Hibee History: Gordon Smith inspires a seven-up in Summer Cup

They began the match two goals in arrears following the first leg of the tie.

Although Baxter was in his usual position, he was still not 100 per cent fit and still suffering from a neck injury sustained last week in Paisley and, in addition, he had been off work all week with flu. Kean was still an absentee and Smith led the attack.

Upwards of 5,000 were at Easter Road and the Paisley side were tenacious enough to suggest that their lead would be hard to wipe out.

Reid took the ball down and Hall had to give a corner kick to take the strain off a bewildered Brown, the Hibs goalkeeper being undecided whether to “stay put” or come and give a helping hand.

Smith and Weir each shook up the St Mirren defence in subsequent play, but the biggest thrill in these early moments was when Gordon Smith, after hard foraging on his own, took the balls from Cuskie, jockeyed for position and sent in a tremendous volley from 30 yards. Newlands got his fingertips to it and from Caskie’s corner kick Combe headed into Newlands’ waiting hands.

With a quarter of an hour gone, Caskie lost a glorious chance of knocking one off the deficit. Combe made his own way through on the right, screwed the ball past the lined-up St Mirren defenders and Newlands could only palm away to Caskie but the winger took too long to get the ball under control and a yawning goal was soon packed.

As it happened success was only delayed, and it was fitting that three minutes later Caskie should have a part in the score. It was while fielding a shot by the winger, almost on the edge of the penalty box, that Newlands momentarily took his eye off the ball and Weir, following up as usual made full use of the opportunity to prod it into the empty goal.

Weir, Combe, Smith and Caskie were all in the thick of the fray at Newlands’ goal when play resumed.

The centre flicked a perfect head-pass to Caskie, and the outside left was on the ball in an instant, only to be crowded out by Telfer, McCalman and Blair.

But in the 52nd minute Baxter made the tie all square.

In a right-wing raid Blair handled and the question was whether the incident was intentional or otherwise. Mr Cox, despite protests from the Paisley men, decided after consultation with a linesman that a penalty was the verdict, and Baxter drove the ball home from the spot.

Within a minute Weir had scored another for Hibernian after Smith had left-footed a 30-yarder which stretched Newlands. The goalkeeper was unable to hold the ball and Weir’s job was easy.

It was three minutes after this success that Baxter, again from the penalty spot, brought the total to 4-0, and simultaneously reversed the position of the two-goal lead.

After 63 minutes the day’s total was brought to five by Weir who completed his hat-trick.

Peat worked the ball close in before passing to the outside right who stabbed the ball past McCalman, who was deputising for Newlands who was temporarily off with an injury.

After 70 minutes Gordon Smith headed the sixth goal from a cross by Caskie, and Hibs added a further goal to finish off as 7-0 winners.