1981-82 : Auld Lang Syne
The season started off badly, with the newly-promoted side finishing bottom of their League Cup group behind St Mirren, Celtic and St Johnstone. The first result was the worst of the lot - a 2-1 home defeat to the Perth saints, who had missed out on promotion the previous season, and whose 18-year old striker Ally McCoist was starting to attract the attention of bigger clubs.
However, in the Premier League campaign Hibs did better than anyone expected. Although the squad still included many of the players who had seen the team relegated in 1980, Bertie Auld had changed the team's approach to the game beyond recognition. Bertie was keen on Effort, and his vision of Premier League survival based on perspiration rather than inspiration earned the team a mid-table position as good as any achieved in the 1980s. Trouble was, Bertie's tactics would never have been likely to lift the team far beyond the middle of the table, into European qualifying positions, and Hibs were dubbed by the Glasgow press the "New Partick Thistle" for their get-behind-the-ball style.
After starting off with a solid home win against Dundee,
in the first away tie the side managed an unexpected 2-2 draw at Ibrox.
The reporting of that match set a pattern for the season, with the West-coast
papers less than pleased. We didn't care much..
In spite of all this, it was good to win points against more
highly-rated opposition, especially after being written off as relegation
candidates at the start of the season. The younger fans didn't let
their enjoyment of a record of 5 points out of 8 against the eventual champions
(Celtic) by an aggregate score of 6-2 in the wrong direction. And there
were some other memorable moments as well..
Our highest score of the season was a 4-0 home win against
Morton in October. Gary Murray, Bobby Flavell and Ally MacLeod all
scored, but the goal to remember was once again supplied by Ralph Callachan,
who with his left foot sent a curving chip from the D on edge of the area,
looping over the helpless Roy Baines in goal. This was just 5 days
after a 3-1 friendly win over George Best's San Jose Earthquakes, but only
once more in the season would Hibs score more than two goals in a game -
and that was at home to Partick Thistle.
The season's first visit by Rangers was memorable for two
things - Gordon Rae's spectacular goal, and John MacDonald's spectacular
dive. Rae opened the scoring in just 11 minutes with a thumping volley
from some 30 yards which rocketed over Peter "Girvan Lighthouse" McCloy in
goal. Jim Bett equalised shortly afterwards, but MacDonald waited till
just 17 minutes from the end to make his decisive contribution, winning a
penalty after bouncing off the collossal frame of Benny Brazil.. This
earned the visitors the two points, but also earned Erich Schaedler a booking
for offering his opinion after the final whistle, and Chairman Tom Hart a
fine for the same offence. The whole thing was caught on the telly.
MacDonald was never forgiven for his antics, and never lost his fragile sense
of balance...
The undersoil heating allowed the club to beat the Christmas
freeze, and invite Ron Atkinson's Manchester United side up for a friendly.
Over 12,000 - double the average home gate at the time - turned up to marvel
at Atkinson's fur coat and jewellery, and to see what the Hibees could do
against the multi-million-pound side from England. A creditable 1-1
draw was the answer: Willie Jamieson pounced on a flap-and-fumble from United's
shaky keeper Gary Bailey, and Frank Stapleton equalised for the visitors with
a close-range header. Ray Wilkins was anonymous, and Bryan "Captain
Marvel" Robson got himself injured. No surprises there, then.
Although hardly fitting in with Bertie's hard-work philosophy,
Ally MacLeod was still valuable enough to get a regular game, and provided
one of the most memorable moments of the eighties to produce the winning
goal in a 2-1 home win against Dundee in the first game of 1982.
The Dens Park side had grabbed a goal against the run of play just before
half time, but Willie Jamieson had once again been in the right place to
take advantage of a keeper's blunder shortly after the break. With
just under half an hour to go, Hibs were awarded a direct free kick just
outside the box. MacLeod curled it round the wall and in at the keeper's
right hand post. The fans' celebrations were short lived, though, as
the referee decided he wasn't ready and ordered the kick retaken. Ignoring
the fury and confusion all around, MacLeod simply replaced the ball, and
when the ref decided he was ready, curled it in at the keeper's left.
That was MacLeod - as unflappable as ... as I don't know what.
The highest drama of the season was probably the Hibees'
4th-round Cup exit at the hands of Dundee United after two replays.
This was no disgrace, as the same United side had beaten Borussia Moenchengladbach
5-0 in the home leg of their UEFA Cup second round tie earlier in the season.
We were drawn to play at Tannadice, just a week after the Arabs took both
points from Easter Road in the league. An unexpected 1-1 draw - Gordon
Rae cancelling out John Holt's strike - earned us a midweek replay at home.
An injury-time header from Billy Kirkwood equalised Craig Paterson's goal
for Hibs and sent the second game into extra time, which produced no more
goals. The venue for the second replay the following Monday was decided
by the toss of a coin, and although Hibs got home advantage this time, goals
from Holt and Davie Dodds, topped off by a last-minute Eamonn Bannon penalty,
ended our interest in the competition for another year.
We did get some revenge for this long drawn out defeat, when
we got our first ever Premier League win at Tannadice, late in the season.
Although Jim McArthur's goal was peppered with shots throughout the game,
he was destined to keep a clean sheet. In one of our handful of attacks,
Derek Rodier scampered up the right wing all the way from the half way line,
hurdling a couple of sliding tackles, and put in a perfect cross which picked
out the diving Stuart Turnbull, who headed the ball in past a stunned Hamish
McAlpine. Daylight robbery - and it was on Scotsport the next day.
Marvellous!
Scottish Premier League Table 1981-82
Pld W D L F A Pts
1 Celtic 36
24 7 5 79 33 55
2 Aberdeen 36 23
7 6 71 29 53
3 Rangers 36
16 11 9 57 45 43
4 Dundee Utd 36 15 10 11
61 38 40
5 St Mirren 36 14
9 13 49 52 37
6 HIBERNIAN 36 11 14
11 38 40 36
7 Morton 36
9 12 15 31 54 30
8 Dundee
36 11 4 21 46 72 26
9 Partick Th 36 6 10 20
35 59 22
10 Airdrie 36
5 8 23 31 76 18
We learned on the last day of the season that there would be a third consecutive season without Edinburgh derbies in the league, as Hearts missed out on promotion by a single point. They were a point ahead of Kilmarnock, but lost 1-0 away to First Division champions Motherwell in their last game, while Killie romped to a 6-0 home win against bottom team Queen of the South. Shades of 1965?
Tom Hart, Hibs' chairman since 1970, died in March 1982,
and his son Alan took over temporarily. Hart, who made his fortune
through his building firm, was a lifelong Hibby and one of a disappearing
breed of club chairmen at the time. His death heralded more changes
to come in the years ahead.
