104 years of waiting over for Hull City
Rangers end cup dream of Queen of the South
Grant sacked as Chelsea Boss
Holloway leaves Leicester
Late Equaliser saves Ireland’s blushes
Anfield Duo amongst scorers as Dutch triumph
Roma deny Inter the Italian double
International Round-up
Hull City will play in the top level of English football for the first time in their 104 year history next season after beating Bristol City 1-0 in the Championship play-off final at Wembley today.
A Dean Windass volley in the 38th minute was enough for Hull to become the 42nd different team to play in the Premier League. It was the Hull born thirty-nine year old’s 15th goal of the season and his 201st in English football and probably the most important of his career.
The first half lasted over 54 minutes because of a lengthy stoppage due to an injury for Bristol’s full-back Bradley Orr who received oxygen before being stretchered off with a suspected depressed fracture of the cheekbone.
Rangers playing their 68th game of a long season won their 32nd Scottish Cup final, their first in five years, by beating Queen of the South 3-2 at Hampden Park.
Rangers had taken a 2-0 lead through goals from Kris Boyd and DaMarcus Beasley before the first division team came back with goals from Stevie Tosh and Jim Thomson, but Boyd struck again to deny Queen of the South the chance to cause one of the biggest shocks in Scottish Cup history.
Despite reaching the Champions league final Chelsea have sacked manager Avram Grant after just eight months in charge. The decision followed two days of talks between Grant and the club’s chief executive Peter Kenyon.
Leicester City have confirmed that manager Ian Holloway has left the club by mutual consent. The Foxes were relegated to the third tier of English football for the first time in their history on the final day of last season. Holloway joined Leicester from fellow Championship outfit Plymouth Argyle in November 2007 but won just nine of his 32 games in charge.
An injury-time volley from substitute Andy Keogh saved Republic of Ireland manager Giovanni Trapattoni from tasting defeat in his first game in charge.
Marko Pantelic had fired Serbia ahead with 15 minutes left after a Paul McShane mistake.
The Republic are back in action on Thursday with a friendly against Colombia at Craven Cottage.
Liverpool’s Dirk Kuyt and Ryan Babel were both on target as Holland beat Ukraine 3-0 in Rotterdam. Klaas-Jan Huntelaar the top scorer in the Dutch Eredivisie scored the other.
Roma lifted the Coppa Italia for the second year running with victory over Serie A champions Internazionale on Saturday night.
Goals from Philippe Mexes and Simone Perrotta either side of half-time helped Roma make up for missing out on the title on the final day of the season. Pele pulled one back for Inter in the 60th minute, but Roma were not to be denied the glory in the third successive Italian cup final between the two teams.
A 31st minute goal by Robert Kovac was enough to see Croatia beat Moldova in a friendly international while Hungary beat Greece 3-2. Euro 2008 co-hosts Switzerland beat Slovakia 2-0 and Japan struggled to beat an understrength Ivory Coast 1-0, Nagoya striker Keiji Tamada volleyed home in the 21st minute.
Kevin Taylor