Hull City Football Club has a long and intricate past, dating back to 1904, with plenty of players garnering honours both at home, and out on loan. However, very few mentions have been made lauding the various managers of the team, with little attention paid to those who are no longer in the limelight. However, good management tends to help players excel and with that said, here are the most noteworthy managers that Hull City has had.
Steve Bruce
Considered by most to be the best manager in Hull City history, Steve Bruce is the only manager in Hull City’s long history to have ever won automatic promotion to the top-flight. He is also the only manager thus far to have gotten Hull City into a FA Cup final, which he did during his second season.
Though the team failed to win their FA Cup match against Arsenal, this allowed them entry into the 2014/15 UEFA Europa League, which was their first ever European campaign. While Steve Bruce has received much acclaim for these deeds, he does bear some responsibility for the team falling out of the Premier League and back to the Championship level during his third season at the helm, however he saw them through to a final play-off against Sheffield Wednesday in Wembley, which they won.
Phil Brown
Phil Brown deserves recognition for having been the manager who took the team into the top-flight of football, ending an incredibly long and depressing 104-year wait. The final which ‘The Tigers’ won against Bristol City in the 2008 Championship play offs was the highlight of his tenure with the team. He is mostly fondly remembered for having kept Hull City within the Championship level throughout the 2006/07 season, and while they did not advance much, they also did not drop out.
Peter Taylor
Peter Taylor will forever be known as the manager who helped to revive some fighting spirit in ‘The Tigers’, after they’d been sitting stagnating in the fourth tier for far too long. He reminded them that there were other levels to aspire to and helped the club to reach their promotion.
This transformation allowed them to enjoy a back-to-back promotion and gave Hull City the taste of victory they needed in order to step into the Premier League later on. He was also the manager in charge of their relocation from Boothferry Park where they had been for 56 years, to the KC Stadium which could seat just over 25,000 persons.
Brian Little
Former football player Brian Little took over at Hull City during one of their worst financial crises. It was so bad that their home base of Boothferry Park had been padlocked shut, barring them from training.
He deserves a mention for having helped rouse ‘The Tigers’ back to fighting form and helped the team to push for promotion from 2000 onwards, only losing in a semi-final playoff against Leyton Orient in 2001. He was the catalyst for change and is fondly remembered by many stalwart fans for having been the manager who helped inspire financial confidence in a flagging side.