After the doom and gloom following the defeat to Kilmarnock which plunged Hibs into the play offs, Terry Butcher has revealed that he has been encouraged by the reaction of the fans and in particular a letter received from the Hibs Supporters’ Association.
Speaking ahead of tonight’s game against Hamilton, Butcher also claimed that recent comments by the Accies’ boss Alex Neil will be pinned on the dressing room wall to act as a motivator for the players.
He said: “I sense a real Hibernian spirit coming together here. We have had a nice letter from the fans getting behind the team. They will turn up in their numbers to back us. I am confident that spirit will get us over the line.”
“We consider ourselves fortunate to have this opportunity. Normally, when you finish in the position we did after 38 games, and if you haven’t got enough points, haven’t scored enough goals, you get relegated. You don’t get another chance. But we’ve got two chances and we want to take them.
“It’s a great challenge against Hamilton. They have earned the right to match up against us. I know they are looking forward to it. I’ve read their comments with great interest. They will be on our dressing-room wall.
“We’ve seen one or two things and taken note, but talk is Supporters are behind us, People say things but it’s not about talk, it’s about action. Our players are fired up because we are in a position we don’t want to be in.”
“After the Kilmarnock game I took the dog out for so long I should have done it as a sponsored walk I had to get over it quickly. It’s not about momentum as far as we’re concerned. This is a whole new competition.
“It’s a two-match competition now. You don’t look at what’s gone on before. It’s about what we can do in these two matches.
“We’ve had 10 days to prepare. Hamilton have played two games of course, but we’ve had a little bit of a break at the end of the season, having played three games in the last week of the domestic season.
“So it’s been good for us I think. We’ve had a chance to regroup, get over the huge disappointment of finishing where we are, and now we’ve got two second chances if anything. We had a change of venue where we went to Spartans and they looked after us very well.
“We’ve got two chances to have a go and make sure we stay in the Premiership.”
“Our league now is two games and we want to come out on top.”
Kevin Thomson and Paul Heffernan have been training with the squad and are likely to start.
Photos by John Preece
http://www.photoboxgallery.com/jlp-photography
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.
