Gordon should be prepared for fans’ backlash if Hibs aren’t ready for big kick-off
RON GORDON appears to believe that the SPFL refusing to schedule fixtures on the days he would prefer ‘kills your season ticket’. Maybe the Easter Road chairman should reflect, instead, on the impact of his admission in the same interview that his side, already out of the Premier Sports Cup in farcical circumstances, don’t look like being able to catch Hearts and Aberdeen in the league this season and that he’d be happy just finishing in the top five.
For a bloke who talks so much about everything being wonderful and magical and next-level at the old Cabbage and Ribs, it doesn’t quite add up. It certainly doesn’t inspire you to share his confidence in the future.
Indeed, it is hard to know what to make of much of the video call the US-based businessman held with a number of podcasters during the week to great fanfare and headlines.
We already know the big takes from an interesting, often perplexing, sometimes contradictory, hour or so. It seems the SPFL — an organisation in which Gordon, perhaps a little inconveniently, is preparing for another season as a member of the board — are ‘foolish’ and ‘absurd’ for scheduling early Premiership visits to Leith for Hearts and Rangers.
‘Poorly-planned on multiple fronts’ was his scathing view on the fixture list. If Uncle Ron only chucked around the estimated £6million hauled in from selling Martin Boyle and Josh Doig with the same gay abandon with which he throws stones from glass houses, they’d be queued up all the way to Leith Walk for season books.
This is a club that has just exited the Premier Sports Cup in abject disgrace. They lost to Falkirk, after all.
Oh, yes, they also forfeited a point after defender Rocky Bushiri — a guy reported as leaving the club before it emerged the number of appearances made on loan from Norwich last term triggered an option — had been found to have played in a penalty shoot-out loss to Morton after being booked twice and suspended earlier in the competition.
As foolishness and absurdity goes, you’d have to travel many a mile to find anything even in the same ballpark.
Gordon, mind you, wasn’t quite as hardcore on all that in his great state-of-the-nation address. ‘It’s a bit of a shame, to be honest with you,’ he reflected, most graciously, before pointing out that the football operations set-up guilty of the ‘boo-boo’ has been ‘upgraded’ — along with every other department being much, much better than it was before he came in.
You’ll remember those grim, soulless times. When Hibs won stuff like the Scottish Cup instead of finishing eighth in the table and skittling managers the way you would take aim at a coconut shy on Portobello Beach.
‘No matter what is said, no one can diminish what a small, committed group of people did to get Hibs going again — backed by brilliant supporters. It was a special time in my life. I wish the club and everyone well,’ Tweeted former CEO Leeann Dempster on Friday. It was difficult not to read such honey-coated words and feel a slightly astringent zing in the back of the throat.
For all the faults of the previous regime — particularly the hasty departure of Neil Lennon as manager to the backdrop of a press release stating how absolutely, totally brilliant he was — Dempster and Co did much to re-engage a disillusioned fanbase. The mood music suggests, however, that there is a bit of a drift in that regard. And Gordon (pictured), although clearly ticking a big PR box by talking to punters on a public forum, said some things that are hardly going to calm that disquiet.
He seemed shocked at the very suggestion there is some kind of disconnect between supporters and the board, referring to some survey of ‘10,000 respondents’ as well as getting into a lather over corporate partnerships. ‘I hope our supporters begin to get behind the club on the good days and the bad days,’ he added. ‘That’s the only way we’re going to build the club.’
Hold on a wee minute here. Begin to get behind the club on the good days and bad days? This is Hibs we are talking about here. They hadn’t won the Scottish Cup for 114 years before 2016. They were relegated just before that. Wallace Mercer tried to take them over during his time at Hearts.
If a large percentage of Hibs fans didn’t stay behind the club in bad times, wouldn’t Easter Road have been turned into an Asda quite some time ago?
Look, no one can argue with Gordon’s view that this is a transitional stage. There’s a new manager in Lee Johnson, a load of new players and all manner of change behind the scenes.
Yes, you can understand what he means when stating that a first home game against a smaller club would attract a larger gate than normal and result in another full house in the first Edinburgh derby later in the season, but is that really the concern of the SPFL’s fixtures mullah in a campaign made altogether more complicated by a winter World Cup? If anything, you listen to Gordon’s complaints about Hearts and Rangers visiting in the club’s first two home games of the season and get the feeling much of the dissatisfaction stems from the fact Hibs just don’t seem to be ready for the big kick-off next weekend.
He mentions that new corporate hospitality facilities are expected to be finished just days before the derby. Well, whose fault is that? The start date for the campaign has hardly been sprung on competing clubs by surprise.
Added to a number of injuries, new signings are still scrambling around for work permits. It feels like everything is being cobbled together on the hoof.
‘It puts us in a difficult position where we need to be ready to play those matches,’ stated Gordon when referring to Hearts and Rangers coming so early.
Well, yes. It is the start of the league season. Is it so unreasonable to expect the team to be ready to play whoever it is paired against?
WHAT shouldn’t be forgotten in all this is that Gordon is three years in the door at Hibs. There is no need for it to be as unstable as this, but that, you’d guess, is what happens when you bullet Jack Ross as boss just before a cup final and then take a gamble on a rookie in Shaun Maloney, who ends up lasting 120 days.
Gordon, in fairness, has admitted to mistakes. He has bemoaned the instability created. Lots of what he says about strengthening the infrastructure of the club — even if a recruitment department run by his son still causes unease — makes sense.
However, stating before the season even starts that ‘it is going to be tough to catch Hearts and Aberdeen’ creates mixed messages. Much the same as his answer to a question about what causes him sleepless nights.
‘Not making it further in the cup,’ he replied. ‘Other than that, I love where the club is. I think we’ve made a lot of progress, but, you know, the football is just a kick in the guts.’
The football is what it’s about, though. And if Hibs turn out to be as ill-prepared as it looks when Hearts and Rangers come calling, finger-pointing at the SPFL isn’t going to wash. There’s going to be hell to pay.