Law and order broke down in Hampden Park early on Saturday afternoon. In footballing terms, Hibs broke a century old hoodoo and turned the law and order of Scottish football on its head, by winning their first Cup since 1902, while the pandemonium that followed the late, late, winner from David Gray, was a completely unacceptable display of disorder. A mass pitch invasion; Rangers players assaulted; goalposts destroyed; fights on the pitch between opposing fans and finally that oddly warming nostalgic scene of British police on horseback striding across the green surface. Brings me back to my childhood. But no. That was not right by any means.
I’ve never understood pitch invasions though. Every summer I cringe as I watch GAA fans leg it onto the playing surface and then stand around like small-town teenagers outside the Spar not knowing what to do when they get there. Nonsense, but at least in the native games it rarely gets that violent. The gobshitery that spills over onto the pitches of the League here is small in number and is very, very silly. I view the pitch in the same way as Billy Connolly views the sea – We don’t belong there. If we did we’d be wearing fucking shinguards and boots to the games, not coats and scarfs. Some of you will disagree, but I respect the playing surface. I’m not a fan of pitch invasions.
I am a fan of a good song, however. And great, great football songs. As a Liverpool fan, “You’ll Never Walk Alone” has had me in tears at times – a song that is part of the club’s very soul, especially since April 1989, given even greater meaning in recent weeks. An anthem like few others.
But this post, based on one I did a few years back for Screw Music, is about a Proclaimers song called “Sunshine on Leith”. It’s the anthem of Hibernian FC of Edinburgh. And after all the madness inside Hampden had calmed down on Saturday, they gave a spine-tingling rendition of it. It’s great to know that in a weekend where hype, bullshit and fully orchestrated near-sabotage brought an odious prick like Jose Mourinho back into the sordid world of the “Greatest League on Earth”, a group of football fans up the road can remind you of the power of the collective. It was also heartening to see so many of the players knowing all the words as well. I’m not for one second suggesting Scottish football is a squeaky-clean antidote to the English version, but there’s something fantastic about this. A 114 year wait ended. Promotion be damned, even for a club of Hibs’ stature. It can wait til next year. In a world where 4th place trumps the FA Cup, it’s fantastic to see how much this means to those fans. There’s no way Saturday will be remembered by most for these couple of minutes, but maybe for a few like yourself it will.
It’s a bit special. And the very, very best of that great country Scotland. Enjoy.
A Yard of Grass 