Fans bid farewell to Hibs' East Stand

LIAM CRAIG might have put a spanner in the works just as it looked like the East Stand would have a send-off to remember – but the Hibs fans made sure they would still have plenty of memories of an emotional day.

Saturday's game against St Johnstone was the final curtain call for the old stand, which sits opposite the Main Stand at Easter Road, as the club prepares to rip it down and replace it with a new state-of-the-art facility.

While St Johnstone put a bit of a damper on the occasion by snatching a share of the spoils, the Easter Road supporters snatched just about anything that wasn't screwed down to take home as souvenirs.

And even the things that were screwed, nailed or glued down were ripped up and taken home, with most fans not even bothering to try to hide their memorabilia or stuff it up the inside of their jerseys.

Seats, signs and even nuts and bolts were bagged as the final whistle blew and will probably already have taken pride of place on walls and mantelpieces around Edinburgh.

Saturday signalled not the end of an era, but the beginning of a new one for Hibs as they prepared to rip down the old East Stand and complete the transformation of Easter Road and increase capacity to over 20,000.

Thousands of fans packed into the ground for a chance to say farewell to the old stand, which had started life as a huge terracing but was reduced in capacity and covered with a new roof in the Eighties as new safety measures were brought in.

They went a step further in 1995 when the terracing was replaced by bucket seats – a moulded plastic base with no back – but on Saturday each and every one of those chairs was rendered almost useless.

The majority of supporters who piled into the East Stand at the weekend didn't use their seats and instead stood and chanted from the first whistle to the last, determined to give the old stand a rousing farewell. Danny Kerr from Edinburgh said: "There's been a lot of talk about the new East Stand but now it is actually happening and I think that shows the ambition that the club and the board has got.

"It'll be great to see the new stand. It will give the place an even better atmosphere and hopefully that will give the team an extra edge as well."

He was sitting just behind Alistair Wright from Gilmerton, who said: "I've had many great times up here. Probably the best one would have to be the game against AEK Athens. We won 3-2 that night and it was a brilliant occasion, one of the best atmospheres that I have ever experienced."

Hibs were selling off the bucket seats for a tenner in the week leading up to the game but most folk got theirs for nothing as they walked out carrying their chair right under the noses of police and stewards.

It was a party atmosphere despite the disappointment of dropping two points and on their way out of the ground they gave their loudest rendition yet of 'There's only one East Stand'.

One fan – who did go to the bother of stuffing his seat up his jumper – didn't want to be named but reckons that he'll now be able to enjoy a game without having to elbow the person in the seat next to him out of the way to get a better view of the game.

The seat snatcher, who has been watching Hibs for 25 years, said:

"I'm sorry to see it go in a lot of ways but I think that it's about time that we brought ourselves into the 21st century. The seats were attached to concrete blocks and every time Hibs scored we all ended up with cuts on our shins from banging our legs off the edges.

"The design was never the best because you could never get a good view of the corners and then there were the pillars, you had to have a fight with the person in the seat next to you to try to see what was happening on the pitch.

"I'm looking forward to seeing the new stand and to buying a season ticket for it too."