| Hull - the largest city in Europe never to have hosted top flight football? We aren't even close, writes Gary Bolton. |
Rarely during the previous 104 years can the words 'Hull City' and 'top flight football' have been mentioned in the same sentence as frequently as they have during recent weeks. Indeed, Tigers fans everywhere cannot fail to have enjoyed the richly deserved positive publicity after a truly remarkable second half of the season.
Yet almost every newspaper article or TV feature has also brought with it an overwhelming feeling of dread as we wait for the laziest of observations regarding our great football club. In a manner almost as predictable as Compo rolling down the hill in a tin bath during an episode of Last of the Summer Wine, we are gleefully informed that Hull is the largest city in Europe never to host top flight football. Recently it has got so bad that even the peerless Jeff Stelling and our very own Rob Palmer have got in on the act, yet never once are we provided with any degree of evidence to back up this oft quoted piece of trivia.
So where did this come from? At what stage did statisticians conduct an incredible act of number crunching to deduce this astonishing fact? The suspicion often was that no such research ever took place. Indeed, one almost half suspects that many moons ago a journalist looking for a tasty hook to his match report and mere minutes from deadline rattled off as many big cities as he could think of that had hosted top-flight football and decided that nowhere in Europe could strip Hull of this title. This quickly becomes fact and is referenced whenever Hull City warrants a mention in the national media and is then subsequently quoted back each time a City fan meets another football fan for the first time. The reality is a study of the latest census figures for the whole of Europe reveals that, with a population of 243,595, we aren't even close.
Over in the Hesse region of Germany the city of Wiesbaden on the northern bank of the Rhine can lay claim to many extraordinary facts. If being twinned with Royal Tunbridge Wells wasn't enough, the city boasts of being the birthplace of tennis star John McEnroe and the setting of the first meeting between the 14 year old Priscilla Beaulieu and a 10-years-her-senior Elvis Presley in what was to become one of the most famous love stories of all time. In addition - yes, you've guessed it - at the last census the city recorded a greater population than Hull yet is still to play host to top division football. With a population of 275,562 plus approximately 14,000 US citizens at the city's military base, it comfortably outstrips Hull when it comes to a head count and local team SV Wehen Wiesbaden has never graced higher than the Second Bundesliga. Indeed, they only reached these heady heights in 2007 after spending much of its history in the amateur leagues. Yet keep going further east and in Russia alone we find more than half a dozen larger cities outdoing both Hull and Wiesbaden in failing to host the pinnacle of the nation's teams, including Ice Hockey-mad Ufa with a whopping population of 1,042,437 recorded at the last census.
So the 'fact' is put well and truly to rest before we return closer to home to find that, although using the latest census figures Hull is still the largest UK city to never host the nation's finest, two cities are expected to outstrip the home of the Tigers in the very near future. With a shift in population drift and the number of current Hullensians falling by 5.3% between the last two census it is expected that Plymouth (240,718 in 2001 and estimated 246,100 in 2005) and Milton Keynes (207,063 in 2001 growing to a predicted 247,310 in 2011) will experience a sufficient rise in the number of city residents to stake their own claims as the UK's most populous place never to host top flight football.
After yet another season of extraordinary highs, City fans everywhere will be hoping they only have to wait a matter of days rather than until the next census in 2011 to rid themselves of this most unwanted of tags.
This article also appeared in the Hull City programme for the play-off match against Watford, and is reproduced with kind permission of the author, Gary Bolton. |
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