Let me take you back to September 3rd, 2024.
735 days ago. What has happened in this time?
Three full-time managers. Two relegations. One grumpy ex-Scotland international.
All three Staggies View podcast hosts have graduated from the great institution of Glasgow Caledonian University and returned up the road. The County Corner Spotify has gone eight months without a peep.
And our ears are blessed by the dulcet tones of Peter Mackay every Saturday afternoon sandwiching belters I recommend like Betty’s in a Band (by Abigale Rose and Weston Hunter) between whatever indie nonsense has been on his mind that week.
What on earth is the significance of that date? Well, it is the last time an article was published on the Staggies View website.
Back then, we were previewing Don Cowie’s side welcoming Aberdeen for a TV tie in Dingwall, talking up an impressive Premiership home record and wondering just how good Ronan Hale might turn out to be.
Two years and two divisions later, plenty of turmoil and despair has followed. But could Saturday be the catalyst for a little faith that things might finally be heading back in the right direction?
Is Hampden calling?
Now, there are some games that need very little selling. Everyone my age and over will remember 2010 when 1600 Staggies travelled down the A9 (a much shorter journey for myself given I lived in Edinburgh) to see Derek Adams’ side dominate in a 2-2 draw in Leith, which we really deserved to win. However, what will stick in the mind more clearly for most is the feeling when Scott Boyd bundled over the header in front of a packed Jailend leading to the ensuing pitch invasion as the referee’s whistle blew and sent us to Hampden.
I remember Adams saying after the subsequent Celtic game that he doesn’t believe in footballing miracles and always believed in the boys but there’s few words that could come closer to describing the feeling around Dingwall during that electrifying Scottish Cup run. It’s hard to fathom anyone who truly thought we would win either of those encounters.
Since then though the landscape has greatly changed. A decade’s worth of Premiership football and a trophy day at Hampden has allowed plenty of matches against these objectively bigger clubs with genuine faith that we would get the victory.
That is what makes Saturday’s encounter a bit more unusual. On paper a League One club shouldn’t be anywhere near a national quarter-final let alone harbour an ounce of hope of a Halloween day out in the National Stadium.
Despite the dramatic two-division fall though there seems to be an air of positivity swirling around Ross County after starting the season with an 11-match unbeaten run and playing some really entertaining football in the process.
Don’t get me wrong, if this game had fallen last October I’d have been thinking up excuses to avoid such a horrendous ordeal.
This year feels different.
There is a sense of hope building around County, and with Hibs stumbling from one disappointing result to another, perhaps Saturday is not quite as daunting as it first appears. The optimism, importantly, isn’t entirely based on Hibs’ problems. County have given supporters plenty of reasons to believe in their own side again.
Dare to dream
Few lower moments have been felt in my time watching County than that horrific 3-2 defeat in Kirkcaldy which sealed our fate as back-to-back relegation losers destined for the pits of the third tier. Things went from bad to worse as the realisation dawned that my weeks were going to be spent working out transport routes to places like Peterhead, Scotland’s furthest-from-a-train station club, and Methil, a place I assumed the Proclaimers had made up to fit the syllables of what should have been Scotland’s world cup anthem.
What came as less of a surprise to me than others though was the quick appointment a few days later of Stuart Kettlewell as full-time manager. This was met with ridicule throughout Scottish football as things appeared to be spiraling out of control.
The man who came off the bench in the aforementioned 2010 Scottish Cup quarter-final replay has instilled a new mentality and playing style over the summer that we are reaping the rewards of.
The moment I started to believe things had genuinely changed came in the League Cup group stage against Dundee where a new-look lower league side tore apart Dundee with only a screamer of a free-kick able to force penalties which of course the cool, calm, scintillating Staggies dispatched with ease.
Fast-forward a couple of months and we sit three points off the top of the league, with a game in hand after four wins, including a 4-0 demolition job of East Kilbride and an admittedly disappointing draw, which will hopefully just prove to be a blip in an otherwise near-perfect start.
That game in hand comes courtesy of a marvellous day out in Dunfermline where Richard Chin finished a quick breakaway to add to the earlier goal of Jamie Lindsay to seal a 2-1 win and the quarters spot.
I think that epitomised the difference between this season and the last couple.
Confident attacking football. Quick wingers getting the ball in the box. Midfielders willing to fight for the ball.
Don’t get me wrong, there are still plenty of mistakes but there seems to be a bravery to make them and carry on fighting that we haven’t seen in almost half a decade.
I could spend 1000 words speculating on how Lindsay seemed to struggle so much last season, only to look like his 2019 self again. Similarly, I could spend another 1000 writing about how we would be on for a quadruple if Chin could muster up a consistent final ball.
What matters though is that these players are worth believing in.
There’s a hope around the good guys of the Highlands again and with 1,300 travelling up from Edinburgh, it’s time to get right behind the team and heap the pressure on a side already low on confidence.
After all, we know what Hibs are most famous for…
Bottling cup ties.
Staggies View 