Who's Bill Leckie?

[we are hibs]

MISSING X-FACTOR*There’s something missing at Hibs these days..and it’s not just 5,000 fans, says Bill Leckie

A ground that, just a few months ago was the most exciting and unpredictable in the land, suddenly feels mired in mediocrity

COMMENT

By Bill Leckie

18th February 2019,*7:44 am

Updated: 18th February 2019,*7:44 am

SOMETHING doesn’t quite add up at Easter Road these days.

And it’s not just the calculator they use to count the gates.

Because, along with about a third of the 16,000-odd the tannoy told us turned up for new manager Paul Heckingbottom’s first game in charge, they were missing an X-factor. A buzz. Their pizzazz.

A ground that, just a few months ago was the most exciting and unpredictable in the land, suddenly feels mired in mediocrity.


From genuinely believing they could be Best Of The Rest, they’re fretting over clambering into the top six by the split.

It’s a dip in* attitude and atmosphere brought into sharp* focus by the comparison between this season’s two home clashes with Accies.

Last time they came calling, on the* first Saturday in October, there* genuinely*WEREclose on 17,000 in the house, rising as one to a 6-0 romp peppered with strikes from all angles, lifting them just two points off early league leaders*Hearts.

That performance summed up all that was good about life under Neil Lennon.

Yet it always felt from the outside like the publicity that came with* him, the controversy, the touch of showbiz, didn’t sit well with the* people who run the club.

The embarrassing way they eventually got him out the door, the ultra-defensiveness of how they mumbled an excuse for an explanation, the uncertainty of attempts to replace him followed by the anti-climax of the new man’s appointment; it all speaks of a regime who don’t*WANT*to be talked about, don’t want to be headline news, to be sexy.

All of which makes you wonder whether a win like this, as ho-hum and humdrum as it’s possible to imagine, is exactly how Leeann Dempster and her colleagues upstairs want it to be — three points without the merest hint of drama.

The nearest thing to a shred of a hint of a talking point came on 16 minutes, when Florian Kamberi stretched for and may or may not have got a toe on to Daryl Horgan’s whipped left-wing cross to leave keeper Gary Woods flat-footed as it nestled low inside his left-hand post.

Was it the striker’s goal or the winger’s? Kamberi claimed it. I reckon he was at it.

But if in the end that’s as sparky as it gets, it’s hardly been scripted by Tarantino, has it?

Kamberi then nipped in front of the nervy Woods to head up and onto the bar, the keeper turning in time to grab the rebound, slip and almost carry the ball over the line, before* left-back Lennard Sowah’s* senseless barge on David Gray with the ball already gone handed Hibs a penalty that Marc McNulty tucked away to pretty much kill the contest.

From there, the home side forced a pile of corners without coming desperately close to a third, while the visitors made an attacking fist of it without ever looking like mounting a proper fightback.

And that was that. No 30- yard rockets, no sweeping moves you could set to music, no bust- ups, not the merest peep of Sunshine On Leith.

Had Lennon still been around, you’re guessing he’d have come in and caned the players for not getting three, four, five.

Then again, that desire of his for more, for better, for the spectacular, was maybe part of the problem.

Feels like too many around this place — be they in dressing room or boardroom — didn’t like being* challenged to improve themselves. That, rather than* Lennon’s voice becoming one of encouragement, he came to sound more like a* nagging wife.

None of this is a criticism of new boy Heckingbottom, who’s only just in the door and seems a perfectly nice, intelligent, positive-thinking coach.



No, it’s more a reflection on those who hired him, a bunch who had* the chance to embrace the swashbuckling and the edgy, but prefer the measured and the safe.

The Yorkshireman came away delighted to have won his first game in charge, to have seen so much hard graft, to have racked up a first league clean sheet in eight.

Asked what he thought he could achieve with this group of players, his answer was simply that he wants better than this.

There were no predictions, no* rallying cries, no promises to put bums back on empty seats.

In truth, opposite number Brian Rice — despite seeing his side slip into the bottom two — was by far the more refreshing to listen to.


He was all about being hell-bent on attacking their way out of trouble, about forgiving* mistakes as long as they come from trying to do things that make people smile.

If you were an Accies fan, you’d be excited and encouraged to hear his take on the task.

If you’re a*Hibee, though, well, maybe I’m wrong, but it must feel like the Scottish Cup win and the whole Lennon circus might as well not have happened.

Even the player who came up to the after-match press conference, Aussie midfielder Mark Milligan, appeared to be doing the same job with words as he does on the park — that is, being the one who protects those around him, who tries to give nothing away.

He said: “The table doesn’t lie.* We are where we are because that’s where we deserve to be at the moment.

“But I don’t think it’s too late to turn that around and that’s what we’re focusing on. We have to keep moving forward.

“It does hurt us as players, knowing we’re in that position. You could look around the dressing room knowing that, individually and as a unit, we had more to give.

“Now’s our shot. We’ve started well and we need to carry it on.

“You look at Flo Kamberi. He’s a great player, but I think his work ethic here was unbelievable."







Who is Bill Leckie? Why is he persisting with the anti hibs and pro Lennon propaganda still? Why is he claiming there were only 11k there on Saturday? Is he cut from the same cloth as that moron keith Jackson?