Don't you just love it when football seasons overlap? The 2016 European Championships hadn't got to the quarter final stage before the 2017 Europa League kicked off. Fairly soon Hibernian will be entering that competition as Scotch Cup winners. The remarkable game and scenes at full time resulted in me being commissioned to write my final two fanzine pieces of 2015/2016; firstly Hopeless Football Romantic took my piece Easter Rising in issue #5 and Stand #18 published O Tempora! O Mores! Here they are together....... GGTTH......
During the
frantic final weeks of the 2015/2016 domestic season, amidst the mass social
media frenzy relating to Leicester’s title, suspect packages at Old Trafford,
the deserved demotion of Newcastle United, brawling Scousers at the Europa
League final and the breathless £60m promotion stand-off between Middlesbrough
and Brighton, one story that may have slipped under your footballing radar is
the outcome of the play-off for a place in Scottish League 2 (aka the bottom
division). Following years of moribund
inaction at the foot of the Scottish professional game, whereby repeated
incompetence suffered no harsher penalty than scornful obloquy of opposition
fans, the great and the good at the SPFL decided on a shake-up that incorporated
a nod to the English pyramid system, whereby the champions of the venerable
Highland League (formed 1893) face the winners of the new-fangled Lowland
League (formed 2013) in a two-legged tie, with the winners of that contest
facing the rock bottom league team on a similar basis; last man standing gets
the honour of trips to Annan, Berwick, Cowdenbeath, Elgin, Forfar and so on.
The first
year of this minor series of test matches was 2014/2015, whereby Brora Rangers,
a village in Sutherland with a population of 1,140 and a ground capacity of
2,000, were relieved to lose to the might of Montrose on away goals. This, of
course, was not what the play-offs were introduced for; the main purpose was
seemingly to rid the Scottish League of their embarrassing, homeless, perennial
tail enders East Stirlingshire, who can unjustifiably claim to be the third
biggest club in Falkirk. The summer of
2016 saw this longed-for eventuality come to pass, with the former pride of
Bainsford and Larbet dropping out of the professional game to be replaced by a
returning Edinburgh City team. Two cheers for the meritocracy; please remember
that Edinburgh City’s record during their previous tenure as members of the
elite structure saw them finish at the foot of the bottom division in each of
their 8 seasons in such glamorous surroundings, though this was between 1931
and 1939.
However,
hopes are high for the side who once aspired to be the Lothian equivalent of
Glasgow’s Corinthian Queens Park.
Originally playing their games at the famed Powderhall Greyhound and
Athletics Stadium in Broughton, the club moved to the Commonwealth Games
Stadium, formerly the home of Meadowbank Thistle until they decamped to
Livingston, in 1996. Those of you’ve who’ve travelled by train to Old Reekie
will know that a couple of minutes before arriving in Waverley, Meadowbank
Stadium is on your right, though a rather grander, more historic venue is
fleetingly visible just before this; the beautiful emerald green structure of
Easter Road, the Leith San Siro, home of James Connolly’s men, Hibernian FC.
The irony of
Edinburgh City’s promotion via the lottery of the play-offs was not lost on
supporters of the Hibees, who lost 3-2 (5-4 on aggregate) to a last minute goal
away to Falkirk, on Friday 13 May, condemning Hibs to a third straight year in
the second tier Championship. Looking at this state of dispassionately, it
would be churlish to begrudge the Bairns their crack at a place in the SPL, as
Falkirk had finished second to Hibs’ third in the table, with all four league
games between the two sides being drawn. We are not talking Brighton and
Sheffield Wednesday levels of disparity here. Sadly though, for the club that
could justifiably call themselves the fourth biggest in Scotland, after Celtic,
Rangers, Aberdeen and local rivals Hearts, though recently demoted Dundee
United may have cause to disagree, this defeat in the play-off semi-final,
having already negotiated a safe passage past Raith Rovers in the
quarter-final, means the Cabbage have endured their third successive
post-season heartbreak. Last year, their
first at a lower level since 1999, Hibs finished second to a renascent Rangers
side who beat them in the play-off semi-final, before losing to Motherwell over
two legs. That was bad, but the year
before was immeasurably worse.
In 2014,
having appointed Terry Butcher to replace the floundering Pat Fenlon, Hibs
stood in 6th place in the Scottish Premier League on New Year’s Day,
having seen the old year out with a 3-0 trouncing of Kilmarnock; however, this
was to be their second last victory of the season, as a desperate run of 1 win
in their final 18 games saw the Hibees nosedive into second bottom place and a
place in the first ever Scottish play-offs. They were only kept off the bottom
by the15 points deduction endured by financially hamstrung Hearts. Sadly, this belated chance of salvation was
beyond the men of Leith; despite winning 2-0 away to Hamilton Academicals in
the first leg, Hibs managed to wrest defeat from the jaws of victory. Hanging
on for a grim 1-0 loss at Easter Road, Jason Scotland’s 93rd minute
goal took the tie to extra time and the inevitable loss on penalties. This
fiasco was another Hibs treble; their third successive loss in the final
competitive game of the Scottish domestic season. Hearts humiliated them 5-1 in
the Scottish Cup final in 2012. Celtic arrogantly cuffed them 3-0 at the same
stage the year after. The Accies loss was the only logical conclusion for a
club that had been racing downhill without brakes, since squandering the hope
engendered by the pool of talented young players who’d helped bring the 2007
Scottish League Cup to Easter Road after a phenomenal 5-1 battering of
Kilmarnock at Hampden.
Like
Newcastle United, terrible boardroom decisions, skinflint transfer policies and
woeful appointments in the manager’s office (Mixu Paateleinen, John Hughes, Colin
bloody Calderwood, Pat Fenlon and finally Butcher, who was bulleted the day
after relegation) following the shameful departure of the irreproachable John
Collins, saw the finest Scottish ground outside Glasgow playing host to Alloa
Athletic and Dumbarton. It was enough to make one weep, possibly with joy
following the free transfers granted to 18 clowns, charlatans and rank
incompetents who had been stealing a living on the club payroll until demotion
day. However, the darkest hour is always the one before dawn and, within a week
of relegation, Evertonian legend Alan Stubbs had been installed as the new boss
at the foot of Leith Walk.
If Stubbs is
to be judged on his ability to lead Hibernian back to the top flight, he has
not achieved his stated aim. However, the lugubrious, thoughtful Scouser
remains incredibly popular with the notoriously unforgiving and impatient Hibs
support. As a club steeped in a proud culture of passing football, in the shape
of Willie Ormond’s 1950s Famous Five and later Eddie Turnbull’s 1970s Tornados,
the atrocious lack of any game plan and the utter absence of flair players in
the dark days following the departure of Collins caused great unrest in the
stands. However, the arrival of Stubbs and the assembly of a smashing
footballing side, including the boundless energy of Jason Cummings and
predatory instincts of James Keatings up front, along with the creative
artistry in the middle of the park of John McGinn and Liam Henderson, backed up
by the defensive reliability of the legendary Lewis Stevenson and cult hero
keeper Conrad Logan, has resulted in players and management being cut some
slack by a reasonably satisfied crowd.
The season
just ended saw a three-pronged assault on honours. The Championship we’ve heard
about. The Scottish League Cup saw a wholly undeserved 2-1 loss in the final to
a last minute goal against Ross County, where 30,000 Hibbies roared the team
on. What made it especially galling was the fact that other Premier Division
sides Aberdeen, Dundee United and St Johnstone had fallen to Stubbs’ side
before they themselves stumbled with the prize in sight. However, on the 100th
anniversary of the Easter Rising, the team that was formed by Irish immigrants
and were followed by the famous Edinburgh Socialist Revolutionary James
Connolly, rose again and secured a place in the Scottish Cup final against the
antithesis of the Leith club’s left-wing, inclusive traditions; the phoenix club based around Glasgow
Rangers. It may have been 100 years since Connolly’s execution, but it had been
a lot longer than that since Hibs won the cup; 1902 to be precise, with 10
subsequent final defeats to sombrely reflect on.
On a
glorious day, it was finally a case of sunshine on Leith, as an Anthony Stokes
double bookended a pair of Gers goals, leaving the two sides locked at 2-2 deep
into injury time. Keeper Wes Foderingham
denied Stokes a hat trick, but from Liam Henderson’s subsequent corner, skipper
David Gray bulleted home an unstoppable header in front of 20,000 delirious
Hibs fans. The final whistle was greeted by a mass pitch invasion, initially
good natured but soon degenerating into disorder, though nowhere near as bad as
a typically unsmiling, intolerant, hypocritical Ibrox board have claimed (while
drawing a veil over their own fans’ non-stop sectarian chanting), as 114 years
of frustration were finally swept away by a glorious triumph.
So where
next for Hibernian? Well, Alan Stubbs and his team are assured of immortality
down Easter Road way; without exception Hibbees are delighted with the cup win
that sweeps away the disappointments in the League Cup and Championship. That
said, promotion must be achieved next season. It won’t be easy, with a wounded
Falkirk looking to go one better after Kilmarnock trounced them in the
play-offs. Alarmingly, Alan Stubbs has gone; the Everton job may have been too
soon for him, but it was disappointing he took the job at the relatively modest
Yorkshire outpost of Rotherham. Instead, Neil Lennon will be in the hot seat. I
believe the former Celtic man to be one most likely to take Hibs up as
champions in style and bring more Glory to the Hibees.
For the
first time in years, I actually watched the English FA Cup final. Desperate
wasn’t it? The whole thing I mean; not just Pardew’s dancing. I saw the game in
the pub with the rest of my veterans’ football team, Wallsend Winstons,
celebrating the unique treble of retaining the Echo Cup, promotion to North
East Over 40s League Division 2 and the heroics of clean sheet Cusack in a
season closing 0-0 draw against Houghton WMC. While Man United and Palace
toiled away uninspiringly, the consensus of the gathering, who’d been there
most of the afternoon, was that the Scottish Cup final had been a far better
game; in fact our game that morning had been a slightly more exciting
encounter. I couldn’t comment as I hadn’t seen a single second of the events at
Hampden, preferring instead to fulfil my duties as Chair of the Tyneside
Amateur League by taking in North Shields Athletic’s 2-1 win over Wardley.
Somebody had to…
Since I
first clapped eyes on their strip, during Match
of the Day’s regular closing snippet of Scottish highlights, I’ve been a
fan of Hibernian FC. The date I fell in
love with the Cabbage was May 6th 1972, I was a couple of months shy
of 8 years old, we’d just got a colour telly and the glorious emerald green of
the shirts was both dazzling and beautiful. Hibs lost 6-1 that day, the sixth
of 10 straight Scottish Cup final defeats; a run that was ended by David Gray’s
bullet header deep into injury that handed the Hibees their first cup triumph
in 114 years and only their third overall. I try to get up to Easter Road a
couple of times a season and I know the main topic of conversation in the
future will always be a variety of how did you celebrate at full time when Hibs
won the cup for the first time since 1902? Truthfully I can say I leaped out of
my seat and punched the air in triumph, which made the other passengers on the
lower seating deck of the 62 going down Shields Road in Byker look at me
quizzically.
My avoidance
of the game was tactical; having seen us contrive to allow Ross County to win
the Scottish League Cup final in March, scoring with their only 2 shots on
target, then following this up with a last second loss to Falkirk in the
promotion play-off on Friday 13th of all days, I made it clear that
I would neither be attending, nor watching, the 2016 SFA Cup final. I’ve got
enough anguish and heartbreak in my supporting life following Newcastle United.
However, it
wasn’t just superstition; it was to do with the opponents. Frankly, I find it uncomfortable and
intimidating to be around large groups of Rangers fans. While I have zero
connection with Leith or Edinburgh, other than Hibs, I have learned to disdain
Heart of Midlothian as a football club. It is undeniable they are more of an
establishment side, in terms of history and outlook, than Hibs, but I don’t
hate them and I don’t hate their fans. Frankly I’ve got plenty of mates from
Tyneside who claim the team from Tynecastle as their Scottish outfit. Personally, I hate the Old Firm; again I’ve
got many friends who support Celtic or Rangers who eschew the poisonous bile
associated with many followers of bigoted duopoly. Unfortunately, compared to
what I know of Hibs and Hearts, the Glasgow conflict goes beyond acceptable levels
of sporting rivalry in the overwhelming majority of cases. The unhealthiest and most intimidating aspect
of this cycle of vicious enmity is that it extends far beyond football and
disseminates its venom in every aspect of Scottish life. If I’m allowed to be stereotypical, Celtic fans are paranoid
and patronising, while Rangers followers are intense and aggressive.
To keep
their preeminent role in the public eye, Celtic and Rangers need each other to
exist to breed and nurture their particular brands of hatred and suspicion. While
Hibernian were formed as a club for the vulnerable Irish poor in the capital,
those roots are only a small aspect of the club’s history; the requirement that
players were Catholics was dropped in 1895 for instance. The current club badge
combines images of Edinburgh (the castle), Leith (a ship) and Ireland (a harp,
reintroduced to the badge as recently as 2000) as a nod to the Hibernian’s
various influences. Rivalry in Edinburgh may once have been sectarian, but it
is no longer; nor has it been for nearly a century. It is mainly geographical,
in about 95% of cases. Hibs come from the north and east of Edinburgh mainly,
with Hearts from the rest of Lothian. One of my best mates Graham edits the fanzine Mass Hibsteria and he was brought up a
Presbyterian.
Despite it
being 100 years since Hibs fan James Connolly led the Easter Rising in Dublin,
of far more importance were the 114 long years since the last cup win. That
statistic, and that statistic only, was the cause of the pitch invasion at full
time at Hampden that began in joy and ended in brutal disorder. I don’t think
it mattered who Hibs played in the final; victorious exuberance sparked the
whole thing. Yes I know St Johnstone won the SFA Cup in 2014 and Inverness Caledonian
Thistle last year, both for the first time and both without invading the pitch.
What can I say? I sincerely wish Hibs fans hadn’t raced onto the turf.
Let’s make a
few things clear; firstly I didn’t see the game in the flesh, so my reflections
are based on television images and still photographs. Secondly, if the Hibs
fans hadn’t entered the pitch, none of the subsequent uproar, on the day itself
and in the weeks following, would have occurred. Thirdly, the west of Scotland
print media have a transparent need to fill their pages with as much Old Firm
related content as possible. Sectarianism sells. The why oh why hand wringing and incessant references to “taking
Scottish football back into the Dark Ages” would have been just as opportunist
and just as immoderate if Hearts had beaten Celtic and the Jambos reacted the
way a section of the Hibs followers did.
Spurred on
by pages of chin-stroking analysis in the qualities and hectoring 72-point
headlines in the tabloids, Rangers fans, prepped by half a decade of paranoid
rowing against the on-line tide following the collapse of the former Ibrox
hierarchy, have taken on the role of injured innocents with the kind of panache
one would normally have associated with their cross city rivals when Hugh Dallas
was still refereeing. They’ve found
sympathetic ears in all corners of the media and been encouraged to ramp up
their pronounced sense of injustice after the Teddy Bears’ Managing Director
Stewart Robertson affected his best Pontius Pilate pose.
In response
to having it pointed out to him that those Gers who didn’t enter the field of
play to engage in a frank exchange of opinions with those Hibbees not busy
taking selfies, rolling up strips of turf or breaking the goal posts, were all
engaged in a lusty rendition of The Billy
Boys, Robertson, with a characteristically disingenuous smirk, claimed it
was better to sing than invade the pitch. Well, if they’d been singing
something that wasn’t actually illegal under Scottish Law and didn’t include
the line up to our knees if Fenian blood,
he may have had a point. Sadly, regardless of the urbanity of the undoubtedly
gifted Mark Warburton in the Ibrox hot seat, Robertson’s reaction and the
series of po-faced, self-aggrandising press releases from the upper echelons of
Edmiston Drive indicates that the club remains institutionally reactionary and
much of the support avowedly sectarian in outlook if not in belief. The real story should be what steps Rangers
are going to take to calm the powderkeg atmosphere in the games against Celtic
next season.
Of course I
accept that to a degree, my statements show I am biased in my analysis of
events; Hibs are my second team and I feel an instinctive need to be protective
towards them. However, I recognise what happened at Hampden was regrettable,
for many reasons including how it took the focus away from the best rendition
of Sunshine on Leith you are ever
likely to hear. Glory Glory to the
Hibees…
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