Hull City break Middlesbrough hearts with injury time winner in the £200m post-Spygate saga

A hastily-arranged get together

Championship Play-Off final

Hull City (0) 1 McBurnie 90+5

Middlesbrough (0) 0

The fixture from a parallel universe with its £200m price tag and threats of litigation all around it ended with Hull City claiming their slot in next season's Premier League.

They were last there in 2017 and for much of this impossible-to-call contest did not look much like edging it. Then, in the fifth minute of injury time, sub Yu Hirakawa's cross from the left was spilt by crestfallen Boro keeper Sol Brynn and there was Oli McBurnie to tap in for what turned out to be the winner.

Moments like that carry a weight way beyond the immediate. This means untold riches are on the way to Humberside, while Boro, who always seem to come up short at Wembley, must return to the Championship churn next term.

Boro came so close to featuring in pub quizzes for years to come as the first team to be eliminated in a play-off semi-final to earn promotion.

They had hoped to take inspiration from the famous 1992 European Championships reprieve for Denmark - who famously gave up their beach holiday when the former war-torn Yugoslavia had to withdraw from the tournament because of civil war. Against the odds, they went out and won it.

But in the end, it was not to be for Boro.

Southampton remain convinced they should have been at Wembley today - that they were unjustly punished for spying on a Boro training camp, having beaten the Teessiders in a two-legged semi-final. But they have been left to stew on the folly of their attempts to gain small margins for Saints boss Tonda Eckert.

The Tigers, who defeated Millwall in their semi-final, were making noises about making legal claims of their own should they be defeated in this final - a threat unlikely to carry a great deal of empathy outside of Humberside. At least we will not have to go through all that.

Given this gift from the gods, Boro were in no mood to simply bask in their good fortune to reach the Wembley final show piece that appeared to have eluded them. They mobilised 40,000 fans in just a couple of days and the team went at it from the word go.

Not that a game of this magnitude ever seems to be free-flowing and overflowing with chances. McBurnie clipped the top of the crossbar with a header in the dying embers of the first half. David Strelec responded with a low shot dragged a foot or two off target.

Morgan Whittaker for Boro and Liam Millar for Hull looked the men most likely to engineer a breakthrough in an increasingly clogged up contest, though the introduction of the much-admired Hayden Hackney on 70 minutes lifted Boro's hopes up even higher of edging this tight affair.

He hadn't played since March, following a groin injury, so his match fitness on a demandingly hot day was potentially going to be an issue.

But the Championship player of the season would be an obvious threat and he is the reason, it is said, why Eckert was so keen for information about the player's availability ahead of the semi-final.

Alas for the local lad from Redcar, there was to be no happy ending for him and boss Kim Hellberg. The fun belonged to Sergej Jakirovic in the opposite dugout - and to the Hull City fans housed in the sun-drenched east end of the stadium.

They know they face an almighty task to survive among the elite next year - they finished in last place among the four play-off hopefuls - but will gladly take their chances, having made the most of the one and only one that came their way.

Tigers: (3-4-2-1) Pandur - Ajayi, Egan Hughes, Coyle (McNair 96), Slater (Lundstram 98), Crooks, Giles (Hirakawa 77) - Belloumi (Drameh 77), Millar (Gelhardt 63) - McBurnie

Boro: (3-4-2-1) Brynn - Ayling, Fry, Malanda - Brittain, Morris, Browne (Sarmiento 96), Targett - Whittaker, McCree (Hansen 76) - Strelec (Hackney 70)

Attendance: 84,506