Welcome to the regular new feature from MHHM - Rivals Revealed!

As the astute amongst you will have gathered,  I'll be interviewing fans from rival teams, on the eve of their game against the mighty Cabbage, about their views about Hibs, their own team and fitba' in general!

The first in the series is from Jason Barber, a Pars fan.  Thanks to Jason for agreeing to do this interview at such short notice!

Your name: Jason Barber

Team: DAFC

How long have you been a Pars fan?

Since 1982, Tam Forsyth was the manager and we were heading towards rock bottom! 

What is your all-time favourite DAFC match?

Probably the 2-0 Scottish Cup win over Rangers in 1988.  We had just had successive promotions from the second division, they were well into their “Souness” period full of England internationals.

Mark Smith famously crossed/shot from the touchline to put us one up, whilst John Watson won the game with a superb flying header!

What is your most memorable match against the Hibs?

Dunfermline’ first ever Premier league game was against Hibs, back in August 1987.  Again, we had just come up through the divisions and no one gave us a hope.  Beautiful day, crowd of 11,500 (those were the days) and a great game of football ending in a 3-3 draw.

Likewise, what is your least memorable match against the Hibs?

Any of the away trips up until recently!  40 years without a win at Easter Road was the ultimate bad sequence of results.  All too often we travelled across with hope, in the middle of a good run.  Pick any one of the numerous defeats that left us deflated up until finally winning there in 2002!

Many non Old Firm fans feel they are bad for Scottish football? Would you be happy to see them leave for England, leaving the rest of the SPL clubs to get on with it?

Yes and no!

There is no doubt the SPL would be an exciting, competitive league if the gruesome twosome went away somewhere, anywhere.  Unfortunately, England know they would be mad to take them.  The worst thing to happen if they did go somewhere, would be the even worse press coverage.  They get blanket coverage just now playing here as it is, it would be worse if they were playing “big” clubs every week.

What is your opinion of Easter Road as a stadium?

Excellent.  Similar kind of layout to the modernised East End, but with a better atmosphere, which would not be difficult.  Hopefully the chance to return to a terraced area would see your smaller stand running down the side of the pitch returned to a standing area one day for an even better atmosphere.

Good to have betting facilities under the away stand, plus it has been a very happy hunting ground for us over the last three years!

Which 3 Hibs players (if any) would you love to see in a Dunfermline shirt?

Derek Riordan and Gary O’Connor have certainly taken over the Brewster/Crawford mantle as the best Scottish pairing of strikers in the country.  They would walk into any side based on their goalscoring form this season.

Scott Brown is a player opposition fans love to hate, but he is the kind of player you want on your team, rather than against you.  A local lad to Dunfermline, hopefully the youth policy at East End Park is now being refocused in a way to prevent such local players slipping through the net.

Likewise which three Dunfermline players would you gladly give away to Hibs?

You would have to fight Aberdeen for them, as that is where our reserves seem to be heading!

Derek Young has rarely been fit enough to show what he is capable of.

Likewise, his brother Darren can, on occasion, dominate the midfield.  On other occasions he cannot even make the simplest of passes to team mates.

Other than those, I think everyone else in our squad is more than capable, they have just not shown it this season.

What are your expectations for Dunfermline this season? Are you happy with the job David Hay is doing so far?

It’s certainly seen us crashing down to earth with a bang.  At the outset, we had dreams of a European run, along with our almost guaranteed top six place. 

The early European exit hit everyone right in the teeth and we have simply never recovered.  Brewster and Crawford were often the difference between draws and wins last season, hence we have now drawn so often this season!

Davie Hay has more than his fair share of critics, but as the old saying goes, you can only piss with the **** you’ve got!  Slashing the wages bill to more than half of what it was this time last year has bound his hands.  The few signings he has made have been good ones.  I’m sure the summer will see a few more old faces moving on and being taken off the wage bill.

Main thing now is to obviously just stay in the SPL.  For all it’s faults, and there are so many, the money lost by dropping down would cripple the club.

Likewise where do you see Hibs finishing this season?

No offence to Jimmy Calderwood, who believes he is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but I think Hibs will still finish in third place this season.  Hopefully your current poor run will last one more week before you find the goals against Dundee United next week!

How did you feel when Brewster and Crawford left the Club?  Are you satisfied with their replacements?

Crawford leaving was inevitable at the time, a player on such an allegedly high wage could simply not be kept.  Brewster was a sore one to take as he has epitomised the rise of Dunfermline over the last couple of seasons.  Incredible player who was at the heart of nearly every scoring move we made.  He wanted to become a manager though, and Hay did not stand in his way.

We don’t seem to have found regular replacements as such.  Billy Mehmet and Noel Hunt in Brewster & Crawford’s shadows last season but have not fully taken the chance given to them.  We’ve brought in the big Dane, Jesper Christiansen, who is still finding his feet and Georgi Hristov has also just started playing after 18 months out.

We need at least one of these players to start finding the net though, and very quickly.

Finally, what do you think the score will be this Saturday?

The smart money would be on 1-1.  More games have been 1-1 at East End Park than anything else this season, including our previous game in October.  Both teams are coming off the back of sore, heavy defeats last weekend.  As I said earlier, hopefully your poor run can last just one more game!  Dunfermline are capable of winning, but no one knows where the goals are going to come from, not a problem Hibs have this year.