With due respect to the Prime Minister, if you want to see a real “Brown bounce”, head for Hull. On Wednesday Phil Brown visited the Dove House Hospice. One of Hull City's nominated charities for the season, it cares for adults with “life-limiting” - terminal - illnesses.

Strangely, it is more uplifting than upsetting, a place to await death that affirms life. Brown moved from armchair to armchair, bed to bed, with a breezy affability. The sort you find in politicians, the difference being that the Hull manager is all charm, no smarm. One staff member, only half-jokingly, said that there had not been as much excitement at the place since Diana, Princess of Wales, dropped in.

Brown had them at “hello”, of course - something to do with inspiring Hull's maiden voyage in the top flight and steering them to sixth place after 14 games. Beat Stoke City on Saturday and his side will be level on points with Manchester United.

The 49-year-old knows the big importance of small talk. “I'm used to coming into these places and used to seeing people who've got a story to tell,” he said. “I love sitting down and listening to what they have to say. My grandmother was terminally ill, she saw out her final days at a hospice in South Shields, where I was born. From an early age I was visiting my grandma for a number of years.”

Sceptics queried Brown's management experience when he took charge of Hull in 2006 - only a short spell at Derby County and a stint as caretaker manager at Bolton Wanderers, where for six years he was assistant to Sam Allardyce. But towards the end of his playing career he managed in an exacting environment, learning the arts of organisation and persuasion. He ran Brown's Brasserie, a restaurant he owned in the 1990s when he was a lower-league defender. Trying to climb the table by day, arranging tables by night.

“I was maître d', front of house. That's tough, I tell you, it's one of the hardest jobs in the world,” he said. “The experience of dining: for somebody to come in and be managed, treated the right way, have the right service, the right food, finishing as well as greeting - making sure they come back - that's one of the hardest things you could do. I found it a good job. One of the most thankless tasks I've ever done, but very rewarding and pleasing when you get somebody coming back to dine at your place.”

Right now, Brown could probably eat out free across east Yorkshire. But the sense of gratitude extends far beyond the county boundary. To the Barclays Premier League's familiar ingredients, Hull have added a fresh taste, an unexpected flavour.

“It's a national thing that Hull City have done so far,” he said. “We're everybody's adopted side, if you like - if you're not playing against us, everybody seems to be supporting us. But days like this emphasise to me that it's important we continue.

“The area, the people, everybody's on the up, and that's been highlighted with the smiles on people's faces in a place where they are seeing out their final days.”

Brown is aware that experiences such as this, part of the Premier League's Creating Chances scheme, have a two-way benefit. Players visit Dove House each month, which he believes is good for them. In fact, as a manager who puts his squad through all sorts of tests, he knows it is. Not that too many of Brown's charges are failing the stress assessment right now. “Some of them have decent levels, mine is certainly at a decent level, which is good news,” he said. “But taking our eye off the Premier League and putting life into a level of perspective is key to bringing their stress levels down.

“I was speaking to the League Managers Association and they were saying, it's so important that you do get yourself and your team out of the headlights, come to places like this, talk to people who are in the stands, talk to people who can't even afford to go to games, and all of a sudden you've got a good level of perspective.

“Putting smiles on people's faces, that's always on your mind as an entertainer - that's what we are, we're in the entertainment business. We do the job right, then everybody in the stands, 25,000, smile and everybody in the area smiles.”

From master of the house to king of a city, the scale may be vastly different, but Brown knows that the customers need to be satisfied just the same. Especially those for whom there can be no return.