Edinburgh Life Stories, part six: Hibs hero Mickey Weir reveals how doos kept him out of trouble

A member of the triumphant Hibs League Cup winning team of 1991, he recalls his life and career over two editions, chatting with Barry Davidson.

Mickey’s football career has been well documented over the years, less well known are his early years. In this, the final instalment of our Edinburgh Life Stories series in association with The Living Memory Association, we find Mickey sharing his love of doos, remembering his first Hibs match and life growing up in Granton, West Pilton and Clermiston.

“I was brought up in Granton in a one-bedroom flat with five of us, plus my mum and dad, so it wasn’t the greatest,” he recalls. “Although it was great times, it was difficult for my mum and dad who had absolutely nothing but were very, very hard working. We then moved to West Pilton for a number of years because my dad was looking for a bigger house, so we had to go and stay with our grandparents. My grandad and my gran were very influential in the way I led my life, my granddad especially who, at all times, tried to keep me off the street and on the straight and narrow.”

In the podcast, the Hibs favourite reflects that it was tough being brought up in what was then considered a disadvantaged area. “But I have a lot of good memories of it and I was very fortunate, I had good parents and my grandad and gran, who brought all my values to me as a young person.”

After West Pilton, the family moved to Clermiston, but Mickey had a very good reason for returning to West Pilton regularly - his pigeons.

“It was a crazy thing,” he tells Davidson. “My grandad got pigeons for me, to keep me off the street. They were still in West Pilton, so after school I had to keep coming down on the bus to fly the birds.”

It’s no understatement to say those pigeons were his life. “In the summer holidays, most of my days were spent at the pigeon hut that my dad built.

“I’d be there from eight o’clock in the morning until dark, all day. I just loved it, that was may haven. I was infatuated by them, which was a great thing because it kept me out of trouble.”

For those unfamiliar with the attraction, he explains, “Pigeons are pigeons but ours were the fancy pigeons, what we call the horseman. In the housing schemes around Edinburgh then, everybody had pigeons. It was a competition between your birds and other people’s birds. You put out a pigeon to try and catch one of their pigeons, male versus female, and one would try to attract the other back to their hut. That was the sport and my interest is still there, my boy’s got them at the moment. I don’t think it ever leaves you... it was so much a part of my life when I was younger. It was my passion.”

Football too would soon become his passion, when his grandad introduced him to Easter Road.

“My grandad, dad and my uncles would all meet in the Doo’cot pub and then go to watch the Hibs together,” he recalls. "The whole family were Hibs supporters and my grandad took me to my first game when I was seven or eight years old. Back in those days, Hibs were in Europe, I remember standing on the terracing as a wee boy looking at the big floodlights. It was magical seeing Alex Edwards, Paddy Stanton, Jimmy O’Rourke, Alan Gordon - it was full house every time. I remember getting thrown over the gate, you never paid in, and we had a specific place behind the goal where we stood. It was fantastic, great days to watch the Hibs and I’m still a huge Hibs supporter.”

Looking back, ‘warm’ is the word Mickey uses to describe his formative years.

“I remember the laughs. It was tough but we never looked at it as being tough. It was a really warm upbringing. We were brought up on soup and bread, and tripe was massive in those days. People look at it... but I still love it to this day. That was how you were brought up in those days but we never ever struggled for food or clothing. You got the best you could afford.”

And then he started playing football with Pilton Sporting Club. “That was a weird one. A friend knocked on my door one day and said, ‘How do fancy coming along and playing for us, were running out of players?’ So I went along and enjoyed it. Football was very natural to me, and then I started to play for my school, Fox Covert, and that was me staring to play organised football.”

The rest as they say...

Listen to the rest of Mickey’s story online at https://lifestory.libsyn.com/mickey-weir-the-life-of-a-hibs-legend-part-1

All The Living Memory Association Life Story Podcasts are also available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify

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