Originally Posted by
Purple & Green
Harper scored 50 times in 99 games for Hibs. Whilst maybe not as good as what had gone before, it doesn't really scream failure.
What I would add, and this is slightly before my time, is that my feeling was that selling Stanton disconnected (for want of a better word) the club and support. The transfer was probably one of the better ones replacing a player coming to the end of his career with one who would go onto be the heart of the team for the following decade but I think it went down very badly with the fans.
In fact, I know many Hibs fans who claim that they've never been back to ER since Stantons testimonial. I've even tried to get a few back, but with no success.
What I can provide to back this up is the average attendances prior to Stanton leaving:
70/71 Pre Turnbull 10,541
71/72 14,057
72/73 16,100
73/74 14,339
74/75 13,721
75/76 13,797 (first year of 10 team SPL)
Stanton sold at start of 76/77 season
76/77 10,003 (This represents a drop of 28% on the season before)
77/78 9,950
78/79 9,794
It would 1987/88 before we would break 10k again.