A Season Review

So Hibs fell short of their pre-season target of achieving promotion, their narrow play-off defeat at the hands of Rangers ensured that it would be Championship football being played at Easter Road next season, rather than the Premiership football everyone connected with the club had hoped for.

As with the Scottish Cup Semi-Final, and countless other matches that preceded the play-off semi-final ties with Rangers, Hibs' found themselves dominant but unable to break down a dogged defence until it was too late. A two goal deficit proved from the first leg proved too much to overturn, and though Jason Cummings' late strike won the second leg for Hibernian, it was too little, too late, and Rangers progressed to the final where they will now face Motherwell.

It was a cruel and premature end to Hibernian's season, the players slumped to the turf, devastated at coming so close only to fall short when it really mattered. The Easter Road support, were magnificent, and as the familiar Hibs' anthem 'Sunshine on Leith' chimed out through the PA system, the crowd lifted the players and applauded them off the park. In fact, the support had come into it's own in the final moments of the match.

As the Rangers fans taunted former Celtic player Alan Stubbs (with the tasteful lyrics 'Cheer up Alan Stubbs, oh what can it mean, to a fat fenian bastard...') the Hibs support broke into a spontaneous applause and drowned out the heckles of the visiting support, who had been quiet throughout the match up until the final few minutes. It's fair to say that should Rangers get the better of Motherwell and win promotion to the Scottish Premiership, few will miss the sectarian bile that their support seems incapable of eradicating.

That applause from the Hibs support was almost protective, a reminder to the Hibs players that the fans were right there with them. It was in stark contrast to the reaction to the final game of the season before which had brought about relegation, and reflects the transformation in the club in the last twelve months.

At the start of the season, I expected Hibs to be competing with Hearts and Rangers for the title, and for the three clubs to occupy the top three spots in the league. I actually called Rangers as favourites for the title. Their superior resources and the fact that their team had been together through the divisions put them in the best position coming into the season. Hearts, I felt, would struggle much the same as Hibs would, they would win the majority of their games but would lose their fair share too.

Of course, the season didn't pan out like that. Hibs' sluggish start left them chasing an insurmountable gap from early on in the season. Rangers imploded spectacularly mid-season and managed to self-destruct with almost comical frequency for a period of the season before Stuart McCall was appointed to steady the ship.

Hearts, as we know, had a spectacular league season. The blip that everyone expected to come never arrived, they won game after game after game and left the rest of the league trailing in their wake. It was incredible, and the hard work that went into their post-admin re-structuring and team building paid off in spectacular style.

Hibs were a slow burner, we were late to the party with our re-structuring. The decision to remove Terry Butcher and his backroom team was taken weeks too late, and the appointment of Alan Stubbs left him with little time to put together a thorough pre-season with his newly formed team.

There was little incoming Chief Executive Leeann Dempster could do about the timing, she had a job to finish at Motherwell and was not in a position to meet with Butcher to make the decision on his future at the club. When she did, she acted decisively.

The whole football department at the club has been shaken up, in fact, every area of the club was shaken up, and we continue to see changes being made at all levels.

George Craig came on board to head up football operations, Joe McBride took over the youth set up, bringing ex-Falkirk manager Eddie May on board with him.  Hibs saw directors leave and others join. Fan representatives Amit Moudgil and Frank Dougan were elected by the Hibs support onto the Board of Directors, and we are starting to see more of the influence that they are having at board level.

The club opened it's doors to the community, with the Community Foundation doing great work (from personal experience, I have attended the Football Fans in Training and Healthy Hibee programs, which have been outstanding and have brought me much closer to the club - even as a thirty-seven year old, I get a buzz from changing in the home dressing room before making my way out the tunnel and onto the pitchside!). Hundreds of school kids have attended Easter Road this season as the club have handed out tickets to give them the opportunity, and the great work carried out by Leith Links has ensured that many disadvantaged children have been able to connect with the club.

There has been a lot of discussion post-play-off defeat about the use of the word 'proud' when discussing how the support feels about the club. Some have argued that it is impossible to be proud of a team that has failed to meet its primary objective of gaining promotion to the top tier. It is a black and white stance that, personally, I don't agree with.

I see much to be proud of when I look at Hibernian Football Club right now. The club feels different - progressive and inclusive. It feels like my club. Our club.

Of course I'm disappointed that we fell short of promotion, just as I was when we lost out on the Scottish Cup Final. But I am proud of the players, proud of the manager, and proud of the club. You need to have incredible patience to be a Hibs supporter, and balls made of pure titanium to withstand the amount of kicks they take when it really matters, but looking at the bigger picture I can see the great strides that the club is making.

I genuinely feel that Hibs have changed for the better, and while it hurts right now - and will, for the whole of the next season regardless of how well we do - at some point soon I know we will be back, and we will be much stronger for the experience, and stronger for the hard work that is going into things all across the football club.

Already, Hibs have moved to cement plans for next season. Today saw the announcement of club captain Liam Craig's departure, and the extension of new club captain David Gray's contract. Hibs have never, for as long as I can recall, done that sort of business at the earliest opportunity. They have now. Stubbs and Dempster are people in a hurry. They want better and they are pulling out all the stops to achieve it.

As soon as the final whistle sounded on Saturday afternoon, Stubbs was vocalising his intention to win the league next season. There was no caveat to it, no 'depending on who is in it with us' cop-out, just a proper neck-on-the-line statement. He wants to win the league. Second place is not going to cut it for Stubbs next season.

These are exactly the noises I want to hear coming from Easter Road in the coming days, weeks, and months. I think Hibs have a huge opportunity to get the support on board. The share issue was always going to be a slow burner, but I think if Hibs can show that they mean business this season, and build a team not just good enough to win in the Championship, but good enough to compete with any team we face next season, then they can start seeing crowds returning to Easter Road.

The support haven't seen ambition from the club for years, for too long ambition has equalled budget, and the expectations have been set around that. It's not glamorous and it's not ambitious, it doesn't sell season tickets or capture the hearts and minds of supporters, some of whom can remember Hibs going toe to toe with the very best that Europe has to offer.

Ambition is about over-achieving. It is wanting to do more with what you've got that people think is possible. That stretch, that extra bit, the determination, craft, skill, and hard work that gets you over the line - that's your ambition right there.

Stubbs has ambition, and that breeds into the players. Leeann Dempster is ambitious too, so the club is being driven to achieve those extra miles. The bar is being raised and Hibs would do well to capture that spirit and show it to the fans. There is a desire to see a successful Hibs side. The support are desperate for good times again, to be able to say that they are proud of the team without someone telling them they shouldn't be.

We all have a part to play in that. The support provide the means to build a winning team, but they'll only do that if they think that the club mean business. For once, we seem to be in a position where the club are putting their cards on the table and doing exactly that.

The season, then, has been disappointing in the main, but it is essential that the disappointment does not obscure the many good things that have happened. We finished second, where it looked at one stage that we'd struggle to make fourth. We reached the Scottish Cup semi-final, going further than Aberdeen, Dundee United, Rangers and Hearts to name a few. We had the league's top scorer in Jason Cummings and the league's best player in Scott Allan.

When you consider that Scott Allan had some competition just to be the best player at Hibs, it shows that there are positives to take from the season. Dominique Malonga represented the club at the African Cup of Nations. We have become the Scottish club with the largest proportion of supporter ownership (I think!) through the efforts of Hibernian Supporters Limited, and we have one of the game's brightest managerial prospects in Alan Stubbs.

We can reflect on a disappointing season, and it will always be disappointing to be anywhere other than the top flight, but we should always remember that we are Hibernian F.C. and we have a lot to be proud about, and a lot to look forward to.

Second Place is Only The First Part of the Job.

Hibs went into Saturday's game against what could be considered their bogey team, Falkirk (Hibs had not beaten Falkirk in four attempts prior to their win on Saturday), in pole position for second place.
The previous weekends victory against Alloa had left Hibs in a position where they could afford to lose, so long as Rangers didn't win at Tynecastle. Hibernian's superior goal difference effectively giving them a two point advantage over the Glasgow side.  A draw would only be enough for Rangers if Hibs lost heavily to Falkirk.

Three and a half thousand Hibs fans made their way west to Falkirk looking for a happy afternoon against a team that had left them with little to be joyful about all season. Falkirk were in the position of having nothing meaningful to play for in the final match. They had been pipped to fourth spot by Queen of the South, and are counting down the days to the Scottish Cup Final, which they reached (as we know) by triumphing against their final visitors.

Due to work commitments, I was limited to goal updates on Sky Sports. Fortunately, we have an abundance of screens showing Sky Sports in the office, so with the Hearts v Rangers game within viewing distance, I was able to keep up to date with what was going on there as well as at Falkirk.

The Hibs fans that did manage to get a ticket (Hibs sold out their allocation of tickets, requested more, then sold them out as well, and could have sold more still, such was the demand for the game) had their nerves calmed early on, when Martin 'Squirrel' Boyle burst forward and played a neat one-two with Scott Allan before firing a shot across Jamie McDonald to put Hibs a goal up with just a few minutes to spare.

So Hibs had made the first move, it was now up to Rangers to see if they could put some pressure on the Leith men, and sure enough - Rangers took the lead at Tynecastle. Shortly afterwards. Rangers would survive a penalty appeal when their goalkeeper looked like he fouled Osman Sow, who had earlier been booked for diving. Perhaps the referee considered it a case of 'the boy who cried wolf' or perhaps he missed the incident (or chose to ignore it), but the Rangers goalkeeper could consider himself very fortunate not to have conceded a penalty, which, if it had been given, would likely have seen the goalkeeper red carded for his troubles.

Unlike Hearts, Rangers didn't dwell on the decision, and they took full advantage moments later when Kenny Miller side-footed home from inside the penalty box to give Rangers a two goal advantage.

So far, so good for Rangers. If they had wanted to turn the heat up on Hibs, this was exactly what they needed to do. Hibs, however, responded almost immediately. Jason Cummings found himself staring down Jamie McDonald from a few yards out. Cummings dropped a shoulder and sold McDonald a dummy before wandering round the grounded goalkeeper to walk the ball into the now unguarded net. It was a classy finish from the young player who finished the season on top of the scoring charts, a remarkable achievement for a lad that was working as a gardener just a couple of years ago. It rounded off a good week for Jason, who had been voted 'Young Player of the Year' by Hibernian supporters a few days earlier.

Hibs now held the aces in the race for second place, and Rangers were running out of cards to play. As the game progressed at Tynecastle, Hearts shuffled the deck and brought on man-mountain Genero Zeefuik who proved to be almost worth his weight in goals as he headed Hearts back into the match before shooting home a late, late equaliser which finally prompted the Hearts fans into voice, the goal signalling the end of the apparent sponsored silence which seems to be a staple of a Hearts party these days, if the 90 minutes at Tynecastle on Saturday and their party at Easter Road where they lost the last derby of the season are anything to go by.

As if that wasn't enough to sour the Rangers' day, they would hear that Do-do-do-Dominique Malonga had scored for the third consecutive game to give Hibs an unassailable three goal lead going into the final moments of the game.

The results left Hibs in second place, as they had started the day. Few would have given Hibs much hope of second in December and it's testament to Alan Stubbs and his team that they proved the doubters wrong.Questions had been asked about Stubbs's side's bottle, and they were answered in spades in the final weeks of the season. It is ironic that Hibs played much better, in my opinion, in the semi-final against Falkirk where they were accused of bottling it, than they played in Saturday's win. That's football, I suppose.

Rangers now face Queen of the South to see who will meet Hibs in the play-off semi final. Rangers will not be approaching the game with any great amount of confidence. Their last outing at Palmerston ended in a 3-0 reverse, with Queen of the South capitalising on a dire performance from the visitors. Rangers have shipped five goals without reply on their travels to Queen of the South this season, and so the play-off fixture is far from a formality.

Queen of the South are in an almost enviable position of having virtually no pressure on them. Expectations throughout Scottish football at the start of the season were that, aside from whoever was to win the league, the other team likely to be promoted would come from Hearts, Rangers, or Hibernian. With Hearts being the title winners, pundits have practically discounted Queen of the South from any notion of them being contenders. It's not an opinion I share. Both Hibs and Rangers have struggled against Queen of the South this season - their stuffy, park-the-bus approach at Easter Road has subjected me to some of the most negative football seen in the East of Edinburgh since the Alex Miller years. With Hibs tendency to find themselves knocked out by the sucker punch on so many occasions this season, the thought of going up against that will not fill the players with joy.

However, both Rangers and Queen of the South would happily trade places with Hibs. The advantage gained in finishing second is significant, especially if the quarter final turns out to be a gruelling, hard fought affair.

It is vital, though, that Hibs remain focussed. Finishing second was just the start of the job and nothing has been achieved yet. The next two games (and, hopefully the two after) are amongst the most important in the club's history. Negotiate these games effectively, and Hibs can put the nightmare of the Championship behind them and look forward to taking their seat at the top-flight table again next season.

I have no doubt that Hibs are capable of winning these games, and although their sternest test will likely come from the SPL side hoping to avoid swapping places with their Championship counterpart, Hibs have the players in their team that have it in their locker to go on and win.

There may be a question of whether or not they have the temperament to do it, but I think that questions has been put to bed on many occasions this season, and Hibs have stuck at it. In finishing second, Hibs accumulated more points that Championship winners Dundee collected last season. Dundee have held their own in the SPL this season, so Hibs should take confidence that they can mix it with the big boys.

Hibs biggest barrier to overcome is to make sure that the focus remains on the job in hand over the next couple of weeks until they need to play again. The risk is that in achieving a milestone in finishing second, they get the chance to relax and let complacency seep in. In Alan Stubbs, Hibs have a manager who is ideal for preventing that from happening. Stubbs has insisted on high standards all season, and it's finally paying dividends.

I am hopeless at predictions, but my gut instinct is that Hibs will once again be a top flight side next season. The one thing I can say, is that so long as Stubbs and his backroom stay, and the hugely impressive work behind the scenes at Easter Road continues, then it's only a matter of time before Hibs are challenging at the right end of the right league, even if it doesn't happen this year.

Congratulations must also go to Championship Player of the Year, Scott Allan. What a joy it has been watching him grow and develop at Hibs this season. He was impressive when he first arrived but having had the bulk of the season under his belt, he has improved immeasurably under Stubbs' guidance. This improvement is a trend that's evident throughout the side, and Allan had some close competition from his team-mates for the award.

Scott has another year on his contract, and I desperately hope Hibs resist any advances for him. He is a player that the Hibs fans appreciate, and he fits the style of play that Stubbs is stamping on the team like a glove. The phrase 'build a team around' gets used a lot in football, and never has it been more fitting than in Scott Allan's case at Hibs.

What has also been very noticeable, in contrast to the abject misery and disillusionment of last season's closing stages, is rather than seeing an impending exodus of players, we are hearing stories of players being desperate to stay at Hibs, and we've gone from seeing loan players who simply couldn't give a toss about the club (yes, Matt Doherty, I mean you) to players like Martin Boyle who showed with his celebration on Saturday exactly what it means to him to be at Easter Road.

It's like night and day comparing the Hibs from then to the Hibs of now. We have some of the most talented young players (the potential in Jason Cummings is unbelievable, in my opinion this guy could go on to be the best striker Hibs have produced since Riordan and Fletcher), as well as some experienced players (Fontaine, Gray, Hanlon, Stevenson, Craig, Robertson) who have raised their game considerably this season. It's a great mix, and Stubbs will have a lot of food for thought over the close season to decide how he is going to build on this nucleus of talent.