When Hibs hammered Chelsea in 1986

Hibs 4 Chelsea 1 – August 5^th 1986.

After a few trips to Easter Road as a bairn, this is the first one I can truly remember. It was a nice sunny evening. Chelsea had a decent sized 'mob' up - but what I remember most about this game is sitting with family in the old south-section of the main stand, longingly watching and listening to the shouting, singing, chanting and jumping about of our comrades on the East Terrace, which back then , was of course, for standing on. After this game I always insisted that we went on the terracing.

Throughout the game, the chant from the terracing towards the Chelsea fans was  (not very PC nowadays) "You're gonna get your fuckin' heads kicked in".

Hibs could scarcely have had a more convincing build up to the new season than this fantastic victory over Chelsea at Easter Road. Hibs never looked like losing, and ironically, it was one of the cheapest buys on view who stole the show with a hat-trick – Willie Irvine, signed for £30,000 from Stirling Albion.

Irvine’s first two goals came in a three minute spell midway through the 1^st half, the simple tap-ins knocking the stuffing out of the English side.

Irvine completed his hat-trick in the 2^nd half with a penalty, with Paul Kane scoring Hibs 4^th goal.

Struggling Chelsea’s late consolation goal was scored by big Joe McLaughlin (who later played for Hibs in the mid 90’s). This game was played just after Hibs sold striker Gordon Durie to Chelsea. He played for Chelsea in the match.

Hibs – Rough, Sneddon, Tortolano, Kane, Rae, Fulton, Caughey, Weir, Irvine,  McCluskey, May.

Subs –Kirkwood, Beedie, McBride, Harris

Four days later we were back at Easter Road to see Hibs beat Rangers 2-1 in the now infamous game when Rangers’ player manager Graeme Souness was sent off on his debut for assaulting our George McCluskey, and from the terracing, we saw our team beat the big spending Glasgow giants, with goals from Steve Cowan and Stuart Beedie, Ally McCoist netting Rangers’ consolation from the penalty spot.

Thanks to Bobby and iHibs/fitbastats for the match report.