The morning after the day before…..

[Albert Kidd 86’]

In the shadow of all the venting over the last 24hours, I have been thinking about the bigger picture, here is my conclusion… (for what its worth!).

I have supported this team through thick and thin, like everyone else on here, for coming on 55 years now. In all that time there have been a few high points, a few low points, but mostly, when you take everything into account, we are the definition of average; with delusions of grandeur.

During these years I have formed the opinion that my beloved team have this unfortunate superiority complex based on a few historical results and not much else. This complex manifests itself in many ways, but on the pitch, where it counts, it is most noticeable in what I would call a lack of cold steel and inability to get down in the muck and fight like other teams, or put another way; an expectation that because we are hibs, other teams will bow down and capitulate, (news just in- they will not!).

This is not just a recent problem.

It is my conclusion that it is pointless to keep on changing staff without addressing the overriding problem that can only be addressed by the whole Hibs system taking a long hard look in the mirror and recognising that we are nothing special, and to get anywhere we have to get down of our pedestal and FIGHT.

There is one person who attempted to do this, he had the benefit of being one of our competitors for many years and told us straight how others in the league perceive us - BOYBAND, we did not listen.

I personally enjoyed his time at hibs, sure it was not perfect, but he saw our weakness and attempted to inject some backbone into the team, some did not like his abrasive nature. I loved it, and how it made the players get out of their comfort zone.

So, what would I like to happen next?

I would really like someone in the team or management to; cut the crap, take the bull by the balls and FIGHT aggressively towards a team on the pitch who will do the same, snap these overly comfortable players out of their delusions of grandeur, not pander to them, if they don’t like it-TOUGH, move on. If no one currently at Hibs is capable or willing to do this then get someone in who will.

It is going to be an uncomfortable 6 months for us as supporters, but it should certainly be a VERY uncomfortable 6 months for every Hibs player.

[H18 SFR]

Not sure many modern day players respond positively to an authoritarian approach to management.

Looking round the leagues with successful teams I can’t quickly identify success with that approach - can you?

[Albert Kidd 86’]

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Not sure many modern day players respond positively to an authoritarian approach to management.

Looking round the leagues with successful teams I can’t quickly identify success with that approach - can you?

True, but not many continually underachieving teams regard themselves as being entitled to glories without putting in the effort. That chain has to be broken or we will be assigned to a continuous cycle of mediocrity.

it does not have to be authoritarian, just firm and eye opening, not how “the boys are hurting”, “the boys are disappointed”, they should be bloody furious is what they should be.

[H18 SFR]

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True, but not many continually underachieving teams regard themselves as being entitled to glories without putting in the effort. That chain has to be broken or we will be assigned to a continuous cycle of mediocrity.

So what is it you are looking for to happen to break this cycle?

[Albert Kidd 86’]

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So what is it you are looking for to happen to break this cycle?

a total change of club “personna”, from;

we are THE famous Edinburgh Hibees, etc. bow down.

it is not up to me as a mere fan to inject steel into the team, there are paid professionals who can do that, but we must be brave and embrace the change that is required.

[Hiber-nation]

The boy band thing was a throwaway comment about a few young players with dyed hair who had far far more fight that the current lot.

[Trinity Hibee]

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The boy band thing was a throwaway comment about a few young players with dyed hair who had far far more fight that the current lot.

That is very true actually

[Albert Kidd 86’]

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That is very true actually

what or whoever it was aimed at, I thought it described our attitude very well.

[Pretty Boy]

I always find there to be a bit of exceptionalism about some Hibs fans.

A look down their nose attitude towards people or players they see as beneath Hibs even if they have been consistently more successful elsewhere than Hibs have been in three quarters of a century. I think delusions of grandeur is a decent line. Plenty people slag Hearts for being arrogant but we have our own arrogance, albeit it manifests itself differently.

I always think the use of the phrase 'Hibs class' sums that up. I always thought of Turnbull's words as being an almost arrogant term about higher standards, similar to Stein's comments about the Celtic shirt not shrinking to fit inferior players. A justified arrogance though because his team as both player and manager was befitting of being a wee bit arrogant. Now it seems to refer to some mythical moral and aesthetic superiority that really doesn't exist.

Frankly I want Hibs to be a whole lot nastier. We are a bit of a joke team amongst other clubs in the league, even clubs who have achieved less than us join in with the 'Hibsed it' stuff. We are an easy target, the perennial butt of jokes. We need a culture in which simply being at Hibs isn't having made it. Guys like John McGinn had that attitude, a great player for us but he clearly wanted more and he got it because his attitude and desire meant he wasn't going to be denied.

It's not about bullying players or going out your way to be abrasive or confrontational as a club. It just feels to me like for too long Hibs have had this weird double identity; both trying to be the smartest man in the room without having the brains to back it up but also having a 'that'll do' attitude to the football team rather than really wanting to drive higher standards.

[Albert Kidd 86’]

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I always find there to be a bit of exceptionalism about some Hibs fans.

A look down their nose attitude towards people or players they see as beneath Hibs even if they have been consistently more successful elsewhere than Hibs have been in three quarters of a century. I think delusions of grandeur is a decent line. Plenty people slag Hearts for being arrogant but we have our own arrogance, albeit it manifests itself differently.

I always think the use of the phrase 'Hibs class' sums that up. I always thought of Turnbull's words as being an almost arrogant term about higher standards, similar to Stein's comments about the Celtic shirt not shrinking to fit inferior players. A justified arrogance though because his team as both player and manager was befitting of being a wee bit arrogant. Now it seems to refer to some mythical moral and aesthetic superiority that really doesn't exist.

Frankly I want Hibs to be a whole lot nastier. We are a bit of a joke team amongst other clubs in the league, even clubs who have achieved less than us join in with the 'Hibsed it' stuff. We are an easy target, the perennial butt of jokes. We need a culture in which simply being at Hibs isn't having made it. Guys like John McGinn had that attitude, a great player for us but he clearly wanted more and he got it because his attitude and desire meant he wasn't going to be denied.

It's not about bullying players or going out your way to be abrasive or confrontational as a club. It just feels to me like for too long Hibs have had this weird double identity; both trying to be the smartest man in the room without having the brains to back it up but also having a 'that'll do' attitude to the football team rather than really wanting to drive higher standards.

Totally agree, particularly the last pragraph

[Itsnoteasy]

We have 1 or 2 good seasons in a 10 year cycle. It's been like that since I've supported them in the late 70s & it will be like that till the day I die. Even the teams I never had the privilege of watching TF5 or TT were underachievers.

[H18 SFR]

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We have 1 or 2 good seasons in a 10 year cycle. It's been like that since I've supported them in the late 70s & it will be like that till the day I die. Even the teams I never had the privilege of watching TF5 or TT were underachievers.

That’s the way I look at it. My mate is adamant you need to look at things longer, over say the period of Lewis Stevenson’s time at the club.

In terms of the 10 year cycle, a relegation, a promotion, a cup win, a couple of cup final loses, few skelpings of Hearts, the Huns and Celtic and a few hammerings from them. Few times in Europe including great wins in Greece and Switzerland. Selling a few players for profit, watching a few teens develop and move on etc.

It’s probably about right over the last decade in fairness.

[GreenCastle]

We also need to become obsessed about the Derbies if we want to improve our derby record - basically another game or just the derby won’t improve our woeful record.

The derby record should also be a KPI for every manager.

[ChuckNor]

For the past three years this club has tried to be too smart. It looked down its nose at the Scottish game, thinking that signing young players from the continent and hiring rookie managers/those with no real experience of Scottish football would get us results

Whether people like it or not, our last taste of consistent success was under Jack Ross, a man who knew Scottish football inside out. Ever since his untimely and extremely harsh dismissal we have been utterly dreadful. His sacking (when it happened) was the wrong decision. Since then those wrong decisions have continued to the point where we can’t break the cycle. That is why Ben Kensell has to go and we need a complete refresh.

I worry that Black Knights have a deal with Kensell that will see him here for a long time to come. This man will drag us down further, mark my words. We haven’t hit rock bottom just yet.

Some of the things I have heard about his stewardship of the club in the last 24 hours. His treatment of certain players and clauses in their deals…

[SickBoy32]

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Some of the things I have heard about his stewardship of the club in the last 24 hours. His treatment of certain players and clauses in their deals…

Such as ?

Agree entirely with the rest of your post.

[Sioux]

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For the past three years this club has tried to be too smart. It looked down its nose at the Scottish game, thinking that signing young players from the continent and hiring rookie managers/those with no real experience of Scottish football would get us results

Whether people like it or not, our last taste of consistent success was under Jack Ross, a man who knew Scottish football inside out. Ever since his untimely and extremely harsh dismissal we have been utterly dreadful. His sacking (when it happened) was the wrong decision. Since then those wrong decisions have continued to the point where we can’t break the cycle. That is why Ben Kensell has to go and we need a complete refresh.

I worry that Black Knights have a deal with Kensell that will see him here for a long time to come. This man will drag us down further, mark my words. We haven’t hit rock bottom just yet.

Some of the things I have heard about his stewardship of the club in the last 24 hours. His treatment of certain players and clauses in their deals…

This messageboard has been saturated with vile comments from fans about players at the club. All of a sudden BK is the devil incarnate for comments that are unknown, but verified by the "I've heard" "someone told me" nonsense.

If you can provide verified facts about what he supposedly said, and those comments are directly consistent with the thoughts of the fans, what's the problem?

And do you really think that BK will have some sort of loyalty reward for simply extracting money from the Black Knights group? Come on.

[Smartie]

I actually agree with the comments about us looking down our nose at Scottish football.

Rather than this being a criticism of the Hibs support or Ben Kensall though, I think it’s a “the Gordons” thing.

Scottish football is littered with the carcasses of complacent dafties who thought they’d come here and piss it. Very early on in the Gordon era they were subtly critical of their predecessors, spoke about the improvements they were going to make in spite of having zero track record in doing so.

Since then they’ve demonstrated absolutely zero evidence why we should have faith in them. Yes, income has increased under them but outgoings have increased by more.

The football side of the business? Christ, where do you start with that? It’s been an utter calamity since they came in and their reign has been littered with calamities, too many to mention.


In terms of the fans and our expectations - I do think we should be expecting to beat clubs with less resource than us. We need to expect to have to work very hard and play smart to do so though and expect that we won’t get it all our own way all the time, as even Rangers and Celtic don’t. There are well run clubs up here using their resources well, something we need to aspire to as we’re currently miles short of being able to say that we’re doing so.

[Greensunshine]

There probably is some truth in what the OP has said but ultimately it’s a game of football 11 vs 11

It comes down to player recruitment and in and outs.

We’ve held on to some players for far too long. It’s time for a total clearout of the old guard.
We’ve also failed to cover positions with any real quality, instead relying on youngsters and hoping they’ll come good to make us a quick buck or we roll out the old guard again only to see them falter.

It’s no secret that the success of any club boils down to the spine of the team.
Our spine starts off with a goalkeeper who’s past it.

Then in the heart of the defence we have two young defenders who are learning their trade. To have one youngster alongside an experienced older player would be the way to go but to play both shows a lack of depth and nouse from the recruitment department.

Our wing backs are one of our strengths, however there’s little in the way of competition for those places.

Midfield is starting to take shape with JN, MW and Marcondes.

Up top we also have plenty options.

So it’s glaringly obvious were the problems lay.

[Baldy Foghorn]

Still raw this morning, Club needs yet another massive overhaul in terms of players and Management, the Board need to be made accountable too, they are all complicit in the whole shambles

[Pretty Boy]

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I actually agree with the comments about us looking down our nose at Scottish football.

Rather than this being a criticism of the Hibs support or Ben Kensall though, I think it’s a “the Gordons” thing.

Scottish football is littered with the carcasses of complacent dafties who thought they’d come here and piss it. Very early on in the Gordon era they were subtly critical of their predecessors, spoke about the improvements they were going to make in spite of having zero track record in doing so.

Since then they’ve demonstrated absolutely zero evidence why we should have faith in them. Yes, income has increased under them but outgoings have increased by more.

The football side of the business? Christ, where do you start with that? It’s been an utter calamity since they came in and their reign has been littered with calamities, too many to mention.


In terms of the fans and our expectations - I do think we should be expecting to beat clubs with less resource than us. We need to expect to have to work very hard and play smart to do so though and expect that we won’t get it all our own way all the time, as even Rangers and Celtic don’t. There are well run clubs up here using their resources well, something we need to aspire to as we’re currently miles short of being able to say that we’re doing so.

I made a point at the time about this 'new way of doing things'.

Loads of very smart business people have been involved in Scottish football. If it was easy to marry turning over huge amounts of money, increasing commercial income and having a great product on the park then someone would have cracked it before now.

The guys who promise something radically different have generally ended up flopping on the football side, the business side or both. Claude Anelka at Raith, the Marrs at Dundee and as it stands the Gordons at Hibs and Cormack and his backers at Aberdeen on the former. Someone like Fergus McCann was arguably the exception that proved the rule but he was public enemy number one with the fans in his time at Celtic and arguably played a similar role to what Farmer and Pertie did at Hibs; saved the club then done the infrastructure dirty work that laid the groundwork for someone else to try and take it forward. McCann has been rehabilitated over a period of years, maybe even decades.

I understand it wasn't really an option to just keep doing what we were doing but we wasted an unholy amount of money on a project that has hamstrung us for years. Players who weren't even in the same realm as good enough on 3 and 4 year contracts. I don't even think Melerkson, as an example, was a great business success. We paid a fee for him, paid him a wage for years for about 4 goals return then sold him. If you take the fees and subtract one from the other then it's a great profit. Add in the wages and other costs that come with having a non contributing player on the books for years and it's probably not quite as handsome a return.

There is no foolproof plan at this level but when you look at periods when clubs like Hibs, Hearts and Aberdeen have been successful (in relative Scottish terms) the formula has broadly been the same and it's not even close to what we have tried for the last 3 years.

[matty_f]

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I actually agree with the comments about us looking down our nose at Scottish football.

Rather than this being a criticism of the Hibs support or Ben Kensall though, I think it’s a “the Gordons” thing.

Scottish football is littered with the carcasses of complacent dafties who thought they’d come here and piss it. Very early on in the Gordon era they were subtly critical of their predecessors, spoke about the improvements they were going to make in spite of having zero track record in doing so.

Since then they’ve demonstrated absolutely zero evidence why we should have faith in them. Yes, income has increased under them but outgoings have increased by more.

The football side of the business? Christ, where do you start with that? It’s been an utter calamity since they came in and their reign has been littered with calamities, too many to mention.


In terms of the fans and our expectations - I do think we should be expecting to beat clubs with less resource than us. We need to expect to have to work very hard and play smart to do so though and expect that we won’t get it all our own way all the time, as even Rangers and Celtic don’t. There are well run clubs up here using their resources well, something we need to aspire to as we’re currently miles short of being able to say that we’re doing so.

I wonder if that’s because they had their fingers burned spending money on Dylan Tait and Daniel Mackay - i can’t remember who signed off on Magennis and JDH but they didn’t work out as planned either?

Levitt probably hasn’t helped either.

[jacomo]

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The boy band thing was a throwaway comment about a few young players with dyed hair who had far far more fight that the current lot.

Indeed.

It amazes me these days how much credit people get for just saying something that vaguely resonates, without showing the ability to do something about it.

(Such as government ministers saying angry things about immigration, but simultaneously allowing immigration to spiral out of control).

We certainly had some good days under Lennon, but he didn’t solve our inconsistency problem, and when we went on a bad run at the end of his tenure he personally went awol.

I don’t think he’s the answer.

[flash]

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This messageboard has been saturated with vile comments from fans about players at the club. All of a sudden BK is the devil incarnate for comments that are unknown, but verified by the "I've heard" "someone told me" nonsense.

If you can provide verified facts about what he supposedly said, and those comments are directly consistent with the thoughts of the fans, what's the problem?

And do you really think that BK will have some sort of loyalty reward for simply extracting money from the Black Knights group? Come on.

There are 3 or 4 posters on this forum who constantly insinuate stuff without ever backing it up with facts.

Wouldn't be remotely shocked if they were part of the "ponzi scheme" gang.

[chrisski33]

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The boy band thing was a throwaway comment about a few young players with dyed hair who had far far more fight that the current lot.

So true

[Ozyhibby]

The formula for sustained success in football is easy. Spend more than your rivals on players wages.
The more you do this by, the more success you have.


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[Baldy Foghorn]

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The formula for sustained success in football is easy. Spend more than your rivals on players wages.
The more you do this by, the more success you have.


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We do this but it's not working. How many Kilmarnock, St Mirren or Dundee players, are on the money some of our players earn?

[matty_f]

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The formula for sustained success in football is easy. Spend more than your rivals on players wages.
The more you do this by, the more success you have.


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Unless your Hibs. Pioneering approach of bucking that trend as well.

[coldingham hibs]

Still can’t quite believe we only needed 2 points from games against St Johnstone & Motherwell but couldn’t even manage that. Could understand if it was 2 top 4 teams but really, it’s astonishing.

[Billy Whizz]

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Still raw this morning, Club needs yet another massive overhaul in terms of players and Management, the Board need to be made accountable too, they are all complicit in the whole shambles

You have to ask why we need 12 directors to run Hibs, although Kensell and Ian Gordon are on the payroll
Why do we need so many?

[NAE NOOKIE]

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In the shadow of all the venting over the last 24hours, I have been thinking about the bigger picture, here is my conclusion… (for what its worth!).

I have supported this team through thick and thin, like everyone else on here, for coming on 55 years now. In all that time there have been a few high points, a few low points, but mostly, when you take everything into account, we are the definition of average; with delusions of grandeur.

During these years I have formed the opinion that my beloved team have this unfortunate superiority complex based on a few historical results and not much else. This complex manifests itself in many ways, but on the pitch, where it counts, it is most noticeable in what I would call a lack of cold steel and inability to get down in the muck and fight like other teams, or put another way; an expectation that because we are hibs, other teams will bow down and capitulate, (news just in- they will not!).

This is not just a recent problem.

It is my conclusion that it is pointless to keep on changing staff without addressing the overriding problem that can only be addressed by the whole Hibs system taking a long hard look in the mirror and recognising that we are nothing special, and to get anywhere we have to get down of our pedestal and FIGHT.

There is one person who attempted to do this, he had the benefit of being one of our competitors for many years and told us straight how others in the league perceive us - BOYBAND, we did not listen.

I personally enjoyed his time at hibs, sure it was not perfect, but he saw our weakness and attempted to inject some backbone into the team, some did not like his abrasive nature. I loved it, and how it made the players get out of their comfort zone.

So, what would I like to happen next?

I would really like someone in the team or management to; cut the crap, take the bull by the balls and FIGHT aggressively towards a team on the pitch who will do the same, snap these overly comfortable players out of their delusions of grandeur, not pander to them, if they don’t like it-TOUGH, move on. If no one currently at Hibs is capable or willing to do this then get someone in who will.

It is going to be an uncomfortable 6 months for us as supporters, but it should certainly be a VERY uncomfortable 6 months for every Hibs player.

I'm sure that's a genuine take on things from your POV. But I sort of lost faith when I got to the bit about Hibs having some sort of 'superiority complex'

Of all the things you could accuse this club or it's supporters of over the years I've been supporting it, having a 'superiority complex' certainly isn't one of them. All you have to do to get shot down on this site is suggest we are better than other clubs and deserve better than them simply because we are Hibs.

Saying we should do better given our si2e as a club in Scotland is reasonable, but hardly hints at a 'superiority complex'

Yes we think our team should play attractive football, but what club's fans don't? 90% of us would sacrifice that for a few cup wins and a place in a Euro group stage.

We are not Hearts, who think 3 trophies and as many relegations in 60 years qualifies us as 'famous'