Don't ignore the emotional argument Hibs!
Keith Small adds to a week of articles form Hibs.net contributors on the Straiton Proposals

Before I start, let me make it clear that I am 100% opposed to this proposal, I am sure this will become apparent but I want to nail my colours to the mast so as to clarify things. Why am I against it? Well the reasons are numerous, there are the financial arguments, but unfortunately the powers that be tend to treat us fans with a degree of contempt when it comes to telling the truth. As long as this continues, all of the financial arguments are mere speculation. So what does that leave? It leaves emotion.

Despite all of the patronising sound bites straight out of rent-a-quote, it is not time to ‘let our heads rule our hearts’, ‘rise above emotion’ or even simply be rational. The fact is that football is not rational, it is game that has emotion as one of its very cornerstones. Being realistic, if we were to add rationality to football we would not support Hibs, there are other ways to spend £20 in 90 minutes, ways that will offer greater value for money and (unfortunately) probably greater entertainment most of the time. But rationality does not come into it, we support Hibernian for various reasons, most pretty irrational when you actually think about them, so our game is as a result charged with emotion.

Money is not the be all and end all, especially in football. Money will not make us compete with the Old Firm, to believe that is naivety in the extreme. Small and intermittent injections of cash will alter little, if anything. What is important, what defines a club, is its heritage, history, traditions and identity. An example of fans that cherish their identity over money would be Barcelona, who put themselves at a financial disadvantage so as to keep their beloved strips free from the desecration of a sponsor. This kind of strong identity undoubtedly helps Barca attract the vast numbers that fill the biggest stadium in Europe. Now I am not saying that Hibs will attract a hundred thousand fans, but we cannot afford to lose fans.

United in the common purpose - but will Hibs fans be divided over the Straiton issue? (hibs.net)

However, if we keep stripping the game of its emotional aspects, then maybe more and more fans will start thinking rationally and find alternative entertainment on a Saturday, and the current systematic loss of fans would indicate that this process is already happening. Straiton only serves to further detach the eleven men who play on a Saturday from the romantic, emotional and irrational club that we all love, thus running the risk of not only removing the incentives to go, but actually putting disincentives in their place.

I also do not believe the argument that we have to move, or we will die. Only a few months ago the Hibs board dismissed rumours of administration, so we cannot be expected to believe that we now have to move, either they were mis-informing then, or they are mis-informing now, neither of which is acceptable. I honestly believe that we can work our way out of debt, or at least to a manageable level. Of course it will be difficult, it may mean a poor team. But then we got a poor team when we ‘speculated to accumulate’ on the back of out third place finish, and Hearts have managed to finish third with similar constraints. Money guarantees nothing in football.

There is a precedent for this kind of sacrifice. Athletic Bilbao, who are probably a similar size in comparison to Barca and Real Madrid as we are to the Old Firm, have underachieved for a few years now, yet their fans steadfastly refuse to alter their policy of only playing Basques. If this policy, which is part of their very fabric, means a poor team then so be it. (Relative) Success is to them not important enough to prostitute their values and heritage for.

If staying at Easter Road means a few more barren years then I say it is a price worth paying, after all when the two end stands were built we were told that revenue they would generate would help us compete, and a couple of years later we were relegated. Surely the chances of us having a poor team are the same at Straiton as they are at Easter Road?

So I urge all Hibernian fans to dismiss the rhetoric coming from the respective boards, and think with your hearts. After all it is emotion and irrationality that drew you to Hibs (lets face it, it wasn’t success!) and that keep you going, that keep you spending twenty odd quid for an afternoon when the cinema would only cost a fiver, that keep you shelling out the best part of fifty quid for a strip, that keep you going through bad runs even though you know you will be disappointed at the end.

Money is important, of course it is. But so is our identity, and while moving to Straiton will totally strip us of it, it could very well be a slippery slope. What if, in a few years time when the challenge to the Old Firm fails to materialise, the board then suggests that we could maximise support from our new environs by altering our name to Pentland Hibernian, or Lothian Hibernian? Then we could attract yet more by tinkering with our strip and colours. Sound unrealistic? Yes, I agree. But a couple of years ago when we were watching our team beat AEK Athens, admiring the newly completed West Stand and revelling in the atmosphere, did anyone honestly think that in two or so years we would be even considering knocking it down and leaving?

So ask yourself what makes a football team, is it about the eleven guys who pull on the strips, to an extent. But I would suggest it has more to do with what those strips represent. They represent a club from Edinburgh that lives in Leith. It is about all those greats who once graced it, and all the huddies you now laugh about. It is about glorious victories and shattering defeats, and everything in between. It is about our heritage and traditions, and Easter Road is central to those.

So when you hear those championing this proposal tell you to think with your head, don’t. Because if we did, there would be nobody to sit in the new stadium. There is nothing wrong with emotion in football; its what keeps us going back, and what makes it more than a game.