The Housemartins' debut put a football score and the name of their city on the cover: Hull beat London four-nil. A common record, worth hunting in the right first state, and in the city that won the match.
Before the album there is a sentence. On side A of "Flag Day", The Housemartins' first single, issued by Go! Discs in October 1985, somebody scratched a line by hand into the vinyl between the last groove and the label: THE FOURTH BEST BAND IN HULL. Paul Heaton liked to say his group was only the fourth best in its own city. The following year the debut album turned the joke inside out and put the city on the sleeve as a football score: London 0 Hull 4. The record reached number three in the UK.
The title only makes sense if you know where Hull sits. It is the end of the line: at Paragon the trains from Leeds, York, Manchester and London run in and stop. Bands touring the north had little reason to make the detour, and anyone who lived there had to build a scene of their own. Heaton, born on the Wirral in 1962, arrived in 1983; by the end of that year he was busking as a duo with Stan Cullimore. The band grew from the duo, with Norman Cook on bass and Hugh Whitaker on drums, the line-up that plays on this record.
London 0 Hull 4 came out in June 1986. It was recorded at Strongroom Studios in London and mixed at Air Studios, produced by John Williams, with Phil Bodger engineering. It carries the singles that had brought the band this far: "Flag Day", "Sheep" and "Happy Hour". The songs are short: ten of the twelve run under three and a half minutes, and "Reverends Revenge" lasts 1:25. Clean guitars, harmonies, Heaton's voice out in front, and lyrics that refuse to play along with mid-eighties pop. The record sounds light; what it says is not.
Heaton sings and plays harmonica, Cullimore guitar, Cook bass, Whitaker drums, and the last three are credited with vocals too. Pete Wingfield, the only keyboard guest, plays piano on "Get Up Off Our Knees", "Flag Day" and "Lean On Me", which he also co-wrote with Heaton, and Tony Pleeth plays cello on "Over There" and "Think For A Minute". The longest track is "Flag Day", at 5:21, with Heaton on melodica; he is also credited with chimes on "Happy Hour" and noisy guitar on "Freedom".
"Happy Hour" has an author's account. Heaton told The Guardian that it began as "French England", written while he worked in an office in Surrey. By his own diary he wrote the version we know on 22 January 1986, at his house in Grafton Street, because the band needed songs for a John Peel session. It is about being miserable in a happy hour, he said. Terry Staunton, reviewing the reissue for Record Collector, reads it as a pointed look at the loneliness of the pub bore beneath a jolly surface.
Robert Christgau noticed the same smile. He gave the album an A-, wrote that the band sounded cheerful enough for a cereal commercial, and added that its real product was socialist revolution. For Michael H. Little at The Vinyl District, "Lean On Me", a gospel-style piano song, is the odd one out; it is not the Bill Withers song.
It was not a pose. One Two Testing caught the band at WOMAD in Bristol in September 1986: they called themselves Christian Socialists, Cullimore said politics was indispensable to the songs, and traced their a cappella habit to van journeys, where singing beat talking over the engine. They had picked Andy MacDonald's Go! Discs because they shared his ideas, and turned down the majors. "Take Jesus – Take Marx – Take Hope" ran the line on the sleeve.
In the same year, 1986, the band went from a debut album to a number one: their a cappella version of "Caravan of Love" topped the UK chart in December. The Housemartins split in 1988. Heaton and Dave Hemingway formed The Beautiful South in Hull, and Cook went south to Brighton and became Fatboy Slim.
For a collector, the interesting thing is that this grail is not rare. Tens of thousands of people own a copy, and you will see it in charity shops all over Britain. That is exactly why it is worth hunting properly: the record exists in a first state that is complete, specific and easy to recognise once you know the signs, and in a great many later and partial states that look the same in a rack. The game is not to find the record. It is to find the right one, and to know you have it before you pay.
And there is one more reason to buy it in Hull: it is the one place where the title still means what it says. Buy it in Spring Bank or in the market and you have bought a football score from the side that won it.
Previews from Apple Music (iTunes)
Listen on Apple MusicThe Housemartins' debut: short, sharp songs, a title that is a statement of belonging, and the city of Hull on the sleeve. The grail is the first state with the Go! Discs logo top right, complete with its printed inner sleeve: it is cheap, but the 2018 reissue costs more and you need to know how to tell it apart.
London 0 Hull 4 on Vinyl — Which Pressing?
cat. AGOLP 7, LP. On the first state the Go! Discs logo is in the top right corner of the front. A white-label test copy listed on Discogs also has the top-right logo, and its note says that apart from the missing labels it is the same as the first pressing. Copies with the logo at the bottom exist in large numbers; they are probably the later state, though Discogs does not say so outright. The sleeve pictured above has the logo at the bottom right, so it is probably a later state, not the first
a printed inner with the lyrics and a Christmas message from the band. A plain inner means the copy has lost a part
some copies carry a round yellow hype sticker on the shrinkwrap or sleeve advertising "the F.A.B. hit singles" "Sheep" and "Happy Hour". It is not essential, but a stickered copy is the complete object
stamped matrices beginning AGOLP 7 A and AGOLP 7 B with "∇ 420 R" (the PRS pressing plant mark), and on side A a single hand-etched word, "tone". Discogs lists fourteen runout combinations, so do not insist on one; insist on the AGOLP 7 prefix, the 420 R mark and the etched "tone"
lacquers cut at Master Room, pressed by PRS, marketed and distributed by Chrysalis. Barcode 5 013136 153712
the 2018 reissue sells for more than the original. It is a 180-gram EU pressing with catalogue number 5744235 on the spine, a barcode beginning 6025, runouts ending in "KR" with no 420 R, and a download card. At the time of writing its Discogs median was above that of the 1986 pressing, so a buyer who does not know the tells will happily pay more for the newer record. Also look out for copies with labels misprinted "45 RPM", a recognised variant that sells for less
a complete first-state copy in good condition sells for tens of pounds, not hundreds. On Discogs (reading of 13 October 2026) the median sale is about £18.50 for the top-right-logo copy (sales between about £4 and £50) and £15 for the bottom-logo copy (£8 to £25). The 2018 reissue has a higher median, about £24.50, than either original
Which pressing? Check it on Discogs ↗
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How do I recognise a first pressing of London 0 Hull 4?
By the Go! Discs logo in the top right corner of the front, the printed inner sleeve with the lyrics and the Christmas message, and the runouts: the AGOLP 7 prefix, the ∇ 420 R mark of the PRS plant and, on side A, the hand-etched word "tone". Discogs lists fourteen runout combinations, so the prefix matters, not the exact combination.
Is the 2018 reissue worth more than the original?
On Discogs, yes: on 13 October 2026 its median was about £24.50, against about £18.50 for the 1986 top-right-logo copy. Tell it by the number 5744235 on the spine, the barcode beginning 6025, runouts ending in "KR" with no 420 R, and the download card.
What is the yellow sticker?
The round hype sticker advertising "the F.A.B. hit singles" "Sheep" and "Happy Hour". Not every copy has one and it is not essential, but a stickered copy is the complete object.
What does an original cost?
Tens of pounds, not hundreds. On Discogs (reading of 13 October 2026) the median is about £18.50 for the top-right-logo copy, with sales between about £4 and £50, and £15 for the bottom-logo copy, between £8 and £25.
Where might I find one in Hull?
Disc Discovery first, then the LP racks at Spin-It, where local copies come back into circulation. Wrecking Ball and Out of the Attic both sell second-hand stock and are worth a check. The Hull Record Fair is the best single chance of a stickered copy.
