Heroes & Villains – Hull City
Hero – Dean Windass
Dean Windass is a bit of a cult hero at Hull City, having spent six years over two spells at the club. He was the scorer of the winning goal in the Play Off Final to secure promotion to the top flight of English football for the first time in their history.
Hull City is Windass’s hometown club and he began his career with the club. After 205 games and scoring 64 goals, Aberdeen came in and offered a record sum and he moved north of the border.
The £700,000 fee that Aberdeen paid in December 1995 helped the club to survive during some financial hardships.
Windass returned to Hull City for a second spell in 2007, at the age of 37. He had gained experience in the Premiership for Bradford City and Middlesbrough and also played for Oxford United and Sheffield United since leaving Hull for Aberdeen in 1995,
At the age of 39, Windass headed in a goal against Portsmouth in a 1-1 on 22nd November 2008. In doing so, he became the oldest goalscorer in Hull’s history.
First-team opportunities were hard to come by and in January 2009, he joined Oldham Athletic of League One on loan until the end of the season. He never played for Hull City again but has gone down in history as one of Hull’s greatest players.
Villain – Assem Allam
City owner Allam tried to get the club’s name changed to Hull Tigers back in 2014 and again in 2016, causing an uproar from the Hull fans. He cited the reason behind the name change as a purely financial reason, thinking that the club could gain more income and have an increased marketability if their name was changed.
The idea backfired massively and Hull City became the laughing stock of the footballing world for a while. It also showed that you can’t mess around with tradition, just as Cardiff City’s owners found out after the unpopular change in home colours from blue to red.
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