By Tony Attwood
Hull City will always remember the 2025/6 season, and indeed other clubs might well remember their time in the league that season, even though it was the 122nd season of Hull City in the football league. And this for a very simple reason. It was their fifth consecutive season in the Championship; they came sixth and entered the play offs.
After finishing in 6th place, Hull prevailed against Middlesbrough in the play-off final, thus getting a return ticket to the Premier League for the first time since the 2016/7 season. They also became the first 6th place team to be promoted to the top flight since 2010.
However Nothing in their results really prepared anyone for the possibility that the club would next rise to the Premier League. In the seasons from 2021/22 onward they came 19th, 15th, 7th, 21st and 6th. That sixth placed finish was for the campaign 2025/26 (last season) and their record was perhaps best described as just about the good side of modest.
They won 21 of their 46 league games, drew ten and lost 15. That took them to sixth place with sixth place having scored 70 and conceded 66 – a goal difference obviously of just +4.
And yet from there they won promotion through the play offs to the Premier League.
| Season | P | W | D | L | F | A | Pts | Position |
| 2021–22 | 46 | 14 | 9 | 23 | 41 | 54 | 51 | 19th |
| 2022–23 | 46 | 14 | 16 | 16 | 51 | 61 | 58 | 15th |
| 2023–24 | 46 | 19 | 13 | 14 | 68 | 60 | 70 | 7th |
| 2024–25 | 46 | 12 | 13 | 21 | 44 | 54 | 49 | 21st |
| 2025–26 | 46 | 21 | 10 | 15 | 70 | 66 | 73 | 6th |
The difference of course for 2025/26 was that this time Hull won their way through the play offs to the Premier League. But of course having been lurking around the bottom of the Championship the season before and winning their way to the Premier League this season against what we might call all the odds, what no one really expected was much of a display from the club this season.
So with that background in mind, below is the table. And to be fair we must admit finding Hull in 11th with two wins, five draws and two defeats, that appears to be no mean achievement. They have scored 11 and conceded ten, and have 11 points. That puts them one goal ahead of the mighty Tottenham Hots and one point and just two places below Tottenham in the Premier League. We don’t wish Hull well in this game, but thereafter, they can have our full support.
However when we have a look at the comparison between Hull City and and Arsenal in terms of home and away games this season we do find a bigger difference.
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
1 |
Arsenal home | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 2 | +7 | 12 |
| 14 | Hull City away | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 5 | -1 | 4 |
So what we have is a situation in which in the last season Millwall who came in third – the top of the four play off positions got ten more points in the league than Hull City and had an 11 goal better GD than Hull (+15 to +4) and yet Hull managed to gain the final promotion spot.
And with the club sitting 11th after nine matches this season in the league, there seems to be a decent chance of them staying up at the end of the campaign.
To look once more at their ups and downs, Hull started off this century in the third tier of English football and moved into League One in 2004/5, the Championship in 2005/6 and the Premier League in 2008/9. Since then it has been a bit of a yoyo affair, with them being in the Championship again by 2010/11, the Prem again in 2013/14, the Champ in 2015/16, the Prem in 2016/17, the Champ in 2017/18, League One in 2020/21, the Champ in 2021/22 and the Prem again for 2026/27.
Of course from the outside it is often difficult to judge exactly where a club’s problems are, but we might note that Jarrod Bowen, who was their top scorer for three season from 2017/18 was then replaced by a different top scorer for each subsequent season. Indeed in 2024/25 when they finished 21st in the Championship the top man was João Pedro with just six. But last season, when they finished sixth and rose up once more they had Oli McBurnie with 19 goals.
So Hull have not risen to the Premier League as a club that can knock all opposition aside, but rather might be seen as a club prone to moving up and down. Their ground is shared with the rugby league side, and has a capacity of 24,983. As I understand it, there is a safe standing section in the ground and 2,700 seats were converted, with both the home and away ends now including some standing accommodation.
