Hull captain Coyle didn't predict promotion
Hull City captain Lewie Coyle said many would not have predicted he would be the man to lead the Tigers back to the Premier League after Sunday's (AEST) play-off final victory.
Oliver McBurnie was the hero for Sergej Jakirovic's side at Wembley Stadium as his dramatic 95th-minute winner helped seal a hard-fought 1-0 win over Middlesbrough.
The result saw Hull end a nine-year absence from the Premier League, and in doing so, became the first side to earn promotion to the Premier League after finishing sixth in the EFL Championship since Blackpool in 2010.
Hull has also now won promotion in all three second tier play-off finals they have competed in, all by a 1-0 scoreline, previously doing so against Bristol City in 2008 and Sheffield Wednesday in 2016.
Coyle has been at the club since 2020 when he joined from Fleetwood Town and was named the club's captain four years ago, and he delivered an emotional post-match assessment of the game as he paid tribute to his late father.
"It's tough. There's just one man [my dad] I want to celebrate with. He's not with us," Coyle said.
"I look up to the sky every game and I had a little look up there today. He's with me, I know he's with me for sure.
"I don't think there are many people that thought I could captain a side to the Premier League. But even saying it out loud. I'm just an honest, humble kid.
"But there's certainly one man that would've believed in me and that's my old man. And that's all I told myself throughout the game.
"He would have been saying 'you can do it, son'. He got us over the line today."
But Hull's man of the moment was McBurnie, who took his goal tally to 18 for the season after capitalising on an error by Middlesbrough goalkeeper Sol Brynn to score.
He has been involved in 25 goals in 2025-2026, the most by a player for Hull in a Championship campaign since Jarrod Bowen in 2018-2019 (26–22 goals, four assists).
However, McBurnie was overlooked for Steve Clarke's Scotland squad for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, with Che Adams, Lyndon Dykes, George Hirst, Lawrence Shankland and Ross Stewart all preferred to the Hull number nine.
"Sometimes football is a game of opinions and I feel like I have given myself as good of a chance as I could to get into the squad and at the end of the day, it is the manager's decision and I have to respect that," match-winner McBurnie said.
"Some of those boys are my best friends, so I will be supporting them somewhere warm with a beer."
For Middlesbrough, meanwhile, the defeat brought an end to a tiresome couple of weeks after it was reinstated back into the play-offs after Southampton was found guilty of spying on it ahead of the first leg of their semi-final.
But Boro was unable to get over the line, becoming the first side since Huddersfield Town in 2022 to fail to record a shot on target in a Championship play-off final.
After earning promotion in the 1988 play-off final, Middlesbrough has lost each of its past two finals, after a 2-0 defeat to Norwich City in 2015.
"What has happened made it the toughest two weeks I have had in terms of emotions," Middlesbrough boss Kim Hellberg conceded.
"It's been tough and draining, but it is not an excuse. We were ready to play the game, Hull scored the goal and we have to congratulate them.
"In general, the performance was quite good – those types of games are always going to be tight. We were not good enough in creating big chances from our opportunities.
"We had a lot of times when we drove the game forward, but we didn't create enough, although we defended really well.
"It's a game of small margins – we did a lot of good things in the game, but they scored the goal, and we have to congratulate Hull."
