The 36-year-old defender, who left Chelsea at the end of last season having played more than 700 games for the west London side, was named in Steve Bruce's starting lineup at Villa Park and completed the 90 minutes.
He could not celebrate a victory, however, as Hull's Jarrod Bowen cancelled out an early strike from Gabby Agbonlahor.
Middlesbrough began life back in England's second tier in disappointing fashion as they lost 1-0 at Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Leo Bonatini's 33rd-minute goal was enough to earn Wolves the points and ruin Garry Monk's first competitive game in charge of Boro who are one of the promotion favourites having been relegated from the Premier League last season.
Wolves and Middlesbrough both invested heavily in players during the close season with Wolves spending around 15 million pounds on Portuguese midfielder Ruben Neves and Boro a similar amount on Nottingham Forest striker Britt Assombalonga.
It was Wolves, also under a new manager in former Porto boss Nuno Espirito Santo, who justified their pre-season billing.
Bonatini, on loan from Al Hilal, pounced on a mistake by Boro defender Daniel Ayala to fire past keeper Darren Randolph who joined from West Ham United in the summer.
Reading, beaten by Huddersfield Town in last season's playoff final, went down 2-0 at Queens Park Rangers for whom Conor Washington scored twice.
Fulham, another side fancied for promotion, were frustrated as they were held 1-1 at home by Norwich City after the visitors equalised late on through Nelson Oliveira.
(Reporting by Martyn Herman, editing by Pritha Sarkar and Neil Robinson)
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