The Curse of the Calendar: 1986-87

Compared to the large glossy souvenir calendars produced today the 1986-87 offering is a simple and modest affair: A5, two colour, matte paper, one small player picture per month. As is customary with Hibs (and probably all teams to be fair), the Curse of the Calendar is in evidence as you can see from the notes I added to each page (as well as my tremendously humorous captions) indicating that a player had shortly afterwards been sold, and that didn’t even cover all of them. For the record I have added details of each player’s fate alongside the pages below. (Full squad photo line-up.)

Commercial break

Amidst all the newsprint for season 01-02 this glossy club shop catalogue slid out. The slickness of the merchandising effort had come a long way in the previous few years, so far indeed that the catalogue bore a price tag of £2. Two quid for a catalogue? Who the f*** pays for a sales brochure specifically designed to part you from more of your money? Did anyone buy this? Come on, own up…

Where does it all come from?

Faithful readers marvelling at the unfathomed depth and quality of the hibLOG collection may be interested in a little glimpse behind the scenes at the production technology of this bleeding-edge internet resource.

Armed with a digital camera and reams of foosty newsprint, I place the foosty newsprint on a well-illuminated flat surface, take a picture of it, do a bit of photoshop jiggery-pokery and upload it to WordPress. That’s about it. Then I throw the old newsprint away, keeping the glossy things, like programmes.

Where are they now? – Special edition!

Ok, pinpointing the exact whereabouts of Eddie May, Gordon Rae and Paul Kane probably isn’t too hard. What about those fabulous popsters Just Add Water though? What can they possibly be doing now? In fact, what the hell were they doing then, dressed up like Culture Club when rave culture was just beginning to flourish? What a shrewd piece of commercial sponsorship by Messrs Duff and Gray.

I can’t believe anyone ever heard another thing about them (the band that is), but if you can prove me wrong… [See comments section below for exciting update!]

Not dead yet

Bet you were wondering what had happened to me? No? Och, well, anyway, here I am, still here. Just been busy with other stuff, ok?

I have finally been booted up the arse to resume activity on the hibLOG by the realisation that the old Quista pages have finally been consigned to oblivion, meaning that all those wonderful old cuttings and programmes from seasons 85-86 through to 91-92, all those soul-sapping goalless draws with Motherwell, home defeats to Clydebank, and the very worst of safety-first percentage football from Bastard Face Miller have disappeared. More to the point the 1991 Skol Cup victory was also erased, so something really had to be done.

I have therefore just re-upped season 1985-86 (not a lot of entries to be fair) and also restored season 1991-92 from the old ntl site for starters. Seasons 86-87 through to 90-91 will hopefully follow in the not too distant future, but you know I’ve said that before and then buggered off for eight years with nary a peep, so breath holding is not recommended. All the same, I have time on my hands right now so you might be in luck. Watch this space.