Hanlon and Stevenson leave Hibs as legends of longevity
IN an era of football mercenaries and shortlived spells, to have a player stay the distance at one club is unusual. It is even rarer to have two, particularly in the same team, which is why Hibs were especially blessed to have the service of Lewis Stevenson for 19 seasons and Paul Hanlon for 17.
A statement read: “After playing over 1,100 games combined for the Hibees, the pair will both leave the club at the end of the 2023/24 campaign following the expiration of their contracts. Off the pitch, both Paul and Lewis have been consummate professionals and fantastic representatives of the club and will leave with the very best wishes from everyone involved at Hibernian FC.”
Although confirmation of their joint departure in the summer when their contracts expire was hardly a surprise – in fact, it was probably the worst-kept secret in Scottish football – it will be strange seeing a Hibs side without one or both of them named in the matchday squad. The pair have shared a pitch 417 times, set to increase before the end of the campaign, and have been in the same squad on 552 occasions. That Stevenson will break the 600-appearance mark, and Hanlon will probably reach 565 games in green and white before they depart, is incredible in this day and age.
There are Hibs fans out there who have not known the club without Hanlon and Stevenson. They have been the two constants through relegation, promotion, cup final defeats, managerial changes, European nights, Covid-19 – even new stands at Easter Road. If you were building A Good Hibs Man from scratch, you would likely come up with a combination of the two.
The pair are leaders, ambassadors, hardworkers, fronting-uppers. It became something of a pressbox joke that, in the event of a chastening defeat for Hibs,
Hanlon or Stevenson would often be sent up to face the media afterwards because they could be trusted to toe the party line but also speak from the heart – Hanlon as the stoic, boyhood Hibee who had made the move from the terraces to the back line and Stevenson as the seven-out-of-10-each-week grafter, forever trying to avoid the limelight only to be thrust into it, and the history books, as the first, and only, Hibernian player to win both domestic trophies.
Despite the club’s famed players over the years – Groves; Stanton; Smith, Johnstone, Reilly, Turnbull, and Ormond; Latapy, Sauzee, McGinn; Baker, Combe, Halligan, McColl, and O’Rourke – there is something fitting
about Stevenson being the only man to win the Scottish Cup and League Cup with Hibs; a just reward for his years of service and dedication. It is regrettable that Hanlon was just a few months out from sharing that honour with him, but you imagine he would trade that for winning the Scottish Cup and ending a 114-year hoodoo with his close friend by his side nearly a decade later.
Speaking in previously unaired Sky Sports footage from the aftermath of the 2016 Scottish Cup final, Stevenson said: “All the torture and torment we’ve experienced since I’ve been here I think we’d have taken every low for the high we got today. It’s an unbelievable feeling – I’m choking up here. I didn’t cry when my daughter was born but I was crying out there on the pitch! It’s an amazing day and the fans deserve it.”
Hanlon added: “I’ve thought about going down Easter Road on an open-top bus with the Scottish Cup a million times. The fans have been through so much with this club and it’s our time to give a bit back – no one deserves it more than them.”
It was typical that both would highlight the supporters. Hanlon, having grown up in green and white, knew only too well what it meant and even though he grew up a Fifer, Stevenson is every bit “one of our own” in the eyes of most Hibs fans.
That being said, the time is probably right for them to move on and with both feeling like they might have one more season in them, it would be cruel to deny them the opportunity to play week in, week out again. But at a time when the good ship Hibernian is taking on water and listing dangerously to one side, a great many Hibs fans would surely rather they were on deck helping to bail out the water, than rowing away on a lifeboat; not necessarily in a playing capacity, but in some role as individuals who know what it means to play for the badge and what the club means to so many.
But there is little room for sentiment in modern football. It is remarkable when one thinks of the sheer number of pretenders to his throne that Stevenson saw off over the years, and it is an indication of how good Jordan Obita has been over the past season that he has been the one to wrest the crown away finally. The absence of Hanlon from a rearguard that has struggled throughout the season has been the source of much discussion and debate on the terraces, in the pubs, and on the internet forums. Should he have played more? Would the defence, and the team, have been better with him in it? We will never know.
When both leave the Easter Road pitch as players for the final time next week, with more than 1,100 combined appearances for the club, they might well have one last look up at the Main Stand, with the motto of Leith inscribed front and centre: “So with the darkest days behind, our ship of hope will steer; and when in doubt, just keep in mind our motto, persevere.” Words that could almost have been written for Hanlon and Stevenson.