The sun shines on the football in Leith these days, as Tony Mowbray’s young side have become Scotland’s latest third force. But can they build on current success? Dianne Millen reports
Every team in Scotland outside the Old Firm is allowed to have what the papers normally refer to as a “bumper season” – a concept depressing in its acknowledgement that no club can hope to actually claim the real honours. Seven years ago, improbably, it was St Johnstone, now of the First Division, who claimed the “third force” honours. Four years ago it was newly promoted Livingston who, rather than dutifully struggling against relegation, instead stormed to third place and Europe. Since then, the club with the most credible claim have been the consistent if somewhat stolid Heart of Midlothian, the only club to finish in the lucrative half of the laughable “top six-bottom six” league split every year since it was introduced. This season, however, the third force-elect are their Edinburgh neighbours, Hibernian. Their youth-fuelled renaissance under ex-Ipswich man Tony Mowbray hints that, for the first time in years, genteel Edinburgh may be rising again as a footballing city to challenge its western cousin.
