First game of the season - Hull City v Brighton 18/08/12

After the 'spectacular summer of sport', which seemed to consist of England failing miserably in a major competition once again, before Team GB surprised everyone by being quite good at sports no-one usually watches, it's time to get back to real competition once again. Yes - the Npower Championship kicked-off the 2012/13 season this Saturday, and I took Kyle along to see our beloved Brighton start the annual disappointment much earlier than usual.

The Humber Bridge

Hull itself is a terrible place to visit - a typical Northern town desperately trying to reinvent itself as a tourist attraction, but only managing to reinforce a sense of sadness & despair. As the old saying goes - you can't polish a turd, but you can roll it in glitter.

It's often better to face away from the pitch when Brighton are playing.

We stopped off at a reasonable pub (the Three John Scotts - a bog-standard Wetherspoons, not really worthy of a place in the Good Beer Guide), and then made our way to the ground. The KC stadium was one of the original 'new breed' of out-of-town football stadiums, and is starting to look particularly shabby in places. Once inside, it could have been any stadium in any city in the world - there was nothing to make it stand out.

New signing Tomas Kusczack

The football itself was a strange one. Brighton played well enough - new signings Bruno and Bridge were excellent in the full-back positions, whilst Crofts and Bridcutt bossed the midfield throughout. However, there was no penetration at all, and the forward pairing of Mackail-Smith & Barnes looked starved of possession. Hull showed no style, and were content to chase possession for much of the game. Things changed when Kazenga Lua-Lua was introduced, and his pace & tricks started to worry the Hull defence. However, despite this, Hull capitalised on a loose ball, and Jay Simpson scored a late winner. 

Horrible foul on Craig Noone - not even a yellow card.

Kusczack watches the play

Luke Campbell - Hull's gold medal winning boxer

On the balance of play, Brighton deserved the win, but I think we'll play a lot worse than that this season and still get results. Priority has to be a new target man though - you can't play two small strikers when we've got such good quality crossers of the ball.

Still, a good day overall.

Hull City 1 (Simpson 85mins) vs Brighton 0