Easter Road, Hibernian
Easter Road was the 2nd stadium in the SPL I visited, Pittodrie being the first. I was going there to watch the Scotland Under 21s v Iceland Under 21s in a European Championship qualifying 2nd leg. Scotland were trailing 2-1 from the first leg and only needed to win 1-0 to progress as away goals counted double. Before the match my dad and I had a meal at an Italian place called Al Dente. The food was good and the waiter was friendly too. So a good start with hopefully more to come. On our way to the stadium I noticed quite a lot of Scottish fans, so hopefully we were going to get a good atmosphere. We decided to go into the newly built East Stand. It looked impressive from the outside as did the rest of the stadium itself. Inside was even better as when we walked out into the stadium, all I could think was WOW. But what amazed me more was the amount of space you got when sitting. It was like a pavement in front of you for your feet and then there was the next row of seats.
The teams came out for the anthems but what was weird was that the Icelandic anthem lasted longer than the Scottish anthem, which was disappointing but hopefully that wasn't a sign of things to come. The game started and both teams were giving it their all, the Icelandic boy "Sigurdson" looking very impressive. Both teams had their chances but just couldn't find the opener in the first half. But the 2nd half started and finally there was a goal, but for Iceland. The impressive Sigurdson curled in a wonderful 20 yard drive from the edge of the box into the top right hand corner. A really good goal but now Scotland needed to score 2 just to take the game to extra time. But straight from kick off, Chris Maguire spotted the keeper off his line and his wonderful shot from the halfway line sent the Scotland fans wild. What a strike! Game on. However we huffed and puffed and our hope was shattered as Sigurdson blasted in an even better goal to his first, this time a 35 yard thunderbolt in the top right hand corner leaving the keeper with no hope.
This basically won Iceland the game as we now needed to score 4 goals in the last ten minutes and it was extremely unlikely and so it proved. Iceland won the game and were going to Denmark next year. Tears for the Scottish players but the better team had won. So a disappointing result but not a disappointing day out. Good meal, great stadium, fantastic goals and overall a really good game. So if you're a Hibs fan you must be over the moon with your newly looking East Stand. It must be great to come see games with such a comfortable view. This is definitely worth a visit and I'm sure you'll enjoy your day out regardless of the result. So if you ever get the chance to come to Easter Road, go for it.
