For a club such as Hull City, promotion to the Premier League is about more than money, medals and a weekly appearance on Match of the Day. It is about people, pride and the opportunity, in a game awash with the green stuff, to strike a blow for the blue collar. “We have a responsibility here,” says their manager, Phil Brown. “Any club that makes it into the top flight is surely a boost to the local economy.”

Here is another working-class northern club taking inspiration from Bolton Wanderers, another rugby league heartland trying to follow Wigan’s example. If they beat Ipswich at Portman Road today, and Stoke lose to Leicester, Hull will reach the top division for the first time in their 104-year history, and in so doing, open the doors of East Yorkshire to the game’s high-rollers.

It’s a long shot, but even the playoffs, probably their most realistic route to the promised land, were the stuff of fantasy at the start of this season, never mind nine years ago, when they narrowly avoided relegation from the old Fourth Division. After the floods of 2007, and the polls that repeatedly single out Hull as one of the country’s least desirable locations, the place could do with a break.

“The perception, from the outside looking in, is not great,” admits Brown. “It is one of deprivation, of degradation, and they say the inner city is one of the country’s worst, but for me, this is one of England’s best-kept secrets. It’s a hidden gem. The surroundings are beautiful, and the people are a different breed. They are not the kind to get carried away, but they are starting to expect things now, which is as it should be. It’s about time this area was put on the map.”

A place in the Premier League would cap a remarkable rise. In 2002, the club hitherto lost in the middle of the Third Division built a new ground, and with Peter Taylor as manager, won back-to-back promotions. After two seasons of struggle in the Championship, the second requiring Brown to instigate a great escape, they approach the final fixture in third place, three points behind West Brom and Stoke.

Even this season, a slow-burner that has come to the boil with perfect timing, has taken the manager by surprise. “We’ve had to move the goalposts,” he says. “At the start of the season, the gameplan was to finish in the top half, and when we did that, we targeted the playoffs. Now we have a chance to go up automatically.”

Four of the club’s players were in the starting lineup against Yeovil in 2004, when they won the first of their promotions. Their captain, Ian Ashbee, Boaz Myhill, Andy Dawson and Ryan France represent a reminder of the recent past, while Dean Windass, a Hull legend, and Nicky Barmby, the ultimate local lad, are still going strong. “That feeling the fans have when they see one of their own in a Hull shirt is vital to a club like this,” says Brown.

Before a short spell in charge of Derby County, Brown was an assistant to Colin Todd and Sam Allardyce at Bolton. When he joined Hull last season, he saw the training ground, a former working men’s club with adjoining playing field, and the sleek contours of their 25,000-seat stadium, and thought of his former employers at the Reebok.

His signing of Henrik Pedersen on a free last summer, and another former Bolton player, Jay-Jay Okocha, in September, was an admission that even small clubs have to think big. The Nigerian veteran of three World Cups turns up for training in his Ferrari, sometimes his Hummer, and maybe even the Bentley, all of which amuses the staff who have not quite come to terms with the club’s inevitable gentrification.

Brown, who also talked to Juninho and Christian Vieri, wanted to complement his squad with a big name who would raise the club’s profile and lead potential signings to take them more seriously. Okocha, now 34, was fed up with semi-retirement in Qatar, and fancied the chance to work with Brown again. “I like his style,” he says. “He is a manager now, not an assistant, but he is still close to the players. He wants them to know who they are working with. You can talk to him.”

Out for the last month with ligament damage but hopeful of making the playoffs should they be necessary, the man selected by Fifa as one of the 125 greatest living footballers has a CV that can best be described as eccentric. PSG, Fenerbahce and Eintracht Frankfurt are one thing, Bolton and Hull quite another. “I just love my football,” Okocha explains. “I love to challenge myself. It seems like I make odd decisions but I’ve helped to change all the clubs I have gone to. I like to take risks. I like to create something out of nothing.”

Not that he has been the key to Hull’s success. Michael Turner has been a rock in central defence, as has Sam Ricketts at right-back, while 20-year-old Fraizer Campbell has scored 15 goals during his period on loan from Manchester United. “He has what it takes to become a top player,” says Okocha. “We have given him the opportunity to show his talent, and it would be great if he could return the favour by building his future with Hull.”

Okocha doesn’t know if he will be around to see it. His job may be done at a club that has invested heavily in salaries, but not transfer fees. The plan is to take a long-term strategy into the top flight, and become a sustainable force rather than a spent one.

While more Hull people continue to watch rugby than football, there is an option to increase the capacity of the KC Stadium by 7,000. “The resources in this area are untapped,” says Brown, who points out that there is not a league club within 50 miles of Hull, never mind one from the Premier League.

Not even Bolton can claim to share that statistic.

Wembley showdown for football’s richest prize

Two teams will line at Wembley on Saturday, May 24, for the Championship play-off final with a place in the Premier League at stake. It amounts to a winner-takes-all encounter, with the successful side cashing in to the tune of around £60m – still representing the biggest prize in world club football for a single match

HOW IS THE TOTAL ARRIVED AT? Deloitte, the sports business group, said last week that each promoted club will be guaranteed an additional £35m revenue in 2008-09; if the club is relegated after one year at the top level, parachute payments of more than £12m per season will be paid for two more seasons. Even for clubs promoted from League One to the Championship, this is a lucrative time – Swansea City and the other two clubs that make the step up will receive around £1.4m of additional revenue from the Football League’s distributions next season, which represents an increase of more than 30% for the average League One club. Each of these clubs will also benefit from additional matchday and commercial revenue

THE COST OF GOING DOWN

Clubs dropping into League One will be more than £1m worse off. Football League figures show that a Championship club can expect around £1.5m a year from sponsorship, TV and ‘solidarity’ payments, but this drops to only £500,000 in League One

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