"IT's not the despair, Laura.
I can take the despair. It's the hope I can't stand." The line from the film Clockwise, uttered by Brian Stimpson, John Cleese's poor, downtrodden headmaster, could well double as Hibernian's motto when it comes to the Scottish Cup.
It is now 113 years since the Edinburgh club last won the trophy, each subsequent season offering a glimpse of promise that this will finally be their time. It never is. Finalists in 2012 and 2013, Hibs continue to get as close as possible to winning the cup without ever getting it in their clutches. It is the hope that continues to kill them year after year.
The draw for the quarter-final of the competition could not have been kinder. A home tie against either Berwick Rangers of League Two, or the Lowland League's Spartans was as good as it could have got. Even better, two of the remaining three SPFL Premiership sides - Celtic and Dundee United - were paired together at Tannadice. On form, joining them in the last four should be Celtic, Inverness Caledonian Thistle and Queen of the South. Another kind draw and Hibs would be hot favourites to return to the final for the third time in four years. And then...well, their supporters probably have a good idea of what would happen next.
They have suffered unduly the Hibs fans in recent times. As if a Scottish Cup custard pie to the face each year wasn't painful enough they also had to put up with their team sliding pitifully out of the top division last season, relegated via the play-offs after first Pat Fenlon and then Terry Butcher could not arrest an inexorable decline.
This season, however, things are looking up again. Order has been restored under Alan Stubbs and a victory over Rangers at Ibrox on Friday night would lift them into second place in the Championship and put down a marker ahead of the teams' likely meeting in the play-offs later in the season. Hoping for promotion and the Scottish Cup might seem a bit greedy but Liam Craig, the Hibs captain, thinks that is what it might take to finally make up for last year's capitulation.
"I've always said a lot of our fans will not forgive the players for what happened last year and rightly so," he said. "That's my feeling. I don't know if it was because I was captain or whatever, but there was no excuse for what happened. We embarrassed ourselves and let a great club down. We can only start winning the fans back by winning football games, by winning on Friday and winning promotion as well as the Scottish Cup. Hopefully we can do both, speak to them afterwards and hope they forgive us then."
Craig has only been at Easter Road for a year and a half but it did not take long for the club's backstory - and its relationship with the Scottish Cup - to become ingrained in his consciousness. To be the first Hibs captain in more than a century to lift the trophy would be quite a special moment.
'Until we win it, it is always going to be there, isn't it? We are in a great position in terms of where we are just now and the progress we are making under the manager. I think you can see the fans buying into it as well. This draw will excite the fans and give them real belief that we can get into the next round."
Hibs travel to Ibrox on Friday to face a Rangers side bereft of confidence after being turfed out of two cup competitions in their last two matches. Craig knows how that feels.
'I went through it last season with Hibs. We have had our own troubles. For a lot of the boys who were there last season, to say we have come though it is maybe a wee bit naïve. But we are definitely making big strides towards that and I fully expect these Rangers players to do the same. They have got players in that squad who will hurt you if you are not at it. We have always said we can match anyone on our day but if we are going to get something at Ibrox we will have to perform well."
Possibly standing in Hibs' way of another Scottish Cup semi-final are Spartans, the Lowland League club based just three miles from Easter Road. Their primary focus is on trying to make it into the senior set-up but a possible cup derby with Hibs would make for a nice distraction.
"I'm like the wee boy looking in the window at the moment, thinking about what could be," said John McCabe, the Spartans secretary."We're a Lowland League club aspiring to get into the SPFL. And we're almost clutching at the door, being here today for such an occasion, alongside all these other clubs still in the cup. So we're certainly looking forward to trying to get through - and, if we get to play Hibs, it would be fantastic."
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