The long-expected, and in some quarters long-awaited departure of Phil Brown as Hull City manager came last week, on the same day that the Tigers announced financial results almost as appalling as those on the pitch for the last fifteen months.

The two worlds collided over the decision to place Brown on gardening leave rather than sack him outright, leaving new boss Iain Dowie with the title “managerial consultant.”

 

The decision was dictated by the Tigers’ inability to pay off Brown’s managerial contract in one lump sum.

Dowie was not the first choice as replacement. Mark Hughes was widely reported to have turned down the opportunity.

Former Oldham and Crystal Palace boss Dowie was most recently in football as assistant to Alan Shearer during Newcastle’s failed relegation struggle last season, his time at St James’s Park beginning at a similar stage.

Dowie made an inauspicious start, as the defensive frailties which dogged Brown saw the Tigers concede two late goals to lose 3-2 at bottom club Portsmouth.

The Tigers are three points from safety, with a game in hand on fourth-bottom West Ham but a gap in goal difference which won’t be bridged before the season’s end.

The Humber Bridge was the scene of an alleged fracas between Tigers’ midfielders Jimmy Bullard and Nick Barmby after Hull’s recent 5-1 capitulation at Everton.

The altercation made headlines particularly because it was witnessed by members of the Women’s Institute. But it represented the final straw for many of Brown’s critics, despite, or perhaps because of, Brown claiming: “It happens on the training ground on a regular basis…this squad is united.”

Brown’s dismissal served to bury City’s latest bad financial news.

The accounts covering the club’s first EPL season showed an operating profit of £2m, predicated on much-improved broadcast revenues, but a bank debt of £15m, which Adam Pearson was recently appointed chairman to reduce.

Pearson’s cost-cutting measures have reduced that debt by over two-thirds. But it has to be paid, in full, this July. And City also owe £15m to trade creditors and £4.5m tax.

Club accountants, Deloitte, attached a well-documented warning to the previous season’s accounts that City needed to find considerable finance to continue as a viable business (a “going concern”).

Despite the partially-improved finances, the warning has been repeated. The club will need £21m in extra finance should they be relegated, and £16m even if they aren’t.

And they are talking to “finance providers about “the acceleration” of £7m of monies owed to them by the EPL. In other words, the club are borrowing against future income in order to survive the present.

Tigers’ owner, property “investor” Russell Bartlett, reportedly “pumped £4m of his own money” into City since the period covered by the accounts. He has, however, remained publicly silent.

Hull host Fulham this Saturday - a repeat of their historic first-ever EPL victory in August 2008.

A 1-0 win at Fulham last March proved vital in their successful relegation battle and another victory could prove equally vital.