Hibs boss Terry Butcher has confirmed that the touchline altercation with has been ‘put to bed’ after the youngster apologised for his behaviour at the end of the game against Ross County on Saturday. With seconds remaining, Butcher substituted Caldwell who had only been on the pitch for 13 minutes, much to the annoyance of the striker who refused to listen to his explanation.
Speaking at the club’s training centre, Butcher said: “I spoke to Ross, we had a good chat today, and he apologised and knew he had done wrong and we’re moving forward together. He is a good kid and he has a good future at Hibernian. I read how I was going to read him the riot act and I was going to do this and that. It was a simple case of having a chat and putting it to bed. I have two sofas in my office and I sat on one couch and he sat on the other and we had a good chat. If anything, that has brought us even closer together.
“Sometimes you cannot get your second wind on a pitch and there are times when you have to make decisions like that and it is not a nice decision to make. You do not like to substitute the sub and it is history now and we will learn from it. Ross accepted my explanation as he is a clever boy and he is just so desperate and keen to play for Hibs.”
Hibs will take on Raith Rovers in the next round of the competition, and Butcher insisted that the Championship team will be no pushovers, having played against them in a pre-season friendly with Inverness. He continued: “We will be a different team when we play them; it’ll be after the transfer window so we’ll see how many we get in. I don’t know if we will get any, but we will be different because we will have had a lot of games under our belts. With the progress we’ve been making we’d hope to be a better team all round.
“We played them at Inverness in pre-season and they murdered us for an hour in a 2-2 draw. It’s another one of my clubs. Jimmy Nicholl got me back in and I loved the club, it’s great.”
Butcher also revealed that former captain James McPake will undergo surgery on his long standing back injury, and praised the big defenders attitude. He said: “He needs this operation. He is 29 now and has a young baby and is looking to get his career back on track. He has had quite a few injections this season and it has come back to the scenario where an operation is hopefully going to sort things out and he can get back to action next year and we are looking forward to that very much.
“He has been a very good captain for Hibernian Football Club. Now he is not the captain and Liam Craig is, he has helped Liam out enormously with tasks and what to do. He has been fantastic.”
John graduated from Telford College in 2010 with an HNC in Practical Journalism and since then he worked for the North Edinburgh News, The Southern Reporter, the Irish News Review and The Edinburgh Reporter. In addition he has been published in the Edinburgh Evening News and the Hibernian FC Programme.
