Windass gives Hull 1-0 win over Bristol and PL status

LONDON (AP) - Dean Windass scored a spectacular volley to give Hull a 1-0 win over Bristol City in Saturday's League Championship playoff final, earning his hometown club a place in

English soccer's top league for the first time in its 104-year history.

The burly veteran striker smashed the ball just inside the post from the edge of the area in the 38th minute to earn Hull, which is known as the largest English city never to have had its club in English soccer's top division, the final place in next season's Premier League.

"It's just surreal," Windass said. "To score the winning goal? I'm just lost for words."

The win at Wembley Stadium will also be worth as much as 60 million pounds (US$119 million; €75.5 million) to the club in television money, sponsorship and other revenue.

City, meanwhile, will return to the League Championship for a second season, just a year after winning promotion to the second-tier competition.

"I feel for those lads over there," Hull manager Phil Brown said of the beaten players. "They gave it their best shot, but someone had to lose."

Hull, which just missed out on automatic promotion and finished a place above City in third, withstood early pressure and could have fallen behind, but Dele Adebola managed only a weak shot from close range with his less favored right foot.

But the Tigers, with former Premier League players Nick Barmby and Windass in their starting lineup, began to put the City defense under pressure through the power and pace of its forwards.

Eventually, on-loan Manchester United striker Frazier Campbell feinted and twisted toward the touch line to the left of goal and chipped a pass back to Windass on the edge of the area.

The 39-year-old Windass, who played for Bradford and Middlesbrough in the Premier League, shifted his weight onto his left foot and hit the ball fiercely with his right into the net.

City was hit again when fullback Bradley Orr fell to the ground feeling the effects of a clash of heads moments earlier with Barmby. Orr's left eye almost closed from bruising and he needed oxygen before being carried from the field and taken to a hospital with concussion and a suspected fractured cheekbone.

Manager Gary Johnson's son, Lee, replaced Orr and Bristol City, which has spent a meager total of just nine years in the topflight, started the second half brightly - going close from a free kick by David Noble and a header by Lee Trundle.

Trundle then had a shot blocked by defender Michael Turner in the 85th, but Hull held out through four minutes of injury time to send their fans wild.

"You can see what it means to them," Windass said. " I don't think there's anyone left in Hull."