... and in Other Football News

How **** is this

 

He approved those? **** me, awful.

 

Sir Jim Ratcliffe, Hull City ball boy...

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/sir-jim-ratcliffes-forgotten-first-29547801

 

North Ferriby are North Eastern Counties League Premier Division Champions

Great stuff

 

Well done to them.
Just been to watch Beverley Town draw 1-1, good turnout of over 300 considering the rain came down about 30 minutes before KO.

 

I reckon they will be pushing towards the top end next season. Got a good set of players for the level.

 

Bugger, just got to City's part and went behind paywall.

 

Try using this paywall trick

https://12ft.io/

 

No joy but thanks anyway Plum.

 

All the bigger publications have now got wise to 12ft ladder and have developed a way of blocking access.

In the never ending game of next stepism I'm sure they'll be back but currently it isn't working.

 

Almost tempts me to subscribe. Almost.
What a player. Unbelievable times and memories. Thanks Geo #City'sNumber10

 

i see the wendies lost at the bottom club in nailsea. they're having a bit of a hiccup, and div 3 is getting rather tight at the top, especially with some having game in hand.

 

12ft.io might have been banned from that site, but copy and paste worked.

Geovanni on Hull City: ‘I felt at home. The club really got under my skin’
Jack Lang
Mar 26, 2023

Just for a second or two, Geovanni wells up.

He has, by this stage, spent the best part of an hour discussing the ups and downs of a career that spanned 16 years and three continents. He has been thoughtful, engaging and, in the trademark Brazilian style, ferociously upbeat.

Now, though? Now he has a tear in his eye and is slowly plucking the right words from his throat.

“Just speaking about the club makes me emotional,” he says. “It was a dream for me. Those may have been the best days of my life as a footballer.”

He is not referring to Barcelona, where he played in a Champions League semi-final and was mentored by Rivaldo. Nor Benfica, whom he helped end an agonising 11-year wait for the Portuguese league title in 2005. He will always have huge affection for Cruzeiro, his boyhood club back home, but he doesn’t mean them, either.

Geovanni is talking about Hull City.

No, sorry, not just talking. He is entering a kind of nostalgic reverie. Geovanni only spent two seasons in East Yorkshire, between 2008 and 2010, but as he reels off a list of old Hull team-mates, it becomes clear they made an indelible mark on him.

“Caleb Folan, Craig Fagan, George Boateng, Daniel Cousin, Marlon King, Matt Duke… Bernard Mendy. We had a really good squad full of great footballers. Nicky Barmby. Dean Windass, who scored in the play-off final. Andy Dawson, Anthony Gardner. Top players.”

It would be easy to dismiss that kind of reverence as lip service. This, after all, is someone who also counts Ronaldinho, Xavi and Andres Iniesta among his former colleagues. But he is being genuine.
Geovanni playing for Hull City in the Premier League (Photo: AMA/Corbis via Getty Images)

Geovanni loved playing for Hull, loved scoring their first-ever goal in the top flight and loved every moment of their miraculous escape from relegation in 2009. More than anything, he loved the sense of shared enterprise and camaraderie.

“Hull was like a family to me,” he says. “It was real friendship: we all really cared about each other. I talked to Ian Ashbee just yesterday. He was our captain, an exceptional guy. The kit man, Barry Lowe? We spoke every day. And Stuart, his son. The chefs, the ground staff… it was just different.

“It was a small-town atmosphere and I felt at home there. The club really got under my skin.”

Geovanni was 21 when he first moved to Europe. By that stage, he was already a full Brazil international; when Barcelona won the battle for his signature, paying Cruzeiro around €21million (£18.4m; $22.2m), superstardom appeared to beckon.

Instead, his time at Camp Nou was defined by frustration. Competition for attacking places was fierce and Carles Rexach, the coach, used him sparingly. When he did play, it was not in his preferred No 10 position but out wide.

“It was difficult,” he says. “I left Brazil with a big reputation. A lot of big clubs had been interested and yes, I did expect to play more. Maybe I went there too early.”

Louis van Gaal, who replaced Rexach in the summer of 2002, gave the Brazilian a chance to establish himself.

“He wanted me to move to wing-back,” Geovanni recalls. “He told me, ‘Geo, you’re quick, you cross well, you can shoot from distance and you know how to mark a man. If you switch to wing-back, you will play here for years’.

“Unfortunately, I didn’t take him up on the offer. I look back on it now with regret. It was Barcelona… and if you’re competing with people like Rivaldo for your favourite position, maybe it’s better to play a bit deeper. I do think I would have been a good wing-back, too. It was an opportunity and I wasted it.”
Geovanni competes for possession with Real Madrid’s Zinedine Zidane in the 2002 Champions League semi-final during his Barcelona days (Photo: Tony Marshall/EMPICS via Getty Images)

A move to Benfica was the reset Geovanni needed. He quickly became a key player under Jose Antonio Camacho, whipping in crosses from the right wing and popping up with crucial goals. He helped Benfica win the Portuguese Cup in his first full season in Lisbon; a year later, under Giovanni Trapattoni, they won the league for the first time in a decade.

“We brought the fans back to the stadium and made them believe,” he says. “The whole of Lisbon stopped on the day we won the title. It was this glorious cheer that had been stuck in the fans’ throats for years.

“I feel privileged to have played a part in that.”

Two years later, Geovanni was on a beach holiday in Brazil. He had returned to Cruzeiro in 2006, mainly to be closer to his family and friends. His European adventure appeared to be over, but he was happy.

Then came a call from England. It was an agent. He asked Geovanni whether he had ever heard of Portsmouth.

“I thought it was a joke,” laughs Geovanni. “But the agent said Harry Redknapp wanted me to fly over and train for two days. A trial, basically, and I would then sign a contract. It was my dream to play in England, so I went for it.”

Geovanni flew to Portsmouth, met Redknapp (“a spectacular person”) and did well in training. He even played a friendly against Yeovil, scoring one goal and setting up another. Everything seemed to be clicking into place.

“There were 5,000 fans in this tiny stadium and they were chanting my name,” he says. “I thought, ‘This is the place for me’. It was really cool.”

The contract never materialised, however. “The trial period ended up lasting for three weeks,” he says. “I started to get anxious. I don’t even know whether Redknapp knew I hadn’t been given a deal. I wanted to stay at Portsmouth but I couldn’t wait forever.”

Geovanni was preparing to sign a short-term contract with Monaco when Manchester City called. Within a few weeks, he was a Premier League sensation: he scored against West Ham on debut, then rifled home the winning goal against Manchester United the following weekend.
Geovanni celebrates after scoring the only goal of the Manchester derby against United in August 2007 (Photo: Adrian Dennis – AFP via Getty Images)

“I always remember going to a restaurant that evening with Elano and our families,” he recalls. “We walked in and people got to their feet to applaud us. The whole restaurant was clapping. There must have been 300 people there.

“I had no idea what was going on, but my friend explained they were thanking us for winning the derby. I couldn’t believe it. It still makes me smile today.”

Geovanni scored his third goal of the season against Wigan at the start of December. And then… nothing. He did not start another game for City and was released at the end of the season.

“It was really puzzling,” he says. “I hardly even came off the bench. The opportunities just dried up and the manager [Sven-Goran Eriksson] didn’t explain it to me.”

Still, he will always have that August afternoon at the City of Manchester Stadium.

“A football career passes quickly, but certain memories always stay with you,” he says. “I didn’t make a huge contribution at City, but that goal in the derby made a lot of people happy. I’m sure there were a few good parties that night.”

After leaving City, Geovanni once again returned to Brazil. From the outside, it looked like an ending. This time, though, it did not feel like one. “I knew God had something extra in mind for me,” he says.

Enter Hull.

Geovanni had watched them beat Bristol City in the Championship play-off final (“Windass! Historic!”) and was immediately seduced by the challenge of helping them stay in the Premier League. “I didn’t think twice,” he says. “It was one of the best decisions of my life.”

There were hurdles to clear. For one, he was playing for a club with no other Portuguese speakers for the first time in his career.

“I still don’t speak great English today, but back then I found it really difficult,” he laughs. “I thought, ‘I hope someone knows Spanish or I’m screwed here’. Luckily there was Richard Garcia, who had Spanish relatives. He really helped me a lot.”

Then there were logistical issues. Geovanni’s family was settled in Manchester. He did not want to take his two children out of school. Nor did he wish to live away from them. The solution was to hire a friend to be his personal chauffeur to ferry him to and from training every day. Literally to Hull and back.

“We’d be on the road for five hours a day,” he says. “We used to leave at 6am so I was ready to train at 10. In winter, we’d leave even earlier because we always got stuck in traffic near Leeds.”

Geovanni usually managed to sleep a bit on the outward journey, but it was a tough routine. Fridays were particularly draining: he would travel to Hull in the morning, train, return to Manchester at around 5pm, have dinner with his family, then go back to Hull to join his team-mates at a hotel before Saturday’s match.

“We’re talking seven or eight hours in the car,” he says. “But when you love what you do, you do it with a smile on your face. At Hull, I always arrived at training in a good mood. I was happy to travel all those miles.”
Geovanni tracks Wayne Rooney’s run as Hull City play Manchester United in the Premier League in early 2010 (Photo: Andrew Yates/ AFP via Getty Images)

The commitment paid off on the pitch. Geovanni scored on the opening weekend against Fulham, rattled in a ludicrous goal away to Arsenal (“The goal of a lifetime,” said Arsene Wenger) and followed it up with a free kick against Tottenham. Suddenly, the Tigers were everybody’s second-favourite Premier League team; Geovanni was an unlikely northern deity.

“I felt the love the fans had for me,” says Geovanni. “They chanted my name non-stop. It was a special time.”

Hull’s manager during those years, Phil Brown, was also besotted. “He is a sunshine boy,” was one standout line from the time and his admiration for Geovanni is undimmed today.

“He was an inspired signing,” Brown tells The Athletic. “When I found out we were getting him, I nearly jumped out of my skin with excitement. His individual brilliance helped us break down defences.”
Brown congratulates the Brazilian forward as he leaves the pitch late on during Hull’s win at Tottenham in October 2008. Geovanni had scored the only goal of the game (Photo: Ian Kington / AFP via Getty Images)

Geovanni seems delighted to hear those words. His relationship with Brown wasn’t always Teflon-smooth — he memorably kicked up an almighty fuss after being substituted against Blackburn in March 2009 — but the appreciation is mutual.

“Phil Brown was a great coach,” he says. “I learnt so much from him. In terms of tactics, of understanding the game, he was one of the best I ever worked with. He was very smart.

“Yes, he was a strong personality. There were a few moments when we didn’t see eye-to-eye. That’s normal. But I always had a lot of respect for him and I still do. That first season especially was fantastic.”

And what of Brown’s infamous half-time team talk, delivered to his players out on the turf midway through a heavy defeat to Manchester City in December 2008?

“I had never seen anything like it before,” Geovanni says with a grin. “I think it was a moment of rashness, something he did in the heat of the moment. The players were exposed, which is what I didn’t like.

“But today I can look back on it and laugh. I remember Jimmy Bullard getting us to recreate it as a celebration. That was great. Everything is a learning experience. I’m sure Phil laughs about it today. Some things don’t turn out how we want but they don’t detract from the good times. And there were lots of those.”
Geovanni celebrates scoring against Wigan at the KC Stadium in October 2009 (Photo: Jamie McDonald/Getty Images)

Eventually, reality caught up with Hull. After the heroics of 2008-09, they were relegated the following season. Geovanni, whose contributions grew more sporadic, left in the summer of 2010. After a brief spell in MLS with San Jose Earthquakes, he played out his remaining years in Brazil, retiring aged 33.

There are a few minor regrets — he came within a whisker of making the Brazil World Cup squad in 2002 — but he seems, perhaps more than any other former footballer I have ever spoken to, entirely at peace with life.

“When I look at my career today, I have the feeling that I was blessed,” he says. “I never expected to go so far.”

Today, he juggles his job as a football agent with community work. He is a part-time pastor and runs a rehabilitation centre in Belo Horizonte, helping vulnerable people. And he still plays football — with friends on Saturdays and occasionally in masters matches for Cruzeiro and Barcelona.

“I should pitch the idea to Hull and get them to start a masters team as well,” he says. “I would love to go back. Hull will always be in my heart.”

(Photos for top image: Mike Egerton – PA Images via Getty Images; Jack Lang. Designed by Eamonn Dalton)

 

might be able to get some of the paywalled photos too...

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and

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that's yer lot!

 

Many thanks, X that was great!