Hull City Football Club News

• Nickname:The Tigers
• Founded:1904
• Manager:Nick Barmby

• Ground:Kingston Communications Stadium
• Capacity:25,404

Brown hails reprieved Tigers

17 May 2009 - 11:13:10

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Hull City boss Phil Brown hailed the character of his players after they clawed their way out of the Premier League drop-zone with Saturday's 1-1 draw against Bolton Wanderers.

The Tigers are now in pole position to avoid relegation heading into the final round of fixtures next Sunday after they took advantage of Newcastle's defeat to Fulham to leapfrog the Magpies into 17th place in the table.

Craig Fagan cancelled out a Gretar Steinsson strike in a 1-1 draw at the Reebok Stadium and Brown was delighted with the response after Newcastle's own win at Middlesbrough during the week resulted in the Tigers slipping into the bottom three for the first time this season.

"We were dumped in the bottom three in no uncertain terms by Newcastle United," he said.

"We had to respond and, like true professionals, they responded and I was quite proud of the performance today.

"I don't think we deservedly got a point out of it, I think we probably should have had three. It was a well-fought out scrap.

"It slipped out of our hands and that isn't a nice feeling. It's now back in our hands, albeit having to win against the champions."

Meanwhile, Brown has dismissed suggestions that Manchester United will field a much weakened line-up when the newly-crowned champions arrive at the KC Stadium next weekend.

"There will be suggestions of weakened sides coming our way but, as we've seen today, nobody does you any favours in the Premier League," he added.

"We could quite easily name two or three teams Sir Alex (Ferguson) could put out. That's the ability of that football club."