Harold Needler.. the man who saved Hull City

Swings and roundabouts. Boom and bust. When/if we get more enlightened owners in, the gates should go up regardless of what division we're in.

 

I saw the plans and Harold's dream was for a 80,000 capacity stadium The East stand was built to accommodate another tier onto top of it and although it was often talked about it never got off the drawing board. To be fair when he first came up with the idea City were attracting huge crowds in the old 3rd Division North. The club broke crowd records at several clubs during Carters spell. Not forgetting we were a third division club playing the likes of Donny and Lincoln and we were getting bigger home crowds then most of the First Division clubs.
One of my overriding memories was the Christmas game v Millwall 65/66, over 40,000 for a division 3 game, the biggest crowd in the country on the day. I doubt it there are many clubs playing at that level who have attracted the biggest crowd in the country for a league game. Hull City did.

 

Still can't see us getting 40,000 regularly which is why I,would be happy with a 35,000 stadium. No,point being like Barcelona and Real Madrid who have large stadiums for the odd league match and European games but are only three quarter till for most games. Not that I am equating us with those two, just using them as an illustration.

 

I have also seen the plans.
The North stand was to be built to mirror the South and it would be a wrap around from north to to east to south, one tier of standing and one of seats (with double decker along east side). Best stand relatively undeveloped in terms of size, but they increased directors box, press box, tv gantry etc.
They also built a ticket office and gym.

 

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Probably not because we didn't keep and build on the support when we had it. Any club that could attract over 40,000 ( with only a handful of away fans) for a 3rd division league game was a club with huge potential and a club that should have fulfilled it. We didn't we let it slip, and slip and slip until we had virtually nothing left. We lost a couple of generations of supporters and finished up in football's gutter, I doubt if there is another league club in the land that slipped so far down the football ladder as we did and lost so many supporters.
My view on ground capacity would be a 35,000 stadium of which we owned. The KC should have been built with a 30k capacity from the off and the reasons for not doing so were rugby league related, also a false hope that Sport England wouldn't cough up if we didn't listen to Trevor Brooking's advice that 25k was big enough. Sport England never coughed up. The council's view was that City hadn't had a crowd over 25k for 30 years so the capacity was right.
We couldn't get 25k in Boothferry Park if we wanted because of the restrictions placed on the capacity and the last time Trevor Brooking played in Hull ther were over 30,000 in the ground. But no-one was listening to that. We were seen as a small club in the bottom league and the idea of us ever being in the Premier League when the KC was built was a novel one but no-one seriously believed it.
The Hull FC fanzine, In Any Kind of Weather, said that if we ever wanted to see the new KC Stadium full we should invite Leeds United to play their home games there because Hull City would never ever fill it. They thought a 15k capacity would be enough. The wise words of Vince Groak.

 

Don't forget our mate Jim Gardner of Glasgow Street, with his statements about the KC would be a white elephant and never be full. We used to have fun winding him up on the HDM letters page under various pseudonyms. The amount of time and space the HDM and RH gave to those two clowns was disgraceful. They called for a 15,000 stadium where you could swap ends at half time (though how you could do that if it was full wasn't mentioned)and for a stand in a multi million development to be called the Threepenny Stand. As you have mentioned before, loads of meetings with rugby fans, one with City. No thoughts given to segregation and how that would effect things if City ever did well, with the result we lose fat more seats to segregation than similar grounds like Reading who lose about 60 seats and who can easily alter things according to the number of away fans
A councillor, can't remember his name, responded to .Brooking's assertion that 25,000 was big enough by asking if that was the case why had Sunderland , in a smaller city, built a 40,000 one and Middlesbrough in even smaller city a 32,000 one. He then said surely you remember playing in Hull in the Cup? Over 30,000 there, you lost 1-0.
Sport England virtually blackmailed HCC, stating that if a stadium larger than25,000 was built it could impact on future grants not only in Hull but the East Riding, You can appreciate why HCC didn't want to see headlines about swimming pools and kids sports facilities losing out because they had built a larger than 25,000 stadium.
As you said, in the event they said the KC didn't qualify and didn't hand over any more. Bob Murray, chairman of Sunderland got money from other football sources. He also gave Adam Pearson advice on where they went wrong, like having a shale track around the pitch and having to replace it. The help he gave was why Adam Pearson invited Sunderland to play in the opening game

 

The last time we got over 25,000 for a league game, at the KC, was against the team we played yesterday.




The views expressed in my posts are not necessarily mine.

 

Wrongly put. It should have been over 26,000. Which was wrong anyway as Cityman pointed out. Though the Oxford attendance still hasn't been surpassed and won't be unless the KC is expanded.