Hibs fans have launched a very direct campaign to remove Rod Petrie from the club.
Last Sunday’s relegation to the second tier of Scottish football proved to be the final straw for many supporters who staged an aggressive protest outside of Easter Road immediately after losing to Hamilton Accies.
Terry Butcher released 14 players after the match, with heart-broken midfielder Kevin Thomson signing for Dundee four days later, but the manager isn’t the main target of the protesting fans.
Petrie has overseen a raft of managers, including John Collins, John Hughes, Colin Calderwood and Pat Fenlon appointed but has failed to bring any level of success or stability to the club.
Despite meeting with supporters on Thursday night and the arrival of a new chief executive, Leeann Dempster from Motherwell, only the removal of Petrie will satisfy the demands of the fans.
A protest rally will be staged outside Easter Road next Saturday with former midfielder Paul Kane urging fans to make their feelings known.
Speaking on behalf of the official Supporters Association Kane said: “The pivotal moment of our campaign will be next Saturday. The opportunity for Hibs supporters to get rid of Rod Petrie is now there in their hands. Is that what they want? If they do, then it will happen, it has to happen.
“It’s not personal with Rod Petrie, it’s about him not running the ship right. The club’s demise has been caused largely by Rod Petrie.
“He has now put us down to the Championship, along with all his other decisions down the years. He is the leader of this club and basically he has to go.
“We went to the meeting with him on Thursday in a dignified way, to try and stop having to do this today. We don’t want to go down the Rangers scenario, where it’s all tit-for-tat – that won’t do Hibs or the supporters any good.
“But we have been forced into this because we asked him to go and he said ‘No’. It was cordial enough, there were no problems that way.
“But he says he wants to stay to see the changes through and we are not accepting that. We don’t want him anywhere near the club. He might think he has got more backing than we have – time will tell. We’ll find out next Saturday.”
Petrie has taken a sideways move to chairman of the club as Dempster takes over as chief executive but Kane doesn’t believe his influence will be diluted
He added: “This is about getting rid of Rod Petrie because we think he has made the decisions which have led to the club’s demise. But this is only stage one – we also have a stage two and three. Once we get Rod Petrie out, I can tell you about the next stage.”
As well as his role at Hibs Petrie was one of the authors behind the plan to parachute Sevco into the First Division following the liquidation of Rangers.
