Moving Times
Richard Pitts looks over a week of high drama at Easter Road and Tynecastle

ON SUNDAY EVENING I POSTED on the message board expressing the fear that I would simply have nothing to write about for the first of my regular Thursday columns. At the time the biggest and longest running thread on the message board was about the James Connolly Society march, closely followed by the one relating to the friendly with Preston North End. 

Perhaps I should have kept my mouth shut. 

The first thing I did was to contact Hibs. I was put through to David Forsyth and after a brief chat I sent him a list of questions about the move. I was impressed by the speed of his response (via email) and the frankness with which he talked to me. David and the club are to be commended on that. I must say that the openness displayed so far has been reassuring.  

The list of questions were roughly as follows (to my embarrassment I lost the original copy): 

1. How much money did Hibs spend on doing up the stands at Easter Road and how much of that relates to the current debt we find ourselves in?
    

2. Shouldn’t this move have been discussed before both clubs spent millions on revamping their stadia?
    

3. In moving Hibs to Midlothian (Hearts traditional territory), how can Hibs avoid the experience of Wimbledon?
    

4. Doesn’t the Holyrood and Fulham experiences suggest that there are numerous pitfalls in such a scheme?
    

5. Rather than building a new Stadium, what’s wrong with leasing Easter Road to the Council, letting them do up the East Stand with some maroon seats, and build over the derelict land next door?
    

6. Is anything else happening this week?

The response 

Overview (Quotes from David Forsyth in Italics)

“The Board thinks it sensible to give careful consideration to a proposal to ground-share with Hearts at Straiton. Hearts, as is well documented, require to move because they are running into problems in meeting UEFA requirements, in particular governing the dimensions of run-off areas surrounding their pitch. 

Hibernian, on the other hand, have a stadium that meets the requirements. Nonetheless there may be significant financial benefits from a move which would, at the end of the day, free up existing resources to spend on our football team and add new monies also. In other words, give the Club financial stability and an ability to spend significantly more on the team than we can do at present. However, much work requires to be done before we can be certain of the figures and to ascertain that they stack up, and that process is now underway” 

If Hearts were to move to a new stadium and Hibs refused, with Hearts clearing their debt, Hibs failing to and Hearts using their extra money to beat seven bells out of us four times a season for the next decade, some fans might feel a little critical of the board. The board must at least investigate the move. 

Rod Petrie - setting the club on a difficult path (sns)

"Can I reassure you (and your readers) that the Club does intend to consult in depth. We are talking to an independent company, who will bring forward proposals to run a consultation process that will be open, transparent, and will give clear two-way communications between the Club and its supporters."

The three questions featuring numbers one and two were grouped together as one answer:  

“Several millions has been spent in the past decade or so on the redevelopment of Easter Road, and the precise figure is, of course, contained in the Accounts of the Club. There have been other "contributors" to the debt, primarily funding of losses caused by the collapse of TV revenues. Our income has dwindled by £2m per annum, and this has led to ongoing losses which the Board is taking action to tackle” 

“The argument that this money should not have been spent in light of the proposed move at first sight appears to be perfectly fair to raise, but does not bear closer scrutiny for three reasons:

First of all, there was simply no suggestion of a need to ground share when the work was committed to. No-one in football (or any other commentators) anywhere in Europe foresaw or predicted the massive sea change in finances due to a slump in TV revenues. This is not simply an SPL or Scottish issue - we have seen topflight teams in the wealthy Italian leagues go bust, and Clubs around Europe struggle to cope with massive levels of debt. Second, and most important, the ground in the ER area has been rezoned in the past couple of years, from light industrial (which has a low value) to housing (which has a very high value). That has entirely changed the nature of the equation. The land value has, in other words, soared in the past two years. Finally, the Club required to do the work in order to meet pressing demands to meet stadium safety requirements or face losing our ability to house fans in our west stand. People have forgotten how dilapidated the old stand was, but if the work had not been tackled we faced seeing our capacity slashed, or even closure” 

In response to the “Wimbledon” question, much was said off the record. It was pointed out to me that the majority of regular attendees at Easter Road now come from outside Leith and a notable number from the south east of Edinburgh. When pushed about the issue of Wimbledon withering on the vane after a move across London he stated that he didn’t know enough about them to comment and asserted that Edinburgh was perhaps easier to cross than London. My family hail from South Norwood in London where the local team is Crystal Palace, Wimbledon’s landlords. When they were in the Premiership, the likes of Manchester United took three sides of the ground at Wimbledon home games.  

Their support withered on the vine despite the fact that Wimbledon and Norwood are a 30-minute train journey apart. A large part of that was being detached from the community they drew their support from, and an inability to break into the new community they found themselves in, despite extensive efforts. Now they are moving to Milton Keynes. I was assured that no move would take place without the most careful consideration, particularly of myself and my fellow East stand devotees “The people who’ve supported us through thick and thin”. I was also reminded that the board are not just suits, but highly committed supporters as well. That is good to know. 

On the “Fulham” question:

“Both Hibs and Hearts have demonstrated that stadium projects can be brought in on time and on budget. As have football clubs all over the country. The process, whilst it has its complications, is a well-trod one and we are confident that if a construction process is eventually embarked upon it will be tightly managed, but we are at the very earliest stages. 

When pushed further about the experience of Fulham who have run into enormous planning difficulties and are thus in limbo having already scheduled their own stadium for demolition, I was assured that no move would take place until things were well underway. The question of leasing Easter Road to the Council was passed over slightly, but the comment was made “I think we have the third best stadium in the SPL at present” which I found intriguing.