So with less than half a week to go, Hibs have failed to sell out their full allocation for the League Cup Final.
It’s a mere 500 tickets, but they should feel an acute sense of embarrassment after their former manager did all that whining and wailing a few weeks ago.
As the Celtic sites were quick to point out, they got far more tickets than their average attendance can possibly justify.
A club which can’t fill its own stadium most weeks shouldn’t be demanding 50-50 parity with us for a cup final, especially when it couldn’t sell out its modest allocation for the semi.
Imagine they’d have got the 50-50 split; our fans would have suffered and the game here in Scotland would have been embarrassed by empty seats.
Let’s not forget, either, the legion of media personalities who queued up to tell us that it was only right and fair to give them such a split. The egg all over their faces couldn’t be wiped off with a sandpaper rag. They saw a chance at an anti-Celtic story – as if we were behind the decision – and they couldn’t help themselves.
But we knew it would end like this. How many times have we seen it?
We’ve seen our club’s ticket allocation cut for away grounds in the last few years on the proviso that the home fans would take them, and we’ve TV footage of empty stands.
This is a frequent refrain every time these teams come to Hampden, and almost without fail – with the odd final being an exception – there are seats in every part of the ground with nobody in them.
And Celtic fans are invariably turning up outside, walking up and down outside the stadium, in the hope that they can get one.
I have lots of mates who are Hibs fans.
Know what the majority of them are doing for the game? (And I know this because I’ve asked them.)
They are watching it on the telly.
Fair play to them for admitting that; it certainly wasn’t because getting tickets would be hard.
I trust that this kind of nonsense won’t be repeated if we get to the final next year. The Scottish Cup usually does guarantee a 50-50 split so anyone who gets there to play us will have the chance to show us how many they can sell … probably before they give us 15,000 of them which they haven’t been able to shift.
It was ever thus.