Leith links run deep for Hughes

FROM NOW on John Hughes will occupy the home technical area at Easter Road but as he was introduced to the media on Wednesday his thoughts momentarily wandered somewhere beyond one of the stands. Buoyant as he discussed the kind of attractive football he wants his new charges to play, the excitement he wants to engender in the fans on match days and the plans he has to galvanise the club, the mood grew more sombre as he was asked what his late father's reaction would have been to the news.

"There's a great Leith saying: 'I'll see you behind the goals'," he responded. "It's something you come out with if you bump into someone and it basically means 'I'll see you later'. However, I also wonder if they might be referring to the graveyard behind the goals when they say that. My parents (Prudence and Michael] and lots of other relatives are buried there, right behind the goals and a lot of people, past and present, from where I've come from will be very proud of where I've got to."

Hughes' pride is in his roots and based on the values instilled in him by his parents. They moulded his character and encouraged his dreams and now he will ply his trade within sight of where they are laid to rest.

"My dad will be very proud and I'll be visiting the cemetery today and speaking to both of them. It's nice when I come to Easter Road and I can look down from the stands and see it."

Superstition or habit, when he visits his father Mick's grave he always gently kicks the tombstone five times – his lucky number – and he was planning to run through the ritual that afternoon at the behest of his sisters. It was an emotional moment followed by recollections of how he and his mates would climb the wall to get into games. In those days he was so small he had to rely on a leg-up but, sitting in his club suit and tie, it was clear he had grown in stature in so many ways since then.

"Here I am, John Hughes, one of the Leith boys who used to climb over the wall to get into the ground. Now I'm Hibs manager and I'm going to stand up and manage the club in the way it should be managed: with dignity and honour. My mates are delighted I got the job. They still come to the games so it's imperative that I manage the club in the right manner. I'm proud to be Leith born and bred. It's part of my character and now I just want to excite our supporters."

But while the memories of Hibs eras gone by will inspire him and loyalties to the community he grew up in will drive him, that wasn't the reason he got the job. Of all the boxes that required ticking, one was not a prior connection to Hibs, said chairman Rod Petrie. That will appease some of the naysayers who worry it was one of the primary considerations.

Instead it was a mix of strengths. The ability to bring through young talent, the willingness to operate within tight financial constraints, a desire for success but the determination to go about it the right way, entertaining the paying punters.

"I love all the history that goes with the club but I'm not going to get caught up in all of that. I'm coming in here and I'm away from all that heart-on-the-sleeve stuff. Management has been a gradual process for me. I have never felt the need to shout anything from the rooftops to prove myself. You have to earn your stripes and that is how you establish your credentials. I worked away and things started falling in place. I think I am the second-longest serving manager in the SPL so it shows you I have got that staying power. When we played Hibs I think they would have seen what my philosophy was through the type of football we played. Even the way I handle the press, that was important. I have also worked the market, worked the loan system and produced young players. Those were my credentials and the directors have taken a look and said, 'Now he is ready for the job at Hibs'. I am the kind of guy who thinks that if something is for you it will not pass you by and I believe I am coming to Hibs at the right time.

"But I don't know how you change people's perceptions. I was viewed as a heart-on-the-sleeve kind of player and I used that reputation to intimidate people and that was my style. John Hughes the manager is so, so different. I see myself as being innovative. I have got a vision for the club. If I can get it right then I think the fans will be on their feet. They are an understanding bunch of supporters and I think they know their football. I want us to play good passing football. That is my vision, that is what I want to do and I think we can do that."

While the past two managers have balked at the budgets, eventually deciding they had taken things as far as they could in the circumstances, Hughes is unperturbed. Having worked his contacts down south to bring the likes of Anthony Stokes, Kasper Schmeichel, Tim Kruhl, Mark Howard, Stephen O'Donnell and Patrick Cregg to Falkirk, it's an avenue he will be hoping to exploit further and with some names identified and several plates already spinning, it's fair to presume that a call to the likes of Arsene Wenger has already been made. "But I've spent just £120,000 in six years at Falkirk – £50,000 of that was on Alan Gow at a tribunal. That's the type of guy I am, I like seeing what's out there, I like to see what the best deal is."

He knows he may just get one or two additions and be left to shuffle the existing pack but he says he has done that for six years and actually enjoys the challenge.

John Hughes the player and John Hughes the manager may be different people but one similarity exists; neither shirks a challenge. He proved that last season as Falkirk battled to avoid relegation, succeeding on the final day of the league season before he secured European competition for the Bairns in the coming season by contesting the Scottish Cup final.

"I needed that season as a manager. I know it could have gone the other way, but I needed that. I needed that pressure because it makes you stronger. I was very thankful to come out the other side and keep us in the SPL but it taught me a lot about who was standing with me. That's where Brian Rice (his assistant at Falkirk and now Hibs] came into his own. Sometimes as a manager you have to put the tin hat on and you have to have a skin that's as thick as a rhino. There's plenty of flak and you can't always get it right. You have to stand above that.

"It was a great learning curve for me and now I want to come in here and be innovative. I want to show the Hibs supporters that John Hughes the manager is a real innovator."

Their opinions will count but ultimately Hughes is his own man. He is made of stern stuff and as he nods across to the ghosts behind the goals on match-days he is unlikely to forget who he has to thank for that strong sense of himself and the opportunity it has now afforded him.

Forget officials and focus on the game, urges Petrie

HIBS chairman Rod Petrie has urged John Hughes to shy away from confrontation with match officials and stay focused on the play. The new manager had a lengthy history of run-ins with the game's authority figures while at Falkirk, and although Petrie says he does not want to dampen the fire in Hughes' belly, he would like him to be more controlled during matches.

"We had a discussion about that because he has had a season ticket for the GPC (SFA's General Purposes Committee] and he has pitched up there when I have been there as GPC chairman so I know what his track record has been, but John is at pains himself to admit that in certain cases he has let himself down and he is looking to develop his management style and be focused on the field of play," said Petrie.

"All the SPL managers got together and decided there should be more respect between club officials and match officials and I think John has acquitted himself very well since that accord was reached."

At pains to dismiss talk of any kind of rift between himself and Hughes in the past, describing it as "urban myth", Petrie rattled off a long list of the positive traits the new manager possesses and claimed he "ticked so many boxes". But he did confess that the outbursts which attracted the attention of the match officials and the SFA had been one of the negatives.

"It was one of the things we wanted to talk about because it is part of the journey he has been on and the journey he has taken has been very exciting. He is a guy who is very focused and very keen to learn and develop and be better and better and it was one of the things he wanted to talk about and I wanted to talk about. We talked about it in football terms and if you are sidetracked in talking to match officials and getting involved in other things then you have lost the focus on what is happening on the field of play and if you lose focus for 30 seconds or two minutes then things happen and for someone to do this job they have to be focused. But no one is trying to dilute him, we want to play to his strengths.

"He is a big personality and he is big enough to admit when he has let himself down and he is learning from those experiences and will be a better, stronger person because of it. He has learned as well through the last season with Falkirk and the challenges he faced there and he feels he is a bigger and stronger person because of the adversity that they came through so these are all things which to me are evidence of a man who is very driven and determined to get better and better and if he is successful, we will be successful."

Moira Gordon