SCOTTISH CUP FINAL:THE DOMINANCE of the Glasgow derby in Scotland can appear so great that, like the tropical upas tree, nothing can grow in its shade. Today, however, Edinburgh's version has a rare chance to emerge into the light. Neither clubs' honours list or support base can match that of Celtic or Rangers, but they share a historic rivalry that is older than and intriguingly different from the "Old Firm's" 40 miles to the west.
Hibernian, whose name, badge and green-and-white colours are a permanent reminder of a proud club’s Irish associations, will be hoping the guiding hand of an Irish manager will enable them to overcome a Scottish Cup jinx that has lasted 110 years.
The first season for Pat Fenlon, the Dubliner who came from Bohemians in November 2011, has been dominated by a struggle against relegation.
But if he leads the club to victory in the final, his immortality among Hibernian fans will be assured.
For while Hearts supporters of several generations can warm themselves with the memory of victories in 1956, ’86 and ’98, no Hibs fan alive can recall the day in 1902 when their team – led by another Irish manager, Dan McMichael – last won the trophy by beating Celtic with a late goal. 1902. The very date is imprinted on Edinburgh’s football memory – a mark of shame for the Easter Road loyalists whose team has competed in eight finals since and lost them all (the last against Celtic in 2001), a source of delight for the Tynecastle hordes.
Indeed, one of my earliest memories is of being accosted by a Hearts street pal in our 1950s-built Edinburgh housing scheme: “Davie! Have you heard? There was a fire at Easter Road! The manager shouted: ‘Quick, lads, save the cups!’ And all the players ran into the kitchen!”
The fierce local contest between “the boys in maroon” and “the colour of the grass” dates from the mid-1870s, which makes it older than any in Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham, and (by 13 years) the Glasgow giants’.
The first recorded Hearts-Hibs game took place in 1875 on The Meadows, a large public park to the south of the city centre. Hibernian had just been formed by a group from the Young Catholic Men’s Society attached to St Patrick’s church in Holyrood Road, a tenement-filled district in Edinburgh’s medieval “old town” that was the centre of the burgeoning Irish immigrant community. Heart of Midlothian, borrowing a name that had migrated from a Walter Scott novel to a dance hall, were a year old. Hearts won 1-0.
The ebb and flow of ensuing years would see the clubs emerge from the pack as Edinburgh’s top dogs, along the way gathering support and planting roots in defined areas of the city (Hearts in Gorgie to the west, Hibs on the border between Edinburgh and the Port of Leith to the east).
Hibs hit their stride in the 1880s, becoming in 1887 the first east of Scotland side to win the Scottish Cup, with a 2-1 win over Dumbarton, then beating Preston North End to become unofficial “champions of the world”.
The legacy was bitter-sweet, for the Glasgow triumph of the “Edinburgh Irishmen” inspired the formation of Celtic, who promptly lured away Hibs’ star performers. (In the 1960s, I recall hearing a friend of my dad’s finish a lengthy harangue of the Hoops with: “An’ ye stole oor players!”).
In its early years Hibernian was Scotland’s foremost “Irish” club, inspiring the formation of dozens more across the country (Dundee Hibernian, who became Dundee United, are alongside Celtic the others who survived at the top level).
Their badge featured the harp, their motto was “Erin go Bragh”, the staff was exclusively Catholic, and they had leading officials sympathetic to the Home Rule cause (the Land Leaguer Michael Davitt was an honoured guest).
But a near collapse in 1891 led to the club’s reformation along non-sectarian lines, and by the time Hibs met Hearts in the Scottish Cup final of 1896 – played in Edinburgh in front of a crowd of 20,000, the only one ever held outside Glasgow – the 20-year-old rivalry was well established as a sporting highlight broadly free of religious or political associations.
Hearts won 3-1, confirming a dominance that has lasted for most of the two clubs’ 137-year entanglement. The timeless sentiments of many greens were later voiced by a little-known socialist activist called James Connolly, born in 1868 in Edinburgh’s Cowgate (a few yards from St Patrick’s church), who during his US years wrote to a friend: “The only information I got lately on the Hibs was when a little Scotsman told me Hearts were in the final of the Scottish Cup and they were knocking hell out the Hibs, whereat I felt very much depressed.”
The maroon side of the city can also claim a greater share of major honours (including seven Scottish Cups to Hibs’ two) and a larger support. This, combined perhaps with Hibs’ “outsider” origins, fuels a self-perception as “Edinburgh’s” club which – to a Hibernian ear – can shade into arrogance. (I recall as a child reading a letter in the local paper saying “Hearts are and have always been Edinburgh’s team”. It was as if “we” still didn’t belong). Yet Hearts also deserve credit for never having fallen into a sectarian stance, which has helped keep the rivalry free of destructive associations.
This was all the more notable in the 1920s and 1930s, when anti-Irish and anti-Catholic feeling was widespread in Scotland: the Church of Scotland issued a report in 1923 entitled The Menace of the Irish Race to Our Scottish Nationality, and in the 1930s an extremist group called Protestant Action led by a militant zealot called John Cormack won 30 per cent of votes in Edinburgh’s council elections.
A curiosity of this period is that prominent members of Cormack’s movement were Hibs supporters, apparently their “Leither” identity trumping their sectarian one where football was concerned.
Perhaps that letter writer was targeting Hibs as a team from Leith (which had its own civic autonomy until 1920) rather than from Ireland?
In either case, the Hibs-Hearts rivalry has had space to evolve. Hibs won many more followers over the years, including from later generations of immigrants, especially in the late 1940s when a magical team led by the “Famous Five” forward line began a dance to three league championships and attracted epic crowds of 60,000-plus to the vast Easter Road terraces.
So brilliant was their football, and so exciting the era of Hearts dominance which followed, thousands of Edinburgh folk watched the teams week by week – and supported both against their Glasgow rivals.
Such cross-club “Edinburgh patriotism” marks another sharp contrast to Old Firm. Hibs have retained a profound fidelity to their origins – the long-standing owner, Tom Farmer, one of Scotland’s prominent Catholic benefactors, and the on-field hero of the 1960s and 1970s, Pat Stanton, are descendants of figures from the club’s early days.
Yet the course has also been rocky: from a change of policy over complimentary tickets for priests in the early 1930s as an ambitious new chairman, Harry Swan, succeeded the “ould Hibernians”, to the disappearance of the harp emblem outside the ground in the late 1940s, the club have sometimes seemed eager to turn their back on their past.
In the long run the integration of the strands of the Hibernian identity – Irish, Scottish, Edinburgh, Leith, immigrant, native – has been relatively harmonious, a process symbolised by the restoration of the harp to the club’s badge in the 1990s (alongside Edinburgh Castle and a Leith ship).
Although both clubs have had hangers-on intent on blowing a sectarian trumpet there are very many more who see value in a deep but self-limiting rivalry.
All the more regrettable then that the 55,000 who flock to the national stadium today will travel on segregated trains, then to be penned into opposite sections of the ground.
But behind their every roar, gasp and chant will be the ghosts of generations past – including the half of Edinburgh whose lifelong mantra has been “if Hibs win the cup, I can die happy”.
The phrase, which I grew up with, is now mine to own. Just as in childhood, there’ll be no place to hide for the losers. Perhaps, after 110 years, it will take another Irish manager to restring the Hibernian harp.
Pat Fenlon, immortality calls!
Irish in action
There could be up to five Irish players on the pitch today at Hampden Park.
While injury has ruled out first-choice goalkeeper Graham Stack, Hibernian have several other Irish players likely to see action – defender Matt Doherty, midfielder Ivan Sproule, and forwards Roy ODonovan and Eoin Doyle.
Striker Stephen Elliott is in his second season with Hearts.
Pat Fenlon has a near fully-fit squad to choose from. James McPake (groin), Tom Soares (Achilles), Pa Kujabi (hamstring) and Jorge Claros (foot) have been nursing knocks but are all fit to feature.
Across Edinburgh, Craig Beattie is the only injury doubt for Hearts with a hamstring problem.
Midfielder Ian Black continues to nurse a hernia which is set to require surgery, while defender Jamie Hamill (knee) is out.
