Hail, the team are here!
Diane Laird returns from her sabbatical to call on everyone to back the Hibs...

I’m positive that amongst those of us who caught the Scottish Cup final on Saturday, even if, as in my case, it was only the highlights, there were few who didn’t look at those 50,000 plus football fans basking in the glorious sunshine and hark back to our own trip to Hampden three years ago.  A day that for all Hibs fans was full of hopes and dreams, gathered from a century of trying to once again lift that single piece of silverware which, even now three years later, still continues to elude us.

And since that day we’ve not really had it much better. Barring half a dozen or so belters against the more ‘formidable’ teams in the SPL and a CIS cup final that didn’t come within a country mile of the two preceding games that got us there, we’d be hard pushed to argue that Hibs are still a major force in Scottish football.  However, within the next few days we will have a new record to boast about and certainly one for the history books; one that many teams will come nowhere close to matching even if it takes another 100 years.  And would they want to?  No! Because in the days ahead, we’ll be one of the few, if not the only team, who can say that we’re on our fourth manager in four years. Not really a record to boast about either because the main thing it surely highlights is that mistakes have been made; now there’s a case of stating the obvious!

But what about those mistakes and could they have been avoided? Whose mistakes were they and just what if any punishment should be meted out to those responsible?  I wasn’t going to even try to begin answering those, or the many more similar, but different, questions that we Hibbies have now been asking for so long.  Truth is I don’t know if I have them all off pat anymore and it’s not as if knowing where we went wrong will undo what’s been done, will it?  In a word… no!  But maybe they could help form our future especially if some of the answers are easy.  By way of an explanation, if, during this last season, any one of us had sat in a different seat at ER for every game, wouldn’t we have heard those around us explain to their mates just where Bobby Williamson, Tam McManus, Scott Brown, Colin Murdock et al could have done something different that would have turned a game?  What about Rod Petrie and the Board?  Surely if they had just put a little more money in the pot and allowed Williamson to bring in at least one ‘decent’ name then the fans wouldn’t have been on theirs and everyone else’s’ backs for the last year? Oh yeah and what about the fans?  If only they had come along in greater numbers to home games, or, if only when they did come along, they sang louder and more often, to show the team just how much they were supported, despite the results?  Maybe that would have been enough to lift the team to a win?  Bottom line is, there is no simple answer, but there is one word that links all those ‘reasons’ and more, without exception. And the word is…..TEAM.

The team of lads that we need to get behind  (sns)

When Mr. Kernaghan/Robertson/Strachan/Calderwood/A N Other* (* delete as appropriate) is announced as the new manager his life as he knew it will no longer be the same.  His task, should he accept it, is to take this team and make it his own.  To make it a team that scores more goals than it concedes, plays silky passing football and thus relegate that long ball game to a peaceful death and get us out the cesspit that is the bottom six! Not a lot to ask in my opinion.  However, another part of the team is the fans.  It’s a lot to expect I know, maybe even too much, but we, each and every one of us, now must play our part and that won’t be any easier than the task ahead of the new manager.  When things aren’t quite going our way, instead of turning round to our mates and blaming every Tom, Scott or Colin how about we stand up, take a deep breath and start singing!!!!

When we safely saw Celtic out of the CIS Cup, (Oh yes we were the team to stop them getting the treble weren’t we?J ) I was sitting over in the West stand as opposed to my usual seat in the Famous Five Stand.  Shivers ran up and down my spine and I felt dead proud as I watched and listened in awe at the Hibbies on the East Terracing doing that Hibees Bounce and singing from their boots and believe me if I hadn’t been in the press box the West Stand would have never seen the likes; A lucky escape for the Weststandites!!!   So surely there couldn’t have been a player on the park who wasn’t in some way geed up by that very vociferous Hibs support that evening and if we can do it once we can do it again and again and NOT just on a derby day or when we’re up against the OF. Join in if you know the words….

HAIL HAIL the Hibs are here
All for goals and glory, all for goals and glory
Hail Hail the Hibs are, all for goals and glory now.
For it’s a grand old team to play for
And it’s a grand old team to say
That if you know your history
It’s enough to make your heart go oh-oh-oh-oh
We don’t care what the Jam Tarts say
What the hell do we care?
Cause we only know
That there’s gonna be a show
And The Edinburgh Hibees will be there! 

(Poetic license!!!!) 

Through gritted teeth I congratulate Celtic and Manchester United on their respective wins on Saturday but I’d like to take a wee minute to congratulate Man United further on a very fitting tribute to Jimmy Davis, their 21 year old winger who died last year in a car crash.  The entire Man Utd squad donned a number 36 jersey just before heading up to collect their trophy and winners medals and it was a gesture that should serve to remind us all that football is NOT more important than life and death even although sometimes it feels that way.