Hibs at the stage where everyone is now singing off the same hymn sheet
SAYS ALAN STUBBS
‘My heart was broken. Sorrow. Sorrow. Sorrow. Sorrow… You saw it. You claimed it. You touched it. You saved it.’ — Sunshine On Leith
FOR Hibs fans waking up on the morning of May 20, 2012, the crushing low of the previous afternoon at Hampden Park must have seemed like a bad dream.
Little did the long-suffering Easter Road faithful realise that P at Fenlon’s team ’s humiliating 5-1 Scottish Cup Final loss at the hands of their derby rivals Hearts merely represented the beginning of a nightmarish descent into the abyss.
As a club that had seemingly hit rock-bottom kept finding ways to dig deeper , 2013 brought the ignominy of a 7-0 home Europa League loss to Malmo.
It was Hibs’ heaviest defeat in 58 years of European competition and truly painful for a trail-blazing club who became Britain ’s first- ever entrants into competitive continental football in 1955 under the visionary stewardship of chairman Harry Swan.
The 9-0 aggregate loss to the modest Swedes, who lost 4-0 to Swansea in the next round, remains the heaviest reverse ever suffered by a Scottish side in Europe.
If the departure of F enlon, and the dawn of 2014, brought new hope, reality bit with the horror of Terry Butcher’s hapless team free-falling to relegation.
Ahead 2-0 away to Hamilton Accie sin the first leg of the inaugural play-offs, the second leg saw Hibs buried in their own backyard when, after a 2-0 loss at Easter Road, Jason Cummings missed the vital penalty that sent them down.
When it came to the direction the club was headed, though, alarm bells were heard clanging at the 2013 Scottish Cup Final. After losing 3-0 to Celtic, 12 months after that Hearts debacle, Fenlon’s Hibs players sauntered through the mixed zone at Hampden curiously pleased at their performance.
The thought struck then that if less than a four -goal deficit in the final of a competition they had not won since 1902 was something to be celebrated, it would be a long time before this club had anything real to cheer.
But fast forward to Tuesday night’s 1-0 Scottish Cup replay win over Hearts at Easter Road and Hibs are utterly unrecognisable from the shambles of recent years.
If there was any remaining doubt that Alan Stubbs has restored belief and fight to this team during his 20 months in charge, it came via this deserved victory , secured by a fine Cummings goal, after a gutsy fightback from 2-0 down at Tynecastle had secured a replay.
The evidence of a club singing off the same hymn sheet came once more, literally, in the form of the aptly-poignant lyrics of Sunshine On Leith. At the mass rendition of a song about broken hearts being healed hung in the Leith air on Tuesday, the massed ranks of Hibs fans could have been directing it at Stubbs himself.
The Liverpudlian dedicated the famous win to the long - suffering supporters who made Easter Road a rare sell-out on Tuesday.
And, having transformed their team from bottlers to battlers, the challenge now is to ensure those fans who turned their back on the team during the difficult times now keep coming back.
‘ What was I thinking during Sunshine On Leith? I was thinking that was for the fans tonight,’ said Stubbs. ‘To see this stadium full, the way it should be, was a real eye- opener for me, my staff and the players. We want to see that more often and the only way we are going to do that is if we do our part of the bargain and get this club back up to the Premiership.
‘For all the ones that have not come back , these players deserve your backing right now.
‘ The people who called us bottlers are going to have to make up something different now . We will have to see what that is, but when they do we will ram that down their throat as well.’
Trailing Rangers by eight points in the Championship, with a game in hand, Hibs remain on course for an unprecedented treble. Next month, Inverness Caley Thistle block their path in the last eight of the Scottish Cup, while Ross County are the opponents in the League Cup Final seven days later.
It is a daunting schedule but Stubbs, whose side has knocked Aberdeen, Dundee United, St Johnstone and Hearts out of cup competitions this season, is relishing proving wrong those who mocked him when he pointed out Hibs could win a treble this season.
‘I wouldn’t want it any other way,’ he told Hibs TV. ‘We are in a League Cup Final, we are in a Scottish Cup final and we are pushing for promotion. What is the priority? They are all priorities.
‘People laughed when I first said that but we just keep going , we just keep getting results. The players keep rising to the challenge but they need to rise even more if we are to be successful.
‘The players deserve so much credit. They are proving the point that if you are prepared to work hard then, with their ability , anything is possible.
‘I keep saying that to them — and they are starting to believe me.’