Hibs 1 Hearts 0: Deflected Wotherspoon strike ends seven months of hell for Easter Road side

3 Dec 2012 08:04

By David McCarthy

AFTER capitulating at Hampden to their city rivals last season, resurgent Hibs repaired that damage through David Wotherspoon's deflected goal.
David Wotherspoon celebrates his goal David Wotherspoon celebrates his goal

THIS was just about as sweet as it gets for Hibs.

For almost seven months their players, manager and fans have had to live with the day when Hearts fans were able to text their Hibs mates at 4.15pm asking for traffic conditions at Harthill.

Every day at work, at school, in pubs, someone somewhere would have uttered 5-1 in their company and there was no comeback.

Well, this morning there is.

Fate threw the Edinburgh rivals together in the Scottish Cup again yesterday and this time Hibs won.

It didn’t matter that the game was honking. Hibs won.

It didn’t matter that Hearts were the better of two mediocre teams. Hibs won.

And as their fans danced to 5000 Miles at the end, that must have seemed like the distance they’d travelled since their horrific day at Hampden.

Everything has changed since that day. The Jambos team that won the Cup has been dismantled and the manager has gone with them. Football wise, they’ve suffered and financially they are tottering on the edge of oblivion.

Hibs, by contrast, have transformed themselves on the pitch. Last season has been consigned to the history books and the form that drove them close to relegation went with it.

Hearts' Ryan McGowan slides in on Lewis Stevenson Hearts' Ryan McGowan slides in on Lewis Stevenson

They are challenging at the right end of the table and performing with far more consistency than their stricken neighbours. So much so they went into yesterday’s cup clash as favourites, despite the facts leading up to this clash reading like a chapter from a Stephen King novel for them.

No Scottish Cup win since 1902. No victory in the tournament over Hearts in 33 years and having won none of the 12 Edinburgh derbies that preceded this one. Ouch!

But with one single swing of David Wotherspoon’s boot in the 81st minute, two of the three ghosts were buried. The third one – the one that will be 111 years old next May – might prove to be the toughest to exorcise but today they can continue to dream the dream.

Their manager would not have needed a team talk. Surely all Pat Fenlon had to tell his players was they owed their supporters for the 5-1 humiliation Hearts visited upon them in that final. That was a defeat they’ll take to the grave but yesterday in Leith was the chance of at least some kind of redemption and they grabbed it.

It started in frantic fashion as these tribal clashes always do. Within two minutes, Hearts had come close through Callum Paterson, who was given far too much space at the back post to power a downward header goalwards from Arvydas Novikovas’s left-wing cross. Ben Williams got down to cover it and made a good block.

Williams excelled himself in the Hibs goal 11 minutes later with a wonderful reflex save from Hearts captain Marius Zaliukas, whose header from Jamie Walker’s cross deflected off Paul Hanlon in the packed box and was flying home until the keeper threw up an arm.

Between times, Hearts left-back Kevin McHaffie had been booked for a foul on Wotherspoon and Leigh Griffiths, looking so sharp, had set up Tom Taiwo for a shot that fizzed just over.

The tackles were flying in and Paul Cairney’s mistiming of one in the 20th minute earned him a yellow card and Darren Barr a period of treatment.

Hearts were pressing the home team into errors and with John McGlynn more animated than at any other time on the touchline they looked the more likely team. They hussled Hibs out of possession in the 25th minute, allowing Novikovas to run clear on the left and although his cross was poor, it almost resulted in a fluke opener, clearing Williams and scuffing the bar.

Fenlon was soon dancing about the dugout like a dervish as well, exhorting more from his men but what was really needed was a touch of composure.

Cairney had the Hibs fans out of their seat with a mesmerising run past a succession of challenges but if the build-up was Messi, the finish was messy and the chance the midfielder had carved out for himself was lost. The half ended with Zaliukas going into the book for a high challenge on Eoin Doyle.

When the teams came back out, Novikovas was missing and Andy Driver was in the left-wing berth.

Hearts continued to dictate the tempo and Hibs weren’t helped when Griffiths went down in a heap near the touchline after landing awkwardly while contesting a high ball.

Hibernian striker Leigh Griffiths is stretchered off Hibernian striker Leigh Griffiths is stretchered off

The striker was stretchered off to be replaced by Ross Caldwell and just before the hour mark Hearts were disrupted with the loss of the injured Barr. Scott Robinson replaced him.

The changes did nothing to help a match that had never been high in quality. As time passed the tension and fear of making a fatal mistake increased and it all became far too kick and rush.

Fenlon hooked the ineffective Doyle in the 70th minute in the hope that the pace of his replacement, Ivan Sproule, could provide the spark his team lacked. McGlynn responded by throwing on John Sutton for Walker and putting Paterson out to the right. Sproule did make a difference, winning a couple of corners to give his team hope of nicking a goal that was looking more and more likely to be the winner.

And yet when it did come it arrived from the other side of the pitch and while there was an element of luck about it do you think that bothered three-quarters of the witnesses?

David Wotherspoon scores the winner David Wotherspoon scores the winner

Nine minutes from the end, Cairney switched the play from left to right and his diagonal found Wotherspoon, who broke past McHaffie and from the angle of the box lashed in a shot that spun off the lunging Zaliukas and looped up and over the clawing hand of keeper Jamie MacDonald.

As it hit the net, Easter Road erupted in joy but Hibs had still nine minutes to negotiate.

Hearts came at them but, spirited as they were, a cutting edge was clearly lacking.

They simply didn’t have the guile to harm Hibs and when the final whistle ended their fans filed silently out of the stadium.

They’ll still sing about 5-1 in the future but Hibs fans can now gloat back about the afternoon they ended the Tynecastle team’s reign as Scottish Cup holders.

Taken from the Daily Record