Hull Pride
Bernard Porter
I’m not sure that Hull City are good enough to play in the Premiership – they’ve been rubbish in recent games, and the very last stages of their campaign were pretty nail-biting – but their promotion is terrific for the city. With so much worldwide interest in the English Premier League, playing there puts this poor, isolated and much denigrated town on the map. Quite literally: I remember, the last time they were (briefly) in the Premiership, checking into a hotel in Copenhagen, giving my Hull address, and saying (based on my experience abroad): ‘I don’t suppose you know where that is.’ ‘Oh yes I do,’ the man replied. ‘It’s in the Premier League.’ Those of us who live there, especially if we came from the South (as I did, in 1968; the Hull-born and bred may be less bothered), greatly resent the way it’s generally presented by our softer neighbours. Being placed top of a list of ‘Crap Towns' a few years ago hurt. My son, who lives and works in London, gets it all the time – though he's better than I am at laughing it off.
Hull is applying for ‘European City of Culture’ status. Whether it deserves that is probably just as moot as whether it really merits being in the Premiership. It has one or two great players, contemporarily and historically: William Wilberforce, Andrew Marvell, Philip Larkin, Alan Plater, a number of well-known actors, at least two leading film directors, the Housemartins, Amy Johnson, the Hull Truck Theatre, a big aquarium, two Rugby League teams, the ghost of a once great and brave fishing industry, and a university that is far better than its name makes it sound. (‘Hull’ is such a dull word, especially in a Hull accent: '’ll'.) The university was what drew me to the place originally. I’d hardly been north of Watford before – I’m sorry they missed out on automatic promotion, by the way; perhaps they could be given the City of Culture accolade as a consolation prize – and I didn’t really know where the place was myself. But it’s not a bad place to live (if you have a job): its people decent and pretty friendly (as Yorkshire people go), labouring under terrible burdens inflicted on them by Tories and bankers from the Home Counties, and with some wonderful country around (ask David Hockney). I was happier at Hull than at any of my other universities, which have included Cambridge and Yale: none of the latters’ airs, graces and snobbery. And housing is cheap. Where else can you buy a 4-bedroom Victorian house in a leafy inner suburb for under £200,000? (Though that's not unconnected to the high unemployment.)
There’s another reason for welcoming the Tigers’ promotion. Like many football clubs now they’re owned by a foreign millionaire capitalist – a trend I generally abhor; but in this case there’s a difference. Assem Allam came to the UK as a refugee from Nasser’s Egypt, and to Hull to study economics at the university. He was so impressed with the welcome he got here that when he became rich he decided to give something back to the city in gratitude. Rescuing the football team from near bankruptcy was one of his gifts to us. OK, there may be more (or less) to it than that; but at least he has a genuine connection with the place; and one the city can take real pride in.
Comments
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7 May 2013
at
2:14pm
streetsj
says:
Hull is the bit you remove from the strawberry or raspberry so as not to ruin its delicious sweetness.
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15 June 2013
at
10:27am
Paleface
says:
@
streetsj
Apart from the fact that he's Welsh.
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7 May 2013
at
8:42pm
Bernard Porter
says:
I was looking for 'cultural' figures; the word defined broadly, but not quite broadly enough to include Prezza (whom I've met and rather approve of). The rest of this comment I'm afraid I don't understand. Northern stupidity, perhaps.
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8 May 2013
at
8:37am
streetsj
says:
Have you never hulled a strawberry?
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8 May 2013
at
11:21am
rdp123
says:
While we're making a list, large collection of Roman mosaics - http://www.hullcc.gov.uk/museumcollections/collections/subtheme.php?irn=449 (Curious how little attention the Roman history of the area receives in comparision to other places in the UK. Perhaps just doesn't fit the modern image of Hull)
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8 May 2013
at
12:08pm
Bernard Porter
says:
Yes; and some wonderful mediaeval churches, country houses, and a statue of Queen Victoria atop of a Gents' loo; but I couldn't mention everything. Anyway, if I make it sound too attractive, the southerners might all move up here, and that'll be the end of the cheap housing for lucky middle-class locals like me.
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9 May 2013
at
4:47pm
nickww
says:
Don't forget the Humber Bridge - not only a testament to the miracle of a pointless election promise actually carried through (Barbara Castle I think) but a truly glorious bridge - certainly unencumbered by traffic.
Read moreIt's hard to come back from there. And why no mention of John Prescott? Surely the most high profile Hullperson of the last ten years or so.
And I fondly remember one of the best and cheapest nights out of my life in Hull after an academic conference - an amazing old pub down by the docks and an extraordinary and unexpected French meal slightly spoiled by the locals swearing at the hapless owners for only serving wine