Why The Fuss Over Hibs Barca Attendance?
There’s been a lot of gloating among Hearts fans lately about the size of the crowd likely to turn out for Hibs’ forthcoming pre-season friendly against Barcelona at Murrayfield. Hearts staged a similar match last summer, and on a gloriously sunny Saturday afternoon were able to attract a bumper crowd of more than 58,000 to the home of Scottish rugby, which was the biggest number of people to have attended a Hearts ‘home’ match in many a year. However the return of the Catalan giants to Edinburgh this summer does not appear to have captured the imagination of the Edinburgh public in quite the same way this time around. It’s being reported that Hibs have sold around 12,000 tickets for the match, and even if they do manage to sell a few more by the day of the match, it’s unlikely that they’ll get near even half of the figure that Hearts managed to attract last year. But before people start getting overly smug about this, they should consider a few things first to give us a reality check.
