Premier League at 20: Looking down on Leeds United gave Hull City supporters extra joy

HANGING on the wall of Dean Windass’s home is a framed photograph of the moment Hull City’s 104-year wait for top-flight football came to an end, complete with an inscription that reads, ‘The £60m goal’.

Just four years have passed since the former striker wrote himself into Hull folklore by clinching promotion with his volleyed goal but if Ricardo Vaz Te had chosen to immortalise his own Wembley winner in a similar vein over the summer then the accompanying caption would have to reflect the 50 per cent increase in value of a Championship play-off final triumph.

As inflation rates go, it is enough to leave Sir Mervyn King and his colleagues at the Bank of England pleased with their own efforts to keep the cost of living under control during the same period

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For one-time Tigers chairman Paul Duffen, however, the increased riches on offer to promoted clubs – as welcome as they are – have done little to alter his belief that the current set-up makes establishing a place among the elite nigh on impossible without the support of a generous benefactor.

It is a topic the 53-year-old knows plenty about after a 26-month spell in charge at the KC Stadium, during which time Hull initially prospered in the promised land of English football before the dream turned sour as financial problems began to envelop the club.

People talk about the £90m game or however much it is now worth to win the Championship play-off final,” said Duffen when taking time out from his busy schedule as chairman of Newsdesk Media to speak to the Yorkshire Post.

“But it doesn’t give the true picture with more than half, £48m, being parachute payments over four years, which are obviously not available until a team goes down.

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“Plus, the increased wages that come with being in the Premier League – which if you don’t pay them means you are not competitive, something you have to be – means a lot of the income goes straight out.

“Through my time at Hull, I likened the role of the club to acting pretty much as a pipe between the TV companies and the players’ bank accounts – effectively funnelling the money straight there, without receiving any of the benefits.

“You only have to look at the Deloitte figures for the 2010-11 season to see the results of this crazy state of affairs. The average debt for a Premier League club was in the region of £120m and the average wage bill something like £70m.

“Clearly the top four distort those figures somewhat but, even so, it points to a competition where clubs need a benefactor to sustain the losses, which is usually done in the form of a soft loan. Without that, life can be tough.”

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The harsh reality of life in the Premier League without a footballing sugar daddy to rely on was brought home to Duffen during the summer that preceded Hull’s second year in the top flight.

He added: “In our first season in the Premier League, we made a profit of £2m. That was a very creditable performance. But the reality was we didn’t have the money to plough into the team.

“Not having a budget to go out and get players meant we had to concentrate on free transfers or deals involving deferred payments. It meant a bigger challenge for the football management, and that is why I laugh when I hear supporters urging their club to go out and spend big on transfers ‘because we have £90m to spend’.

“One deal we nearly pulled off was (Real Madrid striker Alvaro) Negredo. We struck a deal (in the summer of 2009), whereby we would have only had to pay his wages for 12 months and then at the end of that time we could have either signed him for a set fee or sent him back.

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“His parent club knew that if he did well in the Premier League then his value would multiply. And if Madrid then sold him, we would have got a percentage of the fee.

“It was a clever deal as, effectively, we would have been able to bring someone in worth £10m for just the cost of his wages. It was a win-win situation for everyone.

“But, unfortunately, after agreeing the deal in principle with Real Madrid, the player decided he wanted to stay in Spain and signed for Sevilla instead.

“It was a big blow, especially as the irony was that the make-up of the deal made it an easier one for Hull City to conclude than, say, having to find £1m up front to sign a player. That is what I mean by saying a club needs a benefactor to properly establish itself in the Premier League, otherwise things are very difficult.”

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Duffen, as the figurehead of a consortium led by Essex-based property investor Russell Bartlett, may have left as Hull’s financial problems started to bite during the October of the season that ended in relegation but he has only fond memories of his time at the KC Stadium.

“Hull City in the Premier League was such an emotional journey for everyone,” he said.

“The magic dust from winning at Wembley carried us into the following season and was a big factor in why we had such an incredible start. It is not stretching things to say we set the football world alight as moments like our wins at Arsenal and Tottenham are the sort that live in the hearts of football fans forever.

“The impact that Hull being in the Premier League had on the region was immense, while being two divisions above Leeds United was wonderful for the supporters, too, as was being the top club in Yorkshire.”

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Duffen’s involvement may be over but he keeps a watching brief on events at the KC Stadium and believes the club’s stint in the top flight has changed the perception of the club forever.

He said: “I would suggest the mindset surrounding Hull City has changed. I meet up with Phil Brown every so often and, inevitably, our conversation turns to Hull and we both believe the legacy of that time is the 104 years where Hull City were synonymous with modest ambition and largely playing in the lower divisions has ended.

“Instead, Hull City are now regarded as a top Championship team with genuine ambitions of getting back up. That much is evident when listening to the owners, who seem very strong and supportive, and the manager Steve Bruce’s every comment is about getting back into the Premier League.

“If anyone involved with the club had said that publicly five years ago, they would have been laughed at. But not any more.”

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Dean Windass: I am proud of how I helped my hometown team make history

I was fortunate enough to play for three clubs in the Premier League and I loved my time with all of them, often in different ways.

Being promoted with Bradford City in 1999 was very special, as was staying up the following year. Joining Middlesbrough was great, too, as it meant I was suddenly in a team with all these world-class players. But playing for my hometown club in the Premier League was something else.

When I was a kid supporting Hull and then later when playing for the team during the Nineties, I never dreamed Hull would ever reach the top division. We’d never made it in the past and I just couldn’t see that changing, especially as at Boothferry Park we were being watched by about 3,000 fans every week.

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But Hull City did make it and I feel very proud that I was part of making it happen. I was 39 at the time we won promotion so didn’t really get a crack at the Premier League with Hull, other than as a substitute in a handful of games.

There were three of us in the same boat, Bryan Hughes and Wayne Brown being the others who played a big part in promotion but never got a chance in the Premier League. But, from a personal point of view, I can always say I scored a goal for Hull City in the Premier League, our equaliser in a 2-2 draw at Portsmouth and, as I was only a few months short of my 40th birthday, it really was the icing on the cake for my career.

The only disappointing thing about Hull in the Premier League is it ended in a similar fashion to Bradford’s two-year stay – big financial problems and relegation.

Both clubs finished fourth bottom and survived but with Paul Duffen and Russell Bartlett making the same mistakes that Geoffrey Richmond made at Bradford by then spending too big.

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I’d left by the start of Hull’s second season in the Premier League but was worried by the similarities with what had happened to Bradford. Sadly, exactly the same thing happened and if it wasn’t for the Allams coming in to save Hull there is every chance they’d be heading down to where Bradford are now.

Having said that, I still think Hull in the Premier League was a positive thing for not only the club but the entire city. I was on the bench at Arsenal and Spurs when we won, and when I think of either game then I can’t help but smile.

The same goes for Hull fans, who were suddenly able to watch the likes of Wayne Rooney and Didier Drogba in the flesh at the KC.

Considering the struggles the club had been through, hosting Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and so on was amazing and something few will ever forget.

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The Fan, Phil Booth: Our two years at top almost too good to be true

IT took 104 years to reach the Promised Land and although it only lasted for 24 months the memories will last a lifetime.

Hull City in the Premier League. And for a time, Hull City joint top of the Premier League.

The start to that first season had to be seen to be believed. The historic first-day win over Fulham, Geovanni’s wonder goal in the 2-1 win at Arsenal, the free-kick that saw off Tottenham, the win at Newcastle.

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For the supporters of a team which a few short years earlier faced ridicule as it languished in the bottom division it was the stuff of fairytales.

Yes, it went wrong. Defeat after defeat as we avoided the drop by the skin of our teeth, and then relegation the following year could not dampen the spirits too much. Because we had been to a place we had only dared dream about.

The memories are marred slightly by the failures of the second season, the sacking of Phil Brown, Iain Dowie unable to stop the drop and, ultimately, the shocking realisation that we faced financial ruin.

But in those early days it was too good to be true. A Brazilian international gracing the Black and Amber shirt, players of the calibre of Anthony Gardner and later Jimmy Bullard playing at the KC Stadium.

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The half-time Phil Brown team talk on the pitch at Manchester City will stay in the mind, as will the ‘team talk celebration’ led by Bullard after he rifled in his penalty to earn a 1-1 draw in the same fixture the following year.

And even after that wretched end to the first season, when yet another defeat, this time to Manchester United, threatened our survival, we were saved by Newcastle losing and out came Brown, microphone in hand, to lead the sing-song, proclaiming it the best trip he’d ever been on.

For that was what it was. Despite the national ridicule which followed in season two, despite the financial maelstrom which was just around the corner, it was a journey none of us really thought we would ever see.

And for us to be lucky enough to witness Hull City in the top flight of football for the first time in the club’s long, long history was the icing on the cake.

Yes, it ended in misery and yes, there were knocks along the way, but for the long suffering fans of the Tigers, it really was the best trip we’ve ever been on.