The news has come as a surprise but provides a warming poultice for the heart in a week of bad news - a huge 19,000 season tickets have been sold for next season.
This is an amazing feat, considering a lot of new fans hooked up with the club after Wembley and were only expected by the cynical, browbeaten veteran supporters to hang around for one season, irrespective of how it ended.
It truly is an astonishing number, and deadlines have still to be met for applications so it could turn into more, a figure beyond 20,000. For a stadium that holds a few shy of 25,000, it's clear that a footballing bug, as opposed to a Premier League bug, has bitten into the East Riding public.
Talk of an emptying bandwagon has been prolonged and bitter of late following the catastrophic demise of the team, culminating in a fortnight where a minor miracle is required to even give the Tigers a meagre sniff of survival. Yet the applications and re-applications for fresh passes in 2009-10, when we don't know if it's going to be Liverpool or Leicester providing the opposition, suggest that the bandwagon that clearly was multiply boarded last summer is not ready to shed any percentage of its passengers.
Why have the newcomers done this? There is a danger that they may believe that one season of Premier League notoriety - and we are notorious now, make no mistake about it - should make a season in the Championship a formality and watching City win loads, score loads and generally swat aside all that appear before them is in the offing. If we do go down, then the experienced supporters (as well as manager and team) will know that an instant re-elevation to the Premier League will not be simple. It's nicer to think that they've enjoyed the season and the attention so much that, even despite the ending, it's become a distinctly fun and pleasant way to spend part of the weekend. And one likes to think that even the newbies have renewed for next season in a firm belief that we are still capable of surviving. And maybe a few of them have done it simply because they think a fit, focussed Jimmy Bullard running our midfield will be worth the layout alone.
Given that fans have, at times, been mistreated or not considered this season, from the partial scrapping of the popular Away Direct scheme to the recent refusal of Phil Brown to give post-match interviews via the local BBC station, it is a stirring piece of loyalty and one which, hopefully, will be felt through every annal of the club, including a bedraggled, shellshocked first team squad.
Could this demonstration of outstanding backing for the club that employs them do anything for the players' confidence in time for the remaining two matches of the season? It's win or bust at Bolton on Saturday, something that everyone knew already. One hopes that this bit of glowing news, at a time when gloom has threatened to envelop the club, stadium and city, might yet help the players appreciate what they have and find a last scrap of endeavour and heart to reward us with a glorious leap from danger.
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