Hibs’ legend Pat Stanton is to be named as the club’s ambassador on a full-time basis.
The welcome news for every Hibs’ fan was announced on twitter earlier today.
Pat is a distant relative of Hibs first captain, Michael Whelehan and was signed by manager Walter Galbraith from Salveston Boys Club in 1961.
He made a scoring debut for Hibs in a 4-3 away defeat by Motherwell in 5 October 1963, the first of his 397 league appearances for the club.
He was a member of the brilliant Hibs side of the mid 1960’s, containing players of the calibre of Willie Hamilton, Neil Martin, Peter Cormack, and Pat Quinn, which won the Summer Cup in 1964 under the leadership of manager Jock Stein.
As captain of Turnbull’s Tornados Pat led Hibs to a historic League Cup Final victory over Celtic in 1972, two Drybrough Cup successes and of course the famous New Year’s Day victory over Hearts in 1973.
Pat was an automatic first team choice at Easter Road until moving to Celtic in exchange for Jackie McNamara in 1976.
At Parkhead, he won League Championship and Scottish Cup medals in his first season, but unfortunately was forced to retire prematurely shortly after due to injury.
In total he won 16-caps for Scotland.
After a short spell as second in command to Alex Ferguson at Aberdeen, Pat eventually became a manager in his own right with Cowdenbeath, Dunfermline, and finally his first love, Hibs.
While manager at Easter Road he was responsible for signing several promising youngsters including John Collins, Paul Kane, Mickey Weir and Gordon Hunter, but resigned because of what he saw as a lack of ambition by the board of directors in 1984.
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.
