Hibernian and Hearts played out a 1-1 draw in last night’s Edinburgh Derby at Tynecastle. The Easter Road club went into the game with reports stating that the club’s hierarchy were considering following their city rivals by cutting the Celtic allocation for games in the Scottish Capital.
Hibs are citing the fan behaviour at Easter Road with pyro shows before kick-off. However, events at Tynecastle show that the Leith club have a cheek to be talking about fan behaviour. After Lawrence Shankland scored the equaliser, the Scotland Internationalist celebrated in front of the Roseburn Stand, prompting missiles to be thrown from the Hibs end.
In footage that has been picked up on Twitter/X, it appears that a bar knife has been thrown onto the pitch towards Shankland.
Hibs fans have previous with throwing objects at opposition players and not just Hearts players. Disgraceful.#HEAHIBS pic.twitter.com/65kCIcGK6k
— Stu 🇱🇻🏴 (@stukscott) February 29, 2024
Scottish football finds itself in a fairly dangerous position where clubs are using the threat of allocations being cut to quell fan culture, which ultimately leads to more engagement with the league. The Edinburgh Derby has full allocations, as it should, but resorting to making threats about cutting allocations due to fan behaviour seems tone deaf.
The Scottish footballing authorities and clubs should work with fans to encourage safe fan culture, which is what everyone wants.
