Hibs v Hearts: Here we go again

Jason Cummings is "buzzing". Prince Buaben is ready to face the "chaser." And Fraser Aird would rather be watching Coronation Street.

Bad news for Fraser. The omnibus of goings on in Weatherfield will finish on ITV2+1 a full ten minutes before kick off at Easter Road. Maybe there's a soap opera closer to home to distract him.

The second Edinburgh derby of this Championship season is upon is.

The form book is supposed to crash out of the window. But the bookies still have Hearts as favourites.

I don't understand how the bookmakers calculate such things. But I'd reckon the 14 point lead Hearts have over Hibs has something to do with it.

And their 10 game unbeaten run. And three wins from the last three derbies.

Hibs themselves are four games undefeated since their 3-1 win at Ibrox. But last week's 4-0 win at Livingston followed two home draws with Raith Rovers and Dumbarton.

Nine wins from ten games is good going. Four wins from ten games isn't so much.

And Hibs have made a stuttering start to the season, handicapped by a disrupted summer.

History doesn't much help either.

This week Pat Stanton told the BBC:

"Too often, Hearts just seem to brush Hibs aside, there's no real resistance. It's almost been inevitable that Hearts would beat us, and Hibs have accepted it."

And on his blog David Farrell wrote:

"I never felt as a team we were ever as fired up as Hearts were. They were snarling and scratching at you from the tunnel onto the pitch. They were pressing all over us, people like Sandison, Black, Kidd, Mackay, Levein and Robertson galvanising and pushing each other. Make no mistake, they were angrier than us. They were ready for a derby, ready for a scrap."

That sums up the historical drift of these games. Recent history too: Hibs have won just 10 of the last 44.

It's true that this season's opening derby at Tynecastle might have been a very different game if Liam Craig had scored his first half penalty.

He didn't. And Hearts, as so often before, took advantage.

So, having left myself thoroughly depressed, what do I see happening at Easter Road today?

I'll be looking to see that form book hurled through a window. I'll be looking to see Hibs play with a pace and incisiveness that hasn't always been evident at Easter Road this season. Too often at home Hibs have done right the things but at such a pedestrian speed that they've been rendered blunt.

I'll be looking to Hibs give their fans something to cheer about.

And, at the end of 90 minutes, I'd be happy to see a draw.

It's all about the money

The BBC's annual Price of Football survey is always guaranteed to generate plenty of chat.

Chat that normally concludes: "The price of football? It's far too expensive."

Which at many clubs it almost certainly is.

The clubs argue that the survey offers no more than a snapshot, a glib spot of attention seeking that ignore the bigger picture.

Hibs, for example, suggested that the headline figure of £405 for an adult season ticket is offset by special deals like £1 offers for children.

(I, like Whitney Houston, believe children are the future. But unless I can borrow one for matchdays, I can't actually benefit from those deals. A lot of people are in the same position. Football's hidden discrimination against the childless is worthy of investigation.)

Is football value for money? Its fiscal beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

How can you even measure value for money? Cost per home win? (So far this season that's £202.50 for me at Easter Road.) Cost per home goal? (So far £67.50).

If you thought about value for money, you probably wouldn't bother going to games.

Supporting a team doesn't work like that.

What the Price of Football survey actually raises is yet another split between clubs and fans.

Clubs operate as businesses. Fans don't - usually - see themselves as consumers.

The more far sighted clubs will try and bridge that gap. But most still use it in the most dastardly way possible to wring every last drop of cash out of supporters. You'll pay for your loyalty, they'll make sure of it.

And fans tend to let them get on with it if the team is performing. It's the rank rotten football of the last few seasons that has left many fans drifting away from Easter Road, not the cost of watching it.

Maybe fans do have a tipping point though. Just last Saturday a revived Scotland were under supported against Georgia at Ibrox.

You might have put money on the befuddled SFA being the organisation that finally pushed its fans too far.

Because that's the one power fans have: to not turn up.

Unfortunately for many people that option is actually worse than going and paying inflated prices.

It's "our" team. And what else would we do on a Saturday afternoon anyway?

So we let the clubs get away with it.

And so it goes on. Until next year. When the BBC Price of Football 2015 will reveal exactly the same thing again.

The pies have it

One thing that is in my control - a boycott of the catering kiosks at Easter Road.

I give them chance after chance.

Last Saturday I bought a pie. Here are the results of my exclusive survey:

Queuing time: 16 minutes
Cost: £2.30
Taste: 0/10
Enjoyment time: 0 seconds

Never again. And this time I really mean it.

Hibs: The poll of polls

It's been a couple of months since I wrote about Rod Petrie.

And that's because I've moved on.

So have Hibs. Leeann Demptster is in charge. Changing personnel to empower Alan Stubbs.

Empowering him to a win at Ibrox no less.

So all is well in Leith and Easter Road is again basking in that singsong sunshine?

It's actually amazing how much difference a good result can make.

Hibs have had two. That 3-1 win at Ibrox came hot on the heels of a 2-0 win at Ross County. A struggling Ross County, but a win and a clean sheet on an away trip that has too often proved a miserable journey is to be welcomed.

When I wrote yesterday that I skipped down the platform at Newcastle station on hearing that Hibs were 3-0 up I might have been guilty of exaggerating.

But not that much. While I might have lacked the unbridled gaiety of a Victorian schoolgirl given a glowing report by her house mistress, I certainly had the spring of a pretty chuffed young gentleman in my step.

But discontent remains. Since the anti-Petrie rally that greeted Leeann Dempster's arrival in the summer I've been at a seemingly endless series of meetings.

Some have been organised by fans, one was organised by the club itself.

All have focused - more or less - on plotting a future for Hibs in the post  Sir Tom Farmer era.

(Unless something changes in the next few months - and it might just - we can take the post Sir Tom Farmer era as being the same as the post Petrie era. They go together like rama lama lama ka dinga da dinga dong.)

And, because having their say in the most important decision Scotland has faced since 1707 wasn't enough, Hibs fans have also been surveyed, canvassed and grilled.

Hibs themselves polled fans on issues like fan representation on the board, fan membership schemes and fans getting involved in the ownership of the club.

And Supporters Direct Scotland surveyed fans on issues like fan membership schemes and fans getting involved in the ownership of the club.

Which does all sound a bit like two dogs pulling at opposite ends of the same bone.

Maybe common ground will be found. Maybe not.

In the meantime the fans have shown that they've got opinions and they're happy to share them.

Hibs haven't yet announced the results of their survey. Supporters Direct Scotland (with the advantage of an earlier closing date) have.

Over 4000 people completed the survey. In this era of astounding turnouts Supporters Direct Scotland claim that as the biggest response they've ever had for a survey about with a Scottish club.

The results:

It is known that the current owners are willing to discuss change and offers have been made. Do you believe it is time for supporters to discuss the ownership of Hibernian and look at different options going forward?

• Yes - 84%
• No - 10%
• Don’t know - 6%

Would you be interested in attending an event where clubs such as Borussia Dortmund, Portsmouth and Dunfermline share how their ownership models work and the experiences they've had?

• Yes - 69%
• No - 18%
• Don’t know - 13%

If fans got the chance to become more involved in the ownership and running of the club, would you be willing to join a membership scheme to provide extra income?

• Yes - 68%
• No - 20%
• Don’t know - 12%

If so where would you prefer the income to be spent? Player Squad, Youth Academy or stadia and facilities?

• Player squad - 73%
• Youth Academy - 13%
• Stadia and Facilities - 7%
• Other - 7%

Do you agree that Easter Road Stadium should be safeguarded as the future of Hibernian Football Club and any decision to change this must be made by the supporters?

• Yes - 80%
• No - 16%
• Don’t know - 4%

So a majority of fans believe in fan ownership but a smaller majority would be willing to pay up to join a membership scheme. A majority of fans think money should spent on the team (plus ça change) and an oddly sizeable 16% don't think Easter Road should be safeguarded.

What does it all mean?

It's not a comprehensive poll of the Hibs support. But, until the club release their own results, it is the largest survey of the Hibs support that's been shared publicly.

The fans want change. There is not - and will never be, unless something drastic (more drastic than relegation?) happens - 100% agreement that the Farmer-Petrie duopoly should be chased out forthwith.

All of which ties in with the conversations I've had over the last few months, the last few seasons and the last few years.

Rod Petrie still has some faithful followers but those numbers are dwindling.

There is more appreciation than loathing for Sir Tom Farmer but an increasing consensus that his time as sole owner, sole "benefactor," is coming to a close.

There's an interest in fan ownership but genuine questions and concerns over what that means.

There is also a real desire to see the fans and representatives of the various fans groups that came together at the time of the Petrie Out rally to offer more leadership and operate with more transparency - both things that many people have wanted the club itself to offer more of in recent years.

I've written before about the disconnect between football club and fans at Hibs.

A survey generated by a group that represents fans and a survey generated by the football club might just show how much common ground there is between the two.

At the same time, because the two surveys are seen as "official" and "unofficial," the process of finding that common ground risks increasing the disconnect.

Nothing's ever simple at Easter Road.

What's next?

The club will, I'd expect, release the findings of their survey and perhaps outline a provisional plan of action based on those findings to coincide with the upcoming AGM.

The Hibs fans willing to play an active role outside any proposals from the club should be emboldened by the Supporters Direct Survey. But they should also realise that things have to move on from endless meetings and ad hoc attacks on Rod Petrie.

That they are "unofficial" but have a very real emotional attachment to club should be a positive. Their approach need to reflect that.

There will continue to be stories in the press about this "successful entrepreneur" or that "rich businessman" being interested in buying Hibs. Both the club and the fans have every right to be extremely wary of any such characters.

And there is a risk that the club and those fans willing to back an "unofficial" grassroots movement become ever more divided even as survey and counter-survey suggests they've got a lot in common.

They'll struggle to work together on a positive future as long as what many people - myself included - see as relics of the past remain on board and, indeed, on the board. That's an unfortunate stumbling block but one that raises such big issues of trust that it can't be ignored.

We are surely in the end game of Sir Tom Farmer and Rod Petrie having control of the majority of Hibernian Football Club's shares.

Unfortunately, we're no clearer on what things will look like when that end game has played itself it out.

The future's unclear, the future's green and white.

Happy birthday Pat Stanton

I know best.

No, I know best.

Really?

We'll run a poll and find out.

OK. But if you're running a poll I'll run a poll as well.

My poll's better than your poll.

It's not the future of the country.

Hibs are more complicated than that.

So we seek solace in our heroes.

The Famous Five.

Joe Baker.

Turnbull's Tornadoes.

And, from Turnbull's Tornadoes, the main man.

Mr Hibs.

Hibs fan. Hibs player. Hibs manager. Hibs ambassador. Hibs legend.

Pat Stanton.

70 today.

Hibs will celebrate his birthday. He'll be roared onto the pitch.

Roared onto the pitch by guys that grew up with him, who saw him live their dreams.

And roared onto the pitch by those of us who didn't see him. Denied by birth.

Lucky enough, maybe, to see a Sauzee vintage, a Latapy vintage. Or maybe a Mowbray vintage when youth ruled the world and Rod Petrie was a younger man.

We'll rely on fathers to explain to sons how good Pat Stanton was. Or, as time marches on, maybe it's now grandfathers explaining to grandchildren how good Pat Stanton was.

I'm too young (yes, that's true) to have seen Pat Stanton play football.

My first memory of him is a sad one:

Hibs sacking him as manager.

That's a thing Hibs have done over the years.

Sack managers.

I remember my brother, older than me but only eight then, writing a letter to Hibs berating them for treating a legend like that.

The letter would be ignored. That's been Hibs for too long as well.

I never saw Pat Stanton play. But this week I can't walk half a yard on Easter Road without bumping into someone and having to ask:

"How good was Pat Stanton?"

"Fucking brilliant."

Fucking brilliant.

My legs get a bit wobbly whenever I see Pat Stanton. He talks about Hibs - he points out what's going wrong, what could be improved, how simple steps could solve big problems.

And I think "why can't Pat Stanton be in charge of everything Hibs do?"

His love of Hibs comes through constantly. And maybe, as much as it's nice to dream, it's too much love to run a football club.

But our greatest player? Our greatest ambassador who should have a bigger role in our Petrie-fied landscape?

Probably.

Greatness recognises greatness: Jock Stein took Pat Stanton to Celtic. Pat won medals, Hibs got Jackie McNamara and everyone was - eventually - happy.

Pat Stanton got medals because Jock Stein wanted to sign him.

That might say it all.

Hibs shouldn't need to ask thousands of people to turn out for him for free. Thousands should turn out for him without the freebie.

He was that good.

This summer he was prepared to stand up and say exactly how it felt to see his team relegated, prepared to say it because he's never lost the determination, the pain, the struggle of being a Hibs fan.

He was prepared to put his head above the parapet. Not being overly political, not being particularly militant but being passionately critical as he remembered what had once made his football club a great club. The genius looking forlornly at the mess that followed him - could anybody at Easter Road use that against him?

They wouldn't dare.

When I meet Pat Stanton I'm starstruck. Every time. And I've met him a lot. It's embarrassing for me, it could be worse for him.

But that's not Pat. I really just need to look at his approach to life and study his demeanour to be reassured me that I'm just meeting a fellow Hibs fan.

I'll still feel awkward though. Because I'm meeting the best of us.

He's a modest man with very little to be modest about. He could scream his brilliance from the rooftops.

He won't.

But he should.

Hibs have given their fans the opportunity to do that for him today.

And, as bad as things might be, it's an opportunity that shouldn't be missed.

Hibs: What's next?

Back in March as I considered Terry Butcher’s impact at Hibs for Norway's pre-eminent Hibernian fanzine, I wrote that, were the unthinkable relegation to happen, I'd:

“Go down to North Berwick and cast him adrift off the Bass Rock myself.”

At the time I thought he’d avoid relegation. I was wrong.

And now he has been cast adrift. He might not be floating off the Fife coast but Butcher has gone. The latest in a long line of Hibs managers to hurry or be harried to the exit door with unseemly haste.

It was hard to see how he could survive. Relegation is bad enough but the nature of this relegation, that awful run of form, the failure of everything Butcher tried, made it even worse. This wasn't a plucky manager inspiring a struggling team as they narrowly failed to pull off a great escape.

This was a manager of a team that was limited but apparently safe. A manager tunnelling that team right back into the heart of trouble.

Would Pat Fenlon have kept Hibs up? On the evidence his part season he would have. On the evidence of all his time in charge it's a moot point, Fenlon would in all likelihood have run into another dip in form and Rod Petrie would have let him go before he got the chance to preside over a run as calamitous as Butcher's. For all that his recent interviews have suggested Fenlon feels somewhat vindicated, he would probably also admit that he was running out of lives at Hibs.

So Fenlon went and Butcher arrived. And shortly after beating Hearts at the start of the year it went horribly wrong. So horribly wrong that Raith Rovers have enjoyed as many victories at Easter Road as Hibs have in 2014. It feels like achieving that sort of statistical anomaly is so difficult as to be almost impressive.

Butcher’s experience at Inverness - down, straight back up and consolidated in the Premiership - looked to be his trump card in the fight to keep his job. On the other hand he wasn't brought to Hibs to battle his way into and then out of the Championship.

Terry Butcher was a wretched manager for Hibs. That's the succinct story of his time at Easter Road. His impact might be long remembered but there won't be much fondness. Talking the talk, he looked like someone who could galvanise a club that seems to drift rather than plan, panic rather than strategise. He failed at almost every turn.

Yesterday he paid the price.

But, if form dictated that this was the most justified of any of the multitude of Easter Road dismissals, Hibs now stand at another crossroads. And don't, as yet, give much impression of knowing where they're going. They've lost their Premiership status, they've lost their manager and you do wonder if they've also lost the plot.

14 players have been shipped out since relegation. Others look like following.

Pre-season training is just weeks away.

Season ticket sales have slowed.

Not enough players, no manager, reduced funds and the added cost of the Butcher experiment going haywire.

The malaise is amplified by the ongoing desire to see the back of Rod Petrie, a campaign that seems to have struck a chord with a hefty enough chunk of the support.

While many among the Petrie Out camp will be glad to see the back of Terry Butcher they'll also have noted that Rod Petrie's name cropped up in yesterday's statement from the club.

Does Rod Petrie’s non-involvement, the stepping back from the front line that has been promised in this latest summer of change, actually involve Rod being somewhat involved after all?

Did Rod simply let Terry Butcher have the awkward conversations with the departing players then let new chief executive Leeann Dempster have the awkward conversation with the departing Terry Butcher without ever planning to relinquish that much control?

Everything about Rod Petrie these days is open to interpretation and conjecture. And most of the conclusions aren't that charitable. At best he's now a distraction that Hibs could do without. Terry Butcher has to be his last expensive mistake.

The feeling within Easter Road might have been that sacking Butcher two weeks on from relegation would be a way of lancing the boil, letting some of the vitriol aimed at Petrie drain away.

If that was the plan, I’m not so sure it’s going to work.

Yesterday Leeann Dempster gave the impression of being unhurried in both the decision to dismiss Butcher and in the hunt for his successor. You have to hope she was bluffing.

I’d like to think work has being going on behind the scenes, the sort of work that could see a new manager unveiled by the end of the week. A new non-executive chairman would also be a boost and, at the very least, remove Rod Petrie from the public eye.

Then Leeann Dempster and her new appointment need to offer a coherent and cohesive long term plan while bringing in players as quickly as possible.

That’s a hell of a job. Getting it right could offer a new dawn. Get it wrong and Hibs will continue to stumble around in the darkness.

Hibs: 10 reasons for supporting Petrie Out

It's not unknown for me to shout at the world on Twitter.

Sometimes people shout back. @AberdeenFCBlog1 did this week, showing off Aberdeen's top ten moments of the season.

"That's a good idea," I thought.

"I'll do a top ten moments of the season list for Hibs."

And here it is.

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
...

I could go on but you get the idea. (With apologies to Len Shackleton.)

If Easter Road's recent history has been one of gradual decline, 2014 has been the year of total collapse.

When you spend season after season stumbling about in the bottom six there is always a risk that you'll eventually end up falling through the trapdoor. And Hibs did.

Frankly I've found it all more depressing than is probably healthy.

And in the interests of full disclosure...

Usually I prefer armchair activism. Protesting looks to involve too much effort or just too much standing about.

And, as a moaner, there's always the temptation to avoid agitating for change because of the satisfaction to be had from moaning about the consequences of the status quo.

But this week I've been warming up my placard carrying arm, resting my vocal chords and waking my militant tendencies from hibernation.

So this morning, when I should be sitting in front of the TV finding out if James Martin's c-list celebrity guest is facing food heaven or food hell, I'll be going to Easter Road to join the protest against Rod Petrie.

And, in the spirit of top ten lists, here's why:

1. The obvious

Hibs got relegated on Rod Petrie's watch. And not for the first time.

This could really be reasons 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10.

How did that happen? We had a trophy, we had a training centre, we had a new stand. We had a leader in the boardroom who could turn promising youngsters into balance sheet boosting assets.

What went wrong? Bad decision followed bad decision. Dischord grew unchecked. The man who made a mint on the golden generation suddenly found himself paying off more players than he sold.

The leadership failed and the failure infected the whole club. The endgame was 120 minutes and penalties against Hamilton.

2. The guilt

Since Hibs got relegated Rod Petrie has made no concessions about his part in the fiasco - Leeann Dempster's arrival has been trumpeted but we already knew that was happening.

The last time Hibs got relegated Lex Gold resigned as chairman, thinking it the honourable thing to do.

Lex Gold. A man who many people think would be kicked out of the snake oil salesman's union for being just that bit too sneaky.

Lex Gold. Looking down on Rod Petrie from the moral high ground.

3. The positive

Leeann Dempster's arrival is A Good Thing.

She doesn't need Rod Petrie showing her the ropes.

In fact, for the winds of change to properly blast through Easter Road, her job will be easier if Rod Petrie isn't there. Staff will be free to tell her how the ancien régime failed without fear or favour.

4. The alternative

I wouldn't withdraw my financial support from Hibs. Going to the games, meeting mates before, during and after the games. That's part of my life.

I wouldn't want to change it, despite the horrendous football I have to endure.

Protesting today seem to be a less destructive way of getting my point across than giving up my season ticket.

5. The divide

For years now Hibs have availed themselves of the services of David Forsyth from Benchmark PR. 

Is his role to promote the benefit of Petrie-ism? Tache-ism's spin doctor in chief?

Is his role to build a better relationship between the club and the fans? 

Maybe it's both. But whatever way you look at it he's failed.

Rod Petrie is held in disdain by many. The divide between the club and the fans and the wider community is huge and growing. 

Today the fans will be able to show Leeann Dempster how deeply they care about Hibs. It won't help her if Rod Petrie and his hired buffer stand in the way of her harnessing that passion.

6. The legend

Pat Stanton is backing the protest. That's pretty much good enough for me.

Speak to Pat Stanton for five minutes.

Then speak to Rod Petrie for five minutes.

Only one of them truly understands what Hibs were, what Hibs are and what Hibs could be again.

7. The conduit

Rod Petrie has a stake in Hibs and/or the mishmash of holding companies that sit above the football club. Sir Tom Farmer owns a bigger stake.

Sir Tom needs Rod Petrie as a "conduit"?

Why?

Could a respected figure not be found to take over as chairman of the football club and act as a "conduit" for both Sir Tom and Rod Petrie?

If Rod Petrie isn't actively involved then he can get his information the same way Sir Tom Farmer gets his information.

8. The tipping point

Prime Ministers often lose cabinet minister because they've done something really stupid or really wrong. 

But sometimes they lose cabinet ministers simply because the public perception is that they've done something really stupid or really wrong. When that happens the cabinet minister becomes a liability and the situation becomes irreparable. 

That is now the relationship between Rod Petrie and large sections of the Hibs support.

Whether you believe he is wholly culpable, partially culpable or not culpable at all (I'd go for greatly culpable) the reality is that he isn't trusted and he won't be trusted again.

Rod Petrie apologises for the situation Hibs find themselves in? Who cares, he's said sorry before. Doesn't change anything. 

Rod Petrie is stepping back from day-to-day involvement? Who cares, he's said he's stepping back before. Doesn't change anything. 

Rod Petrie promises Hibs will improve? Who cares, he's said Hibs will improve before. We got worse. 

As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, Rod Petrie is now a toxic brand. 

For the good of the club - and for the good of his stake in the club - he has to remove himself and allow the rebuilding process to begin without him.

9. The passion

Why are the organisers of today's rally doing it? 

Ego? Self-interest? A basic lack of other activities with which to keep themselves occupied? Because they genuinely love Hibs? 

I don't know for sure. But I do know that people have been working tirelessly to mobilise fans to demand change. And in the last couple of weeks I've seen more passion from them than I've seen on or off the pitch at Hibs for quite some time. 

Do they have all the answers? Probably not. Are they motivated by real concern for the situation Hibs are in? Definitely. 

Are they determined to do everything they can to remove the influence of the man they see as largely responsible for the decline of recent seasons and for the malaise that shrouds the whole club? Undoubtedly.

10. The greater good

"Rod Petrie won't leave Hibs because he'd lose his role at the SFA." 

So under Rod Petrie's leadership Hibs have become nothing more than a way of hitching a ride to the VIP lounge at Hampden? That's just marvellous, such a positive reason for him remaining at the club. 

But I love Scottish football. Rod Petrie's failed my club. I don't want him having any power or influence across the wider Scottish game. In which case #Petrieout is a demand for the whole of Scotland.

That's why I'll be at Easter Road today.

Will I be on my own, will there be 50 people there? 500? 1000? More?

I don't know. Will it make a difference? Maybe not.

Is it worth doing to show how much people care about the club and how deeply they feel the betrayal of relegation? Absolutely.

Recovering is going to be a long, hard slog for Hibs. It will be easier without the man who season after season, bad decision after bad decision led us to the pain of last season.

Rod Petrie: Time's up

I'm not much of a letter writer. But events at Easter Road yesterday inspired an anger that could only be assuaged by a) downing a bottle of vodka and hurling the empty through a window at Easter Road or b) penning a note to Rod Petrie.

Football has damaged my liver quite enough though. And supporting a team shouldn't really lead to criminal proceedings. So letter writing seemed the sensible choice.

Of course, once I'd written the damn thing, I imagined Rodders sitting in his office, fingers gently fondling his mowser, deciding whether the incensed verbiage of the fans should be burnt or retained to make paper aeroplanes to throw at Stewart Regan during his next very, very important SFA committee meeting.

So I thought I'd just publish it on the blog instead:

Dear Rod

I note with interest your statement to Hibernian supporters. It seems that you feel you must remain involved as chairman to ensure a sound "transition" after promising that the "winds of change" would blow through the club this summer.

"Transition" is an interesting choice of word.

Because you have overseen our "transition" from a trophy winning side with an ambitious young manager into the shadow of a team that we saw yesterday.

And make no mistake, yesterday was not a one off. In fact it seemed horribly inevitable.

What other result could we expect from a club that now seems to embrace failure with agonising frequency?

The club that loses cup finals 5-1 to its oldest rivals, the club that paints a 3-0 defeat in a cup final as some sort of moral victory because it's not as bad as losing 5-1.

The club that loses 7-0 at home against a solid, if hardly world beating, Swedish side. The same club that led Scottish football into Europe, succumbing to a record defeat.

The club that, for fans of other teams across the country, has become a figure of fun.

Given your stolid demeanour in public it seems cruelly ironic that under your stewardship you've created the biggest joke in Scottish football.

It's true that we've got a fantastic stadium. One day in the future I hope we can fill it again.

It's true that we've got a fantastic training centre. One day in the future I hope we stumble across a recruitment policy that identifies players worthy of making the most of such facilities.

It's also true that we've avoided the dangers of financial mismanagement that cost Hearts dearly this season.

Unfortunately we couldn't take advantage of the safety net that their 15 point deduction offered us. And now we find ourselves facing Hearts in the second tier of Scottish football: Hibs reeling from the pain of such huge failure, Hearts champing at the bit to get the season started.

Throw in the psychological advantage that their recent superiority on the pitch has given them and it's completely understandable that some Hibs fans are dreading having to face them next season.

And this is perhaps your greatest failure. You built the infrastructure, you sat back and watched as first Rangers and then Hearts slipped into a financial morass. Surely this was the point where the budgeting and penny pinching came good. Surely this was to be our time.

Instead, faced with your greatest opportunity, you failed.

You failed just as surely as Pat Fenlon failed against Hearts, Celtic and Malmo. You failed just as surely as Terry Butcher failed in the succession of games that could have saved us this season. You failed just as surely as the players failed to save themselves against Hamilton over the course of 180 minutes, for 30 minutes of extra time and in the penalty shootout.

A couple of things can happen to organisations with failed leaders. Others working within the structure can ignore the leader and thrive despite them. Or the failure at the top can become so pervasive, so destructive that everyone in the organisation suffers.

It is the latter scenario that has played out at Easter Road under your leadership. It begins and ends with you.

Your underachieving leads to underachieving on the pitch. Your disregard for the fans leads to an organisation at odds with the people whose loyalty it needs to survive. Your lack of openess has created a divide between the club and its community, a club apparently fearful to even talk about the things it does well.

Now, finally, your leadership has resulted in a season that began with record breaking ignominy and ended with utter humiliation.

And your response is to say that our recovery is dependent on your involvement.

If you've got a complete lack of self awareness then fine, that's up to you. But when your arrogance is causing what could be irreperable damage to our football club then there is a problem.

Rod Petrie is a toxic brand to more and more of our supporters. Yesterday's result ensured that there is no way that you will ever be able to win many fans round again.

Our recovery will take time. But we have to believe we can recover. Unfortunately if the rebuilding begins with you still retaining any influence or involvement then that recovery will be even harder.

It might even be impossible.

Sir Tom Famer once said that he'd love to have more Rod Petries to work with. Sir Tom's judgement has made him rich. But he's wrong about that.

Because yesterday we saw the inevitable conclusion of building a football club in the image of Rod Petrie - passionless, directionless and failing.

Yours
Tom

Premiership preview: Hibs v Aberdeen

A funny thing about yesterday’s Ramsdens Cup final and Raith’s dramatic last gasp win over Rangers - Raith have now won more games at Easter Road in 2014 than they’ve won at Stark’s Park.

And their two wins in Leith mean they’ve won as many games at Easter Road this year as Hibs have managed.

Such slim pickings at home help explain why you’ll not hear too many people arguing that Hibs are too good to go down.

On recent form they’re every inch bad enough to go down if they end up in the play off spot.

With Terry Butcher’s side not in action until this evening they had to just sit and watch the weekend’s results coming in, a sequence of games that served to concertina the five teams fighting to avoid the play offs.

Hibs, in seventh place, now sit just four points above Partick Thistle in eleventh. And, with just one win in 13 games since the 2nd of January, it’s little wonder that BetBritght’s odds have Aberdeen as favourites to win this evening.

With Aberdeen 26 points ahead of Hibs and more concerned with matters at the other end of the SPFL Premiership table it’s hard to see Hibs halting their spiral of decline.

And that’s a problem. Six games from the Premiership finish line and every game Hibs fail to win further hits their confidence and encourages the teams below them.

Terry Butcher has chopped, changed, cast players out and ushered them back in. A lot of fiddling but little progress.

For their part Aberdeen have drawn their last three games 1-1 - but they’re on an eight game unbeaten run, have a double cup success in their sights and saw their hopes of securing second place in the league boosted by St Mirren’s win over Motherwell, the result that did so much to haul Hibs back into the chasing bottom six pack on Saturday.

They've also had the better of the head to heads with Hibs this season - with a 1-0 win at Pittodrie and a 2-0 win at Easter Road this season.

Hibs might take succour from their last league win over Aberdeen - a 2-1 away win in 2012 when Pat Fenlon's side were desperately trying to avoid relegation. But that was a very different Aberdeen side.

It looks like being another tough night for a Hibs side that desperately need someone, anyone to put in a dominant performance in a side lacking leaders.

Aberdeen look to have the more proficient match winners. Persistent rumours that looking after the pennies cost Hibs the signature of some of those match winners might just add to the anguish in the stands and in the dugout at Easter Road.

• Hibs v Aberdeen, kick off 7.45pm, live on BT Sport.

SPFL Premiership: Buddies need help from their friends

As St Mirren prepare to host Motherwell on Saturday they need to start picking up points and hoping results elsewhere go their way.

With only Hearts, still stubbornly refusing to be officially relegated, below them in the league St Mirren's 28 points leave them two points adrift in the play-off game. They remain favourites with Betfair to be in the play-off match against the second placed side from the Scottish Championship.

With the Premiership's annual split about to kick in, a win against Motherwell might give them a bit of momentum going into the final five games. That won't be easy with Motherwell tied with Aberdeen on 60 points in second place. The Steelmen will start the game as heavy favourites with Betfair.

Partick Thistle hover two points above St Mirren after taking a point on the road against St Johnstone. On Saturday they become the latest side to try and relegate Hearts as the Edinburgh side travel to Firhill with four points from their last two games.

Ross County will look to take inspiration from their 1-1 draw at Celtic Park, a point against the champions of the division which proved to be a big upset among Betfair punters. They'll be looking for a similar result in tonight's derby with a stuttering Inverness to keep the pressure on Kilmarnock and a badly out of sorts Hibs above them.

St Mirren manager Danny Lennon will be hoping his side’s home advantage this weekend will help his team gain maximum points and ensure they are in as strong a position as possible to face the crucial final five games of the season. They will be second favourites to get the better of Motherwell and need other results to be favourable to move off ninth place.

Malaise on Leith

New ways to suffer derby defeats: traversing the elongated series of roadworks that make up the road from Edinburgh to Stratford-upon-Avon relying on Twitter, text and Roddy Forsyth's sporadic updates among the cricket, Formula One and English football chat on Five Live.

The end result is pretty much the same though.

The Hibs fans arrive for the game in good heart and full of enthusiasm for what lies ahead (even if the deeper "meaning" of Sunday's game had a slightly engineered feel to it.)

The Hibs players arrive looking like perfect strangers and not the sort of strangers minded to take up arms and form a temporary band of brothers.

Do Hearts wish they could play Hibs every week? Bloody right. One third of their league wins, a sixth of their league points and a seventh of their league goals have come against Hibs.

It's possible to enjoy a decent season while being hapless in derbies. The loss of what every commentator is contracted to call "local bragging rights" niggles but the team's form elsewhere compensates.

Unfortunately Hibs have mainly been hapless against Hearts and hapless against everyone else.

And with a derby defeat comes despondency. A despondency that means glancing at the league table suddenly brings thoughts of Hibs having a horrendous run in the bottom six, a disastrous experience in the play offs and then, just like that, playing Championship football next season.

It all seemed so unlikely.

As December slipped into January, Hibs held their nerve to beat Hearts at Easter Road. That was a third straight win and the penultimate game in a sequence of nine matches that saw Hibs lose only to Celtic. So springy was the Terry Butcher bounce that even Lewis Stevenson scored a goal.

And then things started to go wrong. Defeats to Aberdeen, St Mirren, Celtic and Raith Rovers ended the feelgood factor - with the loss of 11 goals.

A home win against Ross County and a point at Kilmarnock promised to stop the rot but seven games have since slipped by without a win.

Dundee United, Motherwell and Partick Thistle have each scored three goals against a pallid Hibs defence. St Johnstone and Hearts have managed two each. In seven games Hibs have scored just five goals while conceding 14. Only Inverness failed to breach the defence in a 0-0 draw.

It's wretched. Butcher has cajoled, cuddled, berated, bemoaned. Whatever worked when he first arrived has stopped working. Now he looks and sounds like a man who can't believe any club would embark on a league campaign with this group of players. And who can't quite believe it's his job to now see them through to the end of the season.

Seven games without a win. And six games left of the Premiership season.

Hibs have still to play Aberdeen, Kilmarnock, Ross County, Partick Thistle, St Mirren and Hearts.

They lost their most recent games against Aberdeen, Partick Thistle, St Mirren and Hearts, drew with Kilmarnock and beat only Ross County.

These are not heartening statistics.

What has perhaps been missed in the gnashing of teeth since the derby is that Hibs are six points clear of St Mirren in eleventh place and have a superior goal difference compared to the rest of the bottom six.

Current form might make them the worst of the worst but points on the board - always the best place for points to be - make them, for now, the best of the worst.

Given that the other five teams have to take points off each other it's likely that Hibs won't need to add massively to their current points total to stay up.

I'm normally optimistic only when gauging how much alcohol I can consume without risking a hangover but I'm actually still sort of, kinda, a little bit confident that Hibs will avoid the play off.

But it's become far too close for comfort.

Not for the first time, of course. This is a fourth straight season in the bottom six.

Two seasons ago - when Pat Fenlon replaced Colin Calderwood at much the same stage of the year that Butcher replaced Fenlon this season - it took until the penultimate game to guarantee safety.

(For what it's worth I calculate that Butcher has taken six more points from his first 19 league games than Fenlon managed. But that might be a case of two bald men wrestling over a comb. Neither record would concern a Manager of the Year jury.)

The most pressing thing for everyone at Hibs to focus on is getting the points (three or four might be enough) to avoid the play off.

Then they have to analyse what on earth is happening at Easter Road.

This is a club that should be able to compete financially, a club with a much vaunted infrastructure and a crowd that averages higher than most even in the bad times.

What leaves a club like that with such a propensity towards weakness in games that really matter for the fans?

What leaves a club like that with Alan Maybury, signed as emergency cover, as the only natural full back in the senior squad?

What leaves a club like that with a number of apparently impressive individual players who consistently look less than the sum of their parts?

What leaves a club like that with a signing policy so addled that two of your summer recruits are ditched in January?

What leaves a club like that in the bottom six four years running while at the same time losing two cup finals with an aggregate loss of eight goals, running up a record European defeat and losing to, among others, Raith Rovers and Queen of the South?

John Hughes, Colin Calderwood, Pat Fenlon and now Terry Butcher have been blamed.

Players - and recruitment has been plentiful but underwhelming, so many have come and gone that there are names I can barely remember - have been blamed.

But the pattern repeats itself and repeats itself.

I hope Terry Butcher has the ability and drive to find answers to these questions.

I fear, however, that he'll be powerless to change the one constant in all of this.

If anyone ever asks you to give a lecture on the dangers of staying in a position too long just stick the last four league tables and a picture of Rod Petrie on the screen. Job done.

We're told that everything Petrie has done, from the fantastic training centre to the new East Stand to the cost cutting and the managerial madness, has been for the good of Hibs.

If his shareholding and relationship with Sir Tom Farmer mean he can't or won't walk away he at least needs to relinquish as much control as possible.

Appoint a chief executive who can sell the club to potential players, who will take the odd three figure risk on a player's salary and who will rebuild the relationship with fans who are reaching breaking point.

These chief executives exist. Some of them might even be working in Scottish football right now. They'd love the opportunity that Rod Petrie is currently failing to make the most of.

Nobody would argue the case for financial mismanagement.

But what if prudence mixed with bad decision making means another flirtation with relegation?

What if prudence mixed with bad decision making means failing to find the right managers and having to constantly overhaul the playing squad?

What if prudence mixed with bad decision making means plummeting season ticket sales?

What if prudence mixed with bad decision making means your club is one that agents tell their players is best avoided?

Does your prudent decision maker not then become guilty of financial mismanagement himself?

And if your greatest asset becomes the liability that's harming your club isn't it time to move on?

I only hope that Rod Petrie can make that decision this summer with Hibs preparing for another season of Premiership football.

Because forget the talk of an exciting Championship next season - I don't fancy it at all. And I'd fancy it even less with Rod Petrie's influence remaining as powerful at Easter Road.

Hibs: Progress, points, profit

International breaks at this stage of the season always seem to give the impression of a stuttery start to the domestic season.

Actually the increasingly complex global football calendar seems designed to bemuse at this time of year: league competitions kick off while jostling with international weeks, transfer windows and early European starts.

But ours is not to reason why. And at least we can welcome back the SPFL Premiership in good heart after Scotland's win in Macedonia.

Points mean prizes and, with Scotland slipping to the bottom of Group A after the defeat to Belgium on Friday, Gordon Strachan would have been aware that he had to convert progress into points.

Job done on that front at least. Hope for the future as well with players like Ikechi Anya - who made it a special night for anyone betting on unlikely first goalscorers.

And what of matters domestic?

Points and progress have been a running theme of Pat Fenlon's time as manager of Hibs.

No matter how often he's defended himself by pointing to examples of the latter, his case has been too often undermined by an inability to rack up many of the former.

This week Hibs announced a return to profit after two years of losses. Given the disappointments and catastrophes of the last couple of years the most recent financial statement might just be the most impressive result Hibs have posted since Fenlon took over.

It certainly explains why Rod Petrie's moustache oversaw an unusually munificent summer - you might argue on the quality of the signings but 10 players arriving and a transfer fee paid for James Collins represent a reasonably significant outlay, certainly in the current climate of the Premiership.

The return to profit will please Petrie, he's a bottom line kind of guy.

But a football club as a business has two bottom lines: the financial and the sporting.

Petrie has been with Hibs long enough to know that sustained improvements in one area can only be achieved with matching success in the other.

Seventh place last season might have been an improvement but it wasn't the sort of progress Fenlon was employed to deliver.

And eighth place, five points and three goals scored after five games this season is not the return on investment Petrie would have wanted when he gave the go ahead to the summer signing spree.

All of which means Fenlon will continue to be a manager under pressure. But possibly not - and this might depress some people who suffered the misery of Hibs v Ross County - a manager in immediate danger of being emptied.

Why? Finances. If other teams continue to struggle, if Hibs can get a few wins and some of the new signings display more consistency then Petrie might just hold fire.

Easter Road's improved finances can at least in part be put down to not parting company with a manager in the last financial year.

With Fenlon's two and a half year deal running out next summer, a natural - and cheaper - end to the relationship is in sight.

It's not a prospect to enthuse but if Fenlon can negotiate the traditionally shark infested waters of the pre-AGM period this month, he might just stick around for the season.

Hibs: Pat Fenlon's failings go deeper than Malmö mauling

A big crowd, a night where the history of Hibs was so emotionally celebrated and...an absolute, cover your eyes, when it will stop tanking.

Another big game ends with another apology from the manager and much discussion over Pat Fenlon's future as manager. Record defeats in Europe - for Hibs, for any Scottish club - can make a man's employment status a topic of debate.

And Thursday's demolition against Malmö was historically bad. Hibs have had a tendency to crumble or to fail to show up in big games. But that weakness still didn't prepare many of us for the orgy of ineptitude we endured.

Malmö's manager said his team had been "lucky." The opening period of the game certainly didn't suggest the Swedes had come to wreak historical havoc. Their good fortune was to come up against a team powerless to stop them doing exactly that.

It's true that Malmö are already in the swing of their domestic league. True also that they're in no way a bad side. But they filled their boots because Hibs looked like a side who had never met rather than a side who had already enjoyed a substantial pre-season together. Malmö are a good side but they'll only win 7-0 if they come up against a very, very poor side.

Once again the support answered the call when Fenlon led Hibs to a big game. How have they been repaid?

• That cup final hammering against Hearts
• A 3-0 defeat to Celtic in a Scottish Cup final, almost lauded in some quarters because his team didn't collapse as they had done the year before
• A big home support expecting Hibs to fight the good fight against Malmö, a support that ended up watching the heaviest ever European defeat suffered by any Scottish team

Even his biggest fans must ask how exactly Fenlon prepares his players before they face these challenges.

He lost those three games by an aggregate score of 15-1.

He did manage to overcome Dunfermline in a relegation battle at Easter Road in 2012. And Hibs came back when Falkirk - a side 25 points short of SPL promotion - went 3-0 ahead and threatened to do "a Malmö" in last season's Scottish Cup semi final.

But the first half of that Falkirk match raised even more questions about how Fenlon prepares his sides for these games. At the very least one gets the impression that his team talks fall short of Churchillian and teeter on the edge of Blimpian.

Does Fenlon deserve another shot at a domestic campaign based on the first 20 months or so of his reign?

An online poll of fans - much quoted in the weekend press but lacking the numbers to be truly representative - had 68 percent of supporters (at the time of writing) deciding Fenlon had to go.

My anecdotal evidence - even more scientifically flimsy - suggests he's doing well to have over 30 percent of fans backing him.

(Full disclosure: a Twitter correspondent who I've never met called me a wanker for questioning Fenlon. So the love is out there for Pat, there are supporters swimming against the tide of popular opinion ready to succinctly articulate their point of view.)

The pro-Fenlon argument suggests that calls for his head are a knee-jerk reaction to Thursday night. A freak result suffered by an unfinished team in a game that came too early.

(I've seen it called a meaningless game - Hibs and Scottish football might have slipped but if history means anything then no European game at Easter Road should ever be called meaningless.)

Are the anti-Fenlon mob guilty of the predictable whining of fans licking their Malmö shaped wounds?

Or is it the final verdict of the people who watch Fenlon's Hibs most closely each week?

His league performance since taking the job - and I'm about to present a barrage of stats cobbled together on the back of a fag packet - looks to me like being 60 games played with 18 games won.

A win percentage that we could generously round up to 30 percent.

How does that compare to his most immediate - and there's been a few - predecessors?

My SPL calculations give:

• Colin Calderwood a win percentage of 25 percent
• John Hughes a win percentage of 36 percent
• Mixu Paatelainen a win percentage of 32 percent
• John Collins a win percentage of 38 percent

Fenlon undoubtedly inherited a mess from Calderwood. His five SPL wins over 22 games in 2011/12 saved Hibs from relegation when there were times - before and very often after he took over - when they flirted with being caught by a poor Dunfermline side.

But three of his league wins came in the last three games of last season when Hibs had nothing but seventh place to play for in a season when the Rangers sized ructions of the previous summer left a very different SPL landscape.

Seventh place did represent progress on the previous season's eleventh place - but it most certainly wasn't the progress the fans had hoped for.

Those three end of season, seventh spot snatching wins also give a certain sheen to Fenlon's calendar year results in 2013.

The idea that he inherited a side surely ended when this year's January transfer window closed.

Building a football team from a low starting point isn't easy. But three transfer windows offers a decent opportunity to mould a new side.

"It's Calderwood's fault!"

Well, no. Since Fenlon's third transfer window in the SPL closed I'd contend that it isn't Calderwood's fault anymore.

And since then Hibs have played 13 league games and won four. Without winning against a team that finished in the top six.

Fenlon's 2013 win percentage is, of course, increased by the Scottish Cup run. But even including the road to Hampden not since the 1-0 win over Celtic on 29th December have Hibs beaten a team that finished in the SPL's top six.

And what of that cup form?

Fenlon's consecutive final appearances make him - thanks to the perverse relationship they share with the old trophy - Hibs' most successful manager in the competition for ninety years.

Ten games played, eight won. A record that can't be knocked - well, alright, it can: none of those wins came against teams that went on to finish in the top six of the SPL.

But given how poorly his team has often played in the league, two cup finals can be seen as Fenlon overachieving.

This Hibs fan was certainly caught up in the moment on the road to each Hampden final.

Then I crashed down to earth when his teams didn't perform. It's fair to say - and it often is by his fans - that Fenlon has twice been 90 minutes away from Easter Road immortality with those two cup finals.

Which is true. Unfortunately on both occasions his side looked decades away from actually winning the cup.

Does reaching those finals make him a better manager than his immediate predecessors?

I'm not sure it does.

Maybe he's the luckiest unlucky manager Hibs have ever had: two unlikely semi final wins delivering him the permanent blot of a famous win for Hearts and a Swedish reversal of the most cherished Hibs result.

Stripping away those results - although football is an emotional game, there are some results that many fans find so unpalatable that apologies from the manager simply don't cut it - still doesn't seem to give much proof of real progress under Fenlon.

With a year left on his contract he needed a good start to this season. Malmö was the worst possible start - yet again he finds himself plotting progress on the back of a high profile thumping with many fans disillusioned before the domestic campaign has yet started.

"But we can't go on sacking managers."

I've said that myself before, probably on this blog more than once. But it’s hardly the strongest reason to persevere.

An excuse that suggests all hope is lost.

An excuse that suggests the real crisis of confidence lies not with whichever Tom, Dick or Harry is picking the team but with the men that gave him the job in the first place.

And maybe that gets to the heart of the matter.

Pat Fenlon isn't a good manager of Hibs. He's had his share of good fortune and he's had his share of bad fortune. But he's never consistently raised Hibs to much more than a whimper.

He could be sacked tomorrow or he could last the season. But his departure - yet another departure - needs to be part of an overhaul in attitude and governance at Hibs.

What exactly do the board want for Hibs? And when and if they set those targets how do they ensure the right people are in place throughout the club to achieve them?

Balancing the books is an admirable aim but a football club needs a football vision as well. It's been too long since Hibs have articulated anything close to that. It's also self evident - as the crowd that turned out for the Malmö game proves - that achieving more footballing success will actually help the accounts.

It's sensible that any manager of Hibs will need to work within certain financial constraints. But the first step for the board is ensuring they appoint someone who can actually do that.

His performance to date suggests Pat Fenlon can't pull off that trick consistently, either in the day to day drudgery of the league or in the big one off games that can make legends of managers.

Hibs look to have recruited quite well this summer - there are some areas where they still look short and there will be big pressure on James Collins to replace the goals of Leigh Griffiths - but Pat Fenlon's record doesn't give me much hope that he can use those players effectively.

I hope I'm wrong because Rod Petrie doesn't yet look persuaded to remove him and frankly I can do without watching another season of huffing, puffing crapness. But my confidence in Fenlon as Lazarus has evaporated.

And that represents a big gamble for the cautious Petrie. Another season of dithering inconsistency risks something worse than the ire of the fans: apathy is likely to have a more detrimental impact on the club's accounts than taking a hit on yet another unconvincing manager.

(Note: post edited to amend Colin Calderwood's league win percentage.)

St Johnstone and Hibs face Europa challenges

The second week of European participation for Scottish clubs and we're one for one so far.

Celtic got Cliftonville out of the way with a 2-0 win at Celtic Park on Tuesday for a 5-0 win on aggregate.

If Neil Lennon pointed to a certain rusty profligacy it was job done with a minimum of fuss.

Sweden's Elfsborg - who knocked 11 past Latvian side Daugava (who, Wikipedia tells me, have conceded 21 goals in three European ties) - are the next hurdle as Celtic look for a repeat of last season's European progress.

Elfsborg - currently fifth in the Swedish league - should present a stronger challenge than Cliftonville but it's a challenge that Celtic should be able to overcome.

Sterner tests too for both St Johnstone and Hibs in the Europa League qualifiers tonight.

St Johnstone face Rosenborg in Perth with a one goal lead safely delivered from the away leg. If that result was a fantastic achievement it has not persuaded betting sites to revise their opinion that the Norwegians are favourites to progress.

The first leg win was an ideal start for new manager Tommy Wright, who already appears so comfortable in the role that Rosenborg manager, Per Joar Hansen, has been moved to accuse him of playing mind games.

Wright had claimed that losing at this stage in the competition would be a disaster for the Norwegians who currently lead their domestic league. He's also spoken about springing a surprise on the visitors in his team selection. No doubt designed to keep the pressure off his own players, it gives the impression that this is a man relishing his new job.

It might be argued that taking a 1-0 lead into a home time against opponents considered favourites for the tie is a tricky proposition.

Perhaps. But it's a problem Pat Fenlon would love to have as he tries to engineer a way back from 2-0 down as Malmo - 16 games into their league season and second in the table - visit Hibs.

The loss of two early goals in Sweden looked like not only ending Hibs Europa participation but signalling the start of a heavy defeat.

While Malmo continued to threaten and dominated for large chunks, what belief Hibs take into this game will stem from the way they held out at two down and the chances of their own - limited but very real - that they created.

A Malmo goal will finish Hibs off, leaving Fenlon in the invidious position of requiring goals and also having to rely on a defence that looked shaky in losing two goals in such quick succession last week.

It's been a long time since Easter Road was enthralled by a famous European night. In a week when Famous Five legend Lawrie Reilly's shadow looms large, Hibs need to try and replicate the nights of yore this evening.

It would take something out of the ordinary for both Hibs and St Johnstone to progress but it would be big, big boost for the newly named Scottish Premiership if one or both could.

And something to note for proponents of summer football in Scotland: a worst case scenario a couple of weeks hence could see three of our teams dumped out of Europe by Scandinavian sides already reasonably deep into their domestic seasons.

Let's hope results go well enough to leave that debate - worthwhile as it might well be - for another day.

Lawrie Reilly: Hibs and Scotland

"So, that's the last of them."

My dad probably wasn't the only Hibs fan of a certain age to say something like that when he heard the news of Lawrie Reilly's death.

"Them" are the Famous Five, for some generations of Hibs fans the quintet that will forever be the best of us.

For the rest of us, those that didn't see them play - and it's now 55 years since Reilly last played - their achievements are sustained through the record books and through the colourful tales of of those who were there when Reilly and his four mates took Hibs to the top of Scottish football.

Gordon Smith, Bobby Johnstone, Willie Ormond, Eddie Turnbull and Reilly. Different backgrounds, different styles, different personalities. Collectively admired and feared, a chunk of Scottish football history and at the very heart of Hibs.

How do the generations that have come since Lawrie Reilly’s career was ended by injury before he reached the age of 30 measure his contribution and impact?

The statistics are worth revisiting:

38 Scotland caps - the biggest haul of any of the Famous Five, more caps than any other player has won while playing for Hibs.

22 Scotland goals - beaten only by Kenny Dalglish, Denis Law and Hughie Gallacher. Although on a goals to game ratio only Gallacher tops Reilly.

187 goals for Hibs in 233 leagues games and another 47 in cup competitions - only Gordon Smith, a first team regular for longer and whose career covered the years of the Second World War scored more.

But statistics don’t tell the whole story.

The league goals contributed to a period when Hibs won three league titles, when the Famous Five's battles with the Iron Curtain of Rangers defined the post-war boom in Scottish football and when the honours in that clash of collectives so often came back to Leith.

The five goals against England at Wembley, including the important late goal in 1953 that earned him the nickname "last minute Reilly."

For a heady period in the early 1950s Hibs fans must indeed have felt that they were living in 'Reilly time' - when no defence was safe from a player Hugh McIlvanney described as an "unsubduable plunderer."

And then there's the Boy's Own stuff:

The young Hibs fan who played for his childhood heroes for the length of his career.

The Edinburgh boy who inherited a love of Hibs from his father and grandfather, who went on to become one of Easter Road's most celebrated players, a forward feared throughout Britain and beyond who didn't have to leave Leith to find acclaim.

A career from a different age that has echoed down the years.

There was steel in there as well, defenders in Reilly's era didn't believe in half measures. Reilly took the knocks and still scored goals.

The stubborn streak that saw him recover from injuries - and from the pleurisy that kept him out of the 1954 World Cup - manifested itself in a financial dispute with Hibs. Although eventually resolved it was a disagreement that robbed him, at the peak of his powers, of the chance to increase that impressive goals tally.

The stories that will be recounted in the coming days about the life and times of Lawrie Reilly are too plentiful to do justice to here.

A couple:

Of a young Lawrie, awestruck but emboldened, asking Gordon Smith if he fancied coming home for tea after he’d watched the great Smith play for Hibs at Tynecastle. Smith politely declined, within a few short years the great winger would be creating goal after goal for his young fan.

A favourite, if apocryphal, tale of many a Hibs fan of a certain generation - of Reilly marking another headed goal for a select side by shaking his fist at the celebrated Stanley Matthews: "When Gordon Smith crosses the ball he makes sure the laces are facing away from my head."

Among all the changes that Scottish football has seen since the pomp of Lawrie Reilly, the greatest is perhaps the idea of Hibs producing a one club man who could be so widely celebrated across the game.

When Hibs inaugurated their Hall of Fame a few years ago, Reilly and Turnbull were the only living members of the Famous Five.

Turnbull, walking with the aid of sticks but the fire clearly still burning, was as forthright and rumbustious as ever.

It was Reilly, however, who resonated most with the crowd:

"I was born a Hibby and I’ll die a Hibby."

As ever with Lawrie Reilly, a simple statement of fact. One that has come to pass sooner than we hoped or expected.

I was lucky enough to be in his company on a few occasions. If he seemed slightly bemused that younger generations remained starstruck by his achievements, he could still delight in a shared support for Hibs.

I passed him on the stairs leaving the stand after the 6-2 win over Hearts. The beaming smile reflected how we all felt.

Not that his support wasn't healthily critical. At a Q&A session a few years ago he was asked about the current Hibs team. Gentleman to the last he apologised for the language he was about to use before describing the side - of Paatelainen or Hughes vintage - as being "crap really."

A few months ago Pat Fenlon said he hadn’t really been aware of the richness of Hibs' history in his first months as manager at Easter Road.

He could have done worse than sitting down for a chat with Lawrie Reilly - the fan, the history, the legend and the ambassador rolled into one.

The last of "them," the best of Hibs.

Smith, Johnstone, Reilly, Turnbull, Ormond we won’t see again.

Indeed.

But their memory marches on.

Scottish football: A good news round-up

Scottish news update provided by Cole Ryan of BangTheBook.com. follow me on twitter @coleryan9

If the people of Scotland still believe in Scottish football as their national sport then it is a measure of a national trait of defiance. News headlines, front page and back, might still be generated by the sport but too often recently it has been for bad news rather than for outstanding match results.

This summer, as last summer, the biggest story has been financial. While the problems at Rangers hogged the headlines in 2012, 2013 has seen Hearts enter administration amid the collapse of owner Vladimir Romanov’s business empire and the club struggling to pay wages. They’ll start next season on minus 15 points in the top flight.

Dunfermline, too, remain in administration and have now suffered consecutive relegations to find themselves in the third tier of Scottish football where they’ll find themselves battling against Rangers, as the Glasgow club look to continue their progress through the league structure.

Elsewhere a number of club are looking to rebuild squads in the summer transfer window as players move on to search for more bountiful wage packets or are sold to help balance the books in a game that is not awash with money.

But perhaps Scottish football is beginning to see the darkness partly lifted. The 2014 World Cup qualification campaign has been a struggle that has already seen off one manager, Craig Levein, and any chance of qualifying disappearing. But new manager Gordon Strachan finally made his mark before the summer break with a battling 1-0 win over Croatia with a young and inexperienced team.

And the latest news this week from BangTheBook Football has also been more positive. Scottish clubs are long used to starting their European campaigns before the domestic season has started but they’ve not always enjoyed the finest result. This week, however, they could reflect could reflect on two wins from three matches.

If Celtic’s victory of Cliftonville was expected it was a professional performance nonetheless, goals from Mikael Lustig, Georgios Samaras and James Forrest delivering three away goals.

And St Johnstone delivered the result of the week with an unexpected 1-0 victory away to Rosenborg. Frazer Wright gave the Perth men an early lead and they weathered some serious pressure to hold on for the win and to bring a crucial away goal back to Scotland. Manager Tommy Wright was able to reflect on a “magnificent” win in his first competitive match since taking over from Steve Lomas as manager - in what was also St Johnstone's first ever away win in Europe.

If they can get through the home tie, St Johnstone's reward will be a match against Malta's Valetta or FC Minsk from Belarus as they would enter the next qualifying round as seeds.

Hibs were the only Scottish side who couldn’t record an away win this week, losing 2-0 to a superior Malmo side in Sweden. But after conceding two goals in two minutes to be 2-0 inside 15 minutes Hibs might feel they deserve some credit for keeping the score down, relying on some excellent saves from goalkeeper Ben Williams to retain faint hope for the return leg in Edinburgh.

While Scottish football has never lost its ability to make headlines, it is to be hoped there can be many more weeks like this one where the stories relate to good news on the pitch rather than bad news off it.

Getting back in the swing

The season's first competitive game for a Scottish side last night.

And a 3-0 win for Celtic in their Champion's League qualifier against Cliftonville, a fine start to their three round route to the Champion's League proper.

Tonight Hibs and St Johnstone face away games to Malmo and Rosenborg as they look to buck the SPL's recent travails in Europa League qualifying woes.

Motherwell join the fray in the next round of Europa qualifying - and the bookies suggest that both Hibs and St Johnstone will be upsetting the odds to join them.

The return of competitive football means that a new domestic season is dawning.

A new season under the auspices of the Scottish Professional Football League, the brave new organisational structure that doesn't seem to have quite got round to deciding on names for its various leagues.

If the new governance model has yet to convince that it offers anything other than more of the same, what does top flight football have in store for us?

After years of the SPL being a two-horse race, the loss of Rangers left Celtic to race to winners' enclosure alone.

The scored more goals, had a more miserly defence and won more games than the opposition to finish 16 points clear.

So far, so predictable. But Celtic actually dropped 14 more points than they had the season before, wholly dominant but never invincible.

Motherwell, finishing second for the second year in a row, finished on just one point more than they had the previous year.

In a Rangers free season the other clubs couldn't fill the gap, Motherwell's 63 points in second place mirroring the sort of total that previously carried a team to third (Aberdeen in 2006/07 were the last side outside Celtic or Rangers to top 63 points, finishing on 65 in third place.)

In 2011/12 31 points separated Motherwell in third and Hibs in 11th. Last season just 22 points separated Motherwell in second and St Mirren in 11th.

Celtic could afford more off days because everyone else was still beating everyone else, with less and less predictability.

An accumulator win on SPL results was a rare joy last season, a more hard fought challenge than becoming lady captain at Muirfield.

What of the season ahead? More of the same. Celtic the favourites by a massive distance, beneath them Motherwell, Aberdeen, Dundee United and Hibs are tipped in best of the rest race to second.

Always difficult to have much confidence in predictions at this juncture, of course.

The revolving door at most clubs makes each summer a period of rebuilding rather than consolidation.

Motherwell will be reworked, Aberdeen rebuilt by Derek McInnes, United setting out on Jackie McNamara's first full SPL season as manager and the departures of Leigh Griffiths and Eoin Doyle have seen Hibs shorn of almost two-thirds of their league goals tally.

Celtic will win the SPL, whether it's a romp or a canter is pretty much up to them.

Elsewhere we should again see a certain unpredictability, the challenge for those eleven clubs is to raise the standard of that unpredictability.

Dancing on the streets of Raith

No, no, no Geordie Munro

Oh no, no, no my wee laddie,

I don't want to go to Idaho,

I'd rather watch Hibs in Kirkcaldy

(With apologies to the Scottish folk music community and the Raith Rovers fans who have claimed this song as their own.)

To Fife tonight and a first glimpse - for me - of Hibs in action after their foreshortened summer break.

Next week Malmo lie in wait for Pat Fenlon's reshaped - but incomplete? - squad, another Scottish club looking for European success before the domestic season has got underway.

Do these summer skirmishes still bring the same excitement?

I remember school holidays when football would all but disappear in a non World Cup or European Championship summer, the summer sports (golf and tennis in my case) perhaps punctuated by a spell at an Ian St John Soccer School.

That doesn't happen now, this summer the Confederations Cup segued into age group tournaments and now Women's Euro 2013 and European qualifiers already in full swing.

Even in the summer, football is everywhere. Buying new kit can be done anytime, from anywhere - you are never more than a click away from buying football boots from Brantano. Take a look at their kids football boots section to see how the range and quality has changed since the days I thought my new boots would make me play like Alan Rough or Steve Archibald.

Bad football news doesn't take a break either. Financial travails and travesties at Hearts and Dunfermline, bickering over administrative mergers and new league structures, the tradition of many of our clubs losing their best players with depressing regularity.

Despite it all though - and despite myself - I'll still be quietly excited sitting on the train to Fife this evening.

Maybe it's just the comfort of an old habit returning. The prospect of 90 minutes in the company of Hibs filling me with optimism and joy. The expectation that it could leave slightly depressed, fretting about the Europa League qualifier against Malmo and the SPL season ahead.

It might never have been away but tonight football will feel like it's back.

Bring it on.

Scottish Cup: Hibs Hibs Hooray?

One year and one week on.

Again we trudge to our buses, looking like the club shop has thrown up on us, ready to troop through to Hampden.

Ready to watch Hibs wrestle with their Scottish Cup destiny. Part 111.

An unlikely final appearance.

The first consecutive finals since 1923 and 1924 (those losses courtesy of Celtic and Airdie).

Another final reached in a season of patchy - if improved - league form.

An unlikely manager.

A twitchier Rod Petrie might have jettisoned Pat Fenlon after last year's final.

A twitchier Rod Petrie might have had second thoughts during the mid season SPL malaise.

His mind must have almost have been made up just 28 minutes into this year's semi final, a flimsy Hibs buffeted by a Falkirk who couldn't quite believe their luck.

Yet Fenlon came through and delivered unto Petrie's piggy bank the proceeds of another cup final appearance.

The first Hibs manager to reach two national cup finals since Alex Miller.

That achievement took Miller seven years. It's taken Fenlon just 18 months.

The first manager to lead a team other than Celtic or Rangers to two Scottish Cup finals in a row since Jim McLean battled his own cup hoodoo with Dundee United in the 1980s.

In another place we might hail Fenlon as a modest history maker already.

That we don't can be blamed on that stuttery league form, that pitiful day last May and the weightier history of Scottish Cup scars stretching beyond Scotland's collective living memory.

The route to this year's final was not without challenges.

The psychological barrier of beating Hearts in Hibs first Scottish Cup game since "that" day. The turgid spectacle of yet another clash with Aberdeen. The yapping of Kenny Shiels on a vist to Rugby Park.

Then that semi final - the easiest game on paper turned into an ultimately exhilarating battle by a paper thin defence.

Now Celtic. The hardest of the lot. The SPL champions who won more games this season than Hibs have won in the last two.

Celtic, perennial botherers of the SPL's top spots against Hibs, of late trapped in risky relegation battles or assorted bottom six bore-offs.

They've met at this stage before. A 1-0 win for Hibs, the last win, in 1902 with another Irishman calling the shots. A stalemate in 1914, followed by a 4-1 Celtic win in the replay.

A 1-0 Celtic win in that 1923 final. A 6-1 Celtic win in 1972 and then a 3-0 win in 2001.

Four Celtic wins, one Hibs win. 14 Celtic goals, three Hibs goals.

And, while Hibs are not alone in being embarrassed by four or more goals in a final, no team has ever recovered their cup equilibrium quickly enough to return and make amends the following year.

As ever when Hibs and Celtic clash, form and ability favours the west.

As ever when Hibs and the Scottish Cup clash, history favours the agony being prolonged for yet another year.

Bereft of expectation, hope offers us Hibs fans a life raft to cling to as we float on our dreams along the M8.

Unlikely? Definitely. Impossible? Not a bit of it.

Have Hibs not got a better win percentage at Hampden than Celtic over the last couple of seasons?

Are those chastening experiences last May and in that pathetic half hour against Falkirk not simply Hampden learning experiences, not killing us but making us stronger?

Have this year's preparations - on the field and, free from daft trips to Ireland, off the field - not been much improved?

Have Wigan and Atlético Madrid - and before them Swansea and St Mirren - not shown that unlikely cup final wins are in fashion?

Does the strange life of Leigh Griffiths - talisman, father, daft laddie, finisher, trouble magnet - not demand a defining moment in green?

Is the first Sabbath final not the ideal occasion for answered prayers and redemption?

Does history not, at some stage, have to stop spitting in your face?

Maybe. Maybe not.

Everything that surrounds the game, the raw emotion that a Hibs win would deliver, is meaningless for 90 minutes.

Play like idiots, become a laughing stock. Been there, done that.

Play well, take any slice of luck that comes your way, hope that Celtic again mislay their Hampden mojo and anything is possible.

Like last year, tears won't come with defeat. It's winning that will reduce this fan to a gibbering, sniffling wreck.

So there we are. Pat Fenlon, history maker.

Go ahead, son. Make me cry.

Hibs: Returning to the scene of the crime

Do Hibs feel the hand of Scottish Cup history on their shoulder? Or does it have them by the throat, threatening to throttle them once again?

They head to Hampden as favourites to beat Falkirk in the semi final - 1.6 to win at Unibet to Falkirk's 5.5 - but demons lurk in every corner.

What do we chew on at the betting online feast? Back the SPL side against a team 20 points off the pace in the First Division?

But what if the SPL side haven't won this cup for 111 years, are attempting to reach back to back finals for the first time since 1924 and haven't played at Hampden since suffering their most traumatic defeat there last May?

What if the SPL team is Hibs?

A third Scottish Cup trip to Hampden for Pat Fenlon in less than two seasons in charge.

He might wish it was only the second but, as I said before last year's final "incident," his record in reaching finals in Ireland proved attractive to the Hibs board when they gave him the job. The limited evidence to hand suggests he might struggle to convert finals into trophies but, still, he got us there.

That Fenlon has brought Hibs to consecutive semi finals in the Scottish Cup belies his league record. While Fenlon inherited a mess from Colin Calderwood, just 15 wins from over 50 SPL games shows how difficult he's found it to wade through the rubbish.

The league form includes a run of just 16 points from the last 60 available, just one more than Dundee. A season of progress?

So Hibs, being Hibs, battle not just history this weekend but also fling a dollop of dreadful form into the mix.

What's gone wrong?

It seems a long time ago that they were topping the table in the autumn, putting together an early run of results that looked like making a top six place little more than a formality.

Players have lost form, an over reliance on Leigh Griffiths - who has so often sparkled on the pitch and covered a myriad of his team's sins - has been exacerbated by a roster of senior strikers that includes only the departing Eoin Doyle and the never-quite-here Shefki Kuqi.

Injuries and loss of form have highlighted a lack of cover in defence and if the signing of midfielders - extending beyond the transfer window with the reintroduction of Kevin Thomson - has become a fetish, it's not always led to satisfaction in the middle of the park.

At times inept, occasionally overly cautious and often just devoid of ideas, the promise of an Easter Road resurrection has been replaced by hints of insurrection.

Rod Petrie's towering 'tache might not yet be twitching but there are many in the support now convinced that a Petrie board has yet again picked the wrong manager.

Despite it all, just like they did last year, Hibs have carried on regardless in the Scottish Cup.

A mildly cathartic deflection in the Edinburgh derby, a hen's tooth of a stotter from Gary Deegan against Aberdeen, a Griffiths hat-trick at Kilmarnock.

And now just another 90 minutes away from a chance to laugh at 111 years of history while curing a little of the post traumatic stress suffered in Leith since last year.

Better to forget all that. Hibs have suffered at Hampden as underdogs and as favourites, Falkirk have upset the odds against better teams than this.

A semi final win is the only thing that can energise this comatose season at Easter Road.

Why wouldn't Falkirk revel in the chance to deny Hibs even an outside shot at redemption? Nothing sweetens an upset like the sight of suffering on the other side.

Hibs must find focus where too often they've looked detached, leaders must rediscover their qualities, players who have spent too many games coasting must find a spark.

Defeating 111 years of misery can wait, this semi final is about throwing off the pain of another wasted season.

What's gone before will show itself in empty terraces but there will be passion there.

Passion too from Falkirk. Will the Hibs players match it?

I'll troop loyally to Hampden once again, joining the rest of the victims returning to the scene of the crime.

All too often I've been mugged by own team.

Not this time, boys. Please, not this time.

I'm a muppet and other tales of reconstruction

I've been a little neglectful of the blog of late.

Real life stomped through the door uninvited, turned 2013 into a big bundle of rubbish and left even a little light blogging a stretch too far.

Beyond turning up at Easter Road and groaning quite a lot at what I've been watching, Scottish football has been a care too much.

I have, however, found the time to sign up for a season ticket renewal.

Which makes me a muppet.

Muppetry, some will say, is a particular requirement for life on what nobody should ever call the Hibee highway.

But there we are. On that score muppetry courses through my veins.

I'm well beyond the stage of buying a season ticket with high hopes for a summer of constructive, yet prudent, spending that lays the foundation for a season of thrilling accomplishment.

Far easier to expect a summer of underwhelming transfer market dealings, a panicked spate of loan signings and a season of distinct underachievement. It deadens the heart to the disappointments that follow.

That's the strange thing about season tickets. If you're not just buying out of habit, you're leaping before you have a chance to look at the squad that might break the pain of your fall.

"Here's my money Mr Petrie, I'd like you to spend it on a decent squad but I've noticed your jacket buttons are a bit strained of late so if you want to fire up to Slaters and blow the lot on suits then go for it, nowt I can do about it anyway."

That's usual.

As my justification for getting a season ticket is "it keeps me out of the pub" I can hardly complain.

Except this year I probably can. And so can fans of any other club in the country who have taken delivery of their club's annual begging brochure.

Because this year they really are doing little more than mug fans.

"Renew your season ticket. And we're offering a special deal for all our loyal fans this year.

"For the same price, or more, as last season you can watch an as yet unsigned team play in an as yet undecided league structure under the auspices of an as yet unconfirmed organisation.

"And if you sign up before 1st April you'll get a fiver off our as yet unreleased new fifth shirt."

Bargain.

(I should say that my season ticket renewal cost the same as last year but this time I've got a "cup top up" as well.

Obviously the cup top up might be worthless. But still - it's the same price as I paid for the dull, run of the mill league games this season.

Is £405 for a seat at Easter Road value for money?

The answer is both entirely subjective and completely obvious.

Of course it's not value for money.

But think of the cost of the pints I might drink, the legal fees that I might run up during my short descent into alcoholism if I wasn't at the football every fifth Saturday and every third Friday/Sunday/Monday.

It's an expenditure on the bigger picture.)

I used to tune into Watchdog to see Lynn Faulds Wood feign sympathy as daft folk looked mournful because the hotel they stayed at in Benidorm didn't look like it did in the brochure.

Then they'd hold up the brochure and show a lovely drawing of a nice hotel.

"It's a drawing," I'd think. "What did you expect?"

Now I've joined them. I've bought a season ticket to watch an artist's impression of a league structure.

Or, as we're dealing with Neil Doncaster, David Longmuir and their parcel of rogues, a piss artist's impression.

It might be that we're moving closer to knowing what we're going to be watching.

The current options seem to extend to the status quo and the little heralded 12+12+18 format, the Hampden zinger that was the only method they could devise that would leave fans feeling nostalgic for the "race for the top six."

I don't know how many clubs are already selling season tickets.

I hear that sales at Easter Road are going well, although I think that particular barometer will be a better gauge when the current interest free payment offer runs out and the real extent of Pat Fenlon's underachievement becomes clearer.

But something really stinks here.

When we're not being kept in the dark we're being told that we have to accept the medicine proscribed by a vacuous leadership that insists we don't know what's good for us.

Maybe I don't know what's good for me. But if football needs fans and football keeps treating fans with contempt then football is fooling itself.

I chuckled on Sunday when a tabloid reported that David Cameron was ready to force the issue of the Old Firm moving to England.

Not only had the paper run with such an obvious howler but they'd alighted on one of the few high profile leaders whose current form matches Scottish football's heid bummers for donkey-ness.

Where there is dischord they bring more dischord. Or apathy, which threatens to be even more damaging.

"We need you fans. Ignore the fans. We need the fans. We don't care what the fans want."

It's an odd attitude to adopt. Sometimes I think George Orwell could have done a job on Scottish football. Then I remember that the pigs of Manor Farm at least started out with good intentions.

Maybe we'll be surprised. 12+12+18 will be agreed this week, the benefits will become clearer, the excitement will return. The dreams of the suits will become a fanfare for the common fan.

Or maybe it will be another failure on the road to ruin.

And my muppetry is partly to blame. For the price of a week in an unfinished hotel in Benidorm I've legitimised the idiocy of the men who are failing to save the game.

There's no hope for me, undisputed muppet of the West Stand.

Hopefully Scottish football isn't such a lost cause.