On one October day back in 2004, Garforth Town of the Northern Counties East League briefly became the centre of the football universe.
In a story so surreal as to be scarcely believable, it emerged that Brazilian legend Socrates had agreed to come out of retirement after signing a short-term player-coaching deal.
The great man, then aged 50, did, indeed, set foot in the former Yorkshire mining town and even managed a substitute appearance against Tadcaster Albion.
Unbeknown to him, there was also time for a little impromptu marketing at the behest of a mischievous Hibs supporter who’d made the trip south.
A photograph later emerged online with Socrates leaving the tiny ground holding up a tee-shirt. It bore the words: ‘Albert Kidd — 03.05.86.’
Say what you like about the standard of Scottish football. When it comes to pettiness and bitterness, we have no equal.
Hearts and Hibs are set to go head-to-head at Easter Road on Sunday afternoon
Almost 40 years on, Hibs and Celtic supporters are again preparing to raise a glass on ‘Albert Kidd Day’ — their annual recognition of a man who played for neither club but is still revered by their respective followers.
Without question, Kidd’s two goals for Dundee at Dens Park to deny Hearts the title on that storied final afternoon in 1986 are still recalled as fondly in Leith as they are in Glasgow’s East End.
When word of them reached Hibs supporters watching the side slide to a home defeat to Dundee United, they were celebrated as fervently as by those Celtic fans crammed into Love Street.
It probably says much that a decade after writing his name into Scottish football folklore, Kidd was presented with a player of the year award by Sydney-based Hibs supporters. If you can’t revel in your own team’s success, it seems that you can always fall back on schadenfreude.
All of which makes some of the build-up to tomorrow’s Edinburgh derby at Easter Road a peculiar affair.
To be clear, both high-profile celebrity Hibees who opined on the matter made no bones about which side they want to come out on top in the final meeting of the season.
But it was the joint assertion of Sir Andy Murray and Josh Taylor that a Hearts’ title win would be a good thing for the game at large, which — to put it mildly — caused a bit of a stir among their fellow supporters.
‘I’ll probably get hammered for this,’ two-time Wimbledon champion Murray told Sky Sports. ‘I think it’s a good thing for Scottish football if Hearts were able to win.
‘People are asking me about Scottish football — that never really happens. So, there is obviously a lot of interest in it.’
Taylor, Britain’s first undisputed world champion in the four-belt era, said the Old Firm domination was ‘boring’.
Writing on X, he added: ‘As painful as it may be as a Hibs fan, it would be good for Scottish sport/football.’
Brazil icon Socrates once posed with a T-shirt poking fun at Hearts’ 1986 league title collapse
For the overwhelming majority at Easter Road, though, this prospect would simply be unbearable. If Hearts stumbling on the home straight meant the Old Firm continuing to dominate the title for the next 40 years, then so be it.
While there are plainly many observers from outwith the capital who will side with the wider view of two of Scotland’s sporting greats, it might be said that it’s easy to do so when you don’t have a dog in the fight. It’s much harder to consider the bigger picture when tribalism is a way of life.
On May 28, Easter Road’s Famous Five Suite will host a gala dinner to mark the 10-year anniversary of Hibs’ lifting the Scottish Cup by beating Rangers.
The Hearts fans who, for generations, revelled in taunting their rivals over a 114-year wait to land the trophy have never been allowed to forget it throughout the past decade.
That level of gloating would surely pale in significance to that which Hibs followers would endure if their great rivals won the big one for the first time since 1960.
It would certainly knock into a cocked hat the bragging of the maroon hordes which came after they famously triumphed 5-1 in the 2012 Scottish Cup final. For that very reason, this feels like the biggest derby since that day.
‘I think that Hibs would forgo European qualification if it was a choice between that and Hearts not winning the league,’ said former Hibs striker Tam McManus.
‘It’s something that’s not come around in most people’s lifetimes.
‘It’s just football rivalry. I think that you know if you’re a Celtic fan, you don’t want Rangers to win it. If you’re a Rangers fan, you don’t want Celtic to win it. If you’re a Cowdenbeath fan, you don’t want East Fife to win it.
‘I remember being at Hibs and we didn’t want Hearts to win any game. We wanted to beat them when we played them and wanted to finish above them.
‘We didn’t want them to win a cup. They’re your rivals and the supporters are the same. I don’t think it’s primitive.
‘That’s Scottish football, it’s our national game and we’re very passionate about football here. There’s a big rivalry among clubs.’
Warren O’Hora (left) and Jamie McGrath would love to put a dent in Hearts’ title ambitions
It would be ludicrous to pretend that derailing their great rivals’ title tilt isn’t a motivational factor for David Gray’s players.
They walk the same streets as their fans. They know that the ripples of this extraordinary season will be felt long after they have moved on.
‘If we can put a bee in their bonnet and stop them from doing what they want to do, then that is what we want to do, naturally,’ admitted Hibs defender Warren O’Hora.
Primarily, though, for Gray’s men, this will be about realising their own ambitions for this season.
With only four league places guaranteed a European spot, they have five games to make up the three points which presently separate them from Motherwell.
It will be the last chance for Martin Boyle to leave another mark on the famous fixture before he heads to pastures new. Can the veteran forward steal the thunder of Lawrence Shankland and Claudio Braga?
Despite 19 points separating the sides, the three previous games this season have each been settled by an odd goal. You’d anticipate another tight affair.
Hearts’ recent away form is poor, however, with just one point accrued from their last four matches on the road. That patently can’t continue if they are to remain on top of the pile.
Were they to atone for that 3-2 loss in Leith over Christmas with a victory, though, the championship would be within touching distance. And for most Hibs fans, the unthinkable would come a step closer.
‘It would be huge,’ stated McManus. ‘I look at Hearts’ run of games, Hibs, Rangers and Celtic are the three big ones. If you can win them, I think you win the league.
‘The momentum Hearts would get by winning and keeping the gap over Celtic and Rangers with four games left would be enormous.’
A resident of Adelaide since emigrating in the late 1980s, Kidd has spent much of his life after football being thanked by strangers in the street for ensuring that Hearts’ 27-game unbeaten run came to a halt in the final moments of that incredible season.
Were Derek McInnes’ men to finish the job this time around, he might soon have some fresh company with familiar accents Down Under.
