Goodbye Tony Mowbray

While English fans looked forward to the resumption of the Premiership to blot out memories of Steve McLaren's inadequacies, Scottish supporters could be forgiven for wondering how the SPL could possibly match up to the excitement and heroics of the national team. Defeat against Ukraine might have dampened some expectations, but the victory over France will be remembered for a long time.

But the SPL delivered. 2 days of goals, thrills and keeper spills gave fans entertainment on the pitch, while managerial crises gave the media plenty to talk about. As a spectacle, the SPL is good value at the moment.

Match of the weekend was the Edinburgh derby, which was interesting in itself. Hibs and Hearts have the intense rivalry that all good divided cities have, and the derby has always been a massive game for their supporters. But it's no longer just a local tussle, ignored by everyone else. These days, everyone sits up and pays attention. It was the only game on Sunday, the Setanta channel thumbing through their "Sky guide to televising football" again to big up the big game.

Hearts have done a lot to create this hype, the Romanov Revolution building a bubble of expectation around the Tynecastle club. But this time around everyone was talking about their rivals. Hibernian lost their manager 3 days before the derby, and bets were on the leaderless club imploding under the pressure.

In the end, a thrilling match ended 2-2, and in many ways it summed up Hibs under Tony Mowbray. The home side were 2 goals up after 15 minutes, passing their way around the Hearts midfield at will, and threatening a rout. But they couldn't hold on, 2 blunders from their keeper allowing Hearts to take a point from a game they should have lost. Yet again, Hibs had delighted their supporters, but, ultimately, left them disappointed.

Tony Mowbray was a coach at Ipswich who persuaded the Hibernian board to give him his first job in management. He was already knew something of the Scottish game, having been a player at Celtic for 3 seasons in the early 90s, but Hibernian were taking a big gamble.

If his inexperience raised eyebrows, what happened next was simply astonishing. Rather than adopt a reticent, cautious approach with the media, playing it safe and buying himself some time to settle in, Mowbray spoke freely to anyone who would listen, eloquently explaining his footballing philosophy. He liked neat, passing football, players who wanted to get the ball down and beat people with their skill, not their muscle. It played well to the gallery - Hibs has long been a club seduced by pretty passing - but most reacted with bemusement. He wanted to pass the ball? In the SPL? He was making a rod for his own back, surely, and many predicted he'd be sacked by Christmas.

Early results were indifferent, but Hibs stayed focused on the manager's strategy, with the players trying to put their manager's words into action, rather than resort to percentage football. A club that had got used to route 1 tactics and bottom 6 finishes suddenly saw something more. Their manager was trying to build a team to talk about.

The crowds started to flood back. Hibs' average gate had been on the slide for some years, but Mowbray reversed that in a season. They had been lucky to get 10,000 through the gates for the less attractive fixtures (and often got a lot less than that). At the recent Falkirk game, the ground was a 17,000 sell-out. Away, as well, Hibs suddenly became a big fixture, as their fans followed in their thousands to support the team, often out-numbering the home support. Whatever else he had achieved, Mowbray had helped the club find its self belief again.

It wasn't just their own fans falling under the spell. It was generally recognised that Hibs were the most exciting, attractive team in the country. What's more, it was a team made up largely of home-grown talent - the Hibs Kids. With no training academy and laughable facilities, Hibernian had somehow tapped into a rich seam of talent, at just the time it was cutting back on pricey foreign players because of financial problems. 6 of the starting 11 were Scottish and under 24, and they seemed to have no fear. While every other team would go to Celtic to defend in numbers and try and nick something, for example, the Hibs Kids would swagger on to the park and try and outplay the champions.

It didn't always work out, and Hibs were often frustrated by teams they "should" have beaten - like Inverness or Falkirk - who worked out that if they packed the midfield and crashed into tackles, the team from Edinburgh could get petulant and lose their way. The very tactics, in fact, that teams used to reserve for those daunting trips to Celtic. Hibs leaked far too many goals throughout his tenure, and the players often betrayed their lack of experience by failing to protect a lead. But under Mowbray Hibs finished 3rd in his first season and 4th in his second, and reached the semi-final of the Cup both seasons. Petulant they may have been, but he got his team to play for him.

Ultimately, though, Hibernian's lack of resources told. They failed to make any sort of impression in their UEFA Cup and Intertoto adventures, and that second Scottish Cup semi-final was a humiliation, as a desperately under-strength team were spanked 4-0 by Hearts. It was this lack of cash that probably persuaded Mowbray it was time to move on. He may have persuaded his employers to finally invest in their own training facilities, but he had very little money to strengthen the squad, and watched helplessly as Ian Murray, Derek Riordan and Gary Caldwell all walked out the door at the end of their contracts. He lost Garry O'Connor, too, but while Hibernian did receive a transfer fee for him, it was doubtful how much of it Mowbray saw. When Celtic signed Thomas Gravesen in the summer, Mowbray brooded on the fact that his wages alone (reputed to be £40,000 a week) represented his entire squad budget.

At times he seemed exasperated by Scottish football in general, stating that he could never become a career manager north of the border and that he probably had a maximum shelf life of 4 years. A teetotal and footballing obsessive, Mowbray claimed to know nothing about the cultural life of Edinburgh, and didn't form much of an emotional bond with the city.

Yet his departure, after just 28 months, came as a surprise. He had, after all, declined a job offer from Ipswich at the beginning of the summer because he had unfinished business at Hibs. Just a few months later, it seemed, he considered his work to be done. It may have been exasperation at his transfer budget that pushed him away (and an ultra cautious Chairman, Rod Petrie, who put profits before players). Or it may have been the fact that he was overlooked for the Middlesbrough job. His hometown club chose to ignore him and appoint the utterly untested Gareth Southgate instead, and Mowbray might well have wondered if his achievements were really being taken all that seriously in England.

If that is the case, it's an enormous shame, because he DID have work still to do in Edinburgh. He had rebuilt the squad during 2006 as players had departed, strengthening the defence and adding Moroccan flair with Benji and Zemmama. With a decent keeper and a couple of other signings, Hibs could have continued the upward spiral Mowbray often referred to. He often spoke and acted like a man with a 10-year plan for the club, and he had so much goodwill from the fans that they would probably have seen it through with him. Instead, someone else will now try and pick up where he left off.

He is an outstanding coach, who helped develop the resources at his disposal, for the good of both Hibs and, potentially, Scotland. The number of scouts from the English Premiership and across Europe who turned up to watch his team showed that he WAS being taken seriously outside of Scotland. He was adored by the supporters, and always provided good copy for the media. And his team helped bring unpredictability, flair and thrilling play back onto the pitch, pleasing everybody (especially Setanta).

Scottish football will miss him.

Kilmarnock 1-0 Aberdeen
Dundee Utd 1-4
Rangers 0-1 ICT
Falkirk 1-1 St Mirren
Motherwell 2-1 Dunfermline
Hibs 2-2 Hearts