Just remembered that the night before the game against Anderlecht we took a wrong turn😉 and ended up in the red light area. We bumped into Dougie Crombe and other members of the board. They had obviously taken a wrong turn too!
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Just remembered that the night before the game against Anderlecht we took a wrong turn😉 and ended up in the red light area. We bumped into Dougie Crombe and other members of the board. They had obviously taken a wrong turn too!
1st European game was v Sporting Lisbon, not a bad start to watching Hibs in Europe. I also went to the games v Fc Besa and Hadjuk Split. Wonderful time to be a ten year old Hibee.
I was in the Shed with my dad and uncle. Our seats weren’t in the covered bit so we got soaked. Remember Harper’s goal like it was yesterday. Had no idea that Keegan was in the Liverpool team. I guess I only had eyes for Hibs!
Liege away got lost after the game and walked for hours. Got on a train to Ostend about 8am with no ticket, passport or idea how I was getting on ferry.
For sheer footballing memories... it has to be the home tie vs Sporting Lisbon... very unlucky not to win the CWC
Leeds 0 v 0 HIBS 1973
https://youtu.be/b2vE-UFTKGs
Leeds had a very good tough team at that time managed by Don Revie. I remember David Coleman on Sportsnight raving about the new phenomenon Jim Cilla Black an overlapping centre half.It was just a shame our best chances fell to Big Tony Higgins. Leeds qualified for the next round following a penalty shoot out and a virtuoso performance from Billy Bremner at ER.
HIBS 2 v 4 Juventus 4 1974
https://youtu.be/CdG49nTw0dl
Hibs actually led 2-1 in this game but Juventus brought on Jose Altafini an ageing Brazilian forward who a few years earlier had been left at home by a confident Napoli side for a second leg at ER he had pace to burn and ended up scoring two and having one assist. I remember Alan Gordon telling the story that in the second leg in which we lost 0-4 Claudio Gentile would pull the hairs out of the backs of his legs when the ball was up the other end of the park.
HIBS 1 v 0 Sochaux 1976/77
https://youtu.be/OGFMIGM5Ktl
black and white footage goal scored by Brownlie great to see Bobby Smith and Arthur again.
Might have been Anderlecht (or maybe Liege) that I remember Dougie himself doing a shift in the old ticket office / shop on Easter Road (which for younger reads was more or less where "Happy Rice" is just before turning into Albion Road).
A few memories of away days / nights for me:
- A week on Aegina for the game that never was v AEK in 2001 - I'll still never forget the eerie silence as we walked back from the beach to the usually bustling and noisy main street of the town to find that 9/11 had occurred (long before the days of big data allowances on mobile phones
- Travelling around the Ukraine for the best part of five days - Odessa, Simferopol, Sevastopol, Yalta - before taking an overnight bus to Dnipro to meet up with the boys
- A night out in Norkopping before the most ridiculous, convoluted, four-change train journey from Norkopping to Boras for the Elfsborg game, only to be picked up by the Police at Boras station and dropped off at the main boozer int the main square while being constantly quizzed about any association with hooliganism that we might have!
Good times and really hoping for similar memories in Tripoli this summer (couldn't get time off for the Faroes)!
It was the considered opinion of one who played both with and against him, in direct positional opposition, rather than my own. I'm a little too young to have developed my own assessment. Wouldn't wish to hurt his feelings though!
Returning to the topic in hand, my first European night, and indeed the first game of any kind I remember attending, was the Juventus game. I was six and a half years old!
I'll have to censor this a bit! We shared a cabin with 2 Ukrainian guys on the overnight train from Kiev-Dnipro, it soon became apparent the female guard on our carriage supplemented her income by carrying out "extra services", when one of the local guys returned to our cabin I went to purchase a few beers from her only to be greeted with the sight of her little daughter playing away in her cabin. I often wonder how life turned out for the wee girl.
Think we were losing 0 v 1 then scored 2 quickly and almost a third before roof fell in . One of my main memories is waiting in queue to buy stand tickets about a week before the game . There were quite a lot of Italians ( based in Scotland I think ) at the front of the queue , it was massive for them to see La Juve . Was that our biggest home crowd in Europe ? About 30 000 at first Liverpool game , slightly less v Hadjuk Split not sure about Leeds games or Naples .
Leeds 1968 40000 My first game Colin Stein scored first minute with a lob over Gary Sprake then Willie Wilson took five steps and Jack the giraffe neck Charlton scored from the resulting free kick while standing on the goal line to eliminate HIBS on aggregate.
Think Barcelona was about 44000.
Dougie certainly worked in the ticket office for the League Cup final at Parkhead against Rangers.
I joined the queue somewhere around the Church on Albion Place at around 10:00. It moved very slowly. Mid afternoon a women in the queue to pick her kids up from school and cook their tea before rejoining us an hour or so later. We were almost onto Easter Road when the ticket office staff knocked off for the evening at around 5:30. Dougie and and the directors took over in the office. I think it was half pat seven before I finally got away clutching two tickets for the final.
Totally agree
In my opinion,the best opportunity of any Hibernian team to win a European trophy.
They were that good,folks !!
I remember fans talking about/part planning going to the final the way people are now doing about the upcoming Euro tie/s
IIRC the Cup Winners Cup Final final was in Greece that year.
Not a bad/difficult journey for fans,even back then.
Sadly,getting knocked out eventually led to the premature demise of The Tornadoes.
In hindsight,a very bad move on Neds part of course.
As he himself acknowledged in later years.
que sera sera:boo hoo:
I can still remember Big Frank and Eddie Campbell singing Oh Salonika here we come !
Ultimately a disaster in Croatia in the second leg against Split Big Jim Herriot a let a couple fly over his head and I think a Blackley og It was the beginning of the end and I don’t think Herriot ever played again for HIBS!
I was at the 1975 game but can't remember who I went along with. It was indeed pouring and I managed to cram into the Cave where there were all sorts of big surges throughout the game.
It was after that game that Hibbies started singing the H..i..b..e..r..n..i..a..n Hibernian, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na! chant as the Liverpool fans were chanting L..i..v..e..r..p..double oh ell, Liverpool F. C....etc!
(Why did I bother?)
HIBS 2 v 0 Real Madrid Challenge Match 1964
https://youtu.be/meAVIQu51YM
Videoton 0 v 3 HIBS 1989/99
https://youtu.be/TlWVVXnnmPY
Sounds about right. The match was a major disappointment in that it was spoilt in my eyes by Tom Hart telling Willie Macdarlane to drop our top scorer Joe McBride for the game he of course refused enter Dave Ewing who would later say the immortal lines “Rangers are rubbish! “