Thanks Bolty. I always enjoy watching your videos (not just the historic videos, but also your time lapse videos which are the only ones that I know of, where you also get to see what the temperature was at, at each instant in time (that is useful because that is a good way of showing how the temperature is changing throughout the day which in turn, can also help to show us the exact time then a cold front is crossing your area (for example, which would be shown by a sudden massive drop in the temperature))).
I of course, won't go into a debate into whether it is you or Gavin P. who make the better historic videos as you both do a very good good with that and I don't think that it would be fair to judge that either way. Anyway, your latest historic video from the summer of 1990 brought a lot of memories as that was around the time of the Poll Tax riots in the UK. That was also am important time for my football team (Hibernian F.C.) as this particular summer marked the beginning of the period which came very close to seeing them going out of business.
What happened was that a guy called Wallace Mercer who owned our biggest city rivals (Hearts F.C.) at that time, launched a hostile takeover bid for Hibs with a plan to merge both cubs to form a new team called Edinburgh United which would be much bigger challengers to the Old Firm. In response to that, there was a campaign set up to by the Hibs fans to save the club, which was known as Hands off Hibs
That campaign got a lot of backing from various sources including some major organisations and political parties and in the end Wallace Mercer was forced to withdraw that bid after receiving a number of death threats because of that. However, that highlighted the very dire financial state which they were in back then. On the park, they had a very poor season in 1990/91 which saw them finish at the bottom of the Premier League and a lot of people belied at that time that they still would have gone out of business, had they been relegated that season.
In the end, it was league reconstruction which saved them from that, but they did end up going into receivership (which was the equivalent back then of going into administration) due to their massive debts. However, Sir Tom Farmer then bought them out and cleared their debts so that they could survive as a football club. That then led to a much better season in 1991/92 which saw them record a very long unbeaten run at the start of that season, and which also saw them win the Scottish League Cup in 1991 (which back then, was their first major trophy since the 1970s) amidst a party and carnival atmosphere which was probably beaten only by what we saw with last year's Scottish Cup success.
From that point onwards, both Hibs and Hearts have continued on their own paths, with Wallace Mercer having died from more natural causes, a number of years ago. That might seem like an amazing story, but is was Wallace Mercer's takeover bid in the summer of 1990 which sowed the seeds for all of that, and I can remember very well, those Hands off Hibs meetings which I went to admist the glorious sunshine and high temperatures which had at that time.
Originally Posted by: johncs2016