One game, one goal, two losers. Hull City lost out to Stoke City in the race for automatic promotion yesterday and Ipswich Town missed out on a place in the play-offs despite winning with something to spare at Portman Road. Hull needed to win and hope that Stoke would lose at home to Leicester City but despite ending the match with four forwards, Phil Brown’s team created few clear-cut opportunities and were lucky to lose by only one goal.

To make it into the top flight for the first time in the club’s 104-year history after finishing in third place, Hull will have to get the better of Watford over two legs in the play-offs. If all goes according to plan, they will have to take their chances in the final against either Crystal Palace or Bristol City at Wembley Stadium. “It’s crazy, isn’t it?” Brown said. “I’m disappointed that we’ re only in the play-offs but I’m confident that we can beat Watford. It will be all about holding our nerve and Watford are not in form at the moment.”

While Hull can still dream about playing at Old Trafford and Anfield next season, Jim Magilton, the Ipswich manager, will spend the summer trying to work out why his team are almost unbeatable at home but woeful away from it – they missed out on the play-offs by one point after winning 15 games at home and only three matches away. “I’m going to bring better players in again this summer and get rid of those who aren’t good enough to get us to where we want to be,” Magilton said.

Knowing that they could sneak into the play-offs by winning and hoping that other results went their way, Magilton’s team threw caution to the wind and attacked almost nonstop. Hull also went for broke and started with three forwards, as Dean Windass played in the hole behind Caleb Folan and Fraizer Campbell, but they were outnumbered in midfield and could have been at least two goals down at the interval if Tommy Miller and Alan Quinn had shown more composure in front of goal.

Ipswich continued to pile on the pressure after the interval and made the breakthrough in the 70th minute when the Hull defence gave Alan Lee and Jon Walters all the time in the world to play a leisurely game of head tennis in their penalty area before Lee’s header looped into the net.

Ipswich Town (4-4-2): S Bywater – D Simpson, A Bruce, J de Vos, D Wright – J Walters, T Miller, O Garvan, A Quinn (sub: A Lee, 69min) – P Couñago (sub: V Sumulikoski, 80), S Kuqi (sub: D Haynes, 52). Substitutes not used: N Colgan, S Castro. Booked: Couñago, Haynes.

Hull City (4-3-1-2): B Myhill – S Ricketts, M Turner, W Brown, A Dawson – D Marney, I Ashbee, B Hughes (sub: C Fagan, 61) – D Windass – C Folan (sub: N Barmby, 64), F Campbell. Substitutes not used: M Duke, N Doyle, S Walton. Booked: Marney, Brown, Ricketts, Dawson.

Referee: A Marriner
Attendance: 28,233