THE walk up Easter Road, away from the stadium towards the main carriageway, is a long one.
In the aftermath of a match, it can be riddled with emotion either way. It offers time to reflect on a glorious triumph which gives you what you want. There’s also the possibility of hundreds of steps of thinking of what might have been. Of where it went wrong, of why you’ve ended up where you are.
One of those was going to be handed down to Hibernian supporters, the other to Hamilton Accies fans, on Sunday, May 18. And four days in advance, there was a strong inkling of which was going to be which.
Two goals by Jason Cummings, unanswered by Hamilton, had given Hibs a strong advantage in the first leg of the Premiership play-off final. Not only did the Edinburgh side hold a 2-0 advantage, they were taking it into the second leg on their own pitch. All they had to do was keep it simple and sensible. They could even lose by the odd goal.
For the neutral, this wasn’t ideal. Tuning into TV for the second leg was more in hope than expectation of the deficit being overturned. Hamilton didn’t have an air of total resignation, but were in no doubt about how hard they had to work to pull it off.
And it took only 12 minutes for that graft to start paying off. Jason Scotland scored and this game was well and truly on. The longer it continued, the more nerves became frayed, the closer hands got to heads, the more it became a question of looking through the gaps in your fingers. But Accies still needed another goal.
Ninety minutes arrived. It was all set to come to nothing, how hard Hamilton had pushed champions Dundee over the Championship season, and then to beat Falkirk in the play-off semi-final. Then, just when it was all vanishing before their very eyes, a touch of the ball from Tony Andreu rescued it all. He equalised. An extra half hour was on its way, with Accies having total momentum with them.
Those 30 minutes saw no further goals, meaning the last place in the 2014/15 top flight would be decided by penalties. Kevin Cuthbert saved Hibs’ first kick from Kevin Thomson. Then Cummings, the man whose double made it look a fait accompli after 90 minutes of the tie, had the same fate.
A tie which had looked over at the midway point had become pure sporting theatre. Something which 2014 in Scottish football will be remembered for.
The Dumbarton Terrace 