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Richard Sutcliffe: Time for reality check while Tigers look to fight back
NOWHERE, it seems, is the adage about only being as good as your last game more appropriate than in the Premier League.
A manager can be hailed as a genius one week after masterminding a famous triumph only to then see the footballing halo ripped from his head the following Saturday courtesy of an unexpected bad result.
Burnley's Owen Coyle will already be well versed in just how quickly fortunes can change at the top table of English football after the volley of criticism that came his way for his allegedly 'naive' approach away from home following the ease with which Spurs beat his side 5-0 at White Hart Lane.
Never mind that those very same critics – and it was both pundits in the media and fans on the radio phone-ins having their two-pennorth – had been praising the Scot to high Heaven the previous weekend after the Clarets had triumphed to make it three wins out of three at Turf Moor since winning promotion when seeing off Steve Bruce's Sunderland.
This short-termism in the minds of those who see fit to comment on the top flight – either professionally or from the heart – is a recent development and not a welcome one.
The Premier League, we are told by everyone from Sky Sports down, is a vibrant, colourful and thriving competition but that does not mean grey should be banned from the thought process.
As in life, not everything is black or white with nothing in between and the sooner everyone realises this the better.
I was minded of this last weekend when walking away from Anfield after Hull City's 6-1 defeat. An hour or so had passed since Peter Walton's final whistle had brought a merciful end to the baiting of the Tigers but a few natives of the East Riding were still around and also making their way across Stanley Park.
Walking 10 or so steps behind, I would catch snippets of their conversation and it seemed a debate was taking place about just how big a hole Hull were in. And whether the club could extricate itself.
Unfortunately, all the reasoned conversation that had gone before was blown away when one proclaimed in a loud voice 'to be honest, I've never felt lower than this when watching City'.
Having just read a preview copy of the excellent new book 'From Bust to Boom - Hull City', I was flabbergasted.
Was this fan really claiming that being second-bottom of the Premier League was worse than the debacle of the David Lloyd era?
Or even the days when the club was locked out of its Boothferry Park home?
It was nonsensical and showed just how easily even the most reasoned of fans – and the four making their way across Stanley Park looked the rational sort – can be swept along by the hysteria created by the Premier League.
What this particular Tiger needed was a reality check and he could, in fact, do a lot worse than search out a copy of John Fieldhouse's book when it is published next Monday.
Charting the decade that took City from the foot of the bottom division to survival on their top flight debut last season, 'From Bust to Boom' offers a timely reality check to those in the East Riding who clearly think it is possible to run among the elite before walking has been truly mastered.
Yes, the past month or so has been a desperately disappointing time for Hull with Michael Turner's sale having been followed by a run of four straight defeats.
But time is still on City's side and that, as the second half of 'From Bust to Boom' charting the reigns of Adam Pearson and Paul Duffen shows, only good management and logical thinking will plot a path away from the club's current travails.
From Bust to Boom – Hull City AFC: From the Brink of Extinction to the Barclays Premier League, by John Fieldhouse (17, Great Northern Books).
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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