This was simply the most exciting day of my football spectating life. We'd enjoyed a visit to and from Arsenal in the League Cup earlier in the season, and had entertained and travelled to Manchester United in the same competition the year before, but Liverpool were the big draw. Reigning champions and in possession of a team which, in that victorious 87/88 season, had re-defined football, playing a passing and moving game which defied even the Anfield club's own great traditions.
For our part, the Tigers were in decent shape. Eddie Gray was in charge and although a promotion campaign hadn't entirely materialised, we went into the February fixture with a good deal of hope that the season would be deemed a success and the hasty sacking of Brian Horton a year earlier hadn't been as big a clanger as it seemed.
City had won 2-1 at both Cardiff and Bradford in the previous rounds and, with Manchester United, Everton, Nottingham Forest and holders Wimbledon still in the draw for the last 16, there was much expectation when the Monday morning breakfast time draw was made. Liverpool came out of the hat for a trip to Boothferry Park and your author whooped and capered round the kitchen as a whole city began to buzz.
Some things don't change in 20 years of football - just as casual observers of the modern Hull City suddenly wanted to go to games when promotion to the Premier League was sealed, previously scathing Hull residents found themselves interested in seeing a match when Liverpool were due in town. City were getting four figure crowds at Boothferry Park but it was obvious that the 18,000+ capacity was going to be achieved with ease for this particular fixture. In order to get as much as possible from these one-offs (who no doubt were slagging the Tigers off in the pub on Saturdays rather than attempting to follow them), a voucher scheme was introduced for all who didn't hold a season ticket. Anybody who wanted a ticket for the Liverpool game had to take a stub from the League match against Shrewsbury Town to the ticket office and they'd receive a voucher for the Liverpool game, which could then be exchanged for a ticket and their cash.
On the day itself, there was much in the way of pre-match coverage. Harry Gration's report for Football Focus combined City's game with that of Grimsby Town, who were hosting Wimbledon the same day. A nicely packaged Humberside-centric piece for the watching nation, despite nobody on either side of the bridge wanting that wretched county name. Also featured was Emlyn Hughes, iconic Liverpool skipper of yore but now a Hull City director who claimed, with the usual array of impish giggles, that he was entirely on the Tigers side ("I've got to cheer for the boys, I'm a Hull City director!"). On ITV, Clive Tyldesley interviewed Keith Edwards, concentrating as much on his sideline of greyhound racing as his panache for finding the net. The archive slot of that programme featured City beating Brentford in the 1971 fifth round thanks to goals from Chris Chilton and Ken Houghton, prior to losing the infamous sixth round tie against Stoke City. Jimmy Greaves himself added that it was "some forward line that Hull had" back then, a hell of a compliment from the greatest finisher of them all.
And then the game. Liverpool picked a mighty side. City, for their part, were a settled team and unchanged for the whole Cup run, with Edwards and Billy Whitehurst forming an attack based on experience, guile and more brutality than any city centre pub could muster in a whole year of drunken Friday nights. Local youngster Neil Buckley was Richard Jobson's defensive partner, keeping out the wisdom, big game experience and large headband of Steve Terry, while youth was aplenty elsewhere thanks to full back Wayne Jacobs and future free-scorer Andy Payton, who was on the wing as he waited for one of the long-toothed marksmen to collapse with exhaustion.
John Barnes headed Liverpool ahead early on prior to future City manager and perennial fat oaf Jan Molby coming on as a sub for Gary Gillespie (whose shin was left entirely purple by a very late Payton challenge) and having to play as a centre back. A very slow one at that. Ray Houghton nearly made it two after a sloppy back pass from Jobson didn't find keeper Iain Hesford, before the Tigers equalised thanks to Gary Ablett, ex-City loanee, slipping as Garreth Roberts' low ball came his way, allowing Whitehurst to prod a shot past the exposed Bruce Grobbelaar.
Whitehurst celebrated in front of the Liverpool supporters, whose bileful words and gestures suggested they were happy to take him on. Heh, if only. It was 1-1 and the old place was rocking - and this progressed to rolling too when, right on half time, Billy Askew's swinging ball was met meatily by Whitehurst, whose header was miscontrolled by Molby, leaving Edwards all the room he needed to glide a left-footer into the far corner.
I ran on the pitch. Well, not quite. I clambered out of my standing area and reached the subs' warm-up zone near the touchline before being curtly told to get back to where I'd come from, in that charming way that Humberside Police had about them in the 1980s. The half time whistle sounded almost immediately.
Crivens, we were 2-1 up against Liverpool. Liverpool!
The break is a hazy memory. Presumably everyone turned to each other, flasks in hand, and assuming they were able to speak at all, began to worry about a hurt Liverpool steamrollering past us upstarts in the second half and winning 6-2. After ten minutes of the second half, our worst fears seemed to be coming true.
Jobson stood off Peter Beardsley way too much as he looked for a meaningful final ball, and he duly delivered a peach of a cross on to John Aldridge's head for 2-2. Within another 60 seconds, a half-clearance by City was met by Steve McMahon's own forehead and the pace of it took it between Jobson and Buckey for Aldridge to stretch and hammer home another. From 2-1 up we were 3-2 down and the hour mark hadn't passed.
Liverpool could have had more - McMahon tried lobbing Hesford from the halfway line and succeeded in beating keeper but not the far post. City had plenty of possession but the only chance came when a cross from the left was missed by both strikers in the six-yard box and Payton, steaming in, was kept out by a heroic block from David Burrows.
The final whistle went and, according to BBC commentator Barry Davies "...a good challenge by Hull City, but in the end the right team claimed the victory." He was correct. It was disappointing to lose after such euphoria earlier in the game, but the pride in the team was immense. Sadly, it went downhill afterwards as City proceeded to not win all bar one of their remaining League games, ending the season fourth from bottom and with Eddie Gray's dismissal, having been in a healthy mid-table position when Liverpool came to town.
For Liverpool, football and the FA Cup that season became meaningless when, having disposed of Brentford in the quarter finals, they went to Hillsborough for the semis and the devastating events there led to football putting its house in order, learning to treat its fans with respect again after an appalling decade of mistrust. They went on to win the competition, appropriately.
City played Liverpool again in the 99/00 League Cup, home and away, with neither occasion providing more than a decent night out for the fans, especially as the gap between the two was three divisions and immeasurable quantities of money (and City had their goalkeeper sent off at Anfield in the opening minute). The game this weekend will be much leveller, even allowing for Liverpool's comparative strength and City's delirious overachievement, but unless City win at Anfield (see Arsenal for more details on how that is possible), the greatest game between these two clubs will always be the 1989 FA Cup tie.
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