People have to check the fixture list these days to know if a derby game is on. You never needed to ask what the weekend game was in the past.
| It is Derby weekend over the next two days with Hibs playing Hearts today at Easter Road on league business and Rangers playing Celtic at Hampden tomorrow to see who will take the Co-Operative Cup home with them. Traditionally this sort of fixture list would have been anticipated for weeks by fans of all clubs with tensions brought to fever pitch by the time kick-off time arrived. Preparations for the game would have fans from al quarters making plans for the big day. Each one would certainly have plans for the post game celebration and the hangover the next day. The fact that the anticipated hangover may be due to the post mortem of a defeat never entered their heads. Does this still happen in Edinburgh and Glasgow with the clubs meeting so often in the SPL? I know Edinburgh was never the football city that Glasgow was but there does not appear to be the same buzz about the city in the lead up to the game. Granted Hibs are stuttering around and their fans are grateful for a win - any win - while Hearts are tightening their grip on third place in the league. This would normally have the Hearts fans throughout the city making the lives of their Hibees following colleagues a misery at every opportunity in terms of football banter. Hibee fans would give as good as they got, of course, with the prospect of taking the Jambos down a peg or two. This time around I barely hear football being mentioned in the lead up to the game. Is it that Hibs fans are resigned to their fate of the ignominy of a bottom six finish? Are Hearts fans bored with Hibs and take it for granted that tonight they will still be the top side in the city? If so, times have really changed for the worse. The sharpest of wit and banter is usually between city rivals as the ascendancy passes between fans and clubs on a regular basis. While messageboards are still flooded with rival fans taking the rise out their opposite number, there is a tendency for the insults (real and in jest) to be focussed on long gone players or situations or off the field activities. Is there any chance of football returning to be the mainstay of people's existence and impacting on production and efficiency in work on Monday? There are many distractions for people today rather than head to the fitba and the passion among the hard core fans is still there. But the results no longer appear to have the same impact on city life in general before and for the week after a Derby game. Should there be changes to the number of times the side meet -apart from the SPL split if a side drops into the bottom six - or is it too late to bring things back to two football dominated cities? | |
| Editor Ger Harley (ger@scottishfitba net) Admin Team (admin@scottishfitba net) This is ScottishFitba Net |
