Mild Rover wrote:But you did say that if you (Hull fans) are still harking back to this in forty years, it would be an indicator of failure over the intervening four decades. My point is whether those years are good or bad (it’ll almost certainly be a mix), fans will rightly hark back to those wins, so I don’t it is a good indicator.
I think the extent to which they're referenced are a good indicator for a couple of reasons. Firstly the more the old stuff is referenced as a proportion of reflections, the greater the implication that, given everyone loves success, there's been less of it recently. And secondly as mentioned as silverware memories get further away, there's a smaller proportion of the fanbase that have a genuine personal connection with them.
Mild Rover wrote:That you’re not very interested in your club’s history shouldn’t make me sad - we all take our pleasures in different ways and you’re understandably very happy with recent triumphs. But it does a little - these clubs are such valuable and interesting civic institutions, with so many varied and fascinating stories. As time passes, the passions fade but we get new and, in some ways, more meaningful perspectives. I do wonder if, to some extent, seeing that we’re struggling in the here and now, while you’re flying high, you want to play down the past in an effort to deny us the consolation of brief refuge there. But it won’t work. As I type this, I’m looking at my Dream Scene picture that doesn’t fit with the decor of our house at all, and which contains only one player that I properly remember seeing play, right towards the end of his career. Maybe that is sad too, but since I started taking a real interest again circa 2006 (#bandwagoner), i’ve had a hundred little morsels that have made it worthwhile, and mitigated the misery of Wembley 2015 and the 2016 MPG. Most would mean nothing more to you than your Clint Newton story means to me - but they’re not there to be rhetorical weapons, they’re a shield, an impenetrable comfort blanket.
Equally I could counter that you're trying to make history more important, patronisingly more "meaningful", because your club's most successful time is decades ago. My personal connection to Wembley 16 is huge. We had the tale of coming back from our holiday in France (and going back again!) to attend as a family what we expected to be another defeat but couldn't not be there. Just in case. We attended as a family with my brother and watched in horror and then ecstasy as Ben Currie slid towards the line. We called my mum, now 80, from Wembley Way after the game. She is too frail to attend now but has been a fan from being a little girl and could hear Old Faithful ringing out in the background. You can imply I'm heartless from leveraging more emotion from this than having a picture of Kemble above the fireplace, but there it is. I might prefer to watch La La Land with my daughter than On The Town too.
Mild Rover wrote:So (and well done if you’ve made it this far, but I know the day is probably dragging with HullKRfans still down), if you prefer to pay little thought to Kemble and Norton anD Whiteley, or to how Hull F.C. emerged from and was shaped by its local community, then that is your loss alone and its extent depends on how much you really do think that history is just so boring.
Reet, can somebody help me down from this pulpit?
I don't think I've said it was "so boring". Who was it that once said the game "should be about the here and now and anything else is selling the fans short"?..