Hibernian FC - It's not us, it's you.

[One Day Soon]

I don't know whether any of them read .net but this is my personal message to Farmer, Petrie, Dempster, Stubbs and the entire playing squad.


1. This is a football club and everything about it should begin and end with the football. I personally couldn't give a damn about trusts, supporter board members, community initiatives or anything else unless and until we have our football club back where it should be - playing in the top league and playing as, at the very least, the fifth strongest team in Scotland which is where the size of our fan base and income should see us.

2. We have failed to get out of the Championship in two successive years and in the most shameful of ways. To have finished third before the play-offs in the second year of asking with a budget very substantially bigger than all but one of our competitors is the epitome of failure. That failure reflects on each and every one of you and you should all be considering your positions.

3. This isn't just about the Championship years debacle. Prior to this three years in the wilderness we also had the other seven years which make up this decade of misery. Ever since the player revolt under Collins something somewhere has just been 'wrong'. And the succession of Paatelainen, Hughes, Calderwood, Fenlon and Butcher should have been as destructively career ending for those who appointed and tolerated them as they were for those of us punished by the consequences of their failings. This is no blip, this is what you do. This is your record.

3. We have again quite deliberately rolled the dice on an inexperienced manager and the gamble has again cost us dearly. Gambling is for fools - or those playing with other people's money. This feels like a bit of both.

4. You are now well down the path of turning this institution which we love, or have loved, into a zombie football club.

5. Talk is cheap and I for one am utterly pig sick of everything that is said by and on behalf of the club. It is all always the same round of tired and previously demonstrably false assertions and hopes. I honestly don't believe anything that is said by Hibs and its representatives any more. Laughably we have been told in two successive seasons that our objective was either to win the league or to win promotion. Neither the managerial appointment nor the player investment seems to have reflected the claims. Certainly the outcomes haven't.

6. I'm going to the final next weekend with my wife and two kids. That's quite a lot of cost and a hell of an emotional investment - just like the rest of the last 35 years. I fully and very deeply expect to return home beaten and quite probably humiliated - again. I don't say that in any intentionally dramatic way. Its just a statement of fact about what I now expect. If we win, it will be bittersweet. In truth I know that the state of our club is such that even the joy of winning the Cup would just be a sticking plaster - so thanks too for managing to suck a large amount of the joy out of any pleasure that would bring.

7. In the long term (and this already is the long term) the stewardship of this club has had two effects. Firstly it has saved the club from extinction and secondly the process by which it has done this seems to be via a football version of embalming. We don't die, but we don't get any better either. I doubt our season ticket numbers will fall too dramatically below the 5 or 6 thousand mark for a few years to come but that isn't really the problem is it? The real truth is that every season that passes like this means that should revival ever come, it will be harder and harder to grind those numbers back up the way. Dyed in the wool supporters haven't just walked away, they've been forced out by a form of emotional pain too hard to bear. No-one leaves the one they love lightly.

8. No enterprise of any sort succeeds without ambition, leadership and determination. The decade of evidence is that we have lacked all three of these.

After next weekend, regardless of the result, you should just go. Pretty much all of you.

[RIP]

Great essay bud.

The title's wrong tho. Should be:-

Hibernian FC is us. Not you.

We, the fans, we are Hibernian FC. Not some faceless suits.

[One Day Soon]

Great essay bud.

The title's wrong tho. Should be:-

Hibernian FC is us. Not you.

We, the fans, we are Hibernian FC. Not some faceless suits.


The title is as it is because it is meant to be an ironic version of the line used when dumping someone to let them down gently. "It's not you, its me." - when the truth is that it very definitely is you (them).

[Badge]

Couldn't agree more. Well done.

[MWHIBBIES]

:faf: Zombie football club and we should get rid of everyone?

Come on, that is just nonsense.

[scooby]

I don't know whether any of them read .net but this is my personal message to Farmer, Petrie, Dempster, Stubbs and the entire playing squad.


1. This is a football club and everything about it should begin and end with the football. I personally couldn't give a damn about trusts, supporter board members, community initiatives or anything else unless and until we have our football club back where it should be - playing in the top league and playing as, at the very least, the fifth strongest team in Scotland which is where the size of our fan base and income should see us.

2. We have failed to get out of the Championship in two successive years and in the most shameful of ways. To have finished third before the play-offs in the second year of asking with a budget very substantially bigger than all but one of our competitors is the epitome of failure. That failure reflects on each and every one of you and you should all be considering your positions.

3. This isn't just about the Championship years debacle. Prior to this three years in the wilderness we also had the other seven years which make up this decade of misery. Ever since the player revolt under Collins something somewhere has just been 'wrong'. And the succession of Paatelainen, Hughes, Calderwood, Fenlon and Butcher should have been as destructively career ending for those who appointed and tolerated them as they were for those of us punished by the consequences of their failings. This is no blip, this is what you do. This is your record.

3. We have again quite deliberately rolled the dice on an inexperienced manager and the gamble has again cost us dearly. Gambling is for fools - or those playing with other people's money. This feels like a bit of both.

4. You are now well down the path of turning this institution which we love, or have loved, into a zombie football club.

5. Talk is cheap and I for one am utterly pig sick of everything that is said by and on behalf of the club. It is all always the same round of tired and previously demonstrably false assertions and hopes. I honestly don't believe anything that is said by Hibs and its representatives any more. Laughably we have been told in two successive seasons that our objective was either to win the league or to win promotion. Neither the managerial appointment nor the player investment seems to have reflected the claims. Certainly the outcomes haven't.

6. I'm going to the final next weekend with my wife and two kids. That's quite a lot of cost and a hell of an emotional investment - just like the rest of the last 35 years. I fully and very deeply expect to return home beaten and quite probably humiliated - again. I don't say that in any intentionally dramatic way. Its just a statement of fact about what I now expect. If we win, it will be bittersweet. In truth I know that the state of our club is such that even the joy of winning the Cup would just be a sticking plaster - so thanks too for managing to suck a large amount of the joy out of any pleasure that would bring.

7. In the long term (and this already is the long term) the stewardship of this club has had two effects. Firstly it has saved the club from extinction and secondly the process by which it has done this seems to be via a football version of embalming. We don't die, but we don't get any better either. I doubt our season ticket numbers will fall too dramatically below the 5 or 6 thousand mark for a few years to come but that isn't really the problem is it? The real truth is that every season that passes like this means that should revival ever come, it will be harder and harder to grind those numbers back up the way. Dyed in the wool supporters haven't just walked away, they've been forced out by a form of emotional pain too hard to bear. No-one leaves the one they love lightly.

8. No enterprise of any sort succeeds without ambition, leadership and determination. The decade of evidence is that we have lacked all three of these.

After next weekend, regardless of the result, you should just go. Pretty much all of you.

Pretty much where I'm at too, although I do think that Dempster is an excellent appointment and will get it right.

5 of us in my household have renewed for next season and our expectations are also low for the cup final, but it's an emotional tie which is not easily broken. However, potentially losing two cup finals and failing to even reach the play off final can only be described as disastrous in a season which promised so much.
I fully understand why some have given up, we've been kicked in the balls too many times. Come on Hibs just get it sorted, give us a team with fight and desire who can deliver results when it matters most that we can all be proud of.

[One Day Soon]

:faf: Zombie football club and we should get rid of everyone?

Come on, that is just nonsense.

You're confused. Nonsense is what we have been living through for a decade.

[Glory Lurker]

Absolutely spot on, ODS.

[inglisavhibs]

Pretty much where I'm at too, although I do think that Dempster is an excellent appointment and will get it right.

5 of us in my household have renewed for next season and our expectations are also low for the cup final, but it's an emotional tie which is not easily broken. However, potentially losing two cup finals and failing to even reach the play off final can only be described as disastrous in a season which promised so much.
I fully understand why some have given up, we've been kicked in the balls too many times. Come on Hibs just get it sorted, give us a team with fight and desire who can deliver results when it matters most that we can all be proud of.
Getting to two cup finals is disastrous! We can go for years without getting near a cup final.

[Beefster]

Great post, ODS.

[Onion]

Some very good, heartfelt points in there. The upshot is that everyone (and that means every single person) associated with the running of our club needs to be under review for this abject failure. There should be no hiding place for anyone and a full review of what's gone wrong and what are we going to do differently to drive our club forward. The club is nothing without its fans, and it's clear that many are at the end of their rope.

Sadly, without positive corrective action by those in charge, it's just more rhetoric and risk of reset and repeat !

[MWHIBBIES]

You're confused. Nonsense is what we have been living through for a decade.Oh right, so we should just bin everybody?

[Beefster]

Oh right, so we should just bin everybody?

Everyone's position should be up for review.

I'm not sure why you feel the need to pick out one little bit, argue the toss over that and ignore the rest of the post tbh.

[ShinyFantastic]

Getting to two cup finals is disastrous! We can go for years without getting near a cup final.

Losing two cup finals and being consigned to a third year in the second tier of Scottish football would be disastrous.

[One Day Soon]

Oh right, so we should just bin everybody?

Everyone in a leadership position. Much of the squad too. That's why I wrote 'pretty much all of you'.

[lyonhibs]

I don't know whether any of them read .net but this is my personal message to Farmer, Petrie, Dempster, Stubbs and the entire playing squad.


1. This is a football club and everything about it should begin and end with the football. I personally couldn't give a damn about trusts, supporter board members, community initiatives or anything else unless and until we have our football club back where it should be - playing in the top league and playing as, at the very least, the fifth strongest team in Scotland which is where the size of our fan base and income should see us.

2. We have failed to get out of the Championship in two successive years and in the most shameful of ways. To have finished third before the play-offs in the second year of asking with a budget very substantially bigger than all but one of our competitors is the epitome of failure. That failure reflects on each and every one of you and you should all be considering your positions.

3. This isn't just about the Championship years debacle. Prior to this three years in the wilderness we also had the other seven years which make up this decade of misery. Ever since the player revolt under Collins something somewhere has just been 'wrong'. And the succession of Paatelainen, Hughes, Calderwood, Fenlon and Butcher should have been as destructively career ending for those who appointed and tolerated them as they were for those of us punished by the consequences of their failings. This is no blip, this is what you do. This is your record.

3. We have again quite deliberately rolled the dice on an inexperienced manager and the gamble has again cost us dearly. Gambling is for fools - or those playing with other people's money. This feels like a bit of both.

4. You are now well down the path of turning this institution which we love, or have loved, into a zombie football club.

5. Talk is cheap and I for one am utterly pig sick of everything that is said by and on behalf of the club. It is all always the same round of tired and previously demonstrably false assertions and hopes. I honestly don't believe anything that is said by Hibs and its representatives any more. Laughably we have been told in two successive seasons that our objective was either to win the league or to win promotion. Neither the managerial appointment nor the player investment seems to have reflected the claims. Certainly the outcomes haven't.

6. I'm going to the final next weekend with my wife and two kids. That's quite a lot of cost and a hell of an emotional investment - just like the rest of the last 35 years. I fully and very deeply expect to return home beaten and quite probably humiliated - again. I don't say that in any intentionally dramatic way. Its just a statement of fact about what I now expect. If we win, it will be bittersweet. In truth I know that the state of our club is such that even the joy of winning the Cup would just be a sticking plaster - so thanks too for managing to suck a large amount of the joy out of any pleasure that would bring.

7. In the long term (and this already is the long term) the stewardship of this club has had two effects. Firstly it has saved the club from extinction and secondly the process by which it has done this seems to be via a football version of embalming. We don't die, but we don't get any better either. I doubt our season ticket numbers will fall too dramatically below the 5 or 6 thousand mark for a few years to come but that isn't really the problem is it? The real truth is that every season that passes like this means that should revival ever come, it will be harder and harder to grind those numbers back up the way. Dyed in the wool supporters haven't just walked away, they've been forced out by a form of emotional pain too hard to bear. No-one leaves the one they love lightly.

8. No enterprise of any sort succeeds without ambition, leadership and determination. The decade of evidence is that we have lacked all three of these.

After next weekend, regardless of the result, you should just go. Pretty much all of you.

Agree entirely apart from the bits in bold. Stubbs has been decently backed IMO and winning the Scottish Cup would be fantastic in its own right.

Hibs will only become a zombie football club if the fans lose their passion and interest which will never happen (although I grant you, a lot have been lost in the past few years)

[MWHIBBIES]

Everyone in a leadership position. Much of the squad too. That's why I wrote 'pretty much all of you'.We don't have the money to do that for a start, would set us back years.

[stantonhibby]

Everyone's position should be up for review.

I'm not sure why you feel the need to pick out one little bit, argue the toss over that and ignore the rest of the post tbh.

Why not.....I think it's a well constructed post and agree with most of it however the bit about winning the cup next week being "bittersweet" is nonsense IMO.

[One Day Soon]

We don't have the money to do that for a start, would set us back years.

We're already set back years.

[lucky]

I don't believe it was any of the leaders of our club that cost us in the play offs. Logan's mistake, stokes misses, the refs I both games, Stevenson positioning and Grays feeble header.

Yes it's not been an overly successful period in our history. But we've not won the league since the 1950s, we've won 3 league cups since then and well we all know about the Scottish cup. So I'm not sure how people regard success for Hibs. Two cup finals is a first in my life and if we win the SC next week I will regard this season as a sucess

[SlickShoes]

I don't believe it was any of the leaders of our club that cost us in the play offs. Logan's mistake, stokes misses, the refs I both games, Stevenson positioning and Grays feeble header.

Yes it's not been an overly successful period in our history. But we've not won the league since the 1950s, we've won 3 league cups since then and well we all know about the Scottish cup. So I'm not sure how people regard success for Hibs. Two cup finals is a first in my life and if we win the SC next week I will regard this season as a sucess

Not winning a cup final is no success, only winning it is. Playing for years in the second tier isn't success either.

[One Day Soon]

I don't believe it was any of the leaders of our club that cost us in the play offs. Logan's mistake, stokes misses, the refs I both games, Stevenson positioning and Grays feeble header.

Yes it's not been an overly successful period in our history. But we've not won the league since the 1950s, we've won 3 league cups since then and well we all know about the Scottish cup. So I'm not sure how people regard success for Hibs. Two cup finals is a first in my life and if we win the SC next week I will regard this season as a sucess

I know how I regard 'not success' for Hibs. Three successive seasons in the Championship and finishing third behind Falkirk. All with at least the fifth biggest budget in Scotland. It was absolutely the leaders of the club that have cost us all of that and more. They've consistently made the wrong decisions, made them either far to quickly or far too late and then looked for cheapskate options to fix things - especially with managers.

[flash]

What was the score in the Scottish Cup final?
We clearly lost judging by this forum just not sure by how many.

[WestStandMoaner]

I don't know whether any of them read .net but this is my personal message to Farmer, Petrie, Dempster, Stubbs and the entire playing squad.


1. This is a football club and everything about it should begin and end with the football. I personally couldn't give a damn about trusts, supporter board members, community initiatives or anything else unless and until we have our football club back where it should be - playing in the top league and playing as, at the very least, the fifth strongest team in Scotland which is where the size of our fan base and income should see us.

2. We have failed to get out of the Championship in two successive years and in the most shameful of ways. To have finished third before the play-offs in the second year of asking with a budget very substantially bigger than all but one of our competitors is the epitome of failure. That failure reflects on each and every one of you and you should all be considering your positions.

3. This isn't just about the Championship years debacle. Prior to this three years in the wilderness we also had the other seven years which make up this decade of misery. Ever since the player revolt under Collins something somewhere has just been 'wrong'. And the succession of Paatelainen, Hughes, Calderwood, Fenlon and Butcher should have been as destructively career ending for those who appointed and tolerated them as they were for those of us punished by the consequences of their failings. This is no blip, this is what you do. This is your record.

3. We have again quite deliberately rolled the dice on an inexperienced manager and the gamble has again cost us dearly. Gambling is for fools - or those playing with other people's money. This feels like a bit of both.

4. You are now well down the path of turning this institution which we love, or have loved, into a zombie football club.

5. Talk is cheap and I for one am utterly pig sick of everything that is said by and on behalf of the club. It is all always the same round of tired and previously demonstrably false assertions and hopes. I honestly don't believe anything that is said by Hibs and its representatives any more. Laughably we have been told in two successive seasons that our objective was either to win the league or to win promotion. Neither the managerial appointment nor the player investment seems to have reflected the claims. Certainly the outcomes haven't.

6. I'm going to the final next weekend with my wife and two kids. That's quite a lot of cost and a hell of an emotional investment - just like the rest of the last 35 years. I fully and very deeply expect to return home beaten and quite probably humiliated - again. I don't say that in any intentionally dramatic way. Its just a statement of fact about what I now expect. If we win, it will be bittersweet. In truth I know that the state of our club is such that even the joy of winning the Cup would just be a sticking plaster - so thanks too for managing to suck a large amount of the joy out of any pleasure that would bring.

7. In the long term (and this already is the long term) the stewardship of this club has had two effects. Firstly it has saved the club from extinction and secondly the process by which it has done this seems to be via a football version of embalming. We don't die, but we don't get any better either. I doubt our season ticket numbers will fall too dramatically below the 5 or 6 thousand mark for a few years to come but that isn't really the problem is it? The real truth is that every season that passes like this means that should revival ever come, it will be harder and harder to grind those numbers back up the way. Dyed in the wool supporters haven't just walked away, they've been forced out by a form of emotional pain too hard to bear. No-one leaves the one they love lightly.

8. No enterprise of any sort succeeds without ambition, leadership and determination. The decade of evidence is that we have lacked all three of these.

After next weekend, regardless of the result, you should just go. Pretty much all of you.

your 100 percent spot on Petrie and Farmer should have been chased from Easter Road but they created a distraction-with HSL and community programmes etc. they have failed our club. I invest in advertising at ER I have renewed my tickets and I expect Farmer and Petrie to get their hands in their pockets and do what I do and invest. if that means breaking the bank so be it, it is their fault we are in this position . I hope we win the cup but as you say it is just a sticking plaster.

[inglisavhibs]

I don't believe it was any of the leaders of our club that cost us in the play offs. Logan's mistake, stokes misses, the refs I both games, Stevenson positioning and Grays feeble header.

Yes it's not been an overly successful period in our history. But we've not won the league since the 1950s, we've won 3 league cups since then and well we all know about the Scottish cup. So I'm not sure how people regard success for Hibs. Two cup finals is a first in my life and if we win the SC next week I will regard this season as a sucess
Spot on. Try telling my 92 year old man that the cup is just a distraction!

[Green_one]

Spot on. Try telling my 92 year old man that the cup is just a distraction!

I agree. Basically it's been short of what we ALL want but at the end of the day we need to stick to the plan A. Hibs in the premier league and winning cups. End of. We are all hurting but come next weekend ?????:flag::flag::flag:

[One Day Soon]

I agree. Basically it's been short of what we ALL want but at the end of the day we need to stick to the plan A. Hibs in the premier league and winning cups. End of. We are all hurting but come next weekend ?????:flag::flag::flag:


That's not a plan, it is two objectives. We've had a decade of failure capped by three years playing in a division where this year we finished fully eleven places below where our relative budget and support says we should be in Scottish football.

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is one definition of madness. What's changed or changing for next season?

[The Green Goblin]

That's not a plan, it is two objectives. We've had a decade of failure capped by three years playing in a division where this year we finished fully eleven places below where our relative budget and support says we should be in Scottish football.

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is one definition of madness. What's changed or changing for next season?

Hard to disagree. Another question to ask is, what has been the common denominator in our entire downward spiral?

[hibsbollah]

Hard to disagree. Another question to ask is, what has been the common denominator in our entire downward spiral?

I don't subscribe to the fact that it's been a 'downward spiral' over the last ten years. It's been Ten years of steady stagnation, reaching a nadir with the Butcher appointment, and a series of awful freak collapses late on in the season which relegated us that year. THAT was what we are recovering from. and personally I never thought getting back up would be easy. I won't mention the ridiculous bits of trademark HIBS bad luck in 2014/15 and 2015/16, sevcos position of financial power and our mitigating outstanding record in getting to the latter stages of both cups in recent years (a record that is right up there with the best in our entire history) that has conspired against us, because that always gets pulled apart on here as 'tolerating failure' or other nonsense. As if we're forbidden to look for a reason or context for our failure.

Individual fans can do what they like. Personally I'm going back for more, I hope Stubbs does too and as many players he deems good enough from the current squad he can persuade to stay, and I'm not going to start calling for revolution in the boardroom because of a width of a post or a referees whistle. That's how narrow the distance is between success and failure.

[sleeping giant]

Brilliant thread title .

[NAE NOOKIE]

I don't subscribe to the fact that it's been a 'downward spiral' over the last ten years. It's been Ten years of steady stagnation, reaching a nadir with the Butcher appointment, and a series of awful freak collapses late on in the season which relegated us that year. THAT was what we are recovering from. and personally I never thought getting back up would be easy. I won't mention the ridiculous bits of trademark HIBS bad luck in 2014/15 and 2015/16, sevcos position of financial power and our mitigating outstanding record in getting to the latter stages of both cups in recent years (a record that is right up there with the best in our entire history) that has conspired against us, because that always gets pulled apart on here as 'tolerating failure' or other nonsense. As if we're forbidden to look for a reason or context for our failure.

Individual fans can do what they like. Personally I'm going back for more, I hope Stubbs does too and as many players he deems good enough from the current squad he can persuade to stay, and I'm not going to start calling for revolution in the boardroom because of a width of a post or a referees whistle. That's how narrow the distance is between success and failure.

http://www.hibs.net/images/smilies/top%20marks.gif

[21.05.2016]

I don't subscribe to the fact that it's been a 'downward spiral' over the last ten years. It's been Ten years of steady stagnation, reaching a nadir with the Butcher appointment, and a series of awful freak collapses late on in the season which relegated us that year. THAT was what we are recovering from. and personally I never thought getting back up would be easy. I won't mention the ridiculous bits of trademark HIBS bad luck in 2014/15 and 2015/16, sevcos position of financial power and our mitigating outstanding record in getting to the latter stages of both cups in recent years (a record that is right up there with the best in our entire history) that has conspired against us, because that always gets pulled apart on here as 'tolerating failure' or other nonsense. As if we're forbidden to look for a reason or context for our failure.

Individual fans can do what they like. Personally I'm going back for more, I hope Stubbs does too and as many players he deems good enough from the current squad he can persuade to stay, and I'm not going to start calling for revolution in the boardroom because of a width of a post or a referees whistle. That's how narrow the distance is between success and failure.

This.

[keep the faith]

I don't subscribe to the fact that it's been a 'downward spiral' over the last ten years. It's been Ten years of steady stagnation, reaching a nadir with the Butcher appointment, and a series of awful freak collapses late on in the season which relegated us that year. THAT was what we are recovering from. and personally I never thought getting back up would be easy. I won't mention the ridiculous bits of trademark HIBS bad luck in 2014/15 and 2015/16, sevcos position of financial power and our mitigating outstanding record in getting to the latter stages of both cups in recent years (a record that is right up there with the best in our entire history) that has conspired against us, because that always gets pulled apart on here as 'tolerating failure' or other nonsense. As if we're forbidden to look for a reason or context for our failure.

Individual fans can do what they like. Personally I'm going back for more, I hope Stubbs does too and as many players he deems good enough from the current squad he can persuade to stay, and I'm not going to start calling for revolution in the boardroom because of a width of a post or a referees whistle. That's how narrow the distance is between success and failure.

Brilliant post and spot on.

[hibee_girl]

I don't subscribe to the fact that it's been a 'downward spiral' over the last ten years. It's been Ten years of steady stagnation, reaching a nadir with the Butcher appointment, and a series of awful freak collapses late on in the season which relegated us that year. THAT was what we are recovering from. and personally I never thought getting back up would be easy. I won't mention the ridiculous bits of trademark HIBS bad luck in 2014/15 and 2015/16, sevcos position of financial power and our mitigating outstanding record in getting to the latter stages of both cups in recent years (a record that is right up there with the best in our entire history) that has conspired against us, because that always gets pulled apart on here as 'tolerating failure' or other nonsense. As if we're forbidden to look for a reason or context for our failure.

Individual fans can do what they like. Personally I'm going back for more, I hope Stubbs does too and as many players he deems good enough from the current squad he can persuade to stay, and I'm not going to start calling for revolution in the boardroom because of a width of a post or a referees whistle. That's how narrow the distance is between success and failure.

:top marks

[green day]

ODS - apart from a few bits, agree with your OP.

Farmer saving us but leaving us stagnant with "his man" at the helm is the root of this.

[Global Hibby]

I don't subscribe to the fact that it's been a 'downward spiral' over the last ten years. It's been Ten years of steady stagnation, reaching a nadir with the Butcher appointment, and a series of awful freak collapses late on in the season which relegated us that year. THAT was what we are recovering from. and personally I never thought getting back up would be easy. I won't mention the ridiculous bits of trademark HIBS bad luck in 2014/15 and 2015/16, sevcos position of financial power and our mitigating outstanding record in getting to the latter stages of both cups in recent years (a record that is right up there with the best in our entire history) that has conspired against us, because that always gets pulled apart on here as 'tolerating failure' or other nonsense. As if we're forbidden to look for a reason or context for our failure.

Individual fans can do what they like. Personally I'm going back for more, I hope Stubbs does too and as many players he deems good enough from the current squad he can persuade to stay, and I'm not going to start calling for revolution in the boardroom because of a width of a post or a referees whistle. That's how narrow the distance is between success and failure.

Am sure you must know the famous Gary Player quote, so I won't repeat it.......winners make their own luck and losers say they have no luck.......just how many times are we going to say " bad luck"
I agree with you with how narrow the distance is between success and failure and Hibs unfortunately for a great many years now don't have a winning mentality and that distance is getting wider not narrower.

Lets hope it changes next weekend !

[SouthsideHarp_Bhoy]

ODS - apart from a few bits, agree with your OP.

Farmer saving us but leaving us stagnant with "his man" at the helm is the root of this.

I kind of agree with the op.

My issue with farmer is that he has made us meek. Either by accident or design, we are soft, we are a walkover. Were an easy team to give a horrendous decision against because we wont kick-up a stink, like most other clubs would. As time goes on Farmer increasingly diminishes his place in history.

Of course what he did will always be rememberwd, but otherwise he has led this club through a period of managed decline that now sees us at real risk of being permanantly diminished as a club. This is poor leadership, and i cant help but think our meekness, our lack of abrasiveness, our insistence on acting the correct way in a game that punishes those that do mercilessly, is all about his style and reputation.

And as for leaving petrie in there - the man most responsible for our managed decline, it is an insult.

I want to see a nasty, winning streak installed at hibs. I fear that wont happen under farmer because winning is of secondary importance to him, and that attitude pervades everything we do.

[hhibs]

I kind of agree with the op.

My issue with farmer is that he has made us meek. Either by accident or design, we are soft, we are a walkover. Were an easy team to give a horrendous decision against because we wont kick-up a stink, like most other clubs would. As time goes on Farmer increasingly diminishes his place in history.

Of course what he did will always be rememberwd, but otherwise he has led this club through a period of managed decline that now sees us at real risk of being permanantly diminished as a club. This is poor leadership, and i cant help but think our meekness, our lack of abrasiveness, our insistence on acting the correct way in a game that punishes those that do mercilessly, is all about his style and reputation.

And as for leaving petrie in there - the man most responsible for our managed decline, it is an insult.

I want to see a nasty, winning streak installed at hibs. I fear that wont happen under farmer because winning is of secondary importance to him, and that attitude pervades everything we do.


How true.

[RIP]

I kind of agree with the op.

My issue with farmer is that he has made us meek. Either by accident or design, we are soft, we are a walkover. Were an easy team to give a horrendous decision against because we wont kick-up a stink, like most other clubs would. As time goes on Farmer increasingly diminishes his place in history.

Of course what he did will always be rememberwd, but otherwise he has led this club through a period of managed decline that now sees us at real risk of being permanantly diminished as a club. This is poor leadership, and i cant help but think our meekness, our lack of abrasiveness, our insistence on acting the correct way in a game that punishes those that do mercilessly, is all about his style and reputation.

And as for leaving petrie in there - the man most responsible for our managed decline, it is an insult.

I want to see a nasty, winning streak installed at hibs. I fear that wont happen under farmer because winning is of secondary importance to him, and that attitude pervades everything we do.

Exactly. Sterile weak bland corporate management at its worst. Hibs 12th Man, Let's Work Together, Petrie Out, Forever Hibernian, Buy Hibs were all attempts to win the club back from the zombies. None were perfect but all were attempts by supporters who were prepared to do more that carp online.

If we continue to sit on our hands what will be our fate?

[familyman]

Yes words well expressed and thought through I agree almost totally.
It is frustrating watching this once great club fade away,rhetoric is worth nothing and constant repeating of the same managerial comments
is no help at all.
Raith ,Falkirk and (gulp) Hearts have do so very well on very little cash, why can we not do the same..?.get the right people in the right roles..we have seen it done...
Firstly we need a team for the league we are in ,one that is down to earth ,positive for 90 mins and giving 100%,plenty steel and if needs be less pretty passing can be replaced with pace and accurate passing!!!no journeymen please.
Watching Falkirk how often did they give the ball away, how often did we give the ball away?
Our club is supposed to be on the edge of greatness ,well certainly we are on the edge alright!!!!
Come on Hibs for goodness sake wake up ,we have been through enough of this nonsense.

[familyman]

:top marks
yes we all know how close it can be, a daft ref decision,injuries etc .. that is exactly why we need to win and win well and finish first!!!
it is expected of such a large club is it not?

[Trainor]

I don't know whether any of them read .net but this is my personal message to Farmer, Petrie, Dempster, Stubbs and the entire playing squad.


1. This is a football club and everything about it should begin and end with the football. I personally couldn't give a damn about trusts, supporter board members, community initiatives or anything else unless and until we have our football club back where it should be - playing in the top league and playing as, at the very least, the fifth strongest team in Scotland which is where the size of our fan base and income should see us.

2. We have failed to get out of the Championship in two successive years and in the most shameful of ways. To have finished third before the play-offs in the second year of asking with a budget very substantially bigger than all but one of our competitors is the epitome of failure. That failure reflects on each and every one of you and you should all be considering your positions.

3. This isn't just about the Championship years debacle. Prior to this three years in the wilderness we also had the other seven years which make up this decade of misery. Ever since the player revolt under Collins something somewhere has just been 'wrong'. And the succession of Paatelainen, Hughes, Calderwood, Fenlon and Butcher should have been as destructively career ending for those who appointed and tolerated them as they were for those of us punished by the consequences of their failings. This is no blip, this is what you do. This is your record.

3. We have again quite deliberately rolled the dice on an inexperienced manager and the gamble has again cost us dearly. Gambling is for fools - or those playing with other people's money. This feels like a bit of both.

4. You are now well down the path of turning this institution which we love, or have loved, into a zombie football club.

5. Talk is cheap and I for one am utterly pig sick of everything that is said by and on behalf of the club. It is all always the same round of tired and previously demonstrably false assertions and hopes. I honestly don't believe anything that is said by Hibs and its representatives any more. Laughably we have been told in two successive seasons that our objective was either to win the league or to win promotion. Neither the managerial appointment nor the player investment seems to have reflected the claims. Certainly the outcomes haven't.

6. I'm going to the final next weekend with my wife and two kids. That's quite a lot of cost and a hell of an emotional investment - just like the rest of the last 35 years. I fully and very deeply expect to return home beaten and quite probably humiliated - again. I don't say that in any intentionally dramatic way. Its just a statement of fact about what I now expect. If we win, it will be bittersweet. In truth I know that the state of our club is such that even the joy of winning the Cup would just be a sticking plaster - so thanks too for managing to suck a large amount of the joy out of any pleasure that would bring.

7. In the long term (and this already is the long term) the stewardship of this club has had two effects. Firstly it has saved the club from extinction and secondly the process by which it has done this seems to be via a football version of embalming. We don't die, but we don't get any better either. I doubt our season ticket numbers will fall too dramatically below the 5 or 6 thousand mark for a few years to come but that isn't really the problem is it? The real truth is that every season that passes like this means that should revival ever come, it will be harder and harder to grind those numbers back up the way. Dyed in the wool supporters haven't just walked away, they've been forced out by a form of emotional pain too hard to bear. No-one leaves the one they love lightly.

8. No enterprise of any sort succeeds without ambition, leadership and determination. The decade of evidence is that we have lacked all three of these.

After next weekend, regardless of the result, you should just go. Pretty much all of you.

Magnificent post!

[matty_f]

I don't subscribe to the fact that it's been a 'downward spiral' over the last ten years. It's been Ten years of steady stagnation, reaching a nadir with the Butcher appointment, and a series of awful freak collapses late on in the season which relegated us that year. THAT was what we are recovering from. and personally I never thought getting back up would be easy. I won't mention the ridiculous bits of trademark HIBS bad luck in 2014/15 and 2015/16, sevcos position of financial power and our mitigating outstanding record in getting to the latter stages of both cups in recent years (a record that is right up there with the best in our entire history) that has conspired against us, because that always gets pulled apart on here as 'tolerating failure' or other nonsense. As if we're forbidden to look for a reason or context for our failure.

Individual fans can do what they like. Personally I'm going back for more, I hope Stubbs does too and as many players he deems good enough from the current squad he can persuade to stay, and I'm not going to start calling for revolution in the boardroom because of a width of a post or a referees whistle. That's how narrow the distance is between success and failure.

I love this post. :agree:

[matty_f]

Brilliant thread title .

I love this post too. :agree:

[The Green Goblin]

I don't subscribe to the fact that it's been a 'downward spiral' over the last ten years. It's been Ten years of steady stagnation, reaching a nadir with the Butcher appointment, and a series of awful freak collapses late on in the season which relegated us that year. THAT was what we are recovering from. and personally I never thought getting back up would be easy. I won't mention the ridiculous bits of trademark HIBS bad luck in 2014/15 and 2015/16, sevcos position of financial power and our mitigating outstanding record in getting to the latter stages of both cups in recent years (a record that is right up there with the best in our entire history) that has conspired against us, because that always gets pulled apart on here as 'tolerating failure' or other nonsense. As if we're forbidden to look for a reason or context for our failure.

Individual fans can do what they like. Personally I'm going back for more, I hope Stubbs does too and as many players he deems good enough from the current squad he can persuade to stay, and I'm not going to start calling for revolution in the boardroom because of a width of a post or a referees whistle. That's how narrow the distance is between success and failure.

I know what you are saying, and yes, I am not going anywhere either, but after yet another night like last night, it just feels like a steady downwards trajectory at times. But the stagnation you mentioned needs to be addressed and turned around. If we are looking to identify what is wrong, then that is also a constant, is it not?

[One Day Soon]

I don't subscribe to the fact that it's been a 'downward spiral' over the last ten years. It's been Ten years of steady stagnation, reaching a nadir with the Butcher appointment, and a series of awful freak collapses late on in the season which relegated us that year. THAT was what we are recovering from. and personally I never thought getting back up would be easy. I won't mention the ridiculous bits of trademark HIBS bad luck in 2014/15 and 2015/16, sevcos position of financial power and our mitigating outstanding record in getting to the latter stages of both cups in recent years (a record that is right up there with the best in our entire history) that has conspired against us, because that always gets pulled apart on here as 'tolerating failure' or other nonsense. As if we're forbidden to look for a reason or context for our failure.

Individual fans can do what they like. Personally I'm going back for more, I hope Stubbs does too and as many players he deems good enough from the current squad he can persuade to stay, and I'm not going to start calling for revolution in the boardroom because of a width of a post or a referees whistle. That's how narrow the distance is between success and failure.


I don't want revolution in the boardroom, I just want competent people doing their jobs competently.

I think you are missing part of the point here. This isn't about the narrow distance between success and failure in eg two play off games against Falkirk due to a post width or referees whistle. This is about the 5th biggest club in Scotland, measured by budget and/or support, serially failing to achieve what it should. In the past three years that serial failure is exemplified by relegation, failure to be promoted and then failure to be promoted. This isn't anything to do with 'bad luck' or post width or referee whistle, this is to do with massively under performing across entire seasons.

The under performance across each of these seasons is what has led us to being at the mercy of a post width or a referee's whistle in sudden death games over relegation and promotion. Games which our club's resources should see us never being exposed to if we were being led and managed competently.

We finished level with Falkirk and just 8 points ahead of Raith Rovers. We finished there because the current manager didn't recruit as well as he needed to, could not adjust his in-game tactics and formations, made late and odd substitutions, could not coach his defence to stop leaking daft goals (over two seasons) and failed to get the squad he did have to consistently play to the standard they should have been capable of achieving. By the time we reached the desperation stakes of play-offs last year and this, it was impossible to argue that we were a substantially better team than those we had to play. That in itself is a major indictment, never mind any hope of actually winning the Championship in either season.

[Saint Hibee]

The Slovenian philosopher Zizek wrote a book called "First as Tragedy, then as Farce." It would be a good title for an account of our decline. It's the predictability with which things go wrong that is most depressing. Not one of the Hibs fans I was watching last night's game with seemed surprised at the outcome.

[Criswell]

Getting relegated in the first place should never have been allowed to happen and it could not have come at a worst time. It's too easy to put the blame solely on Butcher. For me it was it was the result of failure to put any real investment into the playing side over many years that led to the relegation. The attitude seemed to have been; if he's cheap enough he's good enough. Never has a false economy been more exemplified!

[hibsbollah]

I don't want revolution in the boardroom, I just want competent people doing their jobs competently.

I think you are missing part of the point here. This isn't about the narrow distance between success and failure in eg two play off games against Falkirk due to a post width or referees whistle. This is about the 5th biggest club in Scotland, measured by budget and/or support, serially failing to achieve what it should. In the past three years that serial failure is exemplified by relegation, failure to be promoted and then failure to be promoted. This isn't anything to do with 'bad luck' or post width or referee whistle, this is to do with massively under performing across entire seasons.

The under performance across each of these seasons is what has led us to being at the mercy of a post width or a referee's whistle in sudden death games over relegation and promotion. Games which our club's resources should see us never being exposed to if we were being led and managed competently.

We finished level with Falkirk and just 8 points ahead of Raith Rovers. We finished there because the current manager didn't recruit as well as he needed to, could not adjust his in-game tactics and formations, made late and odd substitutions, could not coach his defence to stop leaking daft goals (over two seasons) and failed to get the squad he did have to consistently play to the standard they should have been capable of achieving. By the time we reached the desperation stakes of play-offs last year and this, it was impossible to argue that we were a substantially better team than those we had to play. That in itself is a major indictment, never mind any hope of actually winning the Championship in either season.

Some unarguable facts, a lot of hyperbole and some opinions on slightly shaky ground (Stubbs successfully changed his tactics and personnel a number of times this season, for example).

Your first sentence is really where it's at. Specifically, what is it that Leanne (or anyone else at boardroom level) is doing incompetently?

[Matty_Jack04]

I don't believe it was any of the leaders of our club that cost us in the play offs. Logan's mistake, stokes misses, the refs I both games, Stevenson positioning and Grays feeble header.

Yes it's not been an overly successful period in our history. But we've not won the league since the 1950s, we've won 3 league cups since then and well we all know about the Scottish cup. So I'm not sure how people regard success for Hibs. Two cup finals is a first in my life and if we win the SC next week I will regard this season as a sucess

:agree: Spot on