Although this may make me seem like a stato, I’d just like to respond to ‘Hull fan’ Peter Saxton’s three key protestations to the recent onlinegooner article which draws attention to Phil Brown’s managerial deficiencies.

Of the three points Peter makes, only one is justified. He claims that Hull City FC “get far bigger attendances than the two professional rugby clubs combined”. This is not true. A brief look at the statistics shows that the combined average attendance of the two Rugby clubs over the last three years is 21,535 whilst the average attendance of Hull City FC over the same period - bearing in mind this figure includes their first year in the Premier League - is 20,466. The fact that there are two top-level Rugby clubs (compared to only ONE Association Football club) in a city with a population of barely 257,000 would seem to confirm the sport’s enduring popularity.

Peter also takes offence at the implication that Hull is in a rural location. Of course Hull is a city, and as such can be considered urban; however, there can be no denying that its location in the East Ridings of Yorkshire is much more isolated than London, one of the biggest cities in Europe. I would have thought the article was merely intended as a comparison between Hull City FC and Arsenal FC, and their respective geographical locations. Indeed, a quick search for ‘Hull’ on the internet brings up the ‘Real Yorkshire’ website, advertising the ‘Hull & East Yorkshire’ area as a ‘perfect rural getaway’.

Peter’s final point is of course entirely warranted. Geovanni was substituted when Hull City played Blackburn Rovers, not Newcastle United. But the point still remains, Geovanni was arguably misused in this important game, as many Hull fans vociferously asserted at the time. This supports the general tone of the original article: Phil Brown is seen by many Arsenal fans as an inexperienced manager, out of his depth in the Premiership.

Hopefully Peter will take this in the good spirit it was intended.

(Ed’s note – received the below from Rob Harmer and am tagging it on the bottom of this page. Ever felt like you were watching a game of table tennis?

I'm afraid Jo Khan has made a couple errors in the response to Peter Saxton:

The average rugby attendance for both clubs over the past three years(2006/7/8) is 18,472, which as Peter said is less than football average, but this is a rather daft comparison, as currently the football club is sold out for every game, if we had 35,000 seats, it would still be sold out for every game(Rugby attendances for both clubs are expected to average around 20k this season). Rugby is, without doubt, well supported in the city of Hull, though no rugby club is ever going to be able to compete with the support of a Premier League football club.

The 257,000 population figure you mention is a figure for the City of Hull only, a mistake often made by those who don't know the area, as the majority of the population of the Hull area don't live in the City of Hull itself (this includes the city centre and the older areas around the port to the east), they live to the North and the West of the City, the population of the East Yorkshire area is actually 600,000. The county of East Yorkshire is rural, the City of Hull is not and I think it's reasonable that we accept that London is bigger than Hull.

I think everything that's gone on is fairly petty, but I thought you'd at least like any inaccuracies to be pointed out.

(Ed’s note – Oh well, at least we can all agree about the opponents when Geovanni was substituted, eh?