TOM COURTENAY was in a quandary. Should he or should he not go to Wembley on Saturday to watch his beloved Hull City in their playoff final as they strive to reach the top division for the first time in their long history? It is, he admits, a matter of superstition. All season, he and his fellow Hull-born fan, the playwright Alan Plater, have been watching their team’s games on television and glorying in the sustained success, but might actually attending a match break the positive sequence?

Courtenay, who, he says, has been “intensely involved” at Hampton Court playing Old Father Dorrit in a television version of Little Dorrit, is no fairweather fan, having supported Hull City since he was eight years old, and he speaks of the club and its players with huge animation and affection. One remembers, years ago, being driven down to New Cross in his Alfa Romeo, together with the amateur goalkeeper, Mike Pinner, once of Aston Villa and Sheffield Wednesday, to see Hull crushed 3-0 by Millwall.

It was, Courtenay remembers, a frosty night and Hull, then managed by the former England and Everton star, Cliff Britton (“He seems to know what he’s doing,” remarked Courtenay after meeting him), seemed to have little stomach for the battle.

At that time, Courtenay had already played the lead in the film of Billy Liar and figured with Julie Christie, in that and Dr Zhivago. After the game, he ran into his old schoolmate, Mike Milner, then Hull’s centre-half and captain. “You’re quite the star now, aren’t you, Tom?” said Milner, somewhat enviously. “I remember you running around, a little short lad.”

“We played football together,” said Tom.

”You were never in the same team as me,” said Milner. “You weren’t good enough! Here, here’s half a crown, go and get your hair cut!”

Courtenay took it all in good part.

Above all, he speaks almost with awe of Raich Carter, the silver-haired inside-right who captained Sunderland’s FA Cup-winning team at Wembley, made up a magical right-wing pair for England with Stanley Matthews and, eventually, as player-manager — making a formidable inside-forward partnership with the Danish international, Vigo Jensen — guiding Hull into the Second Division. Whence, until now, they never emerged, despite the fortunes spent on players by a generous chairman, Harold Needler.

“Raich was just magic,” says Courtenay. “Years later, at some fund-raising do, I sat next to him and he called me Mr Courtenay and I said, ‘No, call me Tom, you’re a god to me’.”

Courtenay’s father, who painted trawlers in Hull docks, took him to his first Hull City match when he was eight.

“The first time I remember was when Raich Carter was tired, he stood on the ball and nobody would dive in on him. I remember he once asked the crowd what Port Vale were doing.”

There are others, no less heroes, he still meets from time to time, largely on charity occasions. Notably “Waggy”, alias Ken Wagstaff, an inside-right who cost £40,000, which was money, then, and Chris Chilton, a prolific centre-forward.

“Waggy told me of the time Chris Chilton was sent off. He was an extremely straightforward player. Whenever he was knocked down, the trainer had to sit on him because he wanted to get up! ‘Stay down, you soft bugger!’ On this occasion, Duncan Forbes of Norwich wanted to make Chris’s life as miserable as possible. It was the first time in his life Chris lost his patience. After 80 minutes, he nutted him, right in front of the referee. Duncan Forbes is lying on the ground, he sees the ref pointing Chris Chilton off and has a pang of conscience. Spitting out teeth and bleeding at the mouth, he said, ‘It’s all right ref, he didn’t touch me’!”

“They used to have to score five to win then!” Courtenay remembers, and there are other bright memories, not least of an elusive left-winger called “Buck” Butler. “He had an amazing left foot. Terry Neill was the player-manager there, he said, ‘You don’t want a boot on that foot, you want a glove’.”

Another left-footed player of renown was Billy Askew. “He’d got sticky feet. Jack Charlton said he had the best left foot in the league. We saw him first at full-back. Marvellous control with that foot. There was an amazing game at Leyton. Hull were 4-0 down with 20 minutes to go and they won 5-4. I suppose the best game of all was in the FA Cup in the 60s at Stamford Bridge. Chelsea were winning 2-0, Waggy scored twice.”

He calls his dog, a Dalmatian, Waggy. It was even introduced over the loudspeakers at a charity game where a heavily bandaged Wagstaff was running the line.

Courtenay was, he says, “very upset” at the way Steve McClaren, whom he knew as a Hull City player was treated as England’s manager. “I thought he had a lot of bad luck.”

And so to Wembley, or perhaps not to Wembley. He and Alan Plater have still to decide.