A decade has passed in a flash for Alan Stubbs.

It's not a blur either, which it all could well have been considering how quickly he was catapulted from coaching kids at Everton to taking over a club in dire need of galvanisation. We all know how it ended on a fateful May afternoon in 2016, but the unbridled euphoria of that day was a universe away from what Stubbs inherited two years prior.

The 2013/14 season descended into an unmitigated disaster at Easter Road. A 2-1 Edinburgh derby success over Hearts on January 2 cut Hibs' city rivals 16 points adrift at the foot of the table, and moved Terry Butcher's team into the top six with a third consecutive victory that fixed all eyes firmly upwards. It should have been the beginning of a strong finish to the campaign but, incredibly, Hibs would win just once more in the league all season.

A desperate downward spiral that began in mid-February saw Butcher's side tumble down the league and into a relegation play-off against Hamilton Accies, one they somehow conspired to lose despite winning the first leg, away from home, 2-0. The aftermath brought sweeping change, and not just in the dugout. Leeann Dempster was appointed chief-executive, and George Craig took over as head of football operations as the decks were swiftly cleared.

Among their first actions was to pluck former Celtic defender Stubbs from Everton's academy and task him, in his first managerial role, with breathing life back into a club that had so suddenly found itself in the doldrums. "I knew it was a big job," recalls the now 52-year-old from Kirkby, with more than a hint of understatement. No fewer than 15 players had departed in the wake of relegation - forcing Stubbs, unveiled on June 25 - to build from the ground up.

"I took satisfaction from being able to put my own stamp on things," Stubbs continues. "Coming into the club at the time, a lot of people had left; I had a handful of players, even less staff. It was about getting to work as quickly as I possibly could to, first and foremost, get a squad of players ready for the start of the season. We were already behind the eight ball, in terms of the fact that Hearts had already known their fate well before the end of the season because they were already gone.

“Rangers had obviously won League One. Hibs, though, had gone through the play-offs and nobody expected them to not come through that. Then to suddenly get relegated… there was still that feeling of disbelief when I went in – ‘how on Earth has this club been relegated?’"

Figures now synonymous with the seasons that followed were signed that summer. A certain David Gray was first in the door, with Stubbs also adding Scott Allan, Liam Fontaine, Dominique Malonga and Fraser Fyvie in a recruitment drive that finished with nine new faces arriving. 

“It was about trying to quickly move on from relegation even though it was such a big deal, to try and change mindsets and outlook – can we start to build something where that doesn’t happen again? We knew it wasn’t going to happen overnight," Stubbs says. “Leeann and George were a huge help to me, along with Graeme Mathie, in putting the pieces together in a jigsaw. Our biggest challenge was getting the fans to buy into what we wanted to do, to have confidence in us.

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“A lot of fans were unsure and there was a disconnect between them and the club, or the board. There was a lot of things to encounter and put right, but I’d like to think from the time I came in to the time I left, the club was in a much, much better place."

Stubbs' appointment was somewhat of a punt by both parties. But there was belief on either side that it could work, and fans were willing to put their trust in the new regime's decision to hire someone with no senior managerial posts on their CV. A sticky start to life in the Championship that served up three defeats in the opening four fixtures could so easily have rattled an inexperienced manager, but Stubbs wasn't one for doubting himself.

"Did I think I was ready? Yes. Did I think the time was right to make that step? Yes." he says. “Ultimately, it is a leap of faith, as well, because you never really know. It doesn’t matter if you have full confidence in yourself to do the job, you never know until you’re given the opportunity. For my first management role, to have a club the size of Hibernian was a huge honour for me.

“It wasn’t until I got in there that I got a feel for the size of the club. It was what I wanted. I had the fundamentals in place, but they need a little bit of tender love and care again. They needed me to put my DNA on it, as well as Leeann and George’s. After them listening to me, the way I wanted to run and manage a club was exactly what they were looking for."

He assembled a backroom team that included coaches John Doolan and Andy Holden, characters he felt would not only provide valuable assistance, but also challenge him.

“For me, I didn’t want ‘yes men’, guys who would just say ‘I agree, boss’," Stubbs says. "I wanted a different opinion. Ultimately, I would go with what I thought was best, but it would always be after we had discussions. If someone disagreed, I wanted to know why they thought differently. If they were right, I would think ‘fair enough, I get it’, and we’d have a discussion. It’s important to have a different opinion."

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After a stuttering start, it began to click. In recovering from those three losses in the opening four, Hibs tasted league defeat just once in their next 22 outings. They finished the season in second, ahead of Rangers, but fell just short against the Ibrox side in the ensuing play-offs. Despite being consigned to a further year in the second tier, Stubbs got the sense everyone at Hibs was now pulling in the same direction, that a lost connection was being re-established between club and fans. He credits the influence of Dempster, Craig, and head of recruitment Graeme Mathie in helping him drive that.

"Leeann, George, and Graham were with me in providing everything I needed to be successful on the pitch," he says. "There were constant meetings about which way we wanted to go. One of our biggest ones was putting together a plan to sell to the fans. We really wanted to reach out to them to get them to trust what we were doing, and what we wanted to do to take the club forward.

“There was disharmony, not a lot of confidence in the board. There was friction between [chairman] Rod Petrie and the fans. We went out to the fans, to tell them: ‘This is what we’re doing, and we need you. You need us, but we need you, as well.’ Slowly but surely, it started to happen. Ultimately, where they started to buy in is that they could see a style of football they liked to watch. They could see what we were doing, not just off the pitch, but on it, too."

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One thing that's gone missing at Hibs of late, and certainly last season under Nick Montgomery, is big performances and results against the country's biggest teams.  Under Stubbs, and Neil Lennon after him, supporters knew they could rely on those sides to turn up against the likes of Rangers, against whom the Englishman had a very respectable record. They possessed a swagger, too, and those contests were defining moments of the years spent in the Championship. Stubbs always felt his group were as talented as anything coming out of Ibrox at that time, endeavouring to nurture that belief within the players themselves.

“We had a strong squad, especially in the second season," he says. "Our starting XI was as good as Rangers’, and certainly as good as Hearts’. Hearts were stronger than us in the first season, there’s no doubt about that, and they won the league comfortably. But even though we were still building and playing catch-up in the first season, we were competitive, not a million miles off. In the second season we added a few players to the group and on our day we were 50/50 against the likes of Rangers. There was nothing in most of those games.

“We went to Ibrox and won, we gave them close games at Easter Road, and we won a small cup final against them. They won’t like me saying that, I think I get under Rangers fans’ skin – they don’t like me for some reason, I don’t know what it is! We were really close. When we played Premiership teams, I often felt we were the better side. You would have thought Hibs were the Premiership team when we played the likes of Dundee United, Aberdeen, Ross County. They were close games, but in terms of quality, I thought we had slightly more on show. Ultimately, I tried to convince the players that they were as good as what they were up against, if not better. Belief is a huge thing for players."

I've taken up almost an hour of Stubbs' time by this point, but he doesn't want to sign off without a word for two men who, like they did for so many other managers, gave him everything and more. Paul Hanlon and Lewis Stevenson's departure from Hibs brought about some of the most heartfelt, glowing tributes you're ever likely to see in football, and Stubbs wasn't going anywhere before adding his own. But what's truly telling about Stubbs' sentiment, and that of so many others, is that despite the impression they made as professionals over decades, it pales in comparison to the mark they left as people.

“There’s a good chance you probably won’t see it again," he says. "And probably haven’t got enough time to speak about what they were for the club. You always judged someone as what they are as a person, and I can’t speak highly enough about them as people. I’ve come up against great lads and great players over time, and one of the nicest guys is Kevin Kilbane. Lewis Stevenson and Paul Hanlon are right up there alongside him, and that’s probably the best compliment I can pay.

“As professionals, they were perfect, no problem whatsoever. They would always try and be fit, even when they were getting criticism as individuals they would always be the first to step forward, no matter. They knew sometimes they were the brunt of criticism. I saw that at Everton, too, where sometimes the local lads were criticised more, which I struggle to get my head around. Leon Osman, a local lad, would get more than others who didn’t do the same as he did.

“But it would be wrong for me too speak too much about that, because with Paul and Lewis it’s only positives. Two gentlemen, two of the nicest guys and best professionals I’ve ever come across in football. They leave Hibernian Football Club with nothing but credit."

Part one of our exclusive interview with Alan Stubbs - on the job facing new head coach David Gray - is available to read HERE.