Here at the Hull City training ground, we are conducting a debate in which few
Barclays Premier League players would be able to partake: which English
football club have the crappiest away dressing-room? An early shout for
Cheltenham Town — “very, very small” — and “three showers” Macclesfield
Town. Then Torquay United: “No width, like a corridor, a short corridor.”
The winner? No one really wants to give that label to another club, but, OK,
it’s Colchester United’s former ground. “Possibly the worst, the tiniest
room. And you’ve got 20-odd players, a kit skip, massage table in the
middle, then the shower . . . oh, the shower.”
The reason few other Premier League players could discuss this with any
insight is because, unlike those who represent Hull, they have not stood
under the limpest showers in the game. Unlike Ian Ashbee, Andy Dawson, Boaz
Myhill and Ryan France, they have not battled with one club through the
armpits of League Two, then League One, then the Championship and all the
way to the dressing-rooms of the Emirates Stadium (“You could get lost in
there”) and, tomorrow, White Hart Lane.
There is no smirking here, no sense that Cheltenham or Torquay are some kind
of bad joke. Of the four, Ashbee is the longest-serving and the only one to
have played at Hull’s former ground, Boothferry Park. And you could
certainly laugh at Boothferry Park if you so desired, because it was,
according to Ashbee, “colder in the changing-rooms than it was outside” and
“because there was also that massive aroma of urine”.
But Ashbee also recalls the “beautiful” pitch and the buzz when the stands
were full. “None of us ever said that we were better than where we were at
the time,” he said. “We never sat there thinking, ‘I belong somewhere else.’
”
Yet this is the joy of this unlikely tale: they did. And many round here are
still blinking with amazement. The steward on the gate of the training
ground can remember only seven years ago: the bankrupt club and throwing
coins into buckets to keep them alive. Now he ushers in Bentleys and Range
Rovers to the car park. As he says, “It must be the most valuable patch of
ground in all the city.” And how the cars have changed. Dawson’s
bottom-division car, a Peugeot 307, is now a Grand Cherokee. Ashbee? Now an
Audi S5, formerly a white Cavalier with a cone on it so that people used to
think it was a taxi.
They, too, are getting used to their new world. Stand-out impressions?
“Shaking hands with Cesc Fàbregas.” “Jay-Jay Okocha arriving on his first
day in a Ferrari.” So, not surprisingly, they rather like it this way. They
also believe that they can stay up. It probably helped that they played
Newcastle United at their lowest ebb and the same could be said about
Tottenham tomorrow. That may be a little lucky, but here’s why they need the
luck.
Hull — the city, not the football club — has, by well-earned reputation, been
more Boothferry Park and the aroma of urine than Okocha and Ferrari-land. It
has an outstanding record for finishing low in national surveys, if not
bottom. In recent years it has been Britain’s obesity capital, had its
police force and education authority ranked last in the nation and had the
accolade from Channel 4 of being the worst place to live in Britain. This is
not a secret that has passed the nation’s footballers by. You want to come
and play for Hull? Ashbee reckons a number of players that the club have
attempted to sign in his time have turned up their noses — and then turned
tail.
Phil Brown, the manager, recalls the day he signed Fraizer Campbell on loan
from Manchester United. The forward, now with Tottenham for the season, was
driving there from Manchester and heard on the radio that Hull had the
second-worst inner city in the country. “I thought it would be a breeze to
sell him the club,” Brown said. “That nearly stopped him in his tracks. But
I did get him here and I showed him the area — Beverley, Hessle, the
fantastic countryside.” So Campbell signed and, as Ashbee says, not many
players regret it.
Maybe the trick for Brown would be to get prospective players to come by
train. The new Hull terminus has just been voted Station of the Year and
when you step outside you are confronted by the shiny new St Stephen’s
development: 40 acres of shops, restaurants, theatre and hotel.
St Stephen’s is one of six parts of the city, under the Hull “Masterplan”,
being given a complete facelift. Three of these are on what is gradually
becoming a posh waterfront. Much of this will be sustained by an economic
action plan, soon to be launched, that finally lays out long-term successors
to the real root of the problem — the slow decline of the fishing industry.
The port was always there, but healthcare and renewable energy are seen as the
future of Hull. And that is why you no longer see the city ranked bottom. It
has the fastest-falling crime rate in the country.
The simultaneous rise of the football club may be coincidental, but its
importance goes beyond the extra trade and tourism that it will bring in.
“Hull was a failure going nowhere,” Carl Minns, head of the city council,
said. “The city had the crap kicked out of it for 30 years. The football
club encapsulates the resurgent Hull.
“The team has created a buzz, an expectation, that we can do. There’s a
growing confidence in the city, but I think it’s fragile. Someone said to me
the other day, ‘I hope the football club don’t go down because that will
probably evaporate the confidence.’ ”
Brown also feels that he is leading a bit more than just a football club. “I’m
flying the flag for everything that’s good about the area,” Brown said.
“I’ve been labelled with the word ‘politician’, but I’m proud to
be seen as one of the leaders in the area.”
This sense of pride is not lost on the players. “Hull did have a bad name,”
Dawson said. “But it’s not right what people say about the city now.” And
Ashbee? His ambition is to complete ten years’ service. And then, maybe,
make it his home for life.
The numbers game
1 Hull City Council ranking, out of 350, for best management and
cleaning of city facilities
5-6 William Hill odds on Hull City avoiding relegation. At the start of
the season, they were 5-2
42 Percentage drop in Hull’s crime rate since 2004
76,000 Away fans expected in Hull this season, delivering a predicted
£2 million boost to economy
£1.5billion New commercial investment targeted in Hull’s city
centre masterplan
