Let’s go back in time; just over 40 years, to the Christmas
and New Year period of 1972 and 1973. I was 8 years of age and in the first
real grip of my lifelong obsession with football. My actual first football
memory was watching my dad leap off the sofa to applaud Charlie George’s
winning goal in the 1971 FA Cup final, but I didn’t actually understand what
the FA Cup was, or who was the long haired bloke lying on the grass, being
cuddled by a load of other blokes in yellow shirts. However by the year after,
I had much more of an understanding of how football was actually more than just
50 lads kicking a penny floater around the school yard at break time; perhaps
the game that brought the significance of football home to me was Hereford
United 2 Newcastle United 1. Aged 7, I became acutely aware of NUFC’s
propensity for abject humiliation on the national stage. Still, at least this
game has disappeared into the ether and no-one is likely to resurrect footage
of that particular debacle any time soon…
Consequently, with Newcastle United having helpfully stepped
aside, the 1972 FA Cup final was a contest between holders Arsenal and the
hated Leeds United, who were in search of a potential double. At the time,
electrical goods were rare and expensive commodities; I can distinctly remember
bringing a couple of friends home from school in the autumn of 1971 to show
them our new fridge, with my mam producing the amazing treat of an ice pop each
from the tiny freezer component that contractually was required to only ever
include a bag of frozen peas. Bird’s Eye, of course. While we were
able to keep milk and meat fresh in high summer, we still only had a black and
white television, showing only 2 channels; it was a real style icon on legs,
with a walnut cabinet and lockable screen door, though my friend from down the
street Paul “Sten” Stonehouse’s family had a DER colour one and that’s
where I watched the final.
Sten wasn’t actually a football fan; on Saturday afternoons
he’d take advantage of his 3 channel luxury by flicking over from World
of Sport to watch Brian Cant’s Playaway, which was a kind of prog
rock concept album version of kids’ TV; longer, weirder and much more
self-indulgent than the prosaic and patronising weekday Play School. However
Sten’s older brother Perry (incidentally I’ve never met anyone else in my life
named after the Singing Barber, Mr. Como) was a proper football fan and, so he
claimed, a leading light in the Leazes End Agro Boys, which was doubtful as he
was about 12 at the time. However, he did go to St. James’ Park with his mates,
woollen scarf round his neck, silk ones round his wrist, in a Wrangler jacket
and pin stripe Oxford bags, which made me idolise him as I’d yet to see a real
live game. To this day, I envy his fashion sense.
Back in those days, BBC used to also show little snippets of
action from the Scottish Cup final at half time and full time. At that age, I
struggled to concentrate on a full game and the first half stalemate at Wembley
wasn’t particularly conducive to keeping my childish mind focussed on the
match. However, the half time highlights from Hampden did. Try as I might, I
simply couldn’t find any footage of the 1972 Scottish Cup final on line, so
I’ve no idea if this is actually fact, or whether my memory is playing tricks
from 41 years ago. You see, May 6th 1972 marked the day I fell in
love with Hibernian FC; one glimpse of that breathtakingly beautiful emerald
green shirt with white sleeves and I was smitten; any interest I had in the
English final, eventually won by Leeds 1-0 with an Allan Clarke diving header,
was gone; I wanted to see more footage of the game at Hampden. For no reason
whatsoever (historical and familial ties ought to have made me a supporter of
FC Paranoid of Parkhead), I became a Hibs fan, on the day we lost 6-1 in the
cup final to Celtic. It makes 2013’s loss seem mild in comparison. Please don’t
disabuse my fond, romantic notion by telling me Hibs didn’t play in green that
day…
From the start of the 1972/1973 season, I was functionally
literate because of the classical education I was in receipt of at Falla Park
Juniors, courtesy of class 4 teacher Miss Gartlan, who’d a ‘tache Salvador Dali
would have been jealous of. As a result, I did the kind of homework she
suggested, by avidly reading each night, even if it was merely every inch of my
dad’s Evening Chronicle sports section, rather than the Bancroft
Children’s Classics editions of Jane Eyre and Silas Marner she palmed
off on me. On a Sunday, my widowed Nan on my mam’s side used to visit us for
Sunday lunch. The plates were cleared away by 2pm, which was when Tyne Tees
used to show Shoot!, their weekly regional football highlights package, that
lagged far behind The Big Match in terms of glamour. While Dad and I watched the
football, Nan would read her paper of choice; The Sunday Post. I’ve no
idea why she used to opt for Dundee’s version of Völkischer Beobachter,
but I’m glad she did as it meant I could read Scottish match reports, once
she’d settled down for her snooze in mid-afternoon.
By now, I was 8 years old and a fully-fledged football
obsessive, regularly pestering my dad to take me to see a live game, which he
finally agreed to do on 25th November 1972, when Leicester City were
the visitors to St. James’ Park. Imagine my desolation when the game was
postponed on the Thursday, because the Filbert Street outfit had been struck
down by a flu epidemic. Dad’s promise to take me to another game soon just
didn’t suffice; I was heartbroken. I was even more bereft when the next
Newcastle home game came around; Southampton were the visitors on 9th
December, but Dad and Mam were going out to some posh Christmas do that night,
so he claimed he couldn’t spare the time to take me, making me feel absolutely
worthless, as I hunkered over an old transistor, listening to updates on Radio
Newcastle. The fact it was freezing outside and ended in a 0-0 draw in no way
placated me…
Nan came to babysit me and my 2 year old sister that night,
while Mam and Dad went off for chicken in a basket and 50/50 dancing, whatever
that was. This was a very rare occurrence and I exploited it wickedly. At that
time, my bed time was still around 9pm, about the time Cannon was starting on
BBC. Obviously Nan wasn’t to know this and, having checked the telly listings,
I knew the following programme was Match of the Day at 10.15; I managed
to persuade her, easily enough as I’m a born liar, that I was allowed to stay
up to watch this every week because it wasn’t a school night.
The great thing about MotD back then was that they always
used to end the programme with very brief highlights taken from Sportscene.
Obviously in 1972 there was no way of knowing the results unless you’d either
memorised them at tea time, or bought a Saturday evening football special, The
Pink,
as the Tyneside version was called, but Dad hadn’t bothered to get one,
probably as he was going out and a 0-0 draw wouldn’t be the most riveting read.
Therefore, it was an utter shock when MotD ended with footage from Hampden
of the League Cup final. We won 2-1, gaining revenge on Celtic for May’s
humiliation. Obviously I wasn’t old enough to understand the historical
significance of this result, but it made me a happy Hibby as I crawled in to
bed at the incredibly late hour of 11pm, about half an hour before a bladdered
mam and dad waltzed in, having taken a taxi (a taxi mind you…) home from their
glamorous social event.
Frankly, to say my parents were “disappointed” in my deceit
the night before was an understatement, once Nan told them how late I’d stayed
up, but the emotional frost melted in time for Santa to come and the promise of
a trip to see Newcastle was part of my Christmas box. For reasons I’m unsure
of, I didn’t get to see 2-1 wins against Manchester City on December 23rd
or 4-1 versus Sheffield United the week after.
Instead, my first trip to St.
James’ Park was for the rearranged Leicester City game on Monday 1st
January 1973, a very auspicious date I’m sure you’ll agree, which was also the
last time New Year’s Day wasn’t a Public Holiday in England, though it was a
regional one in the North East. In fact
Newcastle United 2 Leicester City 2, a game of which I have no memory
whatsoever other than the fact we (me, dad, my cousin John and his dad my Uncle
John) were in the Gallowgate Strawberry Corner, was the only fixture played in
the English top division that day. As a result, there was neither a Pink
to keep as a memento, nor Match of the Day to watch the
highlights on that night. However, there was the report in the next day’s Evening
Chronicle, alongside an in-depth feature on a certain game that had
taken place in Tynecastle, which made me almost faint with joy; not at the
opponents, just at the score. You see, as sunderland were in a lower division
to Newcastle from 1970 until 1976, my formative football years were spent
without the concept of a local rival. Thankfully, I’ve made up for this in
terms of contemptuous enmity since, but that’s another matter. Amazingly
though, I’ve no memory of a friendly between Newcastle and Hibs that took place
at St. James Park on 9th October 1976, where Newcastle won 2-1; no
memory of this at all…
So, you’ll be expecting me to tell you, now I’ve established
the context of my support for Hibs, of how I finally consummated my passion
with a trip to Easter Road, in the company of dozens of other Newcastle based
Hibs fans. Sadly, that wasn’t the case; for a start, most people in these parts
who express a preference for an Edinburgh team tend to take Hearts, mainly on
account of the name Tynecastle, which is about as logical as me falling in love
with the shirt. Consequently, my love affair for the Hibees was a long-distance
one for the next quarter of a century; NUFC, music, geography (university in
Ireland and postgrad in Leeds, employment in London and Slovakia), family and
finance all got in the way. Shamefully, I didn’t make it to Easter Road until February
1st 1997, for an atrocious, abject 1-1 draw with Raith Rovers, in
the company of my mate Mick from Ashington, who was a Hibs supporter. The
important thing for me that day was my immediate sense that this was home. This
was my club, by adoption not birth admittedly, and I sang and cheered through
the first half until I sobered up, then yawned and grumbled my way through the
second; just like everyone around me on the East Terrace.
My next two Hibs games were happier affairs; accompanying
Mick to the 4-2 play-off victory over Airdrie at Broadwood was a glorious
occasion and a solo trip to the 2-1 victory over Celtic in the opening game of
the next season a brilliant and unexpected pleasure, which ended up as a false
dawn as we were relegated. At this time, Mick moved from Ashington to Scotland;
firstly to Cowdenbeath and then to Paisley, where he remains to this day.
Instead of cementing his passion for Hibs with regular visits, he opted to
follow the Blue Brazil when in Fife and he’s now both a connoisseur and a
passionate devotee of the junior game, with a soft spot for St Mirren. At his
instistence, I’ve seen many junior games and find it a fascinating side of Scottish
society, but I remain a fan of Hibs.
In 2002/2003, I saw 2 fixtures at Easter Road; a 1-1 draw on
15th February in my only ever Edinburgh Derby (we should have won)
and on 24th May, when I brought my son, then aged 7, to the last
game of the season, in the hope of passing on the Hibernian supporting baton in
NE7. We lost 3-2 to Partick and he’s not been back, but I’m sure he will
return. Eventually…
By profession I’m a college lecturer, with English
Literature my specialist subject. Involving Hibernian in the curriculum is
fairly easy, especially with the works of Irvine Welsh to exploit. As I was
teaching Trainspotting as part of a unit dedicated to literary
representations of capital cities, it seemed logical to organise a field trip,
which is what I did in December 2005. Having taken the students on organised Trainspotting
tour of Leith, with a guide and everything, we finished off with a visit to
Easter Road, where Derek Riordan’s last minute goal gloriously defeated
Motherwell 2-1, in what could have been my second last day on earth. The next
afternoon, driving back from my parents’ house, I was rear ended by a Tesco 18
wheeler on the A1 going north; “you should have died you know,” were the words
the paramedic who stitched my scalp back together at the side of the road said
to me. The reason we didn’t was an instinctive comment to my son as we were
about to pull away; “sit behind your mam please.” If I’d not said that, I
wouldn’t be here to write this; more importantly, neither would he… Still,
within 6 weeks we were all right as rain and, despite the car being a
write-off, I still managed to retrieve the 3 copies of Saturday 17th
December’s Pink, which was the last ever edition, that told of Michael
Owen’s hat trick in a 4-2 win for Newcastle at West Ham, but mentioned nothing
of the events at Easter Road.
Astonishingly, and embarrassingly, that was my last visit to
see Hibs. There was the aborted trip on 11th August 2007, my
birthday, to see the Gretna game we won 4-2, so I’ve not had the chance to see
NUFC and Hibs legends Alan O’Brien and Shefki Kuqi at Easter Road, but the less
said of them the better. In my defence for my non-attendance, the fact I play
veterans football on Saturday morning and I’m involved with Percy Main
Amateurs, as well as still seeing about half of Newcastle’s home games, means I
struggle to find an opportunity to come up. However, courtesy of the very
wonderful Graham Ewing, editor of Mass Hibsteria, an opportunity
presented itself once the English season ended on 25th May with
Gosforth Bohemians Reserves defeating Winlaton Queen’s Head 4-0 in the John
Hampson Memorial Trophy at Purvis Park, to get to the final. Despite the
result, I’ll be eternally grateful to him. I must say, I felt somewhat guilty
that that I would be going, while proper Hibs fans like Bruce in Oxfordshire or
Declan from Galway were forced to miss out, but I couldn’t turn down this
opportunity, could I?
When it comes to football, there is no option but to adopt a
Manichean approach to games involving your team; we are right and they are
wrong is simply a fact of sporting life. Elsewhere in life, such an approach
may not always be helpful, but when it comes to the racist scum of the BNP and
their fellow travellers in suits, UKIP or their street brawling wing the EDL,
absolutism is the only way forward. Following the murder of a British soldier
in Woolwich, the already planned EDL march in Newcastle took on a much more
sinister tone; the Islamophobic racist bastards behind the EDL would use events
to influence the foolish, the ignorant and the easily led into supporting the
boorish, Carling swilling Stuart Hazell lookalikes that make up the
EDL’s Sturmabteilung as they brought
disgrace to the streets of my home city. Thankfully an umbrella demonstration,
hastily but intelligently organised by Newcastle Unites showed that our city
does not embrace racist rhetoric as a political credo. Without wishing to
display my eidetic memory, this was shown in 2010, the last time the EDL
marched here and ambivalent attitudes, seeking to compare EDL hate speak with
the supposed events in Dublin over Easter of 2006, when all NUFC supporting
eyes were actually on a certain 4-1 victory when even Luque scored, are simply
not credible. Support your team and fight fascism; end of story.
While the massed ranks of Northumbria Police, and we all
know where that organisation’s ideological sympathies lie, ensured the two
sides did not lay a glove on each other, it is instructive to remember that
certain pubs encouraged the fascists to drink in them. Pink Lane appeared to be
a haven for moronic filth; both Gotham Town and Rafferty’s, which are at
either side of The Forth, coincidentally where some of the most vile abuse
imaginable has been spoken about former NUFC striker Nile Ranger and many of
the club’s current French stars, in particular Yohan Cabaye and Yoan Gouffran,
encouraged EDL supporters to drink in these establishments before the march. As
far as I’m concerned, this is the point de repère for me; there can be
no possible justification in setting foot in these bars ever again. I’ll still
use the Town Wall though.
In contrast to the hatred and bigotry displayed by the EDL
on Saturday, the support for Hibernian on Sunday was as life-affirming and
touching as I have ever seen in a football ground; the massed ranks of Hibees
stood gloriously, defiantly belting out a ceaseless chorus of pro Hibs anthems
during the last 10 minutes, at 3-0 down, was the very epitome of what it means
to follow a team; I am beyond grateful I was present at such an event. I hate
to say this, but if it had been Newcastle United, a sizeable zany element would
have been waving their shoes over their heads and telling Celtic your
support is fucking shit. While there was an admittedly pissed and
idiotic Ned element among the Hibs support, thankfully they were few in number
and seemed to piss off at half time. The only other people I saw leaving were
four Celtic fans who’d secured tickets in our end and were invited to leave
this part after celebrating the second goal. Pricks.
The day began on an empty train from Newcastle to Waverley,
then a packed one to Queen Street. As I’m heading up to Glasgow next weekend
(Larkhall Thistle v Port Glasgow in the Juniors, followed by The Pastels at
CCA), I didn’t dawdle as I made my way to Central for a completely deserted
special to Mount Florida. Not having been to Hampden before, except to the
museum with Mick, I wanted to get there early and soak up the atmosphere. The
gates weren’t even open, so I took a stroll around the Tesco Family Fun Day,
which was every bit as grim as the name suggests, in Lesser Hampden, mainly so
I could use the toilets. These were a unisex Portakabin, also equipped with 5
showers; is it too cheap a gag to ask why they’ve got those in Glasgow? When I
finally got to have a tinkle, a plastered, middle-aged Celtic fan in the next
cubicle was dropping his load, noisily and fetidly, while slurring the words to
Kevin
Barry; they’re such a classy outfit, aren’t they?
At 2.00, the turnstiles opened and I went in the ground for
a coffee and a Hampden pie, steak not Scotch though. My seat gave me a splendid
view of the pitch and I was very impressed with Hampden. Even more impressive
was the mass singing of Sunshine on Leith before kick-off;
the mass dabbling of moist eyes immediately afterwards showed just what this
final meant, especially after the previous year’s humiliation. As for the game
itself; well if Doyle had taken that early chance, and he really should have,
things could have been different. As it was, Williams was desperate on the
first goal (how on earth did he miss that cross?) and we were up against it.
The second goal was the killer and despite the fact we played neat, controlled
football on the ground, in contrast to the ugly, route one anti-football game
plan that Celtic relentlessly relied on, we were unthreatening. I do feel the
third goal was unfair on us and that Hibs did enough to deserve a consolation
goal, but it wasn’t to be.
Come full time, a few defiant chants, a massive round of
applause to the players and, I have to say, an expression of gratitude to
Fenlon (Bohs are my Irish team) and O’Brien (a certain free kick he scored at
Joker Park in October 1992 will always be the best goal of all time), then I
was away for the train before the cup was presented. I got the 17.07 from Mount
Florida, the 17.34 from Queen Street and my first pint, of several, in The
Guildford at 18.50, in the company of several NUFC fans I recognised
who’d been at the game, supporting Hibs. How come I’d never known this before?
A good drink, an enjoyable train journey home, a few late
drinks at home to a musical accompaniment and I almost felt like I’d recovered.
Still, my dismal record remains of seeing my teams in 3 cup finals, losing them
all and not scoring a goal. However, I remain a proud supporter of Hibernian
and I’m determined to be up for the Europa League qualifiers in July.
GGTTH!!
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