Oli McBurnie: the free signing who won Hull the £200m game
Sam Parry writes from Wembley on heat, free signings, and a Hull City side built to perform in the biggest game of the season.
Long before Oli McBurnie scored the goal that changed everything, fans of two clubs descended the steps from Wembley Park station and filed along Wembley Way.
“This is an alcohol-free zone.”
As the tannoy tried to impose order, it was greeted with groans, time-hurried final sips, and still-weighty cans being tossed into large black bins.
Inside the stadium, Tommy Conway hunched over his crutches and spoke into a microphone in front of the Middlesbrough end. “BRING THE F***ING NOISE.”
When it came, it was deafening.
On the other side, Hull’s supporters were boxed into the sun, hands covering eyes, bleaching in the heat. Then the whistle went, and perhaps only with hindsight did the first collision seem to suggest where this final was going.
As Boro worked the ball back to Aidan Morris from kick-off, Oli McBurnie barrelled into him, even though the ball was long gone, bundling both to the ground. Morris and McBurnie became the game’s two protagonists. Boro tried to run the final through the former. Hull found their footholds through the other.
