GREAT EXPECTATIONS: Can Hibs Kids Emulate the 70’s Masters

[Gunnerhibby]

It is always with great anticipation that Hibs fans look forward to New Years Day. It brings with it great memories of one game in particular, January 1 1973, Tynecastle Park. Score … 0-7.

As a 14-year-old Hibby, I was taken along to ‘Tynie’ with my Dad and his mates, all suffering from the exuberation of the New Year Parties they hosted the previous night. My two McEwan’s Pale Ale shandies were more than enough to give me that sense of excitement a New Year Derby brings.

It was only three short weeks before that we had celebrated a famous Hibees victory over Celtic at Hampden, to bring the League Cup back to Edinburgh. The Hibees of that day were on a crest of the wave, as were the fans, Cup winners, challenging Celtics’ domination of the League, latter stages of European competition, Yes, it was good to be a Hibby.

We went along to Gorgie knowing that a win would put us joint top with Celtic, only goal difference keeping us of the top. Hibs needed an emphatic victory by seven goals to take pole position, so most fans accepted we would be in second place.

Never in any Hibs fans wildest dreams did we think that the final result would be achieved.

Legends were born that day.

Jimmy O’Rourke 0-1 (9 minutes), Alan Gordon 0-2 (16 mins), Arthur Duncan 0-3 (26 mins), Alex Cropley 0-4 (35 mins), Arthur Duncan 0-5 (37 mins), Jimmy O’Rourke 0-6 (56 mins), Alan Gordon 0-7 (75 mins)

Add the efforts of the (sometimes) unsung heroes of that day, Jim Herriot, kept a clean sheet, Erich Scheadler and John Brownlie, the creative wing-backs, John Blackley and Jim Black, the rocks of central defence, Alex Edwards, teasing the Hearts defence with brilliant dribbling skills and Pat Stanton, Hibs Captain and cultured midfielder, who drove Hibs forward.

This is Hibernian folklore.

"And now we’ve got a younger team I dinnae want tae brag”, sings Hector Nicol.

Well Hibs fans are bragging, we do have a younger team, full of style, full of skill, and giving Hibs fans hopes of great days returning to Easter Road.

Lets not be fooled, this team is, in more ways than one, still in its infancy, but the fans see what Tony Mowbray is doing, what he’s trying to achieve. And we like it.

The goals that Gordon, Duncan and O’Rourke gave us then, are coming through young stars like Derek Riordan and Garry O’Connor. The style Hibs’ have always tried to play with being performed by the classy young Frenchman, Guillame Beuzilin. The cavalier wing-backs of Steven Whittaker and David Murphy, comparable to Brownlie and Scheadler. Ian Murray and Gary Caldwell being the Iron Curtain that Blackley and Black gave to Turnbulls Tornados.

"Goals, Goals, Goals, Goals, that’s the Hibees aim", sang The Tornados

Eddie Turnbull created a team that was designed to attack, “as long as we score more goals than the other team, we’ll win games”, was Ned’s philosophy. It seems Tony Mowbray was educated in the same school of thought. Whilst Hibs goals against column (28 ) does’nt make great reading, 35 goals scored in 20 games tells us Turnbull’s legacy of attack, attack, attack has been noted. The Great Man, sitting in the West Stand tomorrow, will be inwardly smiling, knowing that he’s seen it all before.

Hibs are currently sitting in third position in the SPL, a win tomorrow will consolidate that position, and put us an excellent 12 points in front of our neighbours from Gorgie.

But there is a bigger picture here. Just beating Hearts pales into significance of what a win, and the three points, it brings. It gives Tony Mowbray’s young charges a springboard to the second half of the season, and the all-important qualification for Europe.

Hibs were not only Scotland’s pioneers into European Competition, they were also Britain’s. It is only fitting that we are back on this stage. During the Turnbull’s Tornadoes era, Hibs’ fans expected this.

Has this time come again?