Nick Barmby: Hull new ball game

Face-To-Face: Deep in rugby league territory, sports fans have new heroes to cheer. As Hull prepare to face Wigan in the Premier League, the local boy speaks to Michael Walker about the battle for the city's hearts and minds

Hull host Wigan today. Not so long ago the assumption would have been that this was rugby league. But it is not: this is the Premier League. Hull City host Wigan Athletic and proof that the sporting landscape is changing will be provided by the KC Stadium being full at the same time as Hull FC meet St Helens in the Challenge Cup final at Wembley. As Nick Barmby says: "Everything moves on. Hull has always been a rugby town, but these last three or four years it's football that's captured the imagination."

Barmby should know. Hull-born, Hull-bred, he grew up supporting City at football and Hull at rugby league. His father, Jeff, was a City junior and it was Boothferry Park on Saturday, the Boulevard on Sunday; Billy Askew and Steve McClaren one day, Lee Crooks and Peter Sterling the next.

Hull, and their rivals from east of the river, Hull Kingston Rovers, earned national prominence. Barmby's first trip to Wembley was in May 1980, to see Hull lose 10-5 to Rovers in front of 95,000 fans. "It's just a sport-mad city," he says. "Long may it continue. If we had Saturday off I'd definitely have gone to Wembley. I think a lot of City fans would have gone and will go. It just shows – Hull FC will take 30,000 to Wembley, we'll have 25,000 at the KC."

The sheer northernness of rugby league and the repeated failure of Hull City partially contributed to a sneering perception of Hull as a crap city, a fat city, the end of the line. Barmby was born there 34 years ago. He may have left for Tottenham as a teenager but via Middlesbrough, Everton, Liverpool and Leeds United, he came back in 2004 "to put something back into, or help put something back into, my local club".

In May, at Wembley, Barmby was part of the first team in the club's 104-year history to reach the top flight. The city, he says, "is still buzzing. I don't think that's faded." Results suggest he is right – Fulham were beaten 2-1 on the opening day and a 1-1 draw followed at Blackburn.

"If you'd said 10 years ago, 'Hull will play Wigan in the Premiership,' there'd have been raised eyebrows," Barmby says. "But it just shows. Over the years, because of the success of ... Hull KR and Hull FC, it's always been a rugby town. But I think the building of the KC Stadium [in 2003], that's been a catalyst for change, and obviously the promotions. [Then the chairman] Adam Pearson was fantastic, so was [former manager] Peter Taylor.

"Football has always been here – along with Liverpool I think the Sunday league's been the biggest in England. But rugby was always bigger. But now we're in the Premiership, people are talking about us. It's worldwide. I think football is taking over Hull.

"The good thing is that it's always had both and families mix. The crowds are coming: we're getting 25,000 every week, Hull FC get, on average, 13-14,000, for Hull KR it's 9-10,000. It's fantastic to have three teams doing well and I hope the feelgood factor lasts because Hull has had a lot of knockers, [about] how glum it is. So this is nice. When sport comes together, and comes good, it brings the people together. It's good exposure for the city.

"Wherever I've played, I've heard little digs about Hull. I think Middlesbrough have had the same. But everywhere has its rough areas – that's a society thing, it's not about Hull or Middlesbrough. You get used to it but the good thing is that football has put Hull on the map. The rugby clubs had done it for years, but now we're doing it."

Barmby does not want football to flatten rugby league – culturally, he is sensitive to that – and given that Thursday's Hull Daily Mail mentioned league on pages 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 & 9, before getting to the sports section, it seems robust enough. A 40-page Wembley supplement is on the news-stands.

But Barmby understands the power of the game he plays. As he talks, Geovanni, once a £12m Barcelona player, walks by.

"There is a town comparison with Wigan," Barmby says, "but we should be able to sustain our gates – we took 6,000 fans to Blackburn last Saturday. I've rarely seen the away end filled like that at Ewood Park. We got 20,000 in League One and Two; it's not been a problem. Whether Wigan can sustain theirs I don't know. It's not our concern.

"Wigan are the kind of team we need to look at and ask how they stayed up, what did they do in that first year? Now they're a good Premiership team, they were unlucky not to get a point off Chelsea last weekend, or three. We have to look at Wigan, Fulham, see how they've done it."

It is no secret – "it" needs investment and shrewd management. It is a pattern Hull City, and Hull FC, are following.

"I read Arsène Wenger's comments last week about the Emirates being a money-making machine and it's vital," Barmby says. "With Hull FC, they're lucky because they play at the KC. Rovers have now got good backing from a local businessman and they're redeveloping the stadium. Everything moves on. It is sad when you think of the Boulevard, Craven Park, Boothferry Park. But you've got to compete. It is also sad Arsenal had to leave Highbury. Boothferry Park was our Highbury. People don't realise that – it was massive to Hull. It'll be the same with the Kop when Liverpool leave Anfield."

Liverpool, for two years from 2000, gave Barmby his first medals. He had made his Tottenham debut eight years earlier – it was quite a wait. "To play for Liverpool, when Kenny Dalglish was one of my heroes, to play for one of the most successful clubs in Europe, to play in the Champions League and in my first year to win five trophies..." Barmby is explaining why he moved to Liverpool from Everton in the first direct transfer from blue to red since 1959. "It wasn't a decision I took lightly, because of the rivalry. I loved my time on Merseyside. You live by your decisions."

That was a big one, though not as big as dropping two divisions, from Leeds, to play for Hull. And maybe not as great as Barmby's first professional choice: Spurs over Manchester United.

"I was going to sign for United, but I went to Spurs for a week and it just felt good. Though I loved it at United, it just felt right. Terry Venables showed interest, Gazza was there, Chris Waddle, Gary Lineker. It was a very difficult decision; Alex Ferguson had shown great faith and I loved my time there. But I was in the Spurs first team at 17; the things I learnt were incredible."

So was that United youth team. "Scholes, Giggs, Butt, the Nevilles... it's impossible to say if you'd have been good enough. Sometimes you fit in, sometimes not. That's not me being negative, that's football. But I'd have been in Paul Scholes' position and for me he's been the best English player for the past 10 years – by far. The good thing too is that he's humble, a great fella, just as Ryan Giggs is. That's what I say to the kids: 'Look at them.'"

Barmby has two sons, one of whom, Jack, is now training with Manchester United. Contrary to reports that have "annoyed" Barmby, Jack has signed nothing, has not snubbed Hull's academy and has not been told to go anywhere by his father. "My children will stand on their own two feet. I help run two Sunday league sides and the main thing we stress is to enjoy it. I run it with my friend, Under-10s and U14s, that's who my eldest son's been playing for – West Ella. He's never been at a club. They played a tournament in Manchester and United saw him and asked him to come down and train. It's as simple as that. There's no, 'You must go there'."

So tomorrow, after Hull City have beaten Wigan, he hopes, and Hull FC have overturned St Helens, he dreams, Nick Barmby will be out coaching. The game is football, the place, Hull.

My other life

"I like reading autobiographies. I've just finished reading Martin Johnson's book, and Lawrence Dallaglio's. I've got respect for people like that. The biggest thing that stands out was their passion to play for their country, and their conduct. In the Rugby World Cup final against Australia, a bad decision was given against England and Australia kicked a penalty to draw level. Johnson didn't have a go at the referee; he just accepted it. It must have been difficult. That stood out. That's respect."

The forgotten man of Munich

Among 23 caps for England, Nick Barmby played in three landmark games: the 4-1 win over the Netherlands at Euro 96, the 1-0 loss to Germany at Wembley in 2000 and the 5-1 win in Munich in 2001. "People still ask... about Munich," he says, "about afterwards, what it was like in the dressing room. It was shock: 'Did that just happen?'" The pleasure of Munich was heightened by the pain of Wembley. "You should say it was an honour to play in the last game at Wembley, which it was, but it was a bad result." Of the win over the Dutch, the 76th-minute substitute says: "Danny Blind came into our dressing room and said: 'You played the Ajax way and we didn't know how to handle it.' To get on the pitch was special."