Gordon Strachan: Dad would’ve loved this game... he was desperate to see the hoodoo end

The talk on Saturday at Hampden Park will be of the last time Hibs and Hearts met in a Scottish Cup final, on a distant day in 1896 at Logie Green. For Gordon Strachan, though, the occasion is going to evoke poignant memories of a much more recent Edinburgh derby.

Strachan, who was first taken to Easter Road by his father, Jim, in 1962, was in his Dad’s company at the ground for the visit of Hearts last year. “He took me to see Hibs v Aberdeen when I was about five – Charlie Cooke was playing for the Dons – and I took him to his last game, although I didn’t know it was going to be his last at the time,” said the 55-year-old former Celtic manager, who now watches much of his football as a TV pundit.

“It was a derby, at Easter Road. He was a lifelong Hibs fan – the area I grew up in, it was mostly Hibs fans. My mum still lives there. He would have loved to be at Hampden for this game because, like all Hibs supporters, he was desperate to see the Cup hoodoo come to an end. Mind you, he had been around enough not to build up his hopes too much.

“They talk about the pressure on Hibs every time they get to the Scottish Cup final. It’s not bad when pressure only comes on you after 100 years! You get it after three months at Celtic.

“It feels like destiny though, doesn’t it?

“Being a Hibs supporter up until I was about 15 and knowing how well the club looked after me and my father last year when he wasn’t well, I’m rooting for them.

“He took me to my first game and I took him to his last, so it would be great for us if Hibs won – but it’s great for the game that it’s a Hibs v Hearts final.

“We want a decent game we can all be proud of. About a year ago I was living in Edinburgh and the Hibs supporters were all complaining about how bad the team was – the worst they’ve seen in forever – and when Pat came in they expected him to change it completely in three months.

“If it’s that bad, it’s going to take longer than that. This might be their year for the Cup, but the work Pat has to do is another couple of years’ worth to get to where he wants.”

Strachan revealed that he took the chance recently to chat to the Dubliner about how Hibs might develop. “I’ve spoken to him and he’s a good character to talk to,” said the former Aberdeen, Manchester United and Scotland midfielder.

“I thought, ‘you know where you want to go’. Sometimes you speak to people and they have grey areas but he didn’t have any. I had a cup of tea with him and I thought, ‘you know what you’re doing’. To be fair, his record in Ireland is terrific.”

Although Fenlon has said that he was scarcely in the door at Easter Road before it was mentioned that he might like to do something about the club’s notorious Scottish Cup record, he is not encumbered with baggage from previous failures on major occasions, such as the defeat by unfancied Livingston in the 2004 league cup final at Hampden. Strachan, mind you, remembers that failure all too well.

“The last final I went to was a disaster, right enough – the game against Livingston,” said Strachan. “Everyone thought Hibs’ kids were the be all and end all and it was just a year or two early for them.

“I remember Broony [Scott Brown] had red hair on the day and got sent off. It was a good team and they were good young kids but they only really developed a year later when Gary Caldwell and big Rob Jones came along. It was a real disappointment for the fans that day because they genuinely believed it was their day. They’d beaten Rangers and Celtic to get there too.

“I assumed the same as everyone else – I came up from England for it.”

Not that the former Celtic manager is wholly enamoured with what he sees of the SPL games on television south of the Border, where pictures of empty seats in Scotland contrast sharply with packed grounds in the Premier League.

“You understand what I mean about a game filling the screen?” he asks. “If you’re going to change Scottish football, change the whole thing, change it drastically – don’t just tweak about with things now and then because it hasn’t worked for 30 years. Even if it means summer football, do it, because you’ve had 30 years of football going backwards, so we might as well try ten years of summer football and it might just change things. I don’t know if it’s right but it’s worth a try.

“The standard wasn’t bad ten years ago but the fact is we paid a lot of money for that football and it was money we couldn’t afford. Celtic and Rangers had the fifth and sixth highest wage bills in Britain and you got a game that was relative to the wages.

“To be fair, I’ve not watched loads of it but I see the crowds and I think – what’s going on?”

Hampden, of course, could have been sold out twice over for Saturday’s derby final, but – combative as ever – Strachan has no truck with those who believe the game should have been played at Murrayfield.

“Naw, not at all. Murrayfield’s for rugby, Hampden’s for fitba’!” he said. “Listen, Hampden’s only 45 minutes away. I travel further to see my grandchildren.”