A soccer cynic basking in the sunshine on Leith

Cavanman's Diary

There is a video on YouTube from the 2016 Scottish Cup final which would restore the faith of even an old cynic like me. In it, thousands of Hibernian FC fans are arm-in-arm at Hampden Park, having just beaten Rangers 3-2.

And they’re singing, in one voice, the unofficial club anthem, Sunshine On Leith by the Proclaimers. It’s a beautiful, simple hymn of a song.

Since stumbling across that video, I had it in my head to go to a Hibs game. Then, a couple of weeks back, late at night in a pub in Edinburgh, I found out that they were playing at home the next day and all in the party agreed to attend.

Next morning, hangovers and other plans (how selfish!) intervened for them but I was not to be deterred. The Hi-Bees, as the fans call them, were taking on Raith Rovers in the league cup.

Google Maps told me it was a 45-minute walk from where we were sitting eating breakfast and always being one to eschew a greasy feed for some exercise, I decided to make the trek.

In school, I was mad into soccer, particularly Celtic. It was something I drifted out of as I grew older which I regret for one reason; it’s like not watching a popular soap opera which everyone you know is into. I always felt that by not being properly invested in it, I missed out on so much over the years, highs and lows.

My friends mainly all follow Manchester United and Liverpool. A few, God help them, are into Aston Villa, part of a generation who came of age in the mid-’90s when the Villa had four Irish internationals in the team.

There was a Villa link to the first soccer match I ever attended in person, as it happened. It was a Monaghan United game; they were playing, I think, Wexford Youths, owned, you may recall, by champagne-and-spaghetti socialist Mick Wallace.

On the wing was Cian Mackey, better known as a brilliant Gaelic player. Less well-known is the fact that he is a Villa fan, something I asked him about once in an interview.

“I am,” Cian confirmed (or, maybe, admitted). “It's not going hectic now. A good couple of weeks followed by a bad couple of weeks...”

That was a fitting state of affairs, I laughed, for a Cavan footballer. But the truth was, I always thought of professional soccer as inhabiting an entirely different galaxy to Gaelic, especially the game I grew up with, before highly-rated (aren’t they all?) S&C coaches and all that jazz.

As the years went on, pro soccer left me cold. I would still watch it but with a misanthropic eye. It seemed to have veered more towards a sort of corporate-infused light entertainment rather than sport, something which seemed to be confirmed when Manchester United’s CEO Ed Woodward referred to the club as “the biggest television show in the world”.

So, I strolled out to Easter Road with low expectations, half-expecting to see a regiment of cops on horseback corralling boozed-up idiots into their own little sections – but there was none of that. There was something about the atmosphere in the walk up to the ground which reminded me of a Gaelic match. It was relaxed, quiet enough but with that tangible buzz that there was something on. People were on the move, making their way somewhere.

Hibs may be a giant in Scottish football but compared to the Premier League south of the border, they are minnows. Their average attendance is around the 17,000-mark, small enough that a lot of fans will know each other.

And that was the first thing that struck me – the supporters bumping into friends and fellow travellers. Near the ground, I ducked into a little programme shop, a dusty little one-room job but full of character, heaving from floor to ceiling with memorabilia, mainly old match programmes.

It was warm, over 20 degrees. A middle-aged man, drenched in sweat, spent a good 10 minutes talking to the owner about the programme for some famous game against Liverpool in the mists of time. Did the boss man have the Leeds game from ’75? “Aye.” “Aye, me too.”

Now, normally, I have less than zero patience for standing in a queue while that sort of idle chat fills the air but as an anorak and a hoarder of such things myself, I enjoyed tuning into this frequency. It was a bit like hearing songs you know on a foreign radio station; I wasn’t fully conversant but at the same time, I knew this was just another channel of fandom.

We moved on. Inside the ground, one of the walls at the back of the stand was plastered with little inscribed messages. “In memory of Tam, Hi-Bee till he dies, xx”… “Hibs forever, George Boyle”. A lot of the names were Irish. It was wholesomely endearing.

The ticket cost £15; I took my seat. The stadium holds 20,000 but by kick-off, there were only 8,500 in. This was a low key game, wedged between some more important fixtures, so it was possible to move around, find a better vantage point if you wanted it.

Surprisingly, there were no bars. Later, a fella told me that there hasn’t been drink at games in Scotland in decades, a legacy of the bitter and often bigoted and sometimes violent Old Firm rivalry.

I scanned the team sheets. As well as Scotland and England, the Hibs squad featured players from Australia, Belgium, Croatia, Poland, Portugal, the USA, Ukraine and… Ballyjamesduff. Number eight was our own Jake Doyle-Hayes. I scanned the players as they warmed up but I wasn’t sure I could see him and unfortunately, he wouldn’t feature off the bench on the day as the manager rested a few of the better players.

Despite the international look to the team, there was a homely feel to things here. The advertising hoardings were like something you’d see at a provincial GAA ground – Sykes Pumps, Central Taxis, Andrews Heat Control, G&A Joinery, a pest control company, a coach hire crowd, Ronald Graham Roofing. This was, relatively speaking, small-time – and I liked that.

At half-time, in the absence of a bar, I read the programme. There were interviews with fans – the supporters own 15pc of the club – and with an ex-goalkeeper who, as used to be the tradition before footballers’ earnings removed them from the world their supporters inhabited, bought a pub when he retired.

I wandered around for a while. Most people seemed to be eating pies so, when in Rome… The pie? It was like the first half, okay in parts but mostly forgettable.

But the second half (of the match) was brilliant. When Hibs scored, ‘500 Miles’ blasted out. The place was rocking.

Raith replied and their small crowd went wild, some of them performatively beating their chests and taunting the Hibs fans at a safe remove of about 100 metres.

Then, within a minute, Hibs scored again and I found myself jumping out of my seat and punching the air. Being used to the rarified confines of press boxes, it was nice to let the inner chimp out at a sporting event.

Game over, I slipped away on foot again through Leith, the sunshine beating down, making some stops along the way, my opinion on soccer, if not transformed then at worst diluted. Hi-Bees till I die!