Hughes leaves Hibs

Blast it. I knew I should have written about "the inevitable demise of John Hughes" last week. But, just as I have finally gotten round to it, it's too late. What's the past tense of "demise"? "Demised"?. If so, then John Hughes has demised. Or, for those who speak English, he has gone by that strange method called "mutual consent" (I have previously pointed out on this blog that this sounds more like the defence argument in a rape trial than a way of dismissing an employee, but it's such a good line that I thought I should use it again). Not surprising though, as, for a team with a manager nicknamed Yogi, there had been a lot of Boo Boos on the pitch...all right, I'll get my coat...

Hibs chairman Rod Petrie possesses not the Midas touch, but the Mediocrity touch; whatever he brings to Easter Road appears to become, well, a bit so-so, ever since Tony Mowbray left. It's probably a curse from the same witch-doctor who has condemned all Hibs goalkeepers to be incapable of catching a cold. Yet imagine if Petrie had gone to a fortune teller in the back streets of Leith in October 2006, just after Mowbray's departure...

Petrie: "I've lost an outstanding young manager, and so many of our star young players are leaving en masse for bigger things - Thomson, Whittaker, Brown, Riordan, O'Connor, Murphy, Murray. How on earth are we going to cope for the next few years?"

Strange woman in tent charging a quid to read palms: "Let me look into my crystal ball...I see that, in the next four years you will win the league cup, bring Riordan and Murray back, entice Liam Miller to play for the club, and receive a million pounds for selling your star striker. And you will build a beautiful new stand which will win many plaudits for the way it makes Easter Road look less like a dump."

Petrie: "The League Cup?! A new stand?! A million pounds?! Liam Miller?! What could possibly go wrong? (Skips out of the tent, singing Sunshine on Leith)

Strange woman: "Wait! But in four years you will be third from bottom, there will be no team spirit, Riordan will be only half the player he was, and you'll have just sacked John Hughes...damn, he's gone. Oh well, he'll find out soon enough. I'll just have to go back to my day job of dispensing methadone."

So where do Hibs go from here? The club has become the football equivalent of Strictly Come Dancing; Lots of big names, but none of them would be there if they had managed to succeed somewhere else. Hughes' replacement will have a tough task to get performances out of this bunch, not least because of the huge egos on the pitch and the high expectations in the stands. Jimmy Calderwood is the bookies' favourite currently; I'm not convinced that he could do much better, but I can't think of any better options. I can envisage the advert the club are drawing up for the post: "Requires huge swathes of self-belief, and/or masochistic tendencies".

Anyway, there's plenty of dark clouds over Leith this week, and not a touch of sunshine.

L.