There was no David Livermore figure this year. He was freed at the close of his contract last season for entirely political reasons and more because of the specific terms of his deal than anything else. Livermore garnered mega sympathy from the Tiger Nation as they recalled his excellent personal contribution to the Championship escape of 2007 when he had initially arrived at the club in the most underwhelming of fashions.
This time round, however, the quartet of departures leave without fanfare or a need for explanation. Ryan France has a secure place in City's history, having been quietly influential in Peter Taylor's two promotion campaigns and eventually added his name as the fourth player to represent the club in all four tiers of the English game.
France's release is no surprise but he should feel no shame in it either, and this level-headed, versatile and talented player deserves to be fondly regarded by the Tiger Nation for his honesty and professionalism over six years with the club, especially when you consider he cost peanuts from the non-league pyramid. He deserves to join another good club and continue an admirable career.
Michael Bridges and John Welsh were the most telegraphed in the departure stakes and will be recalled less easily. They draw parallels with one another in that they arrived with fantastic pedigrees and reputations and proceeded to throw it all away. Bridges was a nuisance in the dressing room, surly and confrontational despite obvious ability and Brown couldn't wait to send him to the other side of the world on loan. Welsh was less of a divisive figure but still a wasted talent, using an old Liverpudlian grudge on fellow academy graduate Neil Mellor to break his own leg more than two years ago and not remotely sniffing the scent of the first team since his recovery. His attitude has been further scrutinised by some deeply unimpressive loan spells at lower division clubs.
While we have brilliant solo goals to remember each by - Bridges' 30 yard curler at Leicester, Welsh's stunning mazy run and finish at Coventry - these were very much isolated reeds of quality within soggy marshes of mediocrity and neither player will be mourned. Each leave with a feeling of what might, or indeed should, have been.
Even the exodus of Dean Windass, the biggest Hull City hero of the modern era, is greeted with little more than a knowing shrug and a smile of recognition. Sentiment plays no part in football and the fans who love their heroes know that as well as any professional within the game. Windass is 40 and cannot play Premier League football. He is a freakish enough example of nature by being 40 and still being able to play and perform better than blokes half his age, but there is no way he could ever do that at the very highest level.
Windass leaves after two tremendous, iconic spells with the club. The first was about his superstardom in a dying team, his commitment to the cause as Terry Dolan's negative regime dragged the club ever downwards was one of the few laudable sights in a cauldron of ineptitude. The way he clung on to his City career until it was obvious that any further ruling of heart over head could leave him bankrupt was as admirable as any great goal he scored or any gesture of defiance he aimed at those who dared rubbish the Tigers as an existence. He remained a hero when he quit the club for Aberdeen at the end of 1995 as City finally succumbed to a bottom flight return and, like Andy Payton before him, he spent much of his subsequent career openly wishing that he would end his playing days back at the club that burst him on to the scene.
Windass had the chance to return once City's traumas had been overcome and Taylor was in charge, but Taylor decided that he was an unnecessary investment once he had acquired Nick Barmby for a stab at League One in the summer of 2004. Taylor stated he didn't think the two Hull lads could play together. He was wrong, and freely admits so. If a City fixture didn't clash with one involving Windass, he would be watching his team, his team in action. The love and respect that Windass maintained for the Tigers was evident when, in that same campaign, Bradford came to the KC and won 1-0 with a wonder goal, but Windass spent the majority of the game responding to the varied verbal appeals of the crowd. He and Wayne Jacobs, another ex-Tiger who should never have been in a position to leave, spent half an hour applauding the Tiger Nation at the end of that game.
Windass finally returned, on loan, under Brown in January 2007, to many people's surprise. There was obvious delight too, but he was still a bottom division player with Bradford - albeit a distinguished one - and while his desire for the cause and club would never be in doubt, one wondered whether a player pushing 38 who had not played at second-tier level for a bit would be good enough to help the Tigers avoid a drop that had begun to look likely under the brief and wretched Phil Parkinson regime.
Brown had only been in charge for a month but knew he needed more power and bite up front. Five centre forwards were at the club already but four of these five were out of sorts in a major way and for varying reasons. Nicky Forster was the exception, with his selfless endeavour and exceptional stamina proving a boon, but he didn't score enough goals. Windass came in and sorted that almost immediately. He settled in for a few games, then scored both goals in a 2-0 win over promotion-chasing Birmingham City, then followed it up with a brace against Ipswich Town (albeit still in defeat, a black mark will remain next to Danny Coles' name for life thanks to this game) and a stunning hat-trick against Southend United.
By the time City visited Cardiff City in the penultimate game of the season, the chance had materialised to earn safety by winning and, deliciously, praying for a Leeds United defeat. Windass scored the only goal of the game - an opportunist's strike after reacting quickest to a rebound from Stephen McPhee's drive - and provoked some of the wildest celebrations ever seen amongst the Tiger Nation. These celebrations got wilder when news of Leeds going behind filtered through. When the whistles went at both games, City had survived at the direct expense of their most hated rivals thanks to a goal from one of their own who had come back to the club for that very reason. Too far-fetched a script it seemed when he signed, but it's precisely what happened. And it was more than enough to earn him a two-year deal.
Of course, the activities of Windass in his first full season back home made for a different tale entirely. Aside from suddenly becoming rubbish at taking penalties (the only one he got was the clincher at Wolves - eventually Dean Marney took over the job), he had a mesmerising season, made all the more iconic by the recruitment of a supertalented lad almost half his age alongside him. Fraizer Campbell was raw but brilliant, and he added to his obvious skill and finishing prowess by learning the rougher, meatier, more devious side of the game from the grizzled pro playing alongside him. The two were in regular cahoots on the pitch and, with Caleb Folan's occasional help (he was the million pound man, yet the third choice of three strikers behind a 38 year old former hod carrier and a kid with no experience and barely on solids), scored the goals that made sure a play-off dream, at the very least, remained alive.
There were plenty of highlights for Windass that season. He scored both goals in a 2-1 win at Scunthorpe United, a wonderful free kick to see off Sheffield Wednesday at the KC and came off the bench to apply an instant finish at Barnsley late in the season, at which point it felt like promotion was almost inevitable. That we had to do it via the play-offs just allowed more stanzas to be added to the Windass legend, and he butted home the second goal at Watford in the first leg of the semi-final before, of course, cracking in the most famous of all Hull City volleys from Campbell's pull back in the final itself.
It's odd to think back to this time last year, in the aftermath of Wembley glory. As Windass climbed on to the city hall balcony and raised the golden play-off trophy to an adoring crowd, probably only he didn't know that by scoring the goal of all our lives, he had almost certainly curtailed his City career. His nous was enough at Championship level, but Premier League defenders were simply going to be too strong, too quick, too hard, too uncompromising, too experienced, too talented, too ruthless, too clever. Brown knew this, and with Folan similarly limited and Campbell back with his parental club, in came Marlon King, Geovanni and, at the end of the opening month, Daniel Cousin. Windass popped up on the bench every so often, got booked while warming up at Stoke and scored a fine goal at Swansea City in the Carling Cup, but we all knew what was eventually coming. That it happened so curtly and acrimoniously thanks to the ridiculous blog he was hired by ITV to write, and a bust-up with King during a team bonding trip to a Scarborough casino, places a stain, albeit only a slight one, on the memory of Windass as a City icon. He managed one goal - a goal he should never have been awarded in a million years, but a goal nonetheless - in the Premier League for his club, which earned him the status of the Tigers' oldest-ever goalscorer, before leaving on loan with no rights to come back and everyone wishing him well but not questioning the decision. For all his bleating, protesting and pleading for a chance, ultimately he proved us all disappointingly right when he started at Manchester City on Boxing Day and played so poorly that he was subbed off immediately after Brown's infamous grassbound half time lecture, and never played for the club again.
Windass is going to Darlington as assistant manager to his old Bradford gaffer Colin Todd. He has his coaching badges and, not for the first time, is prepared to start near the bottom. Time will tell whether he has the intelligence on the sidelines as he did in the penalty area, but it looks hopeful for him. He knows we wish him every success. We know where his heart is, as ours is in exactly the same place.
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