Phil’s fury... on the pitch

IT was Boxing Day 2008 when Phil Brown wrote his name into Premier League folklore at the Etihad by giving his Hull players a half-time dressing down – on the pitch, rather than in the changing room.

But, 13 years on, he insists that he wouldn’t change a thing.

Brown said: “I was showing the world that I was being true to myself. That was me. I was a supporter, going back to my days at Sunderland.

“So, when we had 6,500 supporters at the Etihad on Boxing Day, I realised just how much sacrifice there had been for them to get there.

“Did they come to see a 4-0 drubbing at halftime? Of course, they didn’t. Did they come to see their team play well and get a result? Absolutely.”

Hull’s abject surrender in the first half to Manchester City left those fans – not to mention the manager – feeling far from festive.

So what better way to cheer them up than by ensuring they saw the players who had let them down receive a rollicking from Brown right in front of them.

“Were we capable of matching City? Well, we had a budget of £16million and Robinho had cost City over twice that amount,” he said.

“At the same time, there’s no substitute for hard work, and we weren’t the same team we had been in the first part of the season.

“That’s what got me. I had also heard a whisper that a couple of the players had broken a curfew the night before as well. That got me as well.

“To be 4-0 down, to make a couple of substitutions and berate them in front of those fans was about right.

“The funny part was that when I walked across the pitch, I’d had a conversation with Brian Horton and Steve Parkin... and got a nod from Brian and a shake of the head from Steve.

“The first person I bumped into on the pitch was Ian Ashby. He said, ‘Gaffer, where are we going?’.

“I told him we were going to do the team talk right over there and he just followed me. Then George Boateng did and the rest followed. I took that as a sign that they were all with me.” It wasn’t just

the Hull fans and players who

couldn’t believe what they were seeing. The Manchester City fans were transfixed too.

“That’s the funniest part, all the City fans, who would usually be going for their pie and their Bovril at half-time, just turned around and went back to their seats,” added Brown.

“It was hilarious. Literally everyone in the stadium was watching what was going on.”

Brown was hardly spreading goodwill to all men at the time.

But when Hull avoided relegation on the final day of that season, those same fans were celebrating with the players who had short-changed them so memorably the day after Christmas.

‘It was hilarious. the Everyone in stadium was watching’

TIGER RANT Brown lays into his players on the Etihad turf