SINCE it was first played on Christmas Day 1875, the Edinburgh derby has witnessed significant stretches of time in which one side or the other has been dominant. New Year's Day 1974, for instance, saw the first of a 12-match unbeaten sequence by Hib
ernian, while Hearts enjoyed a run of 17 games without defeat between 1983 and 1987. Most famous of all is Hearts' 22 in a row, a record of success which started in April 1989 and did not come to an end until August 1994.
In the decade in which the SPL has been in existence, however, neither side has established a lasting hegemony. Hearts have the edge in league matches since Hibs won promotion to the SPL in 1999, with 12 wins to their opponents' nine. Eleven games have been drawn.
The Tynecastle side also won convincingly in one of the most important matches ever played between the two, the Scottish Cup semi-final of 2006. Later that same year, however, Hibs knocked their rivals out of the League Cup at the quarter-final stage. Both teams went on to win those respective competitions.
So most of the games between the sides in the past ten years have been hard to call beforehand, and the first encounter of the 2002-03 season was no exception. The fact it was just the second round of fixtures made it doubly hard to gauge the teams' form.
Hearts had drawn at Dundee the previous week while Hibs had lost at home to Aberdeen, so both teams were looking for their first win of the season at Tynecastle. In the end it was the home side who claimed the three points in some style, while Hibs would lose two more games before eventually getting their account up and running with a win at Motherwell.
Mark De Vries became an instant hero for Hearts by scoring four times on his full debut, but he might have been seen as the villain instead had referee Mike McCurry awarded a penalty when the big Dutchman upended Hibs midfielder Grant Brebner. "It was a definite penalty," the Hearts manager Craig Levein conceded after the game, but McCurry apparently thought otherwise.
The score at that stage was 2-1 to Hearts, with Hibs staging a fightback after having gone in at the interval two goals down. Ian Murray had pulled one back for Bobby Williamson's side six minutes into the second half after Andy Kirk and De Vries had scored for Hearts, and an equaliser from the penalty spot could have thrown the match back into the melting pot.
Instead, having ridden their luck, Hearts soon restored their two-goal advantage when De Vries scored his second, turning a rebound from a Jean-Louis Valois effort into the net. Hibs had to chase the game after that, but in their attempt to get men forward they left too much space at the back, and De Vries punished them with two stoppage-time goals to give the home team their biggest win in the fixture since the glory days of the Terrible Trio. "This was a fluke result," said Levein, intent on not letting the home supporters get carried away. "The players know that, but the hard thing now is to convince the supporters of it."
In retrospect, Hibs might have realised it was not going to be their day when, after just 12 minutes, they lost their captain, John O'Neil, who injured a shoulder after coming off worse in a clash with Steven Boyack.
It was far from the only physical challenge in which the visitors ended up playing second fiddle. Although he was far from full match fitness, De Vries proved far too robust and lively for the Hibs defence, while Valois, the French winger who had also joined the club during the close season, was simply too fast and too skilful.
Hearts: Niemi, Maybury, Pressley, McKenna, Mahe (McMullan 61), Simmons (Twaddle 54), Severin, Boyack, Valois, De Vries, Kirk (Wales 80). Subs not used: McKenzie, Webster. Scorers: (Kirk 18, De Vries 40, 66, 90, 90).
Hibernian: Caig, Orman, Smith, Dempsie, Murray, O'Neil (Brebner 12), Townsley (Paatelainen 77), Jack, Arpinon, Luna, O'Connor (McManus 78). Subs not used: Colgan, Fenwick. Scorer: (Murray 51).
Attendance: 15,245.
Referee: M McCurry.
The full article contains 734 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
