For their first game of 2008, the Internet Mariners hosted Hull in what was their second home game in a row, which is a bit of a rarity in the IFA these days. The Mariners were looking to get that elusive win to kick start their season against their rivals from over the Bridge. Both teams had large squads, so no excuses for lack of numbers.

Unfortunately for the Mariners they started slowly and Hull came at them from the very first whistle, clearly wanting to make their mark early on. The Mariners defence was being run ragged and it was only a matter of time before Hull scored, which they did after 10 minutes. A neat cross and a well struck shot past the Mariners ‘keeper Grant Johnson. Seemingly the Mariners didn’t heed the warning and within 5 minutes Hull had struck again. 2-0 to the Tigers and from the way they celebrated the goal they were clearly enjoying themselves and it appeared that it was going to be a long 90 minutes for the Mariners! However it was at this stage that the Mariners finally got into the game and started to attack the Hull goal. It was on such an attack that they scored, a shot from the edge of the box from midfielder Bob Graves that deflected off of a Hull player taking it out of the Hull ‘keepers reach. 2-1 to Hull and possibly the Mariners could get back into this game. Stung by the goal, Hull again went on the attack in a similar manner to the first 15 minutes and it was they who scored the next goal. 3-1 to Hull. Back came the Mariners and they managed to score a second shortly before halftime through a decent strike by Craig Nuttall. There were no further goals before halftime and although the Mariners had played pretty poorly in the first half, they were still within touching distance at 3-2.


The second half started with the Mariners on the offensive determined to get the next goal, which was likely to be all-important in this game. Although they had a couple of half chances in the first 10 minutes, it was Hull who scored the next goal after some fluent attacking football. With this, a number of the Mariners heads went down and despite manager Gary Allwood using all his substitutes, there was no way back and Hull scored a further 3 goals to make the final score 7-2 and condemn the Mariners to their heaviest defeat of the season.

The Mariners were pretty much outplayed and out battled in this game and a strong Hull side really grasped the initiative from the start. It was a shame that the Mariners didn’t really show what they could do in a “derby” game and hopefully this can be rectified for the future.

The Mariners look forward to their next game, a trip to Scotland to face Aberdeen in the IFA cup.