“I’ve been watching the Hibs for 50 years and I’ll watch them until I die. I’ll never see them lift the Scottish Cup and neither will you, lad. Not for as long as you live. We are cursed.”
It’s the mid-nineties and I’m in the old East Stand. We are playing Aberdeen in the third round of the Scottish Cup and the scores are level. It’s an open game and I naively suggest to my friend Ally that not only will we win the game, but that we will go on to win the cup.
A cloud of cigar smoke puffs between us, a hand touches my shoulder and when I turn round, the old guy seated behind us shouted the above quote into my tiny face. I was probably 11-years-old and I still think about it regularly. It is definitely an overly aggressive and grim thing to say to a small child. It is also an objectively funny thing to say to a small child. It still makes me laugh 25 years on. “Remember kids, never dream!”
The old guy behind us was in a row of elderly gruff men. I was 11, so they were probably in their sixties, but to me they looked about 120. Hot pies, stale beer and cigar smoke were the overwhelming aromas of that section of the stand (even now if I pass someone smoking an old-school cigar, I get an instant rush of delicious nostalgia for watching Hibs in the 90s.)
The Still Game energy was very strong in the stand at that point in time. A real missed opportunity for us in that era was that we didn’t engage the bunnet industry to get a sponsorship deal.
In our section, the crowd got younger as it went towards the bottom of the stand and the old guys were in the couple of rows behind us primarily. During the game the patter from behind us would range from hilarious, creative insults aimed at players, referees and opposition fans, to horrendous racism directed at anyone with darker skin tone than Stevie Crawford.
The old guy had some standards that he liked to fall back on. Some tried and tested material that he used throughout the game and often in a way that was unrelated to what was happening on the pitch. They were as follows:
- THAT’S SHITE HIBS!
- THAT’S BETTER HIBS!
- GET IT IN THE MIXER!
- GET IT IN THE F***ING MIXER!
And when this tactical advice was not heeded, there was a subtle wording change for emphasis:
- F***ING. GET IT. IN THE MIXER!
We drew 2-2 that day and although we won the replay on penalties, we were knocked out by Celtic in the next round. We then failed to win the cup every year for the next 20 seasons in a row so for a long time, it seemed a lot like he was right.
When the final whistle went on 21st May 2016, I was awfully busy going mental in the Hampden stand, but he did enter my mind. I wondered if he lived long enough to see this, I wondered if he bought a ticket, I really, really hope he did.
It might be that my nostalgia for that era is built around the different generation of characters that we had in our support, but equally it could just be that it was my introduction to football and Hibs and who could ever feel anything but affection for that part of their lives? That being said, I think that there’s a small part of it that is to do with the actual stand itself.
The East Stand in that era was comprised of rows of green plastic bucket seats, affixed to wooden bench rows. The stand had begun redevelopment in the late 80s, it first transitioned into an all-seater and then was updated with the bucket seats in 1995. It had fairly rudimentary facilities compared to the larger current version that we now enjoy.
It was tight, intimate and on its day, it was absolutely electric. When the East was busy, energy, seethe, joy and songs spread like wildfire. You were always in close proximity to noise, to patter and to singing. When it got going you could feel the stand vibrating under your feet. My assorted favourite memories of it are as follows:
I remember the big games. The 6-2 derby in 2000 was an escalating cauldron of noise, a real true highlight of that period. The final Hibs goal, a perfectly worked move between fan favourites Mixu Paatelainen and Russell Latapy resulted in a few seconds of madness whereby I somehow ended up in a different row, wearing someone else’s coat.
On the train home we sat in silence as we’d sung and screamed our breaking teen voices until we had nothing left.
I remember running onto the pitch in 1999 after a 2-1 home victory against Falkirk, a game where we had been presented with the first division championship trophy. I tried to get to my hero Pat McGinlay, but in doing so I ran straight into Mixu Paatelainen who lifted me one-handed back over the barrier into the East.
“Back to your seat little boy”, he said grinning and patting me on the head. I briefly met him at a game, years later and even though I’m now 6’2 and 17 stone, he still seemed gigantic to me. I half expected him to one-hand me over the barrier again.
I remember a day where Hibs had arranged for some celebrity fans to throw free t-shirts, scarves and hats into the crowd. The West got The Proclaimers, The Famous Five had Dougray Scott and somehow, we ended up with John Leslie.
With a combination of an unkind wind and poor throwing technique, he couldn’t get the light merchandise far enough back to get anywhere near us, so in a move that has aged quite well, we booed him like he was Stevie Fulton.
I remember the kiosk serving a popular pizza and said popular pizza being surprisingly aerodynamic. This developed into a game, in times of frustration, where people would try and raise spirits by attempting to frisbee their pizza onto bald heads down the front.
When it was revealed that Alex McLeish and Andy Watson were departing to join Rangers, Mr Watson’s bald napper ended up sporting a margherita and I always wondered if that was the practiced hand of an East Stand fan or simply a talented beginner.
To me, the old East Stand was the key element of the atmosphere and charm at Easter Road and was the only real loss of the stadium redevelopment. Don’t get me wrong, Easter Road Stadium is much better than it was, it’s a great place to watch football and overall, I do absolutely prefer it as it is now.
The current East Stand will always be a place that I cherish, but I do think that the raw, raucous atmosphere has been dispersed somewhat in the larger footprint of the new stand.
Maybe it’s been the inconsistent location of the singing section. Maybe it’s been the one step forward two steps back Covid rules which has gone some way to prevent large attendances. Maybe it’s the fact that we can all look away from the game and at the screen in our pocket, where in times gone by, we’d start a song just to clap our hands warm. I certainly don’t know.
All I know is that I’ll be back as soon as we’re allowed, sitting just about where I’ve always sat and I’ll throw in a “Get it in the mixer!” just for old times’ sake.
The East Stand 