Despite hazy memories of missiles of varying degrees of lethality raining down on me as I walked across the infamous ‘Bridge of Doom’ toward Easter Road many moons ago, the football romantic in me has always retained something of a wee soft spot for Hibs.
Maybe partly because it's easy, and admittedly in very patronising fashion, to be fond of those who are never really all that successful. Oh, how the rest of us have revelled in the mirth of watching Hibs teams, well, ‘Hibs’ it over the years. Their very name became a verb to describe the act of fashioning calamity from almost any situation for very good reason.
For their fans though, that is what makes the good times all the sweeter. And what makes their success all the harder to grudge them when it does roll around.
That’s what Hibs did. They persevered, as the club’s new motto, well, proclaimed.
And indeed, that stirring win over Rangers should have been the moment that the Easter Road club shook off that image of a team destined for disaster, as their players displayed courage, grit and determination to flip the script and, for once, snatch victory from the jaws of defeat instead of the familiar, crushing alternative.
The years since though have hardly done much to reframe the club’s reputation as a more reliable pick on the Saturday accumulator.
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There have been good times, of course. Promotion back to the Premiership the season following their Scottish Cup triumph at a relative canter. A fourth-place finish in their first season back in the top-flight and the ‘Lenny Airplane’ after the 5-5 comeback draw against Rangers on the final day.
There was a third-place finish, another Scottish Cup final (that they lost to St Johnstone, mind you), and a League Cup final (that they lost to Celtic).
But there have also been a couple of bottom six finishes, poor recruitment leading to fortunes being burnt on players who weren’t up the task, and almost as much cash being wasted on a succession of managers, some of whom were bumped harshly (Jack Ross, for example) and others who were simply poor choices (just about the rest of them).
And it looked, lamentably, that the man who nodded home that famous goal at Hampden, David Gray, was about to become the latest through the revolving door on the Easter Road manager’s office as recently as late November.
But then, with one sclaff from Rocky Bushiri’s boot, everything seemed to change. You can’t start a fire without a spark, and Bushiri’s equaliser against the Dons has ignited an inferno down Easter Road way.
The big defender is basically Hibs in human form – flawed and flaky, but whole-hearted, loveable, great on his day and capable of pulling off the gloriously unexpected.
Bushiri’s dramatic stoppage-time equaliser to snatch a 3-3 draw against Aberdeen at Easter Road just seconds after seemingly losing the game at the death, seemed to flick a switch. For both sides, it has to be said. While Aberdeen have collapsed, the run that Hibs have been on since has been nothing short of remarkable.
They have lost just one of their last 18 matches, a 3-0 defeat at Celtic Park in which they actually played pretty well and squandered some gilt-edged chances. In all competitions, they are now 15 games unbeaten, while their run of 13 matches since tasting defeat on league duty is their best sequence since 1949. From nowhere, they are now third in the table.
So, what changed? Well, for a start, without meaning to be too harsh on Josef Bursik, their goalie did.
The Club Brugge loanee was going through a torrid time of it between the sticks, giving off strong Mark Birighitti at Dundee United vibes from the season that they were relegated to The Championship.
Gray may have belatedly recognised that his keeper was sorely costing him, but he eventually handed the gloves to Jordan Smith that night against Aberdeen, and while the 30-year-old hasn’t been faultless, he has inspired a great deal more confidence among the defenders in front of him than Bursik ever did.
Weekend hero Jack Iredale, who scored the stunning winner to put the Jambos to the sword, has been a revelation after Gray drafted him in and shifted to a back three. Nectar Triantis is like an entirely different player in the midfield.
Nicky Cadden has been impressive all season, but has thrived even more performing as a left wing-back, and might even be in the conversation for the player of the year awards, albeit as a contender for third place perhaps behind Daizen Maeda and Nicolas Kuhn.
If Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers delivers a domestic treble allied to his side’s impressive Champions League campaign, he will be a shoo-in for the manager of the year award, but if Gray can maintain Hibs’ place in third position, he deserves to be right in the hunt too for pulling off the most remarkable resurrection Scottish football has seen perhaps since his own moment of glory in the Hampden sunshine all those years ago.
Rarely have the Hibs team and the fans been as connected as they are now. Gray takes his team back to Celtic Park this Sunday, the scene of their last defeat, where they will be backed by around 7000 of their supporters in the Scottish Cup quarter final.
You wouldn’t bet too heavily on the Hibs players lining up in front of them at the end for another spine-tingling chorus of Sunshine on Leith - the best anthem in football, incidentally - but it wouldn’t be quite as big a shock as it undoubtedly would have a few months ago.
If the man known to his adoring Hibs public simply as Sir David Gray pulls it off, he may well be arising for another gong or two come the end of the season.
