hibLOG
July-August 2002
September 2002
UPDATED -
October 2003
LATEST: The Summer of '90
For pre-85 stuff, see Doug Raith's site - From Argentina to (Benny) Brazil
These pages contain a selective archive of newspaper cuttings and programmes covering most of the major events (and many minor ones) in the history of Hibernian Football Club from 1986 to the present day.
Since I moved from Edinburgh to Cambridge in late 1986 my good old Dad has been faithfully snipping out the football pages of The Scotsman newspaper and sending them down to me so that I can keep in touch with Scottish football, and Hibs in particular. These pages are therefore something of a tribute to his dedication rather than mine - and he doesn't even follow football!
On the increasingly rare occasions when I've managed to get to a game I've tried to collect a programme, and those are included, sometimes in place of press cuttings. They aren't always of the big games (neither are the cuttings) but always provide something of interest to the diehard Hibby (which you must be or you wouldn't be here).
This is a work in (slow) progress - I'll be adding pages in chronological order as and when I have time and will post notification of updates to the Hibs list and the Message Boards at Hibs.net and the Hibees Bounce. If anyone has any information to add to any of the pages - personal memories, anecdotes, libel suits etc - please feel free to mail me at fraserp@quista.net. No comments on the budget web authoring please - like a team trained by Alex Miller, dull functionality is the watchword here.
Also! Ropey pictures of Easter Road showing the old East Terracing...Click here!
A good start to the season has turned into an average one after a stupid defeat at home to Motherwell, a draw with Dunfermline on their new magic carpet, and an undeserved defeat by Celtic.
Managed to see the latter game courtesy of Irish sports channel Setanta, whose commentator noted prominently at the start of the game that Hibs were the original Irish emigrants' team and that Celtic were the relative Johnny-come-lately lot. Thank you Setanta.
More Hands Off Hibs
I've added a couple more articles from the sports pages of the Scotsman from 5 June 1990, with Inverness Caley hovering vulture-like to see if Hibs' potential extinction would create room for them in the league. Also several articles from the weeks following Mercer's takeover bid hinting at the financial quagmire in which Hibs found themselves, culminating in the appointment of Tom Farmer to the board.
Also added a couple more links on the right.
World Cup stuff coming soon...
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September 2003
Jeez that was rather a long break. Not a single log for an entire year. This must be the most constipated website in the entire Hibee nation.
My mitigating circumstances are: 1 - I was away getting married in New Zealand; 2 - I'm a lazy git; 3 - last season proved to be possibly the worst in living memory, deserving of no further comment.
He shoots......................He scores!!!
Things are looking up now however. Amazing what one last minute derby winner can do to elevate the optimism to preposterous levels. I mean we even thought we could win at Ibrox. Hah! Gave it a bloody good shot though.
And then there was Straiton. The prospect of selling up from our ancestral home and moving to the bing belt has most of the green side of Edinburgh frothing at the mouth and ready to lynch the board, Sir Tom Farmer and even any other Hibby who dares to suggest that sharing a ground with Hearts could actually make some sense. Just not at Straiton please.
Hands Off Hibs
Before we get carried away saying how we are on the brink of oblivion, however, cast your mind back thirteen unlucky years to the Summer of 1990 when the club really did almost cease to exist. Now that would have been worse, you have to admit.
Living down in Cambridge I didn't get the same sense of the whole Mercer affair as those at home so these cuttings in the archive are my only real memory of it all. The vast acreage of newsprint devoted to the story by the Scotsman (approaching five whole pages on the day the story broke) gives some idea of the impact that it had on life in Edinburgh at the time.
Of course, we are still living with the consequences of these events today. The whole Straiton saga is really a distant descendent of the Mercer affair. It will be interesting in years to come to look back at the events of Summer 2003 and whatever ensues in the coming months and see how they compare with the days of Hands Off Hibs.
Coming soon (ish)
I knew I was making myself a hostage to fortune by calling this page a log and then never updating it, but at some point in the not too distant future I hope to upload a page on the other major event of June 1990, the World Cup in Italy, and my own photographic memoir of that fountain in Genoa. Watch this space, but not too closely or you'll get eye strain.
Hibs.net - look no further for the latest news on Hibs...
Hibs List - subscribe here to the original and best Hibs email list
The Hibees Bounce -
It's kind of... bouncy
From Argentina to (Benny) Brazil - Doug Raith's fabulous collection of cuttings and programmes from 1978-89, neatly complementing these pages
Mass Hibsteria - another majestic archive, this time of Hibs' most hibsterical fanzine
The Greatest Game in History - But which one? 7-0 or 6-2? You decide.
Hibernian FC - official club site
Not a matter of life and death