Hibs fans win the Edinburgh song contest

Bragging rights move across city as Hearts are told ‘you’re not unbeatable’, writes Stewart Fisher

ONE of the minor controversies of the pre-game week in the capital surrounded the manner in which Hearts fans had taken to singing “We are unbeatable”, and the outraged complaints that followed after this had apparently been hilariously confused with the self-styled Rangers anthem of “We are the people”.

Well, it didn’t take long for the Hibs fans at Easter Road yesterday to find an answer. In fact they come up with two. In the first half, it was “You’ve got no manager”, but after 79 minutes they permitted themselves to put the matter to rest once and for all. “You’re not unbeatable,” they correctly observed as Hearts unbeaten run of 12 league matches came to an end.

Tony Mowbray’s programme notes had lamented the fact he had never been able to invite his old Ipswich mucker George Burley to Easter Road for a derby fixture.

No-one will ever know what would have happened had Burley still been around to do so, but the brutal manner in which Mowbray’s side achieved what both Rangers and Celtic had singularly failed to do and punctured Hearts’ bubble may just have strained the pair’s relationship to breaking point in any case.

It moved the Easter Road club to within four points of Hearts, and six points clear of Rangers, but still afterwards Mowbray stuck rigidly to his pre-ordained text that only Hearts, and not his team, have any chance of finishing the season atop the SPL table.

Easter Road was certainly no place for the faint-hearted. Within 60 seconds, a rogue knee or elbow in an innocuous tussle had seen Steven Pressley badly bloodied at the side of his left eye.

Before a quarter of an hour had elapsed, both sets of fans were howling in apopleptic, if confused, disaproval as Michael Stewart – a former Hearts player gone to Hibs – clattered Paul Hartley – a Hibee-turned-Jambo.

When the final whistle sounded, the players scattered to the four winds. Rudi Skacel sprinted to tearfully salute the remaining Hearts fans at one end, while Zbigniew Malkowski did a lap of honour round the three ends of the Hibs fans.

Fifty or so Hibs fans stood around in the enclosure afterwards, arms outstretched, quietly singing along to the strains of ‘Sunshine on Leith’. It was that kind of afternoon.

Early on, it had been the Hearts fans – displaying national flags of Lithuania, Czech Republic, Greece, blue and maroon saltires and a couple of union jacks – who were lording it.

As Vladimir Romanov and Sir Tom Farmer looked on from the differing camps in the directors’ box, home chants of ‘Champions League, you’re having a laugh’ were answered back with a similar chant about Hibs’ brief involvement in the Uefa cup.

It wasn’t until the 62nd minute that you sensed that the game’s equilibrium, and Edinburgh bragging rights began to change hands.

Ironically, just one minute after John McGlynn had withdrawn Julien Brellier from the field as he feared the Frenchman was tiring and was liable to pick up a second booking, Scott Brown annoyed Edgaras Jankauskas long enough for the 29-year-old Lithuanian striker, a player who has prospered in the cauldron of the Uefa Cup and Champions League finals and had a claim to be the most experienced player on the park, to push out petulantly with two hands.

Referee John Underhill got the red and yellow cards out in the wrong order, but it was the former Porto and Benfica striker’s second booking, after a first-half caution for persistent fouling.

Underhill’s involvement allowed Hearts fans to maintain a somewhat unjust grievance at the referee’s performance (indeed young substitute Calum Elliot could also have seen red with a carbon copy of the push on Brown afterwards), while just as in an earlier high-profile Scottish derby this season it clouded the conclusions that could be drawn afterwards.

With Kevin Thomson and Scott Brown popping up everywhere, Hibs seemed to have the measure of Hearts in midfield, but just how important was the sending off in the eventual outcome of the game?

Tony Mowbray for one was either shamefully negligent or disingenous when he brazenly asked afterwards which Hearts player it was that had been sent off, especially as Jankauaskas could have chartered a flight back to Lithuania in the time it took him to actually trudge towards the dug-out and off the field.

Pressley, on the other hand, felt the manner in which Hibs’ utilised the ten men meant that it was indeed the game’s defining moment.

“I did feel the sending off was a turning point,” Pressley said. “We hadn’t played well but I felt we were relatively comfortable in the game. I didn’t see the incident at all. I asked John Underhill the reason and he said Edgaras had raised his hands. He is obviously disappointed but it is part and parcel of football.”

There were no discernible shows of dissent or lessening of effort apparent from last week’s rebels Paul Hartley and Rudi Skacel, nor was there any conclusions to be drawn about the fact it was McGlynn, not Burley, in the away dugout.

“It is easy when you lose games to look at reasons and think that it is because the manager has left but I don’t know if that is actually the case,” Pressley said.

“But in an ideal world we would have the new manager in tomorrow if he was the right one.”

In any case, from the sending off onwards – and with Ivan Sproule rampaging down the right – there was only going to be one winner, on the field or off it.

In 77 minutes Sproule, not for the first time , got to the by-line. His cut-back was met by Guillame Beuzelin whose sidefooted effort gave Craig Gordon no chance.

Two minutes later and it was all over. Hearts’ defence pushed out for offside, leaving Garry O’Connor time to chest down David Murphy’s through ball and whack it past Gordon to begin the mass exodus of visiting fans.

Whatever happens in the weeks ahead, the DVD should be on sale in shops in Leith in time for Christmas.

Taken from the Sunday Herald