The Allamo

As a one man protest it is not even close to those that have been witnesses to history.

We are familiar with ultimate sacrifices of self-immolation, taking the place of others so that they can survive, risking life and limb to save innocents and in civil protest inviting arrest, imprisonment and harm.

I am talking about the man I stood in front of today who will have thought long and hard about the form and consequences of his own particular protest..

He will have consulted others, spent hours agonising with his memories and conscience.

The inevitable emotional journey will have affected relationships at home and amongst his friends, many of whom may have felt equally aggrieved and will even have considered acting in support but could not go through with it.

He had obviously invested a lot of his life energy, time and resources in what he was now fully prepared to give up.

I was, for the first time in ages, standing at the ticket office counter at the Hull City Football Club Stadium.

I did, in better business years, have five seats in the West Stand and all of the hospitality that came with the hefty monthly subscription. The economic downturn and the need to make sharp budget cuts sounded the death knell for what, for six years was a great experience following my home town team from their struggles in the lower English Leagues into the Premier League.

In the last few years I have only been to a handful of matches and those thanks to the use of seat passes from one of my wife's nieces.

Ironically I went to this saturday's game with West Brom and I was today buying tickets for the EFL Quarter Final with Newcastle tomorrow night.

Two games in four days is unprecedented for me.

As my purchase was being processed another sales assistant approached the man, then unsighted, behind me.

In answer to the question "Can I help you?" the disembodied voice replied that he was only there to hand in his notice of cancellation of his Season Ticket.

There was a slight wavering in his voice which caught my attention. I recognised it as that half-way emotion between outright anger and downright tearfulness. It takes great self control to achieve that balance.

I was interested in where the conversation would go next.

The assistant was well trained and enquired why he felt that was necessary.

That opened up the flood gates.

The man was exercising his right of protest and like a worker withdrawing his labour from his employee he was making the sacrifice of divorcing himself from his lifelong allegiance to his beloved football team.

He was no fair weather fan. He cited 60 years of being a supporter which suggested, from his now visible demeanour, that he had been taken to his first game at the age of about ten.

That would have placed him in the front line of Hull City's perennial struggles in respective leagues and competitions from the austere post war years through to the great team players of the 1960's, the volatile 70's, dodgy 80's, precarious 90's, insolvency risky early 2000's and then the move to the Stadium and successive years of accomplishment and culminating in Premier league status, albeit on a yo-yo basis.

He would certainly have some tales to tell of being frozen or alternately baked on the old Boothferry Park terraces.

How many meat pies and hot chocolates will he have sought warmth and solace from in that time?

The reason for his drastic action.

Blame, he placed, squarely on the owners of Hull City and their reluctance to invest in the team whilst, he argued, they were obsessed with milking every pound of value out of the club in order to make the balance sheet look peachy (my word) for prospective buyers.

The huge financial benefits of Premier League status are a major attraction in any purchase bid, more so than any real affinity, loyalty or sympathy to the City, town and supporters that inevitably are integral to the deal.

The man was in full flow in presenting his well rehearsed tirade.

It was eloquent and succinct. Unfortunately only me and about four others, three of these being Club Shop employees were there to hear it.

I like to think that the club Owners were in the stadium at that time and watching the event unfold on a CCTV link. That is what happens, in my experience, in all of those movies involving beleagured Industrialists and magnates, under pressure mobsters and gangsters.

I decided to follow the man out of the shop to make sure that he got safely into his car to drive home, undoubtedly very sad but above all, morally vindicated.

My concerns were borne out of a vision of the Club Owners shouting with some menace and intent into the Stadium intercom for their minions to "Kill Him".

Come on you Hull.