Stubbs speaks

[1875STEVE]

Alan Stubbs spent last night enjoying a quiet refreshment after a day on one of Lancashire’s finest golf courses. A very decent 7-handicap, he’s getting a lot of golf in these days. And the Masters in Augusta is looming, which is whetting his appetite even more.

But, by his own admission, a part of Stubbs still wishes he was at Easter Road. The man who finally landed the Scottish Cup in Leith after 114 painful years last May is brutally honest about his fate. “Winning the Scottish Cup with Hibs is the most satisfying thing that has ever happened to me in football,” says Stubbs. “But then I made a career mistake.”

It still gnaws away at many Hibs fans that, in the weeks following that Hampden triumph, Stubbs chose to leave for Rotherham United rather than stay in Edinburgh. It proved to be a disastrous move, with Stubbs lasting less than five months at the Yorkshire club, who were bottom of the Sky Bet Championship when he was handed his jotters in October. In the period since, the only thing greatly enhanced in his life is his golf.

“I’ve had time to reflect and be honest with myself, on what went wrong, and why it went wrong for me,” says Stubbs. “There is no point in kidding myself: I made the wrong decision in leaving Hibs to go to Rotherham. I’ve had to live with that.

“I had a great structure around me at Hibs; it is a great football club. And winning the Scottish Cup with the Hibs fans that day was amazing. But then I had a decision to make about what next for me.


“I knew about a week after Hampden that there was interest in me. There had been all that reaction, the cup parade, the furore of it all. People have asked me many times, ‘why did you leave Hibs?’ Well, I know now it was a mistake but, after winning the cup, a part of me was asking, ‘how do I top this?’

“Hindsight is a wonderful thing. In hindsight, I now wish I had stayed and let my time at Hibs run its course. But, at the time, I felt it was the right decision to leave. Unfortunately, I chose the wrong club to go to.”

When Stubbs left Hibs aged 44 last summer, his career was on an upward trajectory. He had done well and gained respect previously as the Everton under-21 manager, and in his two eventful seasons at Easter Road he wrote his name indelibly into Hibs’ history. But then he hit the buffers.

“Everything I had at Hibs — the right structure, the right people there — I found I didn’t have at Rotherham,” he says. “Right from the very start I didn’t have the right feel about the club. The budget there was one of the lowest in the league and 60% of it was already spent by the time I got to work on a new team. Then I missed out on some signings and was forced to gamble late on free transfers, when most of the better ‘frees’ had already been snapped up. I was left having to pull rabbits out of a hat.

“I’m not disputing my own responsibility; I made mistakes. But there were circumstances there which didn’t help. When you look at clubs like Rotherham or Leeds United, where there have been five or six mangers in such a short space of time, it can’t all be down to all those managers being poor. The recruitment can’t be that bad. It surely points to something behind the scenes at those clubs not being right.

“I ask myself a lot, ‘why did you leave Hibs?’ I’ve been forced to reflect on it. Of course, if I’d gone to a different club last summer, and things had worked out, then the question wouldn’t come up. I’m hoping Rotherham proves to be a blessing in disguise, and that I’ll be stronger for it in my next job.”

His Hibs experience remains a deep existential moment for Stubbs. Just as eyebrows were raised in Scotland when he left to go to Rotherham, so some English observers had queried his decision to leave Goodison Park in 2014 to go to Easter Road. But Stubbs believes it was the making of him as a manager.

“I don’t think I’ve become a bad manager overnight,” he says. “I had two years at Hibs, my first job as a manager, and we reached a League Cup final, a Scottish Cup final, and two more cup semi-finals. Obviously, we missed out on promotion, which I would have dearly loved, but we won the Scottish Cup and I think I earned pass marks as a manager in those two years.

“I believe I helped move Hibs forward. When I arrived the club had just gone down and it required a total rebuild. We also had to do some major bridge-building with the fans, who had totally lost faith, who had lost that bond with the club. I had to make sure the fans felt like they had their club back.

“In season 2015-16 we had optimism, but we also knew that Rangers were getting their house in order. They were the overwhelming favourites to go up. We were probably also affected by our involvement all the way in the two cup competitions, but I’m not using that as an excuse. Ultimately, we lost out on promotion. Over these two play-off games against Falkirk we were the better team, but it wasn’t to be. It is my one big regret about Hibs. And I’m chuffed to bits today that Lenny will take Hibs up — and he will.”

Saturday, May 21, 2016 will live long in the memory, for all sorts of reasons. The pitch invasion in part marred that Scottish Cup final at Hampden. On the other hand, the beautiful, exquisite rendition of Sunshine on Leith by Hibs fans, like a vast choir in a great cathedral, was one of the greatest sights ever seen in Scottish football. Stubbs carried the Scottish Cup back to Leith.

“I said it often, I wanted to rid Hibs of the image they had: that they’d always fall at the final hurdle, that they didn’t have the stomach for it, the bottle. There had been too much heartache. That was one reason why winning the Scottish Cup at Hampden was so special.

“For me that cup win was all about other people at the club: the players, the staff, the fans. It was about the fulfilment of a dream for them. That is where I got my biggest buzz: from what it meant to others.

“So many questions had been asked, about Hibs’ strength, about Hibs’ character. Well, Hibs rose to it that day; they won the Scottish Cup; they beat Rangers. I think that answered it.

“It was the best feeling I’ve ever had in football. I’ve seen the footage of the Hibs fans that day singing Sunshine on Leith: it was incredibly special. That song is spine-tingling.

“There is a class about Hibs, as there is about Celtic, and about Everton. Some clubs have that class, and some clubs wish they had it, but they don’t.”

[theoldman]

“I don’t think I’ve become a bad manager overnight,” he says. “I had two years at Hibs, my first job as a manager, and we reached a League Cup final, a Scottish Cup final, and two more cup semi-finals. Obviously, we missed out on promotion

That alone should have guarenteed him another job and really wish him all the success in the future, he definately deserves another chance and really hope he gets one. Best of luck young man.

[1875STEVE]

ive got a feeling Lennon will walk if we go up, id take Stubbs back in a second......