Please Hammer and hurt 'em

There is another glut of international fixtures to come this week, some involving Hull City players, but already I'm thinking about the return to Premier League action at the weekend.

We're back at the KC after two glorious days out in north London. The ovation that the side will receive when the Tigers take to the field will be atomic. West Ham United are the visitors - another team with one of those wretched 'continental' hierarchies which pushed Alan Curbishley's nose enough out of joint to prompt his resignation - and we're in a position to beat them.

There's no real history between City and the Hammers. We last played them in the League in the 1990-91 season, where we were relegated from what was then the Second Division and they were promoted. At Boothferry Park, it was an awful 0-0 draw. When we go to Upton Park in January, memories will be revived of the corresponding fixture in that 1991 season, as City were given a 7-1 trampling. Such was our poverty of ideas that our goal was a fluke, scored by David Hockaday, an ageing right back whose looping header caught Phil Parkes unawares. It was one of numerous tonkings we took under Stan Ternent, who was dumped on New Year's Day by the chairman as he protested his innocence and claimed a hypocritical boardroom promising him everything and giving him nothing.

That was garbage - Ternent bought a glut of seasoned but expensive pros, not feeling they had anything to prove within a club which had still to prove itself. Hockaday was less culpable, as were David Mail, Malcolm Shotton, Russ Wilcox and the mercurial Leigh Palin, but any supporter from that era who hears the names Tony Finnegan, Gwyn Thomas and, more than any other, Dave Bamber will recall dreadful, unmotivated players taking the money without accepting the responsibility. Bamber, who infamously spent the generous relocation allowance proffered by the Tigers on a house in Blackpool, remains one of the biggest hate figures on Hull City's long rollcall of past professionals. Richard Chetham, the chairman, gave Ternent a fortune to sign these players - their wages were among the largest ever paid by the club - and City were relegated because of them, not despite them.

The defeat at West Ham was, on scoreline alone, the nadir, but the high concession of goals that year at Sheffield Wednesday, Plymouth Argyle, Bristol City and Portsmouth also represented the start of a decade which grew steadily worse and almost ended in the club's death. Ternent still has his apologists, and nobody can blame a manager for spending money a chairman gives him, but he had a lot to answer for as the club spiralled into more debt and depression under charmless, nervous leadership thereafter in both boardroom and dressing room.

Still, it's something of a different Hull City which plays West Ham United this weekend. Given that the Hammers got done over by Bolton Wanderers last time round and have the infamous continental managerial system - with their first ever continental manager - it bodes well. Plus they're in appalling shtuck over their ownership and have a shocking reputation to spin round following the decision to award compensation to Sheffield United (itself hardly a club to sympathise with) over the Carlos Tevez shambles.

Meanwhile, we've beaten three out of three London teams so far this season, just done over Arsenal and Spurs on their own manors, have a squad almost unblemished by injury, the newly-crowned Manager of the Month and a team drizzled in confidence and belief. We'd better watch our step, as soon we may even be tipped to win matches before we actually do so.