CocaColaChampionship Posts -- FanHouse

Premier League Fans, Brace Yourself for the Return of Dean Windass

Meet Dean Windass, Hull City striker. He's a 39-year-old native of the northern town of Kingston Upon Hull. After getting releaesd from Hull's youth program, he started his career as a part-time player an construction worker. He returned to Hull in 1991 and has had stints at Aberdeen, Bradford City, Sheffield United and Middlesbrough.

Dean Windass looks more comfortable in a rugby scrum than on a soccer pitch. He famously got three red cards in one game at Aberdeen -- one for a second yellow, one for saying something really mean about the referee's mother, and one destroying the corner flag on his way off the pitch. While at Bradford, he also infamously grabbed an opposing player in the nuts.

Dean Windass has one foot of iron and the other of steel. If the left doesn't score, than the right one will -- and it did today in Wembley Stadium. Windass' clinical first-half strike capped a Hull counterattack that helped give the Tigers a 1-0 victory and its first promotion to the top flight of English football in its 104-year history.

The Richest Club Soccer Match on the Planet

Wednesday's UEFA Champions League Final might have been the most prestigious club soccer match in the world, but in terms of hard cash, it was far from the most lucrative. Sure, professors can calculate the economic impact of winning the European Cup, but Manchester United's cash prize from UEFA for beating Chelsea was a mere £5.6 million -- and judging from the size of their debt, Man U will need every penny of it.

That prize, however, pales in comparison to what the winner of tomorrow's Coca-Cola Championship playoff final at Wembley Stadium will receive. Either Bristol City or Hull City will win promotion to the Premier League, which guarantees them at least £60 million over the next three seasons -- roughly £38 million (or more) in TV revenue for 2008-2009, plus parachute payments of £11.2 million a year for two years if they get relegated after one season.

Bristol City hasn't been in the top flight of English football since 1979 and was in the third-tier League One just last season. Hull City, meanwhile, has never played top-flight football in its 104-year existence. Picture two random dudes in a bar playing one-on-one basketball against each other, and the winner gets a hot date with Marisa Miller. Yeah, it's kind of like that.