And on Saturday we had the neighbours over...

Last updated : 22 February 2003 By Terrace Talk
It was excellent value for money as apparently there were two games going on at the same time. Most of us saw Scunthorpe win at a canter. The BBC website, which has no allegiance either way we assume, said we ‘cruised to victory’ and Hull were ‘soundly beaten’. However Peter Taylor, Jamie Forrester, the Hull Daily Mail and two thousand Hull fans seem to have been in some sort of parallel universe. When we lost at Boothferry Park in November every Scunthorpe fan I heard was realistic and honest about the game. I said in this column that they had played us off the park at times. But when we do the same to them we come up against the usual mass delusion. Let’s be honest here, if it had been a boxing match the referee would have stopped it after 25 minutes and helped poor old Hull off the ropes and back to the black and amber corner.

But in Tigerworld, that mystical land where Peter Taylor rubs shoulders with Harry Potter and Gandalf and other mystical figures with superhuman powers, everything is wonderful. Peter Taylor said in the Hull Daily Mail recently that Hull are the Manchester United of the Third Division. How precisely? Presumably that comment hasn’t filtered through to Old Trafford or they would be suing him for slander.

If you’re ever unsure as to the difference between a coach and a manager Peter Taylor is a useful case in point. A coach works with the squad, getting the best out of the players he finds waiting for him at the training ground on Monday morning. There is some historical evidence to suggest that Peter Taylor has been successful at this. A manager is allowed near the cheque book. There is plenty of evidence both from Leicester and Hull that Taylor loses the plot at this point. When they did play off us off the park at Hull the best player on the pitch by far was Stuart Green. Taylor has wasted him and he’s on his way to Carlisle. He inherited one of the biggest and most expensive squads in the division, so what does he do? Go on a spending spree that has cost hundreds of thousands and left Hull lower in the table than when they sacked either Molby or Little. I was surprised to hear a tannoy announcement at the match on Saturday asking the driver of the Hull team bus to return to his vehicle. Surely they cannot all come on just one bus - presumably it was a double decker.

He is now saying that next season they will operate with a squad of only twenty. I think that’s what he said although it might have been 120. Apparently the buying has come to an end for the Nick Leeson of Division Three. Whether this has been forced on him we do not know. Personally I suspect Chairman Adam Pearson has developed a repetitive strain injury from signing cheques and can take no more. He also said he expects to lead Hull to promotion next season. To be honest when I read that I thought he meant from the third division but the way he’s performing he may well be aspiring to promotion from the Conference. Hull are ten points off bottom and every single team below them has games in hand. Ordinarily you would not have thought it likely they could get sucked into the relegation mire.

But all of the teams at the bottom are already fighting for their lives, as we found out at Boston last week. But in Tigerworld that could never happen to the Manchester United of Division Three, so they’re not getting worked up about it.

But it was a brilliant match and the atmosphere was excellent. The referee wasn’t brilliant by any means and the decision to book Garcia for diving was laughable. Obviously your average continental player is shifty and dishonest, dresses too flash, and probably puts some sort of wax or something in his hair. But Alex has made his home in Scunthorpe and that brings with it the highest standards of morality and decency and a sense of fair play admired throughout the civilised world.

Why give Jamie Forrester such a poor reception? Firstly we know from experience that it’s counter productive and as usual fired the player up to score his first goal in ages. Secondly what did he do wrong anyway? He didn’t go straight to Hull like John Eyre did and he’s ended up at Hull as much as anything, I don’t know if he had many other offers. He certainly had to leave Northampton - when it looks like you’re starting to play second fiddle to Darryn Stamp then it really is time to start packing your kitbag.

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