Connections between Hull City and this weekend's opponents Arsenal are few and far between, but one name of recent seasons sticks out like a sore thumb.
Ray Parlour, one of Arsenal's favourite sons, had a short spell as a Hull City player in 2006/7 when he was winding down his career and, frankly, had nobody else seemingly interested in him. Having spent his formative and peak years with the Gunners, he had been released on a free transfer by Middlesbrough when the Tigers invited him to come to the KC.
It was an odd old time for everyone. Parlour, the Romford Pele, had won numerous domestic and European honours, plus a handful of England caps. He had also made a very good living but a rather notorious divorce settlement had forced him to continue working for real financial reasons. He was pushing 34 and had yet to experience football outside of the top flight.
He joined up with the Tigers on a pay-as-you-play basis, only meeting up with the team on match days while training with Arsenal during the week. Perhaps it was this ultimate lack of familiarity that meant he never quite surged into any great form for the Tigers, but perhaps individual excellence wasn't necessarily what Phil Brown was seeking. And it was genuinely exciting to have such a decorated player, albeit one in the twilight of his career, pulling on the City shirt, especially as he had joined in a time of real crisis.
Brown was less than one month into the job after taking over from Phil Parkinson and had a young, shellshocked squad. Parlour arrived and played 14 matches as City scrabbled around for points, eventually going from relegation certainties to survival possibilities. He began in a 2-2 draw at Derby County and, although some bad defeats were still to come, he contributed to crucial wins against Birmingham City, Preston North End, Luton Town and Southend United as City got their first shot of self-belief.
Parlour didn't have the pace he once possessed to scamper down the right touchline but played a very basic, withdrawn central role, delivering passes of both simplicity and incisiveness and generally providing a cooler, more grown up approach when it was most needed. A backseat participant though he seemed to be most of the time, the ultimate success of that season - survival in the penultimate game with the added bonus of sending the hated Leeds United down - allowed all to consider Parlour a success. And indeed he was.
There was never the prospect of a proper contract and Parlour didn't play another game - for anyone - after completing the season with the Tigers in a 2-1 defeat by Plymouth Argyle at the KC. As he waved to the fans along with the rest of the squad, he was in essence waving goodbye to a distinguished football career, and it was the Tiger Nation that benefitted from the last brief adventure within it.
An Arsenal legend, a popular character within football as a whole and a player whose maturity helped his last club escape a relegation that had seemed a surefire bet a month before he arrived. Parlour must be pretty happy with his lot, and Hull City were certainly happy to have him around, even though it was only a temporary arrangement.
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