Ah! That makes scene - thank you! Is there any way of telling what the IC is?
Not easily in this condition. One could try a guess from the PCB layout. Or experts could resolve the blob and check the bare chip under a microscope.
The easiest way would have been while the hub still worked. A USB hub, like all USB devices, can be asked for certain details, and this can sometimes reveal the chip, especially for no-name products.
Would I be right in thinking it must be some kind of amplifier?
No, USB hubs are not simple amplifiers. You could think of the chip more as a very specialized processor for processing USB data. If you want to learn what a hub must be capable of doing, then you could check the USB specification (lots of paper).
The blob is covering the IC controlling the 'croke' so what might that be? or is there no way of knowing.
Some specialized sound chip, maybe similar or even identical to those one can find in electronic greeting cards. Chinese manufacturers are very creative when it comes to use those chips. For example, there were flickering electric candles on the market. Some clever soul figured the flickering was not really random. When reverse engineering the candle people found out the manufacturer used a greeting card chip. Instead of having the chip driving a speaker it drove the candle's light, resulting in rhythmic flickering.
The technique of using such a naked chip protect by a blob is called Chip on Board (CoB). CoB is not really used to protect design from reverse engineering, but because it is cheap if you produce very high volumes.
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