Aidan Smith: Ticket? Being a chancer would be a fine thing...

Published on Sunday 22 April 2012 00:52

WELL, my voice is still hoarse on account of not having done much shouting recently.

I thought shouting at the kids during my absence from football (my son likes to joke that his name is Archie No!) would have been good training for last Saturday’s semi-final. But I’d forgetten just how much yelling is required as a supporter of my team.

And my back is still sore on account of having had to stand throughout. You stand and stand in platform soles and on crumbling terraces all through the 1970s, then football provides you with a bench, then a plastic seat, and you turn into a big jessie. So, when the drama of the occasion, to say nothing of the radgeness of those around you, requires you to get to your feet again, you really struggle. Nevertheless, I was ready to stand some more. To wait in a queue for however long it would take. To get up at 4am if necessary, make a flask and pack some Kendal Mint Cake, to give myself a chance of a ticket for the final. Turns out I have no chance – never did have.

Hibs and Hearts each have 20,000 tickets to distribute and the vast bulk will go to their season-ticket holders. No problem with that. These people are committing to their clubs at a time when I, cheerfully entrammeled in the round of kids’ parties and the rest of family life, cannot. A final ticket for everyone with a season is absolutely fair enough. Ah, but at Hibs, my team, you can get two if you’ve renewed for next season. Now, those who’ve endured 2011/12 definitely deserve a coconut, even a medal – but an additional ticket when they’re so much in demand?

I’ve got a good queueing track record, having done five hours for David Bowie, six for Wings (cue Alan Partridge: “The band the Beatles could have been”), eight for Pink Floyd and even four for Deep Purple and I didn’t really like them. None of this matters now, because there almost certainly won’t be a public sale at Easter Road. But I also have a fairly credible Hibs track record which I’d like to put forward for consideration.

I’ve seen my team in 11 national finals (not counting the Drybrough, although I loved that cup) and 26 semis. I’ve suffered Ally Brazil and Duncan Lambie and Jim Blair and Alan O’Brien and John Hazel and all of those chronic goalies, surprisingly only one of whom was described by his manager as resembling “a drunk trying to catch a balloon”. I’ve been chased by Hearts skinheads, Motherwell casuals and even some fairly het-up Jags fans. I’ve experienced relegation (twice), gone all the way to Dundee for an ultimately postponed game, broke a tooth on “foreign matter” contained in a Berwick Rangers pie and ventured into the domain of big Rangers (first time is always the worst) and thought: “This is where it all ends.”

Doesn’t that lot count for anything, come 19 May?

Why am I and others with similar tales of endurance less deserving of a place at this utterly historic final than the plus-ones of season-ticket holders who may not have darkened Easter Road’s doors at all this mostly grim campaign – if ever? And who are these “priority groups” and “club members” who are also in contention for tickets? Don’t they know that Hibs are the team of poets? We don’t like to be tied down by membership form-filling, that’s for speccy clubs (although, obviously, if I’d thought Hibs would reach the final I’d have signed up. I mean, poetry’s all very well but it doesn’t look like it’s going to get me back to Hampden).

And, correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t 20,000 and 20,000 make 40,000 and won’t the national stadium have room for 12,000 more? That sounds like an awful lot of blazers, corporates, liggers, swiggers, sponsors’ wives, the great and the good, competition winners and total chancers (although I’d gladly carry around a “Golf Sale” sign re-painted with “Total Chancer” for the whole day if I could just be there).

Every Hibs and Hearts fan, not just the season-ticket hardcore, wants to be at the biggest Edinburgh derby of them all. Maybe it should have been at Murrayfield, though I’d actually travel to Kabul High Street for this one.

Taken from the Scotsman