Hull City 3 Grimsby 0: Samuelsen and Scott on song as Tigers saunter to victory

August, 1989 to be precise - a time when a young and petite Australian songstress called Kylie Minogue was making her mark.

Now 52, Minogue recently celebrated becoming the first female artist to have a number one album in the UK across five decades.

Back in the late Eighties and early Nineties, the tunes out east were belted out by Alan Buckley's stylish Grimsby outfit, who achieved back-to-back promotions at a time when the likes of Garry Birtles, Shaun Cunnington, Andy Tillson and the late Keith Alexander were centre stage.

By contrast, Hull were on the slide and there was a sea-change in fortunes for both clubs.

A narrow 1-0 League Cup first leg victory over Grimsby at the club's former Boothferry Park home was notable for being the only win of a short-lived second spell in charge of the Tigers for Colin Appleton, with the Mariners winning the second leg 2-0 at Blundell Park.

City would drop into the third tier at the end of the following season in 1990-91 when the Mariners took over as the leading side by the Humber.

Fast forward to now and Hull may be in the same division where they were in those dark times, but the lights are flickering again as top dogs - or Tigers - in these parts.

By contrast, 34 miles away across the Humber Bridge, Grimsby followers would be forgiven for wallowing in a spot of nostalgia, given those heady days of Buckley's first spell.

These days, the Mariners may have a vibrant, inimitable character in charge in Ian Holloway, but on their first competitive visit to the KCOM Stadium, the splashes of on-pitch colour arrived from those in amber and black and principally Martin Samuelsen and Hakeeb Adelakun.

The former has always possessed quality in his locker and is in receipt of the sorts of intrinsic skill that you cannot teach from manuals.

That much was evident by his sumptuous opener just before the half-hour when he instinctively switched the ball onto his sweet left-foot before firing a gem of a curler past the helpless James McKeown after being teed up by Regan Slater.

It was a goal to illumunate any derby, more's the pity that no Tigers spectators were here to witness it.

Samuelsen's second four minutes, by comparison, was mundane.

He followed up to nod in almost on the goalline - although it looked like Adelakun's effort would have gone in anyway.

Loanee Adelakun took a while to get going as mercurial wingers sometimes do. When he did, he took a fancy to Mariners defender Ludvig Ohman.

His confidence replenished by his well-struck second goal in City's 2-0 win over Burton on Saturday, Adelakun's close control to deceive Ohman was a joy as he turned the Swede inside out before dinking an effort over McKeown, with Samuelsen following in to make sure.

The Mariners keeper and captain was adamant that Samuelsen was in an offside position and his appeals were vociferous.

Yet there was no denying that another moment of class from Adelakun had unhinged Grimsby. The sort that you do not see very often in League Two.

That was pretty much that. There were 41 places - almost two divisions - between these neighbours ahead of kick off and it showed.

The positively ravenous Samuelsen spurned chances to take home the match ball, most notably when he earned a 89th-minute penalty and was denied by McKeown, who parried his strike.

The late kudos would be afforded to his fellow winger James Scott. Unceremoniously brought off at the interval at the weekend, he made a more positive impression by way of a cracking 79th-minute drive to follow up his strike at Harrogate seven days earlier.

Hull won at a canter and will now fly the flag for the White Rose in the next stages of the Papa John's Trophy, with this competition now sponsored by a pizza company.

After the way they gorged on Grimsby at times, Hull might just be a decent bet on a night when the likes of Samuelsen and Scott showed the depth that Grant McCann has at his disposal.