Hibs able to capitalise on disarray

RAY HEPBURN

8 May 1995

Hibernian 3, Hearts 1

JUST 24 hours before Hampden showed large gaps in the stands for yesterday's Old Firm derby, the Edinburgh football fraternity also turned its back on Hibernian and Hearts.

Saturday's match was one of the most important between the teams in the past two decades, with Hibs chasing Europe and Hearts fighting for their very survival.

Yet only 7140 paid to watch one of the more exciting games in a dreary season, some 1300 short of an already slashed capacity due to refurbishment work at Easter Road.

It was an appalling response to a game where Hibs claimed their third victory over their city rivals this season and ended more than a decade of derby disaster.

Alex Miller's players looked far enough ahead to embark on a period of ascendancy in the fixture after 12 years of having to select a derby night watering-hole with great care.

For Hearts their agenda is much less appealing.

There is something badly amiss at the whole club at a time when the future looks fraught with danger.

There is precious little spirit about the team, which is costing them dearly, after they existed sometimes entirely on togetherness during their rapid progress in the 80s.

Although never at any time matching the variety and speed of Hibs' play, Hearts edged into the second half still leading by David Hagen's header in 34 minutes, having absorbed Hibs' best efforts.

However, as soon as Mickey Weir headed Miller's team level in 62 minutes, the resilience evaporated from the Hearts players.

Two further goals followed from Keith Wright and the impressive Kevin Harper, all inside seven astonishing minutes.

With confidence so brittle and heads so ready to droop, first-division aspirants will swiftly choose the Edinburgh team as play-off opponents, were such a selection available.

Two moments swung the game Hibs' way.

One featured Jim Leighton, at 36 the oldest player on the pitch, and the other involved 19-year-old Harper, the youngest man playing.

After 59 minutes, John Robertson pulled the ball back to Hagen eight yards out and Leighton dived and stretched low to his left, to concede a corner and deprive Hearts of a two-goal lead.

Three minutes later, substitute Harper, who had replaced Kevin McAllister, crossed from the left to engineer the Weir goal, and eventually claimed the third for himself to kill the contest.

"Kevin certainly turned the match our way.

The timing of his runs and his pace caused the Hearts players problems, and we never looked back from the equaliser," reflected Wright.

"Now we'll all be Hearts fans for the day next Saturday and hope they get themselves out of trouble and do us a favour against Motherwell at Tynecastle.

"We have Celtic in midweek and if we can win that, we end up at Kilmarnock on the last day.

"But even taking six points, we would need Hearts to draw at least."

It has been an astonishing first season for chairman Chris Robinson, who must find some way of pulling every Hearts man in Edinburgh together for one last push on Saturday.

But first he must gather each member of the staff at Tynecastle around him, and try to bring some kind of team spirit to 90 minutes that will be the longest and most anguished of his life.

The squabbles with former chairman Wallace Mercer and mid-season disagreement with Tommy McLean now attain some perspective.

Hearts are in deep water without a lifebelt.

The chairman has six days to find one.

Taken from the Herald