Tiger Dean has plenty in the tank

Just stop calling him veteran, evergreen, golden oldie . . .

'It really winds me up,' was the only printable objection. 'To me, 38 is just a number. I'm still a young man. I know in football terms it's old, but I want to keep playing and proving people wrong.

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'I train the same as I did when I was 21. When I was 37, I was winning the pre-season runs. The gaffer has a go at me for training on days off but I feel like I'm 28.

'I told him, when I signed, that I wouldn't do it if I didn't think I could because I'd be letting the family down. I'll carry on as long as I'm contributing to the team. How long that lasts, I don't know. I don't want it to end, but I know it has to.'

The first time — of many — I was banned from talking to his players by the former Hull manager Terry Dolan was the morning after I woke up on the sofa in Windass's front room.

The manager had found out about it. We were both in trouble.

Windass's wife Helen was making breakfast. 'You're irresponsible. You'll ruin his career,' she said calmly. She was talking to Dean.

WPc Windass is the proof that behind every successful footballer is a strong wife. And they do not come much stronger than the former English schools athlete who has helped extend Windass's career.

When he met Benito Carbone and Dan Petrescu at Bradford eight years ago, they changed his diet and post-match routines. It was Helen who ensured he kept to them.

He turns 38 on April Fools' Day, by which time he will have played his 700th game. Today marks 600 in the league and the 250th for the club who rejected him at 18. After a spell on a building site, he was re-signed at 21 and started a seven club career with a fairy-tale return home and more than 200 goals.

'If it wasn't for Helen, I wouldn't be talking about my career now,' Windass said. 'I know I would have gone off the rails. I might have played professional football, but I wouldn't have been as successful and played for so long.

'She's not a typical footballer's wife. She didn't want to work in a gym any more, so she qualified to become a policewoman and she has done brilliantly and likes having her own money.'

The desire to bury the memory of rejection has driven Windass since he walked out of Brian Horton's office in May 1990. It is a meeting he can recall with alarming accuracy, down to the colour of the walls and the look on the face of Horton's assistant Dennis Booth. The extra twist is that Horton is now assistant boss at Hull to Phil Brown.

There was no doubting Windass's ability. Senior players entertained themselves by throwing coins into the air so he could trap them with any part of his body. Those he caught, he kept.

But Booth spotted deficiencies in his size, physique and stamina. He saidWindass would make it—if the game was played in the front room.

Dolan signed Windass from North Ferriby for nothing, other than a promise that Hull would pay a 10 per cent sell-on fee. They handed £65,000 when he joined Aberdeen and North Ferriby built an indoor sports centre in Windass's name.

Dolan said: 'Sunderland wanted him but I had him on trial on the Monday morning and made my mind up after 20 minutes of a seven-a-side game with the first team. He was head and shoulders above everyone else.'

Windass moved north after four successful seasons at Boothferry Park. The remaining £585,000 kept Hull alive by meeting a tax bill. Desolate Dolan drove his prized midfielder north and watched his debut at Partick Thistle.

He recalled: 'We didn't have a game, he didn't have an agent and didn't want to go on his own so I went more as a friend to make sure he was OK. I knew he would be. Moving to Scotland was the making of him.

'I knew the implications for my team, but the club's survival was more important and, for his own benefit, I couldn't stand in his way. 'He wanted to improve himself and play at the highest level. It's that enthusiasm which has kept him going. It's no surprise to me he's still playing.'

Windass, who scored two superb free-kicks in last weekend's FA Cup defeat at Plymouth, achieved his dream of returning to Hull a year ago. Bradford City were reluctant to release, but Phil Brown took Windass on loan to help keep the club up in the Championship.

At the impressive KC Stadium, Hull are a very different club to the one he left behind and saved from extinction. Inevitably, he scored the decisive goal at Cardiff which confirmed their survival. Bradford were relegated to League Two.

Brown signed Windass permanently last summer, paying just £150,000. It is all covered in a wartsand- all autobiography Deano, From Gipsyville to the Premiership, a virtual sell-out in the city.

And do not rule out a farewell in the Barclays Premier League. With Windass's eight league goals, Hull are fighting at the other end of the table now, and victory over West Bromwich at the KC today could take them into a play-off place.