Edinburgh in uproar

It's not easy being overshadowed by bigger, more successful football teams.

Edinburgh's two clubs have been kept out of the light for so long by the Glasgow Old Firm that you'd think the fans would have resigned themselves to their fate by now. Thankfully, this hasn't happened, and Scottish football is all the richer for it.

While supporters at Aberdeen and Dundee Utd have responded to repeated disappointment by drifting away from match days, leaving dwindling crowds to rattle around stadiums still haunted by memories of glorious achievements in the 1980s, Hearts and Hibs supporters are turning up in numbers, despite the fact that most fans of either club weren't alive the last time their club won a league title.

Yet this gloriously irrational behaviour has a flipside... it tends to cause despondency and anger rather than resignation when things aren't going well. And neither club has had a good month.

Hibs have won just once in their past 8 games, and the fans are starting to vent their fury. Rationally speaking, this shouldn't be happening - the club has sold so many players in recent seasons that expectations for this term should be muted, and their excellent unbeaten run at the start of the season means the club is still in 5th, which is hardly a disaster. Furthermore, what with the debts, new training centre and potential new East Stand at Easter Road, the club has got a fairly large list of bills besides going shopping for new players.

But the team's form is awful, and a minority have begun calling for John Collins to be sacked. Both manager and squad seem short of confidence at the moment, not helped by an increasingly edgy mood at Easter Road. It wasn't last Saturday's 1-1 draw against Falkirk, but the abject defeat against Aberdeen that proved the catalyst for the latest discontent. Few of the new signings have really made their mark yet, while the tactics and line up seem to chop and change from one match to the next.

Unless this current slump becomes a prolonged losing streak, there is no prospect of Collins getting the sack. Hibs simply don't respond to short term pressure in that way, much to their credit. But the manager certainly faces an important Festive period, and Hibs need to stay in touch with Motherwell and Dundee Utd in the battle for third spot at least. Otherwise the famously radge support could get even more vocal.

All this could seem no more important than the typical family row at the Christmas dinner table, though, compared to what's going on at Hearts just now. They are also on a poor run of results, but this time the catalyst was goalkeeper Eduardas Kurskis' mistake at the weekend that allowed Rangers to grab all three points from a game that had "draw" written all over it. The player's inclusion in the team is symptomatic of the chaotic way player selection works at Hearts, with the teamsheet faxed in from Lithuania covered in Vladimir Romanov's scribbles, some names crossed out and others put in their place.

Predictably, the Jambos are furious. Yes, Hearts have also lost plenty of decent players over the past year or so as well, but given the still large 1st team squad and huge wage bill they should not be down in 8th position in the league. And while Hearts, too, claim to be planning a new stand at their stadium, the latest promised date for submitting the planning permission has come and gone this week without any progress. Whatever Vladimir Romanov is up to, living up to his promises is not featuring high on his list of priorities at the moment.

The big question is: are the Hearts fans going to turn their anger into action? If Hibs were currently in their position, the fans would probably have rampaged through the streets of Leith by now, before orchestrating a forced occupation of the stadium and holding a mass rally to demand action.

Instead, the Jambos are trying to organise a meeting to plan a meeting to discuss a possible boycott of a home match, perhaps in February. For all their bluster, they tend to sit on their hands during crises and moan, rather than stand up and be counted. The occasional open letter to the owner is about as forceful as they get.

So far, Romanov has been able to do as he likes at Hearts, almost completely un-opposed (and there are still many Hearts fans that caution against doing anything that might upset Dear Leader, despite the chronic misrule). Indeed, it's arguable that Hearts only ended up in his hands because the fans failed to organise themselves against the proposed sale of Tynecastle to a property developer until the very last minute, forcing them to go cap in hand to a mysterious Russian businessman whose ultimate motive remains unclear.

Could this be the moment that the maroon half of Edinburgh finally reaches breaking point?