on the other hand, intend to ride the Hull City train as far as it will take me, barring relegation this season (I'll feel like bad luck, haha) Our rival, Ole Miss, is a 162km drive to the northwest, but due to how rural the area is and our great highway system, it's less than a 2 hour drive, barring traffic. The people we dislike, in your example, would be the University of Alabama, who are 141km east of us. They have won more national titles than any other college team, and too many people in our state cheer for them despite no actual affiliation with the team or area, much less ever having set foot on their campus. A saying we have is "I am a Mississippi State fan because I graduated from there. You are an Alabama fan because you went to Wal Mart."
