Tony Mowbray reveals the secret to his Hibs success and the one maverick he allowed to 'cheat'
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Former Hibs boss Tony Mowbray has opened up on his magical two years in charge of the Easter Road club.
Between 2004-06, the now 61-year-old guided the club to back-to-back top four finishes in the SPL, which was the first time since Eddie Turnbull's time in charge that Hibs had managed this in the top flight in consecutive seasons. His team progressed to the latter stages of every domestic cup competition and made two appearances in European football.
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Hide AdOn top of that, he worked with a squad of cult heroes and club favourites that are still remembered fondly to this day. Mowbray says the secret was that all he had to do was provide direction, as he named the one maverick in particular he provided extra licence to.
He said on the Bernie Slaven podcast: “I've only lasted so long in the game because we've won games. You've found a way to win with the group of players we've got. If I think back to Hibernian, the average age of that team would have been about 20. Scott Brown was 17 when I arrived at Hibernian. He had a red Mohican, he had no hair down the side.
“Scott Brown, who went on to captain Celtic for 10 years and captain of Scotland. Mad guy. Became a leader. Became a leader as he was given the licence to... him and Kevin Thomson were amazing together. Thommo went to Rangers, Scott went to Celtic. Derek Riordan, what a left foot. What a footballer. I allowed him to cheat out a little bit. First time ever in my life I would have said don't worry about running back too much.
“Make sure you get in a position where when we win it we can give it straight to you. Don't stand against the centre half. Drop in there and the centre half doesn't want to go. Give it to Derek. Derek would dance with the ball and stick it in the top corner. It's like when everyone's like, what a team Mowbray’s got. Basically I'm saying give it to Derek. Get it into Gary O'Connor's in front of him. Don't give it to his feet In front of him he's a big ram. He could run like hell and knock people over. And smash it in.
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Hide Ad“Playing to the strengths of the players we had. A real fast, powerful team. Really, really athletic footballers who had that little direction really. I came along and just gave them direction and put them in a team. Polished them up. They built the training ground that they've got there now. On the back of the sails of Scott Brown and Kevin Thompson and Stephen Whittaker. Finished third in the league, first year.
“Finished fourth in the league, second year. Hearts were strong in the second year. George Burley was there. They had the Lithuanian owners and they were spending lots of money. Qualified for Europe two years on the bounce. I did win manager of the year.
“We did beat them both, not consistently, but we did beat them both in my two and a half years there we probably beat Rangers three times. We beat Celtic twice or something like that. It was great. We won at Celtic Park 3-1. We won 3-0 at Rangers. We won at home against them both. To win 3-0 at Ibrox is amazing really.”
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