This period was just before i started watching (my first game was the last game of the 78/79 season v new hunslet when we won to go 26 from 26 in division 2). i have heard relatively little about the rest of this decade over the years - i know we reached the jp trophy final against the odds one year but shamefully, i don't know much else about this period in the club's history.

to tie in with the 150 year anniversary, it would be really useful if anyone with a better knowledge of what can probably be termed one of the less successful periods of the clubs history could post some details - same could apply to the mid to late 60s to i guess

Less fans than 78/89 but increasingly passionate after the "low" of 74/75

My first game watching regularly was away at batley in September '76. We won to go top and I just couldn't believe the singing coming out of the taverners bar after the match as we walked past.
The excitement seemed to grow during that season, and despite a poor 77/78 (relegated straight away) the signings of Farrar and Norton seemed to bring hope.

77/78 saw a couple of bad incidents when fans came out of threepennies to have a go at the referee (physically as well as verbally) and we got in a lot of trouble with the league.
I think that was when the "little wooden whistle" song really became popular too (which got us in to more trouble). The real low points of that season where losing at home to New Hunslet on Boxing Day, after which DDD resigned, then going away to New Hunslet for the next game and losing that too. After Bunting's changes won us a few games losing at Wakefield (to 3 drop goals) and Bramley (appalling) were hard to take, but we took loads of fans to both.
In those days there weren't many replica shirts on sale (or maybe there was no demand), so it was all scarves and hats. Loads of lads had scarves round wrists ! There were lots of knitted scarves and bobble hats too - all a bit amateur (yet more homely) than these days.
One other thing I remember is seeing the wave of fans going over the railway bridge at the end of walliker street, on the way to threepennies. I think those days of restricted opening hours meant that people got more tanked up before matches, and also then took advantage of the away ground's clubhouse after the games. You used to see a lot more fans staggering in those days !

I can remember it in the 1950's, but not quite as obscene as the one you're referring to.

other things I remember was there were a lot more "older" fans in those days. Probably because watching an unsuccessful team wasn't vey attractive if you were younger, so we were more down to the hard core.
Cigarette smoke everywhere too.
and those single-seater pal blue invalid carriages parked on the speedway track at both ends

Sunday rugby was relatively new (although Leeds had stuck to Saturdays, and Cas and Salford played Friday nights), and at a lot of Lancashire grounds you used to get old men holding placards up declaring some kind of religious retribution for playing on sundays. They used to preach out loud and get loads of stick back ! never saw any in Yorkshire, but deffo at Oldham, swinton, leigh etc

Not 70's but just to note there were two outside the Boulevard on 20th Sept 1968 for our first Sunday game they were folks from the 'Lords Day Preservation Society' With banners saying 'Keep the Lords Day Sacred' and another bizarrely announcing 'Repent the end is nigh' to which one bloke stated 'yours f*ckin will be if you don't get out of the way!' 8600 attended we beat Huddersfield 28-14 and admission was by programme only!

I started going in 1972 as a five year old so my memories are somewhat sketchy in the early period

I too remember disabled cars parked around the speedway track and also the terraces covered in shale from the track. I sat on a cushion stuffed in a carrier bag on the terrace in the best stand towards Gordon Street end usually clutching a bar of chocolate that my Nanna had got me from Ivor's shop (Ivor Watts' newsagents on corner of Westbourne Av/Woodcock St). My memories of that era are mud bath games, tons of sand on the pitch, missing floodlights and alike. As things (and therefore crowds) improved towards the end of the decade I remember we had to move down the stand to stand up against the wall and my Dad built me a wooden stand so I could see over the top. I remember the crowd banter with the likes of Alf Macklin and my favourite player was Keith Boxhall - I used to practice kicking goals opposite my house using the 'toe-end' method that Box used.

Got me thinking how much different my lad will remember his early days watching Hull. Like tonight he's out of school in Uttoxeter at 3:40 - in the car then a slog along the A50/A38/M1/M18/M62 up to Hull wondering if the next motorway delay will make us miss kick off. Different times.

What I horrible journey - lightened onto by the massive bulls knackers on that statue as you come out of uttoxeter ! I am always surprised at how they have positioned it - so that you look at it's ars_ and balls as you arrive in the town !

The other thing about the 70's was the lack of floodlights.

From memory, they didn't exist at Blackpool, Bradford, Doncaster, Featherstone, Huyton or York, so you would get 2pm or 2.30pm kick offs on a sunday and finish the game in near-darkness

For the same reason, the Yorkshire cup (largely played midweek apart from the final) had to be played in August/September before the clocks changed !

The other thing about the 70's was the lack of floodlights.

From memory, they didn't exist at Blackpool, Bradford, Doncaster, Featherstone, Huyton or York, so you would get 2pm or 2.30pm kick offs on a sunday and finish the game in near-darkness

For the same reason, the Yorkshire cup (largely played midweek apart from the final) had to be played in August/September before the clocks changed !

on a roll now....

half time entertainment - a marching band. Quite often a kids band, like boy's brigade or air cadets, and usually involving xylophones and kazoos. Occasionally there would be majorettes too, little kids frozen to death wading through the mud. God knows what happened to this kind of "entertainment" but I don't miss it.

Also a half time there would often be a collection - usually for the afore-mentioned band. This was done by 4 people holding a big grey blanket and walking around the pitch s that people could chuck money in. I never saw any of em get injured either !

as the players were part time and low paid, and there was no freedom of contract, a lot of clubs had what was referred to as "loyal servants"; often quite classy players who preferred to stay with their local team.

eg Nigel Stephenson and Jeff Grayshon at Dewsbury, Arthur Keegan at Bramley (after leaving Hull), Mick Morgan at York, Arnie Walker at Whitehaven,

Teams seemed more settled in the 70s - there was nothing like the current off-season rebuilding, although you could buy players mid season in those days

It does raise a few eyebrows.

Great recollections from the above posters.Funny how these slip your memory but then come flooding back after being triggered like this.
I too can remember "repent the end is nigh" people with their placards and leaflets on the car park down Airlie Street.
One thing that stuck in my mind when ever I saw them was,you must have some b***s trying to convert some of the pished up supporters rushing to get in threpneeys.
Talking of away ground supporters clubs,i can remember waiting on the car park to get in at H

Great recollections from the above posters.Funny how these slip your memory but then come flooding back after being triggered like this.
I too can remember "repent the end is nigh" people with their placards and leaflets on the car park down Airlie Street.
One thing that stuck in my mind when ever I saw them was,you must have some b***s trying to convert some of the pished up supporters rushing to get in threpneeys.
Talking of away ground supporters clubs TLJ,i can remember waiting on the car park to get in at Hunslets old ground and when the guy on the big double doors swung them open,dozens of Hull supporters came rushing out with bottles of ale in hand.How they got ,I don't know but it certainly was a cheap bar.

OOPS ,sorry nearly a double post.

Remember having to lay tarmac behind 3penny's that had been dumped in ground 3 days earlier,me and mate Brian tarring tin roof of same stand .
painting metal silver ,while junior supporters from round about painted back of stand white .gave them my old Wembley programme's and tickets.
Told to get dogs out ground for speedway [had 3 German Sheperds running loose then same night sound system went wrong and Joe Longthorne brought his to help out

talking of changing games to sunday reminded me that my first game wasn't in 78/79 but will have been sometime in 1975 when hull played on saturday afternoon. my family often visited my gran who lived on etty grove which was just the other side of gordon street almost opposite the ground entrance - the grove has long gone now (demolished in the late 80s i think). anyway my dad used to sneak out of the house at halftime and see the second half, i seemed to recall you got in free at halftime (can anyone confirm?). anyway i went with him on a couple of occasions though i can't remember much about it except it was my first taste of live sport and obviously pretty exciting. think we got crowds of 4000 or so at the time according to dad.

on a different tack, the mid 70s - what did the younger folk of hull do for entertainment? hull as one poster has said attracted a mainly older audience, it is fair to assume rovers were similar and city weren't exactly packing them in. i suppose this was the age of the saturday afternoon cinema so maybe this is why sport was seen to be not as popular. it really took the rise of both rugby clubs to make the game 'sexy' at the end of the decade

could you expand on the program entry system, i'm intrigued. this raises loads of questions

was the programme really expensive?
did it have a tear off voucher inside or did you hand the whole thing in?
how did they know how many to print?
was it a one off or a regular thing?
could you sneak someone in by throwing your programme back over the wall?

it was free entry at half time.

Programme was purchased as you went through turnstile and was nothing more than a team sheet was just a means of getting around Sunday trading laws

Programme was a sheet of paper with teams on it bought at turnstyles .gave you entry.
Half time all gates where opened and left like that so full time crowds got away.

You could sell books bibles and papers on a Sunday so you had to buy a programme to get in although in essence it was admission free with a programme. One one occasion the leaflet programmes run out and it was for years an urban myth in the supporters Club that they sold beer mats on the gate to allow admission. In this weeks Dentist Diary Codgers corner features a game that absolutely apitimises what it was like in the 70's for me.

First trips to the Boulevard were in the late 70's as a passenger on the back of one of these things.





It weren't much fun from Withernsea, especially homeward journey in the dark gloom, pishing down with rain and holding on to the driver round the waist as if my life depended on it.

First game in 78. Vivid memories of standing on a milk crate in the best stand well so I could see