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Hull Awaydaze

This season’s trip to Hull City is next Tuesday, the 30th January, with kick off at 7.45pm. And if you haven’t managed to get a ticket there is always the beamback at Elland Road.

You’ll find the KCOM stadium a mile or so to the west of Hull city centre. If you're driving from Leeds you need to stay on the M62 right till the end, where it becomes the A63. On the edge of the city you should continue along the A63 (Clive Sullivan Way) till you come to a roundabout where you need to take the 2nd exit at a roundabout, following signs to the Stadium and Hull Royal Infirmary.

Turn left at the lights and then go over the flyover, right at the next lights and the ground is down on the right. The stadium has a massive on-site Car Park with the entrance in Walton Street, costing £5, but the drawback is that it takes a while to get out after the match. I wouldn't try to park in any of the surrounding residential streets, which are for permit holders only and are patrolled by an army of traffic wardens.

Other options are to use the Park & Ride service from Priory Park, which is signposted from the A63, or park at the Infirmary, where parking is only £5 for 4 hours. It's a 10-15 minute walk to the ground from there. You could also use one of the city centre car parks, as it’s not too far to walk from there.

The railway station is a 15 minute walk from the stadium, with a signposted pedestrian route using Londesborough Street, and you should get your bearings when you pass the stadium on the way into Hull. Of course it's just possible that the local bobbies will be kind enough to provide an escort, to make absolutely sure that we don't get lost.

If you want to visit the city centre first, bus service number 701 will take you from there to the Stadium. After the match it has been known for the police to keep a Leeds train waiting at the station, to make sure we catch it and we're not left hanging round on their patch. The last train back to Leeds will be the 22.38, which you should be able to get.

They usually shut all the pubs will be shut both before and after the game, with no alcohol served inside the stadium, although when was the last time you had a decent pint inside a football ground anyway? So there doesn't seem to be a lot of point in giving my usual pub guide, but if you're in need of some scoff there are some takeaways on the main Alanby Road. If there's one thing Hull is good for, it's got to be fish and chips!

The Kingston Communications (KC) stadium was opened in December 2002 at a cost of £44m, and is owned by the Hull City Council. It's home to both the towns Rugby League & football clubs, and as with all new stadia it has excellent facilities, but seems a bit bland and identikit to old farts like me, who prefer old football grounds with a bit of character.

It's got all the important stuff, including 2,000 square feet of conference and exhibition space, 28 executive boxes, a restaurant and 4 banqueting/hospitality suites. And there won't be much danger of the game being postponed, as the water porosity of the pitch is 25-30mm per hour, which I think means it can absorb a lot of rainfall. To make sure we all behave they have a total of 57 CCTV cameras to keep an eye on us.

The usual away allocation is 2,510 tickets, but for some reason they have given us only 2,000 for this game, even though we’re one of the clubs most likely to bring a large travelling support to Hull. We won’t lose any sleep over the extra income that Hull City will miss out on, but it’s annoying for the fans who will be left struggling to get into the game.

Our seats are split between the North stand and East stand, with the former priced at £24 for adults and the latter costing £27. As usual with small allocations they were sold through the ‘attendance tracker’ loyalty scheme, and it’s no surprise that it’s now sold out. Hull’s website still seems to have plenty of tickets left, so if they had given us a bigger allocation the displaced home fans could have been accommodated elsewhere in the stadium.

At one time they had plans to add an additional tier to both the East & South Stands, which would increase the capacity of the KC Stadium to around 34,000. But at the moment there is no sign of this going ahead, so presumably it’s on hold until they manage to get back into the Premier League, which might take a while.

Some of this stuff came from www.footballgroundguide.com .


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