Football fans made the connection between lookalikes Iain Dowie and Mr Incredible long ago, and the new Hull City boss has got a superhero-sized task on his hands on the banks of the Humber.
Seven wins from their last 55 games was what got Phil Brown the sack, and Dowie – who once coined the term “bouncebackability” – has got to turn that form around to get Hull springing up the league. The Tigers need to find their roar.
Dowie’s managerial career has been a stop-start one. An impressive coach at Oldham, he was given the reins at Crystal Palace, where he almost achieved success too early. A rapid promotion to the Premier League was followed by an unfortunate relegation, and subsequent spells in the hot seat at Charlton, Coventry and through the revolving door at Queens Park Rangers brought little to no success.
He spent the closing months of last season assisting Alan Shearer in their ultimately doomed attempt to keep Newcastle United up, and the next four matches could well decide if he follows suit with Hull one year on.
Three points adrift of safety, on Saturday they visit Portsmouth – the only club below them in the table – before a home game with a Fulham side who haven’t won away since the opening day of the season, a trip to battling Stoke and a home clash with relegation rivals Burnley.
It is those four matches that look likely to determine their Premier League fate, ahead of further meetings with Birmingham, Sunderland, Aston Villa, Wigan and a final game of the season at home to Liverpool. Poor showings in their new manager’s first four, and those five could be irrelevant.
In Dowie, Hull have appointed a man totally different to Brown. One look at his world-weary expression would show a man not as obsessed with his image as the perma-tanned former boss, and Dowie will seek to get Hull back to basics when he enters the club’s training ground in Cottingham, England’s largest village.
Hull used to be the largest city in Europe that had never hosted top-flight football, a statistic finally put to bed with their glorious promotion to the Premier League for the 2008/09 season.
Brown will forever hold a place in Hull hearts for achieving that miracle, but the club has gone stale under his stewardship and he had to go.
Dowie’s task to preserve that top flight status starts now, and it’s a tough one. It will be a huge achievement if he can keep them up.
Incredible, you might say.
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