LEWIS MURRAY is looking forward to his trip to Hampden on Saturday. He’s hoping to get a big flag on the way in and then expects to see his team lift the Scottish Cup come the end. That probably makes him no different to most five year-olds eagerly anticipating their first ever cup final. As a Hibernian fan, however, his dad has urged a degree of caution.
“I’ve warned him not to get his hopes up as he thinks after winning the semi-final it’s going to be easy. And I hope he’s right. But I explained to him that I had never seen Hibs win the Scottish Cup, neither has his grandad, and neither did his grandad’s dad! And he can’t quite get his head around that. So I hope he sees Hibs do it and he doesn’t have to suffer for years like the rest of us.”
Lewis’ dad, of course, is Ian Murray, the Hibby diehard and erstwhile Easter Road ballboy who went from owning a season ticket one season to playing in the first team the next. Murray has endured enough heartache over the years, both in the stands and on the pitch, to know that there is no such thing as a sure thing when it comes to Hibs and the Scottish Cup.
As a callow 20 year-old, he was a surprise inclusion in Alex McLeish’s team that lost 3-0 to Celtic in the 2001 final. By the time Hibs returned to the final in 2012 he was coming to the end of his second spell at the club, with injury – perhaps mercifully – ruling him out of the 5-1 thrashing by Hearts. It remains a dark day for most Hibs supporters, although it doesn’t haunt Murray – who also had two seasons as a Rangers player - as much as he had initially feared.
“Hearts had a better team,” he admits with typical candour. “Not just a few players, but probably eight or 10 better players. So Hibs needed every little bit of luck to go in their favour. They didn’t get any luck and they also didn’t play well. I wasn’t fit but I still could have played better than some of them who did. Some of them, I don’t know what they were doing.
“I thought the preparation was poor for the game but that’s what the manager thought was the right thing to do. We had Aberdeen and Inverness away in the league and then we flew out to Dublin a day or so later for a few days. And I thought that was an awful lot of travelling for the players ahead of a big game. It’s not how I would have done things. We lost 5-1 but to be fair it could have been seven or eight if Hearts had really gone for it.”
Murray was away by the time Hibs reached the final again a year later, but was not surprised to see them lose again to Celtic. “I went to that game and Hibs didn’t show anything. They didn’t give themselves a chance. I think the last thing Pat Fenlon wanted was another hiding for a second year in a row.”
Hibs is in the Murray DNA. It started with his own father Peter, passed through him and his big brother Gordon and is now ingrained in his two sons, the younger of whom won’t be at Hampden. Ironically given it is Rangers standing in the way in Saturday’s final, his favourite Hibs player growing up was Andy Goram but there were few in green and white that Murray didn’t idolise at one point or another.
“We used to go with my dad to get a bag of coal in the morning for the fire we had in the house, come back for lunch, then head back out to Easter Road. That was the Saturday routine I can remember when I was young. Then when I was about 15 I got really into it. I was on the books of Dundee United but I’d go to Hibs away games on my own sometimes, sad as that is to admit.”
He is working as part of Hibs’ hospitality team on Saturday but his dad and son will be with him at Hampden, too. He believes that, after losing the League Cup to Ross County and failing to win promotion, that there is actually less pressure on manager Alan Stubbs, rather than more.
“A Hibs fan was asking me whether Stubbs would start with [James] Keatings or [Jason] Cummings. I said it doesn’t matter anymore as he can pick the team he wants. He has absolutely nothing to lose. If Hibs don’t win it he probably won’t be there after that anyway. And if they do win it then you may as well hand him the keys to Easter Road.”
And what will the celebrations be like if they do it? “I’ve got a friend coming up from Devon for the game and he’s asking me what it will be like if Hibs win the cup. And I had to admit I had no idea. Nobody knows! Nobody alive has ever seen them do it. So hopefully we’ll find out on Saturday night.”
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