Craig Fowler: This has makings of an Hearts v Hibs derby for the ages - just not as anyone would've wanted

Hearts and Hibs will face off this weekend for a place in the Scottish Cup final. If that wasn’t enough, there are numerous subplots to make this a classic encounter. There’s just one small problem...

Hearts and Hibs will battle it out in front of a cavernous Hampden Park on Saturday evening. Picture: SNS

In many ways this is a derby for the ages. For starters, it’s a Scottish Cup semi-final at Hampden. Meetings between the two clubs in Scotland’s premier knockout tournament have been oddly frequent in recent years. There have been more Scottish Cup Edinburgh derbies in the last decade (seven) than they were in between Hearts’ quarter-final replay victory in 1933 and the 2006 semi-final (six). But it’s still an Edinburgh derby semi-final, it’s only happened twice before in the history of the competition and who knows when it’s going to happen again.

That in itself should present this game as a tasty nugget to sink your teeth into, but that’s not all. There’s the retribution factor for Hearts. Unfairly relegated from the top-flight when last season was prematurely brought to a close by the coronavirus pandemic, the clubs supporters now see every Scottish football opponent (except from Partick Thistle and Stranraer) as a mortal enemy. Nothing would delight the fans more – and dare say a few people within Tynecastle as well – than to see their side give the ultimate F-U to the rest of the country by going on to win the competition.

There’s also the less visceral but no less intriguing prospect of Hearts, and their manager, getting their own back for the failures of 2016. Robbie Neilson’s record of one win from six against Hibs during his first spell was wholly underwhelming, especially when you consider his side always had the stronger league position (twice in the division above) and the glorified under-20s team managed by Gary Locke had defeated their rivals on four occasions the season before he took charge.

Even worse, two of those disappointments came in the fifth round tie in which Hibs came back from two goals down at Tynecastle, advanced with a win at Easter Road and went on to win the competition for the first time in 114 years. A minority of the support still haven’t forgiven Neilson for that. A defeat on Saturday, even with the various caveats, will hardly mend that relationship.

Hibs, meanwhile, will be hellbent on inflicting further pain on their near-neighbours. Let’s face it, when the chickens came home to roost for Hearts at the end of the Vladimir Romanov era, they got away fairly lightly. There was no liquidation, the new CVA only meant borrowing a few million from a millionaire supporter who became the club’s owner, which has now been paid back, and the ignominy of being relegated was softened by their rivals going down that same season in spectacularly inept fashion. To borrow another wildlife-based analogy, it was the football version of falling into the river and coming out with a salmon in their mouth. Hibs supporters can now console themselves with the knowledge that if football karma exists then it finally came for Hearts in the past couple of years, but that feeling of satisfaction will be erased in an instant if Neilson’s men upset them at Hampden.

There’s the lesser-talked about Jack Ross subplot. A member of Neilson’s staff when the latter first took charge of Hearts back in 2014, Ross was mysteriously jettisoned. Had he not been, he probably would’ve stepped up to the job when Neilson left in 2016 and Hearts would have saved themselves a lot of frustration in the time that’s lapsed since. They even had the chance to try and pinch him from Easter Road chiefs before he was hired as Hibs boss last year but wanted to take their time and interview a range of candidates. Ross will have no desire to manage the club now, but if he’s got a ultra-competitive fire burning in his belly, and as a football manager it’s almost certain he does, he’ll seriously want to give one over on the Tynecastle bosses who didn’t fully recognise his coaching abilities.

And, of course, there’s the recent history at the national stadium. Hearts won the 21st century all-Edinburgh semi-final and final by a combined eight goals. Hibs can’t have that streak going any further. They need some revenge of their own.

All in all, this one has the makings of a classic – except for one small problem. We’ll all be watching at home.

It is, to put it simply, rubbish. What makes derbies so special is the collective passion that goes with it. There’s nothing like celebrating a winning goal in the away end at your biggest rivals. All inhibitions go out the window as raging euphoria takes over instead. It’s heightened by the same outpouring of emotion from several thousand others, all crammed in beside you, feeling exactly the same.

Pubs or large gatherings can make up for this in their own way. It isn’t the same, but there’s still enough for an acceptable substitute. But we can’t even have that experience on Saturday night – not unless you break the law.

When one of our teams scores this weekend, we’ll definitely celebrate. We’ll jump up, we’ll shout, we’ll scream. We’ll be wondrously happy if our team comes out on top at the end of the 90 minutes, 120 minutes or, god forbid, penalty shoot-out. But we won’t feel that collective euphoria.

This derby will be special, just in its own way. We’ll never forget who won the ‘Pandemic Derby’. For nearly all of us this is a unique point in our lives. The fact that Scottish football is still going, at all, is a small wonder compared to how much worse this moment in history could have been. It isn’t much more than a crumb of comfort, but all we can do is accept it.

Message from the editor

Thank you for reading this article. We're more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by Coronavirus impacts our advertisers.

If you haven't already, please consider supporting our sports coverage with a digital sports subscription.