football rambles

Thursday saw the return of European football to Villa Park for the first time in 13 years as Villa took on Hibs in what was already a bit of a dead rubber.  The first leg of the Conference League Play off had seen Villa see off Hibs 5-0 in Edinburgh, so it was a surprisingly relaxed visit to Villa Park. To be fair to Hibs, they still travelled in numbers and I can attest to the fact that the Dragon Inn, Wellington and Queen's Arms in town were all populated by travelling fans (and probably a few other pubs too). Unfortunately for them though despite the impressive amount of noise they made at the game and the non-stop singing, this was European football and not the Eurovision Song Contest, as they were blown away again on the pitch. Villa made several changes as was to be expected. It was a good chance to see youngsters Jhon Duran, Omari Kellyman and Seb Revan in action.  It was Jhon Duran, who after scoring within a few seconds of being introduced in the Everton game a week b...

 On Sunday we had a bit of a walk around Edinburgh and apart from the other sights to see, we went to have a quick look at the Hibernian ground.

 On Thursday we flew up to Scotland, mainly for St.Pauli's visit to Dunfermline, but we also took in the sites of the bars of Leith; Rosyth v Cowdenbeath and a gig by the Wakes. So an exhausting but an amazing weekend was had. Pre-season really did start early this year!

Hibernian at the moment seem intent on bringing out even more shirts than Borussia Dortmund, so it seemed like a good idea to have a look at their history of their shirts. Recently they brought out a shirt to commemorate the 20th anniversary of their Scottish League Cup Final victory over Dunfermiline. The shirt appears to be pretty accurate, despite being made by a different manufacturer and the original can be seen below, as worn by Keith Wright scoring in the 2-0 victory over the Pars. That said it all seems like a bit of a con for the Hi-Bees faithful with them also having a new home and away kit and a third kit. What they need to have a third kit for is anybody's guess, but they have brought out the lilac effort below that was worn in a home game a couple of weeks ago agianst Motherwell. They lost and Motherwell also wore their away kit. The lilac kit has been advertised by the manufacturers as a homage to yesteryear, but Hibs, who were formed in 1875 first wore a white shir...