The second game of the season is against Rangers at Easter Road which makes it a tricky first 6 games with Celtic in Glasgow on the 25th of September.

There is a New Year game on the 1st of January 2011 against Hearts.  It’s the first time for a while it’s actually been on the 1st, I expect it’ll be moved for TV.  The boxing day game is at home to Aberdeen and we’ve got Dundee United at home on the 29th.

All in all, not bad fixtures.

Cheerio, cheerio!

I recently received an email asking if this site would support some guy on his crusade to prove that referees show a bias towards Rangers. I had to ask a few times before he supplied examples and it turned out he was a Celtic fan who was logging every vaguely dodgy decision made in Rangers’ favour.

I couldn’t help out the poor chap. As much as I do believe there is a bias in favour of Rangers, I think it applies equally to Celtic and to a (much) lesser extent Hibs and Hearts. I don’t believe that it is a deliberate conspiracy by referees, however.

Referees have always been the source of much fans ire. We’ve heard all the eyesight related jokes down the years. Blind jokes, glasses jokes etc. In recent times Specsavers have even sponsored Scottish referees. I don’t believe that the referees in Scotland have all had laser eye surgery or anything but I don’t think they’ve really become worse either.

The game has become faster, the rules more complex, pressure from the media has intensified and demands from the SFA have increased. On top of this, players have become more demanding, better at play acting and better able to manipulate the rules and more sophisticated at influencing the poor old ref. In the meantime we still expect him to give perfect decisions 100% of the time.

When I am sitting at home watching a game with replays in slow motion from every conceivable angle, often I still can’t decide on the correct decision. Would I be able to make that decision with 50,000 fans screaming at me and a group of aggressive players in my face whilst trying to maintain some degree of order at the same time. The answer is, without a doubt, no.

I think that when playing at home Rangers and Celtic get a bigger portion of these sorts of decisions where the referee genuinely doesn’t know what the correct decision is. He has to make a decision in a split second and sub-consciously, it’s easy to be swayed by the 50,000 home fans who all screamed for the handball or penalty or whatever at the same time. This probably happens at most grounds – the bigger your support the more likely you are to get decisions in your favour.

He’s been moaning for months about not being given any funds by Vladamir Romanov and recent confirmation that there will be new faces at Tynecastle during the transfer season may have been the straw that broke the camels back.

It seems the Gunts are a rudderless ship yet again…

The following costs were billed to Hibernian Football Club for the following
fixtures:

Celtic 30/8 £6,407.80
Kilmarnock 17/10 £2,718.60
Aberdeen 31/10 £4,899.00

The following costs were billed to Hearts Football Club for the following
fixtures:

Hamilton 26/9 £2,718.60
Falkirk 24/10 £2,718.60
Hibernian 7/11 £6,748.20

Putting aside the question of whether football clubs should have to pay for policing at all, I was always under the impression that policing costs were really high. In reality, they’re simply not. Even in the big games we’re talking around 40p per supporter. Considering the game against Hearts that is mentioned above was, I think, £27 for away fans – it’s not a significant overhead.

Here are a few you might be interested in, please feel free to recommend more via the comments.

Hibs books:

Hearts and Hibs: Capital Classics

The Hibs Story Hibernian Football Club an Official History

100 Years of Hibs

The Making of Hibernian: v. 1

Hibernian FC (Men Who Made)

Sunshine on Leith: Hibernian’s Finest Sons

There is a Bonny Fitba Team: 50 Years on the Hibee Highway

Heartfelt

Books about Hibs Casuals:

Hibs Boy: The Life and Violent Times of Scotland’s Most Notorious Football Hooligan

These Colours Don’t Run: Inside the Hibs Capital City Service

Trevster is Stuart Crowther’s mate from the hibs.net days.  Trevster also owned Hibs.net for some time but now works with Crowther on the official site.  Since the new official site was launched, a number of the additional domains owned by Hibs have not been redirected properly to the main site.  Instead pages with no titles have been put up with the message:

“Hibernian FC has moved. The normal URL for the Hibernian home page is http://www.hibernianfc.co.uk with the alternative http://www.hibs.co.uk – this page will redirect you in 30 seconds.”

Not exactly a great user experience and technically something of a problem.  The official site being presented as “Trevster’s homepage” doesn’t look very professional.

The solution, if anyone from Hibs is interested, is firstly to add proper titles to these pages.  This will stop Google from using link text from Trevster’s profile.  Secondly they should add permanent (301) redirects from this and all the other Hibs domains to the main domain at www.hibernianfc.co.uk.  This will sort the problem in Google, ensure users are taken directly to the new site and also have a number of other benefits that are too geeky to go on about here.

Hearts(nil) held one of their famous media conferences today at Tynecastle.  Mad Vlad Romanov seem to have had enough of being criticised for being unable to afford a striker and he and Csaba have parted ways only days before the end of the transfer window.  It now looks like Hearts will go into the weekend managerless and strikerless.

Csaba had been making noises that he might leave as he was not being backed by the club:

“I have two years left on my contract and I would like to stay here because I love the people in Edinburgh.

“But we (me and the board) are pulling in different directions. I look for players and I have to accept when I cannot get them.

“If a person gets tired then they need to sit down and think about their future. I want to feel the support of this board.”

Hibs players' Christmas Party

Update:The transfer window closed and both Steven Fletcher and Rob Jones remain Hibs players.  It appears that Celtic could not afford Fletch after all.

Celtic are following their usual, uninspiring pattern of stealing the best talent from the rest of the SPL by attempting to sign Hibs’ Steven Fletcher.  Both Rangers and Celtic have found it increasingly difficult to afford quality players from outside Scotland in recent years and Fletcher will be the next in a long line of players citing their “ambition” as a reason for moving West.  That his ambition is limited to choosing to remain in one of the smaller European leagues is apparently lost on Fletch.

As ususal, the Glasgow media have been happy to be the mouthpiece for the player and his agent, writing about how Fletcher hopes Hibs won’t price Celtic out of the move.  Fletcher doesn’t seem to understand the basics of football transfers – he still has years left on his contract and if Celtic can’t afford him, that’s tough luck.  Maybe he’ll just have to put his “ambition” on hold and move South to the biggest league in the world.

In the current economic climate, Hibs may have some concerns about transfer fees in future and may want to cash in on Fletcher now but that’s only thing that might work in Celtic’s favour.  As ever, Hibs’ Chairman Rod Petrie holds all the aces.  Hibs are in a solid position financially and Steven Fletcher has a long contract with the club so there is no need to sell.  There’s every chance that at 5pm on Monday 2nd February, Steven Fletcher will be a Celtic player, but it will be on Hibs’ terms.

Dean “Deano” Shiels also left this week, to further his career with English Championship strugglers Doncaster.  Dean has been a good servant for Hibs despite performances which were at times highly frustrating for the fans.  It’s difficult to say if this will be a good move for the player but it’s clear that after 5 years at Easter Road, it was time for a move to pastures new.  Swapping Edinburgh for the bright lights of Doncaster may not be an obvious choice for many but the challenge might be just what Shiels needs.

Speculation also surrounds Hibs’ captain, Rob Jones. Colchester have been making big noises but offering little cash for Jones but there are other clubs also interested.  Should Leeds or Nottingham Forrest put in a decent bid, it will be interesting to see whether Petrie can resist taking the cash.

A week later would have been the 6 year anniversary of the biggest Edinburgh derby victory since we humped them 0-7 in 1973.  The photos were taken on the morning of derby day. Some scallywags had plastered Jambo baiting slogans all over Crawford Bridge at the end of Bothwell Street awaiting the arrival of the mini-huns.

Click on a thumbnail to enlarge.

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Albert Kidd