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Originally Posted by Seven Tattoos
The Moral Majority is not just a classic surf punk tune by The Dead Kennedys and The Financial Times is not just a dull, staid, pecuniary journal printed on pink paper. This term encapsulates the dilemma we, as right-thinking, i.e. contemptuous of both hertz and huns and what they represent, Hibbies, may face a week tonight.
Apologies for my usual long-winded, pub bore, gob-sh!te style; put bluntly there are Hibbies who:
(a) would want to win every game we play ever, but especially against Ian Paisley's athletic society, regardless of potentially damaging ramifications to our own aspirations for European participation and the financial benefits it would bring, whilst simultaneously seriously damaging hertz' own ambitions.
(b) There are also Hibbies who, despite sharing similarly idealistic views with the Morals (if I may term them as such), are more pragmatic and who will accept a defeat by Rangers Football Club as necessary to help ensure both:
(i) we play in the UEFA Cup proper in consecutive seasons for the first time since 1975-76 and 1976-77 (put that in its historical context, the Sex Pistols had yet to shock the nation by calling Bill Grundy a 'dirty old phucker'!)
(ii) hertz do not qualify for the CL which would significantly boost their coffers.
This Hibbie tends to share the view of the pragmatists. As I've stated before, successive European qualifications for THE FIRST TIME IN THREE DECADES would be an absolutely momentous achievement for Tony Mowbray's Hibs. It also would help:
- raise the profile of the club
- which would help attract better players
- and also convince talented youngsters to come to ER rather than the OF or hertz
- bring much needed revenue in which could help pay for much needed training facilities (surely the club's number one priority)
- bring much needed revenue in which could help provide more remunerative contracts for the Scott Browns of this world
- bring much needed revenue in which could help pay for renovating the East Stand and increasing ER's capacity to a sensible 20,000.
Also, as a pragmatist, I view any success or raising of profile for hertz as damaging to us. Unfortunately, they are better supported than us and there will be youngsters in Edinburgh and the Lothians who start following them due to their inevitable cup triumph in a few weeks. The CL would attract even more impressionable youngsters who only follow success and have yet to learn the joys and beauty of identity and community and the meaning to life that devotion to Hibernian Football Club can bring.
We may, of course, be getting our proverbial panties in a twist over Brussel Sprout; we've yet to be the SSBs this weekend.
Just one final thought though for all the conspiracy theorists and cynical skates; I don't think either Celtic or Hibs will throw their matches, on Sunday and Tuesday, respectively. Why? Because I believe both Strachan and Mowbray to be more professional.
Also, next Tuesday is the 2nd of May, i.e. the fourteenth anniversary of Hibs going to Parkheed, needing only to lose to ensure the dodgers and not the skates finished second. Final score? Celtic 1-2 Hibs.
As Jake Burns used to sing, 'Wait and See'.
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