Michael Bridges did at the weekend what all Hull City players should do in such a situation - scored a goal which condemned Leeds United to an annoying defeat. As an ex-Leeds player (who was actually fantastic when he played for them), he chose not to celebrate the goal. One can't help but feel he wouldn't offer the same courtesy to the Tigers were he ever to notch one against us.
It's quite hard to believe that Bridges is still a City player, and the fact that he isn't leading a Premier League front line but is instead back in Cumbria, on loan and playing League One football, is a naked indication of what a wasted career he has had. He was very unfortunate with injuries in his earlier days - three years of his five at Leeds, during their overblown Champions League era too, were spent in rehab - but the latter act of wastefulness has been down to the player's own poor attitude.
Bridges was raised at Sunderland before Leeds spent a fortune on a lad who was clearly very exciting. Injury ruined his chances of helping Leeds reach their financially suicidal targets, but he rebuilt his body and his career with short spells, either through loans or quick deals, with Newcastle United, Bolton Wanderers and Sunderland again. Ultimately he dropped down the divisions to be properly noticed, with a fine promotion season at Carlisle United prompting Phil Parkinson, new to City and with a sterile, unimaginative side already threatening his job, to pay £350,000 for him in August 2006.
The tall, skilful centre forward made an instant impact, playing a blinder on his debut at Birmingham City despite a 2-1 defeat, then scoring what is still one of the best Hull City strikes I've ever seen. Still searching for the first win as we went to Leicester City on a windy September night, Bridges collected a ball at 30 yards' distance and after two seconds of preparation, curled a phenomenal left-footer into the top corner of the net, earning that long-awaited opening victory for the season and for Parkinson.
That was it. He'd peaked already, even though all the Tiger Nation could believe as we exited the Walkers Stadium with wide grins was that we had a new talisman, a saviour, a chap with the required quality and optimism to create and execute enough goals and moments of magic to pull us from the mire.
Not so. Bridges struggled again with injury, and then as the team's fortunes failed to improve, struggled with Phil Brown as manager once Parkinson had exited stage left. Brown adopted a 4-3-3 formation, a tactic which would work just as well when trying to avoid relegation from the Championship as it would later when trying to surprise illustrious Premier League opponents on their own turf.
Bridges didn't even slightly suit a lone striker's role with two wide attackers providing only occasional support, but it proved a turn in fortune for Nicky Forster, the ageing, experienced striker who was purchased on the same day as Bridges and whose impact thus far had been barely measurable. Forster's attitude pleased Brown, and his pace and willingness to run like billyo all day and night made him ideal for this new system. He scored a few goals but made such a sterling effort beyond his strike rate that the 4-3-3 was soon being re-adapted to suit his needs as a man capable of playing the flanks and channels.
Bridges came on as a substitute against Cardiff and scored the fourth goal of a 4-1 win, but that was the summary of his season's contribution. His head dropped and Brown, already needing to remove Jon Parkin and his stinking attitude from the picture, began to phase Bridges out of the equation too. He still featured through the season but by January, Dean Windass had returned on loan and in all his glory, and Brown was still showing faith in the strike-free but effort-blessed Stephen McPhee. Bridges featured in one game in the January, one in the February and one in the April, all of which ended in defeat. City stayed up with a match to spare in the end, but it was Windass and McPhee who completed the trio up front with Forster. Bridges was nowhere to be seen.
With safety assured and a new regime in place upstairs, Brown now had his mandate pinned to his office wall and began to exercise a proper clean-up operation on his squad, and the forward line was given a severe vacuuming. Forster wanted to return south as his family were still there and so he left with everyone's thanks. Windass signed up permanently and Parkin, along with the nippy but confidence-shorn Darryl Duffy, left after loan spells elsewhere had made them saleable assets. McPhee hung around, despite still not scoring a single goal since Taylor had signed him in 2005 (he did have a back injury which took almost a year to heal) and so did Bridges. Both scored in a League Cup tie at Crewe and Bridges, peripherally involved in the Championship so far, earned himself a start at Sheffield Wednesday. Although a striking crisis had forced Brown's hand - new £1m signing Caleb Folan had suffered a fractured skull on his debut a couple of weeks earlier - this still represented a big chance for Bridges, a big test of his mettle and the manager's faith, and against a club from whom we regularly took points at Hillsborough and who it was always a big thrill to outplay.
The team played poorly, despite the home side's only goal coming via a freak Francis Jeffers shot, but Bridges was as uninterested and uninspiring as he could have ever been. The fans were livid with his lack of application and certainly Brown made his feelings plain thereafter. Wanting him as far from his sight as possible, Brown packed Bridges off on loan to Sydney FC in Australia - not that such a move disappointed Bridges, given that he was going to a warm climate while still earning high Championship wages - and we all proceeded to forget about him, especially when a young striker called Fraizer Campbell was signing on loan from Manchester United just as Bridges was having his passport stamped.
While in Australia, Bridges said some unflattering things to the media there about Brown and Hull City and came across as a sourpuss and a real grump, unable to shoulder any of the blame for where it had all gone wrong for him at City. Given how close he had been as a younger player to losing his career through injury, and considering that City represented his first move back up the footballing ladder since the day he joined Leeds, it beggared belief that he was being so self-pitying and ungrateful. He wasn't in form - most players have that - but he was matching his lack of form with a lack of class, and it seemed that even though eventually he would have to return to Hull, there would be no discernible future for him at the KC.
In Australia, Bridges also struggled. He scored just twice in nine games, despite the supposed downturn in standards he was facing, and also had a public run-in with his coach. He returned to City forlorn, with little hope of being welcomed back with open arms, especially as the surge in form had activated real hopes of promotion to the Premier League. He came on as a sub in the 5-0 demolition of Southampton, having been picked because again there was an injury list to contend with, and just briefly during this sub appearance (albeit against a Southampton side who were utter rubbish) he showed flicks and touches which reminded us why he was once such a highly-regarded football player. He hit the post, prior to contributing to the fifth and final goal which was scored by Bryan Hughes. Yet it was a token appearance, one borne of necessity as opposed to any benevolence on the manager's part. Bridges has not played for Hull City since.
As the team maintained its rise towards glory, Bridges was nowhere to be seen, except the training ground and the odd reserve outing. I've no idea whether he went to Wembley as a member of staff (he certainly wasn't part of the squad) but the biggest stage in football was made for talents like his, providing those talents have the mental strength to use them in the correct manner. Though it would have crossed nobody's mind at the time, it did seem a shame that City were at Wembley and one of the club's most cultured players wasn't part of the experience. Bridges was escorted back to Carlisle in the summer for a year-long loan to keep him out of harm's way while City plough through the Premier League and his own contract runs down. Carlisle have first option on him in the summer.
This would be a sadder tale if it had happened during a struggle for City's very life, a scenario we remain far more used to than the current wave of high emotion, public congratulation and footballing achievement we are currently surfing. It still, nonetheless, maintains some sadness because of the way Bridges fought so hard to rescue his career from those terrible injuries when he was still in flushes of youth. Hull City represented a chance for Bridges to show again what he had prior to those darker days of rehab and surgery, and he blew it.
Sure, there will be his side to the tale, but we saw early evidence with those opening displays for the Tigers that the ability never left him, so how else could it have all gone wrong?
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