March was certainly a funny old month for us Hibees was it not? It was particularly odd for me, especially on the 7th, when I found myself watching Hearts v Ayr United at Tynecastle. I was an honourary Ayr supporter for the day and I was being true to the principal that all Hibs fans support two teams, the second team being the one that is playing Hearts. The only time that this is a problem for me is when Hearts are playing the Huns. After all, can you decide which is the lesser of two evils? Before the game I had a beer in the Merchiston Hearts Supporters club so if you know any Jambos who were there that day you can tell them that I was the bloke in the green shirt who was getting some odd looks from the maroon clad gentlemen. As for the game itself I have to be honest and say that Ayr were well and truly gubbed. It struck me as strange that every song the Ayr fans sing ends with the line "We hate Killie" when they hardly ever get to play them. It's not just Ayr fans who are like this, Dundee United fans relentlessly sing "Stand up if you hate Dundee" and I find myself wondering why they continue to live there if it is so bad.

Alex McLeish has managed to offload some of our cast of thousands to try and cut the wage bill. Poor old Chic Charnley has gone back to the First Division with only the distant memory of his wonder goals against Alloa and Celtic to remind him of his glory days at Easter Road. I still have a wee smile to myself when I remember that some people actually thought he should play for Scotland. Unbelievable or what?. We all know that Chico is not the brightest light on the tree and, as a demonstration of this, let me tell you a story. It appears that Chico found out about some local heid-bangers who were into ram-raiding in a big way and making plenty of money in the process. Chico decided he would give it a try and duly drove through the window of an electrical goods shop. He did a nash (as we say in Leith) with a load of gadgets, flogged them to his pals and made nearly one thousand pounds. Sadly, Chico's new career plans floundered somewhat when he had to fork out nearly fifteen hundred smackers to repair the damage he had done to his car!

In an outrageous piece of opportunism Alex tried unsuccessfully to lure the great Peter Beardsley to Hibs. I knew a Newcastle fan who went through a considerable amount of pain to have a portrait of Andy Cole tattooed on his thigh only to discover that Cole had been transferred to Man United later the same day. Undeterred, the Geordie set about his tattoo with a small hammer, an electric drill and some sandpaper. When he had finished he had a fairly good likeness of Peter Beardsley to show off to his mates. If Peter had made it to Easter Road it would have been wonderful to arrange a photo session for him with Steve Fulton. Rather than have a picture of two Rottwielers on your garden gate you could use Peter and Steve to scare of the burglars and terrorise the kids.

Leither column, April 98

Tommy