It goes without saying that David Gray – or ‘Sir’ David Gray, to give him his full title and veneration – should never have to put his hand in his pocket in the hostelries of Leith again.
His contribution to the club he loves as a player, most notably that stoppage time header at Hampden a decade ago that brought the Scottish Cup to Easter Road for the first time in 114 years, has earned him that. But what it cannot bestow upon him, evidently, is the endless patience of the Hibs fans when it comes to his performance as manager, no matter the high regard they may hold him in.
It is something intangible, that feeling that the end is near for a manager. But you know it when you smell it. And sadly, currently, the whiff of the end times is almost certainly filling the nostrils of Gray.
The legendary Hibs full-back has been, it should be said, a more than decent manager for Hibs over the piece. A steadying influence on a famously, even endearingly, flaky club, he answered the call as caretaker manager on four separate occasions before finally landing the full-time gig.
Since then, he has led the team to third-placed and fifth-placed finishes during his time as the permanent manager, somewhere a little north of level par on the whole for where Hibs sit in the Scottish football food chain.
So, what’s the problem? What has caused this ill wind that is currently blowing through Easter Road?
Well, it could all have been so different. Just a fortnight or so ago, Gray’s team had won at Ibrox, and then were six minutes away from reaching the league phase of a European competition for the first time in their history. Alas, a late collapse to Gent saw them, well, ‘Hibs it’, for want of a better term.
Still, they bounced back from that disappointment with an impressive display in victory at Dens Park, meaning they went into the first Edinburgh derby of the season at home in buoyant mood.
The subsequent loss was disappointing enough, but to follow that up with an insipid display in defeat to St Johnstone in Perth at the weekend when an emphatic response was required has left Gray staring down the barrel. As has so often been the case during his tenure, one step forward was quickly followed by two steps back.
This antipathy from the Hibs fanbase towards their team hasn’t manifested itself over the course of the last week. It is not a kneejerk reaction to a couple of sore results, but has been fomenting over a far longer period. Five home league defeats in a row, twice to bitter rivals Hearts, twice to Motherwell and once to Celtic, certainly haven’t helped.
Neither has the fun that fans of those clubs seem to be having while everything around Hibs just seems a little stale, and a little humdrum by comparison.
I was there to witness the final game of last season at Easter Road, as Hibs lost one of those matches to Motherwell, and was struck by the apathy of the home support towards the actual game in front of them.
Their bitter rivals, of course, were engaged in a shootout for the Premiership title in Glasgow at the same time, and there were exuberant celebrations as news filtered through of the late goals at Celtic Park that knocked Hearts off the top of the table for the first time in 250 days just when it mattered most, three minutes before the end of the season.
It is entirely understandable and acceptable to revel in the mirth of your foe’s misery in such circumstances, no question. But as the fans of a team with a far smaller budget partied in the away end as their team – who had been reduced to 10 men – popped Hibs off the park and won at relative canter against a meek home outfit, it gave the whole forced jollity around three quarters of Easter Road something of a hollow feel. Hibs, surely, are too big a club to have only the pain of Hearts to cling onto?
This summed up where the club was at that time, and where they continue to be. And even though Hearts ultimately lost the league, the rediscovery of the feelgood factor around Tynecastle in the opening weeks of the season has created another issue for the Hibs hierarchy.
Their fans, it seems, whether they would admit to being green with envy over the trajectory of their near neighbours or not, are evidently fed up of being stuck on the outside looking in as others are bold, adventurous, and seem to have real direction. Where is the excitement at Easter Road? Where is the promise of a brighter future?
The football often seems plodding, and predictable. Charlie Mulgrew, on punditry duty for Premier Sports on the live coverage of the loss at McDiarmid Park, perhaps put it best when he said he simply couldn't see what it was that Hibs were trying to do, save from the odd Exocet missile towards Nathan Lowe in attack. The forward has looked largely immobile so far and is taking his fair share of the abuse flying around, but you could argue his manager is hardly setting his team up to allow him to shine.
It is not only Gray - though he will ultimately carry the can - whose role in all of this warrants examination. What of the squad that has been constructed by director of football Malky Mackay and his recruitment department?
While undoubtedly looking strong in some areas, particularly in midfield, the sale of Warren O’Hora has left them looking short at the back with Rocky Bushiri out until the winter at least and a sweat now over Grant Hanley, who limped off at the weekend. The aforementioned Lowe, meanwhile, has yet to convince at the other end, to say the least. Fans are sceptical of recruitment from the lower leagues of England, and many are puzzled that a loan signing is seen as an adequate replacement for Kieron Bowie, when his departure poured around £6m into the coffers back in January.
There is no doubting that the ownership of the club, the Gordon family, have the best intentions, and are heavily invested in the club in both a financial and emotional sense. Chairman Ian Gordon famously stuck a reported £40k behind the bar for Hibs fans when they travelled to Ghent, but it might have taken double that to help the away supporters forget their trip to Perth on Sunday.
They will not, I am sure, want to sack Gray. But it is a difficult balance between backing their man and ensuring that his legacy isn’t tarnished by any increase in ill feeling from the fanbase over his presence in the dugout.
Gray, for his part, will no doubt feel he can still salvage the situation. He has performed a miraculous recovery once already during his Hibs career, after all, as Bushiri’s late, sclaffed equaliser against Aberdeen in his first season saved his skin, sparked a change in formation and a remarkable upturn in form that rather put Lazarus’s efforts to shame.
If he can get past Ross County in the League Cup in Dingwall on Saturday, perhaps Gray can turn the tide, despite the swell of popular opinion now calling for his head. But I fear he may already be too far underwater.
