History Boys - Did Alex Neil’s Hamilton change the course of the SPFL?

When history happens, you don’t see it as being of historical importance, you just see it as the present. Even with what the present sees as the biggest events, their relevance in history can be limited. Small things or things we dismiss can be incredible, things that seem huge can be of little future relevance.

When Hamilton Accies beat Hibs on that day at Easter Road last May, my reaction was likely similar to everyone else’s - laughing cynically and laughing hard. It was a mildly patronising “Well Done, Accies” and an expectancy of nothing. Come the start of the season I, like everyone else, dismissed Hamilton as a team who would hang about near the bottom and be battling to avoid the drop.

That should have been it. Yet looking back to that fateful day at Easter Road, it’s getting hard not to see it as a turning point in not just Hamilton’s and Hibs’ history, but as a turning point in the entire history of Scottish football.

At its most obvious level, in the history of Alex Neil, winning that match have him the chance to excel in the Premiership, got him his move to Norwich and will likely see him in the EPL next season and is already seeing him hailed as one of the best young managers in the world (quite rightly). Lose that match to Hibs and Neil would likely still be at Hamilton presiding over a playoff effort that no-one would believe in.

It also immediately established the Winner Stays On playoff system in the Premiership as worthwhile as it showed that anything could happen and the metaphorical apple cart could be upset. It made the playoffs something to care about rather than just a curate’s egg.

Placing Hibs in the Championship had further ramifications. It meant three big teams would have to fit into two promotion spots. In doing so, it hastened the end of Ally McCoist at Rangers and also hastened the end of Rangers being taken as any sort of serious threat. As a result, it meant Aberdeen could be undisputed as the second best side in the country.

Put simply, Hamilton beating Hibs meant that the order and the old perceptions about the Scottish Leagues were forced to change. In one match, they made more impact on Scottish football than any reconstruction effort. These changes and additional storylines that have threaded through the season have contributed to Scottish football getting over Rangers and seeing the Ibrox club’s myriad of messes jump the shark. That one match set the scene for their manager’s career to go stratospheric, it created the conditions for McCoist to depart and Rangers to fail which created the conditions for Aberdeen to become Scotland’s second club and for the Edinburgh clubs to see a resurgence in popularity. That one game, saw Alex Neil go all Hollywood Hogan and create a new world order.

For all we may have simply laughed at the time, that one match may be the most important domestic game in Scotland this side of Celtic 6 Rangers 2 in setting the scene for a prolonged hierarchy in the league. And that is certainly historic.