Now you see them...
Tickets set to disappear as fans brave the cold fro another 12 hours to ensure they get their briefs...

By the time many people will have read this article, the latest and probably last batch of tickets for Hampden will have been sold to those hardy souls who've sat outside the ticket office since just after 7pm last night!  It's a measure of just what this weekend means to Hibees around the world that they're willing to do this just to see a game of football.  It's also true to say that it's indicative of the gross under-achievement of the club with regards to challenging for silverware that there is such a frenzy from around the world with regards to one game of football!

However, at times, that has been exactly the scene outside Easter Road Stadium as people attempted to get their hands on tickets for a rare cup final appearance by Hibs.  With the club shifting over 30,000 tickets in the first week or so of them being on sale, there were naturally going to be one or two hic-cups as staff battled to give everyone what they wanted.  However, incredibly, despite the ticket office staff putting in vast amounts of work, there have been a few fans who have contacted the club with complaints around the distribution of tickets for the final, despite them actually getting them!  One Season ticket holder complained about not being able to specify exactly which seat he wanted, a point that Colin McNeill, who has overseen this massive project answered.  “In the last week, we have had a team of 20 people working through the night, putting in exceptional hours in order to ensure that the massive demand for tickets is met as efficiently as possible. We had 2000 people queuing for tickets in sub zero temperatures at 6.30am on Tuesday morning. And they were delighted simply to be able to get a ticket....even if they had queued for 4 hours! As far as Tuesday was concerned, we sold over 11,000 tickets. That is the most tickets ever sold through the Hibernian Ticket office in the modern game."

Caldwell celebrates with Andersson and Doumbe after the semi-final win  (sns)

“The Club were instructed to release tickets in a controlled manner. That means we could not allocate specific seats. Were we to allow specific Season Ticket Holders to select their seat, we would have needed possibly 10 times the number of staff and much longer a lead time.”  With 1,500 tickets on sale this morning by personal application and 300 by telephone application to those outside of Edinburgh only, the club are hoping that everything goes as smoothly as it did with the other 36,000 tickets.

The backing that Hibs fans will give the team when they walk out onto the Hampden pitch come Sunday afternoon will be nothing short of incredible, and they most certainly know it!  The sheer numbers of fans making the trip along the M8 has caught everyone at the club, and beyond, by surprise and as Gary Caldwell points out to the official website this morning, it makes winning the cup all the more important.  “It’s been incredible. I don’t think that anyone could have expected the numbers of fans who are turning out to support us in this game. It of course makes it all the more important that we go out there and win, and that would make it a great day for the fans. We will be doing everything possible and I’m sure that with the backing they will give us on the day then it will be enough to win.”

With this being Caldwell's first appearance in a final, he played in the ill-fated semi-final against Ayr United, you could excuse him for feeling nervous as the days start to count down but the Scotland Under 21 defender is still looking forward to it more than he is nervous. “It’s my first final but I think it’s also the first for a lot of the boys. We are now in the final week leading up to the game so everyone is now starting to really look forward to it, we’re not quite getting nervous yet but I’m sure as the week goes on we will start to. Right now we are just looking forward to it and we just can’t wait for it to come around.”  A closed doors game against Brechin City at the weekend which finished 2-0 to the visitors hardly sounds like the best preparation for a game of this magnitude but Hibs.net understands that the result was purely reflective of the fact that players didn't want to miss out on Sunday due to injury picked up in the run up.  However, there were areas identified which will need to be looked at as Caldwell explained.  “We’ve had a couple of bounce games and they went alright, we still have some work to do this week to sort some stuff out. We don’t know yet how we are going to be playing yet, but we’ll get the hard work done this week and then get out there on Sunday and look to get the right result.”