For Anyone Who's Not Seen This Preview

[HailHail]

Here's a wee taster of my forthcoming autobiography that has been available on bebo/myspace for a few weeks.http://www.amazon.co.uk/Burnt-Surviv...2367911&sr=1-8

Comments welcome, though it's all been proofed and copyedited so nothing can be changed now anyway. Mind it's not a Hibs book, but there's a lot of Hibs in it.

Chapter 1

Cheerio


The train slowly came to a halt at Edinburgh Waverley. It was one thirty in the afternoon and we were cutting it fine. Edinburgh is a busy city centre to try and run through at the best of times, but half past one on a hot and sunny Saturday afternoon on the first day of the new football season is just pandemonium.
Darren and I finished the bottles of Buckfast tonic wine that we had been drinking on the train and started to make our way through the heaving mass of people on the platform towards the far end of the train station, where the steep steps would take us out onto Leith Street. Time was of the essence. Although we had both drunk a bottle of wine each on the way through and were feeling pretty drunk, we wanted to grab a quick pint or three in the Hibs Supporters Club before heading for the stadium.
We made our way down Leith Street, past the playhouse, determined to reach a suitable watering hole before we took our places on the east stand.
We passed quite a few Aberdeen fans as we bounded down London Road towards Easter Road, home of my beloved team. Aberdeen was the team we were playing today, but on this occasion we had neither the time nor the desire to wind them up. All we wanted was a pint.
As we made our way along London Road and came to the junction that takes you down Easter Road, I looked down and saw a sight that always made my heart glow with pride. Apart from the odd little dot of red and white which indicated the presence of some away fans, Easter Road was a seething mass of green and white. Hibs supporters of all shapes and sizes, ages and sexes.
Usually the mere site of this was enough to start me singing one of our songs, but today I felt somewhat different. It was a melancholy site rather than an awe inspiring one, and my feeling this way had nothing to do with the fortified wine I had gulped down earlier. Darren and I made our way through the crowd down Easter Road, checking out some of the multitude of gorgeous hibby lassies as we went, but this time there was no cheeky chat up line, no making eye contact. We bashed and dodged our way through until we reached Sunnyside Lane, where we turned right and headed down the steep cobbled road towards the Hibernian FC supporters club.
The doormen let us in despite us being a little worse for wear, and we made our way to the bar where I bought us two pints each and a double whisky. The cue was bloody massive, as usual. Darren, already quite drunk as he wasn’t as hardened a party animal as me, looked warily at the bumper round that I had bought, but then laughed and we soon had these drinks tanned. Twenty past two. We had made good time, though my spindly legs were aching from all the dodging in and out of crowds. Our drinks finished, we quickly squeezed through the busy club and out of the big double doors and staggered towards the stadium. I was absolutely hammered by now so god knows what state Darren was in.
We swaggered along Albion Road towards the entrance to the east stand at Hawkhill Avenue. I had a season ticket, but Darren had a normal ticket for the game so we stood in different cues. I looked at my new season ticket that had cost me the best part of three hundred quid. I tore out the relevant voucher and handed it to the lass behind the turnstile.
‘A fat lot of good this is going to do me,’ I thought to myself as I put it back into the pocket of my firetrap jeans and scrambled up the steep steps that led onto the east stand. I was up them in a jiffy, taking two steps at a time, and was joined there by Darren. The ground was already filling up, with a sizeable away support. Darren’s ticket was actually for a different block of seats but my own seat had a big empty space beside it where whoever was accompanying me to games would normally just stand, like we all did. East Stand, row V, seat 100. Right up the back, under the TV gantry. The best seat in the stadium. In fact, to me it was the best seat in the world. It was here, with my Hibee friends, that we led the vocal support and started nearly all of the intimidating songs that helped our beloved team overcome whoever its opponents might be. The fact that I rarely, if ever, sat on that seat which I had occupied for many years or that I had to clamber over various rows of seats to get to it, mattered little. This is where we stood and sang and watched our team. This was my church. This was where I healed my hurt.

The two teams, Hibs in green and white, Aberdeen in all red, left the field after their warm ups and that was our signal to start. Grabbing the railing of the overhead walkway to my left so as to gain extra leverage in my voice I bellowed the words that were ingrained into my brain ‘HAIL, HAIL, THE HIBS ARE HERE.’ Darren and two thousand other voices helped me finish the song in unison ‘ALL FOR GOALS AND GLORY, ALL FOR GOALS AND GLORY, HAIL HAIL THE HIBS ARE HERE, ALL FOR GOALS AND GLORY NOW.’
The whole stand seemed to shake as the sound reverberated around the stand. The east stand was where I always sat. It was the only part of the stadium that hadn’t recently been turned into one of those big two-tier soulless stands so common in Britain after Lord Taylor bizarrely decided to blame some sad football disasters in the 1980s on stadium design rather than on inept policing. The stand was basically a large covered terrace with seats in, but not many of us sat down: we preferred to stand as we always had done.
A fellow Hibby to my right started another song, aimed at the Aberdeen fans that poked fun at a popular stereotype of Aberdonians. ‘SHEEP SHAGGING BASTARDS, YOU’RE ONLY SHEEP SHAGGING BASTARDS’ we all roared in unison to everyone’s mirth. It may not sound very intelligent or sophisticated in the cold light of day, but when you’re plastered and you’re with your mates, it’s hilarious. The Aberdeen fans responded in their typical manner by singing the song back at us, in a painfully transparent attempt to pretend that having this sung to them every single week doesn’t bother them, when it clearly does otherwise they wouldn’t sing it back to us at all. Playground stuff really, but it DOES annoy them.
This vocal sparring was interrupted by the arrival on the pitch of the teams. Aberdeen ran out first, to a chorus of boos, jeering and sheep noises from the home support that was only ended when our Hibernian heroes in green and white took the field.
For such a big occasion, I was in a strange mood. Although we had a home game against the hated and despised Glasgow Rangers in a fortnight, I knew that this would probably be my last visit ever to see my beloved Hibs at Easter Road. I was moving away to the Irish Republic in a few weeks and the game against ‘the Huns’ had been moved to a Sunday to accommodate BBC Scotland, a Sunday that was the day after one of my best mate’s house warming parties. The chances of me making that game were negligible, as the house warming had also turned into my own leaving party. I’d either still be up or be comatose in my bed when the Rangers game kicked off. So this would be my last game. Hibs had basically been shite for over a year since our boss Alex Mcleish had left for Rangers. One of our best players ever, Franck Sauzee, had quickly become our worst manager ever, being sacked after less than seventy days and who had been replaced with Bobby Williamson, a man to whom the term ‘attacking football’ was utterly foreign.
I looked around the stand at those comrades who had stood shoulder to shoulder with me for many a year. Darren was quiet, probably from the drink. I had a tear in my eye but managed to hold it back and shout for joy as our Spanish striker, Paco Luna, put us one nil up. The usual bedlam that followed a Hibs goal ensued in the stands around me as we all jumped up and down, singing and dancing to our wee ditty ‘lets all do the hibeesbounce nanananananana’. Maybe it wasn’t going to be such a bad season. The manager wasn’t very popular but at least he could organise a team.
We went in at half time one nil up thanks to Paco’s goal, and I ate my last ever Easter Road pie. By now I had the thirst for more drink but wasn’t going to leave early on my last ever trip to the holy ground. The second half got underway and we seemed to have the best of it, though Aberdeen were ominously coming back into the game. The guy who stood on the other side of the gantry passed me a grass joint, which I had one toke from and passed back. Aberdeen equalised. Time was running out and it looked like the game was heading for a draw, but myself and obviously a lot of other Hibs fans had that familiar ‘sinking feeling’ as Aberdeen pinned us back in the closing stages. Surely my last ever Hibs game wasn’t going to end in an ignominious defeat like this? Darren Mackie confirmed our fears by scoring the winner for Aberdeen with only minutes remaining.
‘Fuck’s sake’ I thought. ‘What a last game to see’. Hibs 1 Aberdeen 2. I briefly explained to the lads who stood near me that I was going away and wasn’t coming back. They all shook my hand and wished me luck, Darren and I trudging depressingly back up towards Waverley and the train that would take us home to Livingston.
The trip home was as uneventful as the Hibs match, and Darren and I popped into the old Copper Ton Bar in Livingston when we got off the train. After another few pints we bumped into some Celtic fans I knew and sat with them, finding great amusement in annoying patrons with a cheesy Martin O’Neil mask. One of the lads, Gareth, asked how I was getting on and where I was working. I informed him that I was moving to the Irish Republic in a few weeks and that I had been on ‘sick leave’ from my job at 3663 Food Distribution for a few weeks with stress.
Gareth said ‘That sounds a bit drastic Ian, why are you moving over there?’..........................................

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Burnt-Surviv...2367911&sr=1-8

[Jamie]

Who let you back

Great read Ian

[HailHail]

Originally Posted by Jamie

Who let you back

Great read Ian

I'm back to annoy you all until Luath Press and bumblebee books get back to me regarding the scottish 'sharpe' style series i've written and my 'Celtic heroes' project ( celtic as in scots/welsh/irish) that i polled cowshedders on a few weeks ago.

Thanks for the comment, much appreciated man.

[hibbyharp1875]

great opening Ian, when does it go on sale ? online ? err get my hands on a copy

[HailHail]

Originally Posted by hibbyharp1875

great opening Ian, when does it go on sale ? online ? err get my hands on a copy

It's been delayed till by publisher gets decent stills of me on set from the movie i was in , august at the latest. You'll be able to buy it in all good bookshops, direct from my publisher or from Amazon. Even my publisher has advised me to get folk to buy it from amazon as it's best for everyone (except the book shops)

the buyer gets it cheaper, my publisher makes more, and i get an extra 20p per copy or something if it's amazon.

glad you liked it sir, thanks for the encouragement.

[PILTONSTANY]

A great read mate,i'll defo buy it.
Your description of your seat (mines is AA 88) and the terracing is exactly how i feel about the place
Pity the younger West stand erses who want the place knocked down don't have our passion for it,Perhaps a wee copy and paste once your book is out to the main forum would give them a better idea.

Good luck with it anyway

[HailHail]

Originally Posted by PILTONSTANY

A great read mate,i'll defo buy it.
Your description of your seat (mines is AA 88) and the terracing is exactly how i feel about the place
Pity the younger West stand erses who want the place knocked down don't have our passion for it,Perhaps a wee copy and paste once your book is out to the main forum would give them a better idea.

Good luck with it anyway

Thanks for the pos feedback and the encouragement , apparently my mate sold my s/t for me when i left and whoever bought it has retained 'my' seat since (it may actually have been 101 no 100 but that matters little). I fcuking love that stand.

pos feedback from Hibbies means a lot, cheers dude

[Thomson_19]

Sounds like a good read

[Hibs_Lass]

Originally Posted by Thomson_19

Sounds like a good read

Sure does ! Can't wait until it comes out, dropped enough hints so at least one person should be buying me it

[beefy]

Nice one dudeI shall be buying one.

[HailHail]

IT'S OUT AUGUST 27TH. POSSIBLY SOONER

[Jamie]

See your beating a few other books Ian

[Northern Ireland Hibby]

Very best of luck with it HH

[HailHail]

Originally Posted by Jamie

See your beating a few other books Ian

Steven gerrard and Christiano ronaldo and the new ccs book, so far....

[HailHail]

Originally Posted by Northern Ireland Hibby

Very best of luck with it HH

cheers Conor

[pilrig70]

Good luck with the book HH. In Amazon's Top 500 already

Looking forward to reading it.

[Forzahibs]

Originally Posted by HailHail

Here's a wee taster of my forthcoming autobiography that has been available on bebo/myspace for a few weeks.http://www.amazon.co.uk/Burnt-Surviv...2367911&sr=1-8

Comments welcome, though it's all been proofed and copyedited so nothing can be changed now anyway. Mind it's not a Hibs book, but there's a lot of Hibs in it.

Chapter 1

Cheerio


The train slowly came to a halt at Edinburgh Waverley. It was one thirty in the afternoon and we were cutting it fine. Edinburgh is a busy city centre to try and run through at the best of times, but half past one on a hot and sunny Saturday afternoon on the first day of the new football season is just pandemonium.
Darren and I finished the bottles of Buckfast tonic wine that we had been drinking on the train and started to make our way through the heaving mass of people on the platform towards the far end of the train station, where the steep steps would take us out onto Leith Street. Time was of the essence. Although we had both drunk a bottle of wine each on the way through and were feeling pretty drunk, we wanted to grab a quick pint or three in the Hibs Supporters Club before heading for the stadium.
We made our way down Leith Street, past the playhouse, determined to reach a suitable watering hole before we took our places on the east stand.
We passed quite a few Aberdeen fans as we bounded down London Road towards Easter Road, home of my beloved team. Aberdeen was the team we were playing today, but on this occasion we had neither the time nor the desire to wind them up. All we wanted was a pint.
As we made our way along London Road and came to the junction that takes you down Easter Road, I looked down and saw a sight that always made my heart glow with pride. Apart from the odd little dot of red and white which indicated the presence of some away fans, Easter Road was a seething mass of green and white. Hibs supporters of all shapes and sizes, ages and sexes.
Usually the mere site of this was enough to start me singing one of our songs, but today I felt somewhat different. It was a melancholy site rather than an awe inspiring one, and my feeling this way had nothing to do with the fortified wine I had gulped down earlier. Darren and I made our way through the crowd down Easter Road, checking out some of the multitude of gorgeous hibby lassies as we went, but this time there was no cheeky chat up line, no making eye contact. We bashed and dodged our way through until we reached Sunnyside Lane, where we turned right and headed down the steep cobbled road towards the Hibernian FC supporters club.
The doormen let us in despite us being a little worse for wear, and we made our way to the bar where I bought us two pints each and a double whisky. The cue was bloody massive, as usual. Darren, already quite drunk as he wasn’t as hardened a party animal as me, looked warily at the bumper round that I had bought, but then laughed and we soon had these drinks tanned. Twenty past two. We had made good time, though my spindly legs were aching from all the dodging in and out of crowds. Our drinks finished, we quickly squeezed through the busy club and out of the big double doors and staggered towards the stadium. I was absolutely hammered by now so god knows what state Darren was in.
We swaggered along Albion Road towards the entrance to the east stand at Hawkhill Avenue. I had a season ticket, but Darren had a normal ticket for the game so we stood in different cues. I looked at my new season ticket that had cost me the best part of three hundred quid. I tore out the relevant voucher and handed it to the lass behind the turnstile.
‘A fat lot of good this is going to do me,’ I thought to myself as I put it back into the pocket of my firetrap jeans and scrambled up the steep steps that led onto the east stand. I was up them in a jiffy, taking two steps at a time, and was joined there by Darren. The ground was already filling up, with a sizeable away support. Darren’s ticket was actually for a different block of seats but my own seat had a big empty space beside it where whoever was accompanying me to games would normally just stand, like we all did. East Stand, row V, seat 100. Right up the back, under the TV gantry. The best seat in the stadium. In fact, to me it was the best seat in the world. It was here, with my Hibee friends, that we led the vocal support and started nearly all of the intimidating songs that helped our beloved team overcome whoever its opponents might be. The fact that I rarely, if ever, sat on that seat which I had occupied for many years or that I had to clamber over various rows of seats to get to it, mattered little. This is where we stood and sang and watched our team. This was my church. This was where I healed my hurt.

The two teams, Hibs in green and white, Aberdeen in all red, left the field after their warm ups and that was our signal to start. Grabbing the railing of the overhead walkway to my left so as to gain extra leverage in my voice I bellowed the words that were ingrained into my brain ‘HAIL, HAIL, THE HIBS ARE HERE.’ Darren and two thousand other voices helped me finish the song in unison ‘ALL FOR GOALS AND GLORY, ALL FOR GOALS AND GLORY, HAIL HAIL THE HIBS ARE HERE, ALL FOR GOALS AND GLORY NOW.’
The whole stand seemed to shake as the sound reverberated around the stand. The east stand was where I always sat. It was the only part of the stadium that hadn’t recently been turned into one of those big two-tier soulless stands so common in Britain after Lord Taylor bizarrely decided to blame some sad football disasters in the 1980s on stadium design rather than on inept policing. The stand was basically a large covered terrace with seats in, but not many of us sat down: we preferred to stand as we always had done.
A fellow Hibby to my right started another song, aimed at the Aberdeen fans that poked fun at a popular stereotype of Aberdonians. ‘SHEEP SHAGGING BASTARDS, YOU’RE ONLY SHEEP SHAGGING BASTARDS’ we all roared in unison to everyone’s mirth. It may not sound very intelligent or sophisticated in the cold light of day, but when you’re plastered and you’re with your mates, it’s hilarious. The Aberdeen fans responded in their typical manner by singing the song back at us, in a painfully transparent attempt to pretend that having this sung to them every single week doesn’t bother them, when it clearly does otherwise they wouldn’t sing it back to us at all. Playground stuff really, but it DOES annoy them.
This vocal sparring was interrupted by the arrival on the pitch of the teams. Aberdeen ran out first, to a chorus of boos, jeering and sheep noises from the home support that was only ended when our Hibernian heroes in green and white took the field.
For such a big occasion, I was in a strange mood. Although we had a home game against the hated and despised Glasgow Rangers in a fortnight, I knew that this would probably be my last visit ever to see my beloved Hibs at Easter Road. I was moving away to the Irish Republic in a few weeks and the game against ‘the Huns’ had been moved to a Sunday to accommodate BBC Scotland, a Sunday that was the day after one of my best mate’s house warming parties. The chances of me making that game were negligible, as the house warming had also turned into my own leaving party. I’d either still be up or be comatose in my bed when the Rangers game kicked off. So this would be my last game. Hibs had basically been shite for over a year since our boss Alex Mcleish had left for Rangers. One of our best players ever, Franck Sauzee, had quickly become our worst manager ever, being sacked after less than seventy days and who had been replaced with Bobby Williamson, a man to whom the term ‘attacking football’ was utterly foreign.
I looked around the stand at those comrades who had stood shoulder to shoulder with me for many a year. Darren was quiet, probably from the drink. I had a tear in my eye but managed to hold it back and shout for joy as our Spanish striker, Paco Luna, put us one nil up. The usual bedlam that followed a Hibs goal ensued in the stands around me as we all jumped up and down, singing and dancing to our wee ditty ‘lets all do the hibeesbounce nanananananana’. Maybe it wasn’t going to be such a bad season. The manager wasn’t very popular but at least he could organise a team.
We went in at half time one nil up thanks to Paco’s goal, and I ate my last ever Easter Road pie. By now I had the thirst for more drink but wasn’t going to leave early on my last ever trip to the holy ground. The second half got underway and we seemed to have the best of it, though Aberdeen were ominously coming back into the game. The guy who stood on the other side of the gantry passed me a grass joint, which I had one toke from and passed back. Aberdeen equalised. Time was running out and it looked like the game was heading for a draw, but myself and obviously a lot of other Hibs fans had that familiar ‘sinking feeling’ as Aberdeen pinned us back in the closing stages. Surely my last ever Hibs game wasn’t going to end in an ignominious defeat like this? Darren Mackie confirmed our fears by scoring the winner for Aberdeen with only minutes remaining.
‘Fuck’s sake’ I thought. ‘What a last game to see’. Hibs 1 Aberdeen 2. I briefly explained to the lads who stood near me that I was going away and wasn’t coming back. They all shook my hand and wished me luck, Darren and I trudging depressingly back up towards Waverley and the train that would take us home to Livingston.
The trip home was as uneventful as the Hibs match, and Darren and I popped into the old Copper Ton Bar in Livingston when we got off the train. After another few pints we bumped into some Celtic fans I knew and sat with them, finding great amusement in annoying patrons with a cheesy Martin O’Neil mask. One of the lads, Gareth, asked how I was getting on and where I was working. I informed him that I was moving to the Irish Republic in a few weeks and that I had been on ‘sick leave’ from my job at 3663 Food Distribution for a few weeks with stress.
Gareth said ‘That sounds a bit drastic Ian, why are you moving over there?’..........................................

http://www.amazon.co