Hibees Return

Week Eighteen: Sunday 28 January – Saturday 3 February

What a week it has been. Following the whir that was hosting a Burns Supper, then driving up to and back from Edinburgh within three days, and seeing as many people as possible in that time, I really didn’t get my bearings until the middle of week.

By that time, thanks to snippets from Radio Five Live and text messages from my brother and nephew, I had the pleasure of discovering that my beloved Hibernian FC had reached another cup final: the CIS League Cup Final.

I managed to get to Easter Road, home to Hibernian FC, the Hibees, when I was up in Edinburgh; they beat Motherwell 2-0 in a drab game where the players did enough to win without having to stretch themselves.

Now I hope to be going back up to Scotland in late March to see them win a trophy. Hibs haven’t won the League Cup since 1991; we haven’t won the Scottish Cup since 1902!! We’ve made it to three or four cup finals since 1991: I’ve been at them all, and we’ve lost them all! I’d consider myself a jinx, only I was at the 1991 final when we won.

I’m not the average football fan; I don’t have much time for player adulation and I don’t enjoy watching much football. I’ve always preferred to play the game and have never been up for watching more than one game a week. But I do love my team, the Hibees, Hibs, Hibernian FC. I love the club, the history, the tradition. I love what the club means to Leith, the area in Edinburgh where Hibs are based, to the fans and to Scottish football.

And I’d love my team to win another trophy because the best thing in football, apart from seeing the ball hit the back of the net, is seeing the captain of your team lift a trophy after a cup final.

I don’t want my wife and daughter to be football fans, but I do want them to share my love of Hibs. Inadvertently, they do.

Within hours of my future wife to be arriving in Scotland for the first time, from her life in Botswana and family in Zimbabwe, she found herself quickly whisked to the Shore Bar in Leith to meet some new family and friends for the first time, down some Guinness for the first time and attend an Edinburgh derby at Easter Road for the first time.

In my defence, two of my nephews, and, by the way, all of my nephews are Hibs fans, had moved from Edinburgh to Oxford; I booked tickets for that derby for us, and they were coming up especially for it, before my wife to be booked her flight!

I remember it well, 16 March 2002. We went 1-0 up early doors through Gary O’Connor; after I stopped jumping up and down and screaming, I kissed and hugged my now wife and told her she was a lucky mascot. Hearts equalised in the second half and won with a Steven Pressley penalty in stoppage time.

My wife consoled me by explaining to me that is was an omen from the gods of football that she was not to play any future part in my football life. Clever, eh?

We moved to Portugal soon after that, but were back in Scotland in early 2004 for the birth of our daughter, who will be three next month. Just over a month later Hibs were in the CIS League Cup Final, facing Livingston having knocked Rangers and Celtic out on the way. There were eleven of us crowded round my daughter, who was wearing a present of a Hibs strip as the photos were taken before we left; we all kissed the lucky mascot’s head as we piled into the cars, headed for Hampden Park and dreamed the dream. We lost 2-0.

Do you know how my wife consoled me? Oh, so clever!

But my daughter knows a few Hibs songs and my wife can cope with the odd game every now and again. So I hope the three of us will be at Hampden Park, Glasgow on Sunday 18 March to see Hibs captain, Rob Jones, lift the CIS League Cup.

God willing!