Come on people!
Hibs in extended contract talks with goalkeeper
and striker
Those of
you reading the headline will sense that I am a little
exasperated by recent events and to a certain extent you’d be right. In
the first instance there was the fans forum last Friday. An excellent
night was had by all who attended, it’s just a pity that there weren’t
more of us. As has been said before, Pat Stanton’s anecdotes were worth
the admission, and shame on you if you couldn’t be bothered, because it
was a great night. Whilst I am not the kind of person to berate people
for not doing what I would like them to, I know how much effort went
into the preparation of that event and I really felt for my two good
friends John and Diane. It was particularly frustrating that a good few
people gave assurances that they would be in attendance and didn’t turn
up. That is perhaps the most hard to take on the grounds that numbers in
terms of catering etc. are predicted for on the back of that. At the
very least, we need to know why you didn’t turn up, and what we can do
to make you turn up in future. Honesty is always appreciated.
I spent much of the evening
working, both on the door and buying drinks for our esteemed guests, and
I had a good time doing that, so things must have been good. I am also
grateful to Nikki’s dad who assisted me on door duty for no reward at
all (he even refused to accept the free drinks I offered him) and
regaled me with tales of days of yore. I am particularly grateful to him
for getting me out of a potentially embarrassing situation: upon spying
a group of people walking towards the door and moved forwards to check
their tickets. “See that guy on the left? That’s Pat Stanton”, he
whispered. “Don’t ask him for money!” That could have been seriously
embarrassing, and I’d have been the brunt of jokes on the message board
forever more. Upon telling this tale to a Hibs supporter at my chess
club, he laughed and asked: “Call yourself a Hibby when you can’t
recognise Stanton in the street?”, he asked indignantly. I got mildly
irritated at this point, and delivered the reply which remains
unanswered: “I may not, but I can name the current squad, playing
positions and strengths / weaknesses. That’s because I have a season
ticket and go every week. Do you?”
Suffice to say he doesn’t. Indeed,
I don’t think he’s been in the past three or four years. He complained
about ticket prices and I pointed out that entry to the Montrose game
cost £10. (£5 with a season ticket discount). That would have enabled
him to say he was there when Hibs recorded their biggest home win in
almost 40 years in a style that was a joy to watch as they passed and
moved Montrose ragged. We have no right to complain about prices if Hibs
cut prices in response to our demands and then supporters fail to turn
out in numbers.
Hibs v Livi this week - and Scott Brown has some happy memories, scoring
his first senior goal against the West Lothian side (sns)
The club has some serious work to
do here, as it appears to have alienated a large number of its
die-hards, many of whom have simply drifted away from the club. The
statement attached to the club’s finances released to shareholders
yesterday confirm a worrying trend, namely attendances are dropping
steadily over the course of the past few seasons. That is a trend that
must be reversed and quickly, because the other indication from the
accounts is that costs have been seriously cut back, and it seems
questionable whether they can be cut much farther.
The sales of Ulises de la Cruz to Aston Villa and
Ulrik Laursen to Celtic helped to reduce losses significantly, and only
the loss of BSkyB income from the expiry of the SPL broadcasting
contract prevented Hibs from making a profit over the year. However, any
hope of balancing the books next year will be dependant on the sale of
another player (or two given today’s climate), with an operating loss
being recorded of £1.5 million. Clearly, more revenue is going to have
to be sought from somewhere. There is clear room for improvement in
terms of things such as provision of conference facilities etc. with
Edinburgh booming at present, and commercial hiring of Easter Road for
pop concerts etc. must also be an option. Indeed, in some English clubs,
that revenue goes a long way to subsidising operations on the pitch, and
I am pretty sure the same is true of Partick Thistle.
However, the one obvious way to boost revenue is to
get fans through the turnstiles. It is
not enough for the club to exhort people to turn up: research must be
conducted amongst those absent Hibs supporters to find out why they
left, and more importantly, what the club can do to get them back.
That is not an easy
thing to do, particularly if the product on the pitch doesn’t entertain
and / or win. Ideally it will do both, although people always turn out
to watch a winning team. That having been said, for a generation reared
on Champions League football and the Premiership, some of the Thistle
game must have seemed like torture to younger supporters. There is also
the issue of playing teams four times a season which gets a little
repetitive, and maybe it’s time to look at how we structure our leagues
again: my preferred option is a sixteen team league, but that’s going to
spawn another editorial next week.
Turning to matters on the park, there
appears to be an air of quiet optimism amongst some Hibs supporters,
particularly as we’ve banned those bloody awful drums! Samba it wasn’t.
No wonder their coach left! With two games at home coming up being seen
as the perfect opportunity to make some ground up on third-placed
Hearts, particularly as they have a midweek game in the UEFA cup
followed by a trip to Glasgow to face Celtic. If Hibs can take maximum
points from those two games, they should firmly ensconce themselves in
the top half of the table, however, if they fail to, they could be left
with some serious ground to make up, as there are a number of teams
currently bunched in the middle of the SPL. Livingston will be hoping to
put the shock resignation of their manager behind them,
Marcio Maximo Barcellos
departing Livingston for his homeland, the reign of the first Brazilian
ever to coach a Scottish side proving somewhat short. Indeed, the inside
talk appears to be that he did not settle well. Given that Livingston
is, well, not exactly Rio De Janeiro that is perhaps understandable. If
Livingston do beat Hibs at the weekend, they will have established some
consistency at least: That will mean that of nine games they will have
won three, drawn three and lost three!
Despite the rumours of him being the number one
target, Inverness Caledonian Thistle are not anticipating or encouraging
any approach from Livingston for their manager, Hearts legend and bane
of many Hibs supporters lives for a long time, John Robertson. That
would certainly make some of the banter interesting on Saturday.
One person certainly keen to feature in proceedings on Saturday is
Stephen Glass. By his own admission, things have not gone to plan since
his arrival, with Glass struggling to adjust to the pace of the SPL.
The fans, though, have
continued to give the player their backing and Glass is determined to
repay the faith they have shown in him.
"The fans have been very good with me and have
been quite fair," Glass told the Scotsman.
