http://thetwounfortunates.com/great-football-league-teams-42-hull-city-1965-6/ I don't know if this has been posted before but it's a good write up on the great days of 1965-66. It's too long to appear as a single post so I've done it as a two parter. Part 2 It helped that the forward line was pretty much injury free; or, closer to the truth, played through a fair few pain barriers to maintain the momentum. Wagstaff was ever-present, Ian Butler, Houghton and Chilton each missed just one match, Henderson, the eldest of the five, was absent initially but still ended up with 39 league games under his belt. Behind them, Milner, Simpkin and the ageless Davidson also missed just one game between them. Consistency in selection aided Britton’s cause greatly; although City used 19 players in total, five of them ended the season with single-figure tallies. City won three of the first four and by the middle of September all five of the forward line had opened their scoring accounts. The evidence at the other end of many shall pass was evident in a 3-3 draw with Reading and a 4-2 defeat at Swansea Town, but opponents with less positive tactics were hammered into the ground; City beat Exeter 4-1 away and Oldham 5-1 at home in consecutive weeks. Supporters remember the two games over 48 festive hours against Millwall as the crunch matches, with the two teams topping the table at the time. The day after Boxing Day, an own goal gave the Tigers a single goal win at Boothferry Park in front of 40,231 people, a post-regionalisation record for the third tier that remained for six years, then everybody involved boarded the same train for the then-traditional “return” game the next day, which Millwall won 3-0. It was the second of only three occasions all season when the Tigers would draw a blank. The FA Cup was ticking along nicely by this stage too, with Bradford Park Avenue and Gateshead dispatched in the opening rounds. As 1966 began, City were extra-prolific in the league – 4-1 over Swansea, 6-0 against Workington, 4-2 at Scunthorpe, and got national headlines after defeating Second Division hopefuls Southampton in the third round of the Cup. February was a key month, with three wins and a typically end-to-end 3-3 draw in the league and a 2-0 win over First Division side Nottingham Forest in the fourth round of the FA Cup, the day that peripheral signing Heath, the perennial reserve to all of these astonishing forwards, finally got his day as a City player, scoring both of the goals. He only played because Simpkin was injured and, with two natural replacements in bed with ‘flu and driving to a reserve match respectively, Britton had to drop Houghton back into midfield, making a space for Heath up front. He didn’t get much chance to exploit his sudden success, soon back in the reserves, but his brace against Forest keeps memory of an otherwise undistinguished City career alive. City’s record in March consisted of an FA Cup win over Southport and three out of three in the league, with Millwall now looking most likely to flag. Proper evidence that this forward line weren’t just flat-track bullies came to light in the sixth round of the Cup, however. March 26th 1966, and the Tigers travelled to overwhelming favourites Chelsea in the last eight. The home side, missing Peter Osgood with tonsilitis, took a 2-0 lead but Wagstaff scored twice in the last ten minutes and also had a very strong penalty appeal turned down by referee Jack Taylor, a decision for which the outspoken Davidson never forgave him. The replay five days later made Pathé News as a Chelsea team rejuvenated by Osgood’s return won 3-1 in front of a raucous Boothferry Park. Wagstaff has claimed ever since that Osgood was the only real difference between the two sides. Heroically out of the FA Cup, City set about finishing off the league as quickly as they could, winning the first four games in April, including a clean sweep of goals by Wagstaff as the Tigers battered Brentford 4-2 and a 6-1 destruction of Exeter. But then it got wobbly, with two defeats in a row immediately following a 13-game unbeaten run in the league, which had included a sequence of nine straight wins. Grimsby Town and Peterborough United inflicted the damage and Millwall were favourites again. Both teams won promotion in early April, and it was the Tigers who regrouped quickest after the celebrations to put in the best run of four unbeaten in May and clinch the title. City had 69 points from the available 92, winning 31 games from 46 and losing eight. They were four clear of the Lions by the end, but third-placed Queens Park Rangers were a whole 12 points adrift of the champions. The truly extraordinary statistic was, however, in the goals tally. Of the 109 City stuck away in the league (33 more than Millwall), a cool 100 were scored by the forward line of five. Wagstaff had 27, Chilton 25 and Houghton 22 (plus, in his case, goodness knows how many assists). Ian Butler and Henderson laid ample chances on various plates for the middle three but each scored 13 of their own. Such was the comparative dearth of contributions from behind the forward line, the next highest tally was five, achieved in the form of own goals by the opposition. Jarvis (3) and Simpkin (1) made up the rest. City scored in every cup match they played – nine of them in total – and of the 20 goals put away, 16 came from those forwards. Almost as remarkable, and certainly as telling, was the goals against record, however: City conceded 62 in the league, 19 more than Millwall, 14 more than seventh-placed Swindon Town and – get this – 11 more than 12th placed Watford. They kept 12 clean sheets in the league, many of which were due to the opposition just giving up trying because of what had been inflicted on them by City’s forward line. It remains the only non-regional title Hull City has ever won, a startling stat that maintains the deference towards these players as much as their own abilities. Britton, pleased with his work, changed the goalkeeper in the summer but otherwise considered the team good enough to achieve the same feat in the Second Division. Yet, for the rest of the 1960s, the Tigers struggled against meaner defences and forward lines more comparable with their own. Money was available and the fans pleaded for it to be spent on shoring up the defence, especially after the 35 year old Davidson retired in 1967 after pulling a leg muscle at Aston Villa, but the changes Britton did make were only when age or injury demanded it. Certainly Simpkin, admired by all, was a capable ratter in the centre of midfield at a higher level, but the Tigers needed better players around him and didn’t get them. Britton also sold the 31 year old Henderson in 1968 but didn’t properly replace him as a creative presence on the right wing. City finished 12th, 17th, 11th and 13th in Britton’s remaining four years at the helm. In 1970, Needler recognised the times were changing and moved Britton up to a general manager’s role while giving him the task of finding his long-term replacement. In came the 29 year old Terry Neill as player-manager but after a fifth-placed finish in the Ulsterman’s first season, the natural decline of the great forward line, plus political struggles caused by a manager being the same age as his star players, meant the big chance had gone. Neill sold Chilton, Houghton and Ian Butler (two acrimoniously) and brought down the average age – and average ability – of the team before he was headhunted by Tottenham in 1974. City went through the mid-1970s as watertreading nonentities until relegation back to the Third Division in 1978 and, eventually, a catastrophic drop to the Fourth Division for the first time ever three years later. Neither Britton nor Needler lived to see it; both died in 1975. Chilton, 70 next month, broke the club’s scoring record and when he joined Coventry in 1971, aged still only 28, he had 222 first team goals. The only player to come close to this ludicrous total was Wagstaff, who stuck around until 1975 and scored 197 times. Houghton was a better all-round footballer than anyone else during this era while Butler’s wingplay and Henderson’s industry made crucial contributions to the 1965/66 season and brought the best out in those relying on them. This may not be the greatest all-round Hull City team – shirts 1 to 6 are a sticking point, as well as the achievements of recent sides under Phil Brown and Steve Bruce – but 1966, a year stamped forever with football’s name, produced unquestionably the most exciting side in Tigers’ history.
Cracking read. Wouldn't it have made more sense just to post them on the same thread, one post after the other?
"produced unquestionably the most exciting side in Tigers’ history." Nah sorry it was div 3 and 2. Only mediocre in div 2. This is the most exciting side we've ever had. We've celebrated mediocrity too long.
I'm sure Alan Jarvis was signed during the early part of the 65/66 season on a free transfer from Everton and not during 1964.
The article states most exciting side, not best side or playing in the highest league.The 65-66 played exciting attacking football not like we watch today playing square and back passes and managing 3 shots a game if we are lucky. So i would say they were without doubt the most exciting side to watch we have had.
This ^^^^, certainly that I've ever seen anyway. I'll never forget the game against York at home...here we go again methought, after losing to DQPR in the previous home game...next home game we drew 3-3. Nowt to worry about in retrospect. That's exciting stuff. http://www.espn.co.uk/football/sport/match/index.html?event=11;season=1965/66;team=297
Any resemblance between this side and excitement is purely coincidental. It has produced a record for me though being the first time ever I have fallen asleep watching a City football match.
A very interesting read from an interesting time but being in the OAP sphere now I can look back at those times with an objective frame of mind and there some were things outside of football that made the whole era unforgettable. Whilst life at BP was like a rollercoaster at times life outside of BP was just as interesting you have to remember we were young, the music world was dominated by UK bands, Hull, and the surrounding area was buzzing I often see Hull City centre these days at night and could despair at how dead it is in comparison. Football Saturday afternoon then Saturday night take your pick, Hull, Hessle, Cottingham, Beverley, Locarno, Hull City Hall, Beverley Regal, Club 51, Henry's or whatever took your fancy. Football was only one ingrediant of a very meaty period but football itself was far more intetesting as it wasn't a 'business' like today it was more of a social occasion. For some the pub before, and after a game, round town on the night where it was said you could see the likes of Waggy, Butler and others in the pubs and clubs, although I never actually saw them. And that is the context in which I look back at that period in time not just in a Hull City footballing way but the whole period inside ond outside of the BP arena, and it was a damn sight better than the sterile enviroment that sadly both Hull City and the city centre has become.
So they never played the ball back to the keeper all the time then, for him to waste a bit of time? Of course it was exciting it was an inferior level of football. How would that City defence, that couldnt keep the goals out in Div 3, do against Greaves, Hurst, Hunt, Best, Law, Charlton? We're in a league that has talent from all around the world now.Hull City are pitting their talent against that. Far more exciting. As ref alludes to, you think its better cos you were young then.
