The history of Hull City Association Football Club from its inception in 1904 to the present day.
Inception Hull City A.F.C. were founded on 28 June 1904. For some years before these attempts were made to found a football club, but in a city dominated initially by rugby league with the likes of Hull F.C. and Hull Kingston Rovers this proved difficult.
The first season for Hull City consisted of friendly matches; because of the time of founding, City were unable to apply for membership to The Football League for the 1904–05 season. The early matches were played at The Boulevard, home of rugby league side Hull FC. On 1 September 1904, City's debut match took place against Notts County; with 6000 in attendance at the Boulevard, City notched up an impressive start holding the more experienced County to a 2–2 draw.
Hull's first taste of competitive football came in the FA Cup, but they were eliminated, after a replay, in the preliminary round against Stockton, the score was 7–4 on aggregate. After uneasy relationships with landlords, Hull City moved to Anlaby Road Cricket Ground.
Football League Finally, after playing 44 friendly fixtures the previous season, Hull City were entered into the Football League Second Division for the 1905–06 season. Other teams competing in the league that season included the likes of Manchester United and Chelsea, as well as Yorkshire rivals Leeds City, Bradford City and Barnsley. Indeed, it was Barnsley who they faced in their first game, beating them 4–1. Eventually, Hull would finish fifth.
The following season a new ground was built for Hull City across the road from the cricket ground. Still under the managership of Ambrose Langley, City continued to finish consistently in the top half of the table. They came agonisingly close to promotion in the 1909–10 season, recording what would be their highest ever finish in their history (a record which will be surpassed at the end of the 2008–09 Premier League season); Hull finishing third, level on points with second placed Oldham Athletic, they missed promotion on goal average by the slim margin of 0.29 of a goal.
Before the First World War, Hull reached the quarter-finals of the FA Cup in 1915, beating out West Bromwich Albion, Northampton Town and Southampton, before eventually going out to Bolton Wanderers in a 4–2 away defeat.
Post-War In cup competitions, the club's greatest achievement was in 1930, when they reached the FA Cup semi-final. The cup run saw Hull knocking out Leeds United and eventual Champions of the Second and Third Division; Blackpool and Plymouth Argyle respectively. They then knocked out Manchester City, to meet Newcastle United in the FA Cup quarter finals. The first leg at St James' Park finished as a 1–1 draw, but in the replay Hull beat Newcastle 1–0.
The semi-final match against Arsenal took place at Elland Road in Leeds, the game ended 2–2, and was taken to a replay. Arsenal knocked Hull City out at Aston Villa's home ground, the game ended 1–0.
In 1948–49, managed by former England international Raich Carter, Hull City won the Third Division (North), and their new Boothferry Park ground saw a crowd approaching 50,000 for the Christmas Day game against Rotherham United, and exceeding that for the FA Cup 6th round tie with Manchester United; the attendance of 55,019 still remains a record today.
Yo-yoing between the second and third tiers of English football, Hull City had promotion seasons from the third to the second division again in 1959 and 1966, winning the third division championship in that latter season. Still, however, top flight football eluded the club. They came close several times in the early 1970s under the player-management of Terry Neill, but were not able to secure promotion before Neill left to join Tottenham Hotspur in 1974. Another player-manager, John Kaye succeeded Neill, but the club's form slowly deteriorated over the following years, eventually culminating in a disastrous 1977–78 season that saw four men (Kaye, Bobby Collins, Wilf McGuinness, and Ken Houghton) take charge of the team on its way to being relegated in bottom place.
The following season saw Hull struggle for consistency, before recovering well in the second half of the season to finish a respectable 8th place. This form was not carried forward into the 1979–80 season, however, and manager Ken Houghton was sacked in December 1979 after a two-month winless run left them near the bottom of the table. Wales manager Mike Smith was recruited to take over, and a strong end to the season saw Hull avoid relegation by a single point. This just staved off the inevitable, however, and a thoroughly disastrous 1980–81 season saw the club finish bottom again, resulting in their first-ever relegation to the fourth tier. Two relegations in three years had a dire effect on the club's finances, which in turn helped lead to a dismal start to their first season in Division Four. An upturn in form later in the season saw them finish in 8th place, but it wasn't enough to save Smith's job, and he was made redundant two months before the season ended.
The low ebb saw the arrival of unlikely looking saviours in the form of a chairman (Don Robinson) and manager (Colin Appleton) from the footballing outpost of Scarborough F.C. Promotion to Division Three followed in 1983, with a young team featuring the likes of future England international Brian Marwood, future England manager Steve McClaren, fearsome centre-forward Billy Whitehurst, and the prolific goal-scorer Les Mutrie. When Hull City missed out on promotion by 1 goal the following season, Appleton left to manage Swansea City.
Hull City reached the Second Division in 1985 under new player-manager Brian Horton, and again nearly earned a second successive promotion, this time finishing in 6th place. The two following seasons saw Hull only able to record mid-table finishes, however, and Horton was controversially sacked shortly before the end of the 1987–88 season. Former Leeds United manager Eddie Gray replaced Horton, but was himself sacked at the end of the following season, following a disastrous run that saw them win only one of their last twenty games.
1989-90 proved another very inconsistent season, with Colin Appleton returning for a second stint as manager, only to resign after just five months, following the club's worst-ever start to a league campaign. Stan Ternent took over from Appleton, and oversaw a remarkable upswing in form that saw the team manage a respectable 14th-place finish. This proved a false dawn, however, and Hull's start to the 1990–91 season was almost as bad as the previous one, including a humiliating 7-0 thrashing by West Ham. Ternent was sacked shortly after the turn of the year with the club well adrift at the bottom of the table, with Terry Dolan replacing him. Despite an initial upturn in form after Dolan's appointment, and there being only two relegation spots that year due to league restructuring, it proved too little, too late, and Hull were relegated back to the Third Division, the beginning of what would prove a 14-year absence from the second tier.
Striving to survive: 1990s
Hull finished 14th in the Third Division in 1991–92, meaning that they would be competing in the new Football League Division Two. In their first season in the rebranded division, Hull narrowly avoided another relegation but the board kept faith in Dolan and over the next two seasons they achieved secure mid table finishes. But terrible form in 1995–96 condemned Hull to relegation to Division Three.
Dolan was fired by new chairman David Lloyd after Hull failed to get anywhere near the top of Division Three in 1996–97, with former England international Mark Hateley taking over the manager's job. By this stage, financial problems were taking their toll on the Tigers and it was starting to look as though the club would go out of business before long. And Hull's league form was steadily deteriorating to the point that relegation to the Conference was looking a real possibility – which surely would have meant the death of the club. The 1997–98 season would prove to be arguably the worst in the club's history, with the club earning just 41 points; any other season this would almost certainly have seen Hull relegated to the Football Conference, but Brighton and Hove Albion and Doncaster Rovers both had unbelievably poor campaigns, and instead it was Doncaster who were relegated, with Hull recording their lowest ever finish in 22nd place. Lloyd stepped down as chairman that summer and was replaced by Nick Buchanan, while Hateley departed in November 1998 to be replaced by 34-year-old veteran player Warren Joyce, who steered the club to safety after being anchored to the foot of the table – Hull City fans refer to this season as "The Great Escape". After this feat, Joyce was perhaps unlucky to be replaced in April 2000 by the experienced Brian Little.
Little breathed new life into Hull and managed to get good results out of the players, despite briefly being locked out of Boothferry Park by the bailiffs and with liquidation looking a real possibility. Hull qualified for the Division Three playoffs in 2000–01, and lost in the semi-finals. But things could have been much worse – at least the Hull City fans still had a football club to support. A boardroom takeover had eased the club's precarious financial situation and all fears of closure were banished – had the club been relegated to the Conference the previous season, it is extremely unlikely that this takeover would have taken place.
The Tigers on their way up
New Chairman Adam Pearson ploughed funds into the club, allowing Little to rebuild the team with the aim of immediate promotion. Hull occupied the Division Three promotion and playoff places for much of the 2001–02 season, but Little was sacked two months before the end of the season and Hull slipped to 11th under his successor Jan Mølby.
Hull began the 2002–03 season as most people's favourites for promotion from Division Three, but a terrible start to the season saw relegation look more likely than promotion and Molby was sacked in October as the Tigers languished fifth from bottom in the league.
Peter Taylor was named as Hull's new manager and in December 2002, just weeks after his appointment, Hull relocated to the impressive new 25,400-seat Kingston Communications Stadium after 56 years at Boothferry Park. After this move, Hull's attendances were some of the best in the division but their results were rarely this impressive and they were unable to finish above 13th place in the final table.
Hull's new stadium was one of the most impressive stadiums outside the Premier League and it has helped influence an upturn in Hull's fortunes after a decade of misery. The two seasons which followed the opening of the new stadium were hugely successful. Hull were Division Three runners-up in 2003–04 and League One runners-up in 2004–05 – back-to-back promotions – which took them into the Championship, the second tier of English football.
2005–06 was hardly the most exciting season in the history of Hull City football club; it was more a season of consolidation after two successive promotions. Hull finished 18th in the final table – a comfortable 10 points clear of relegation and their highest league finish for 16 years.
2006 and onwards Championship struggles