Late last year, the Accies’ ancient clubhouse came down. Part of the Raeburn Hotel went with it. It looks like this now :
I’ll show you the rubble in a moment.
There is, I discovered, a plan: the Hotel will be refurbished, and, behind it, a new state-of-the-art complex built that will carry the Accies on for another 120 years. So said their anniversary volume, an impressively-sized hardback too heavy to read in bed.
Then, of course, came recession. Edinburgh’s having a better time of it than most places, it has to be said, but those of us who remember the last two occasions know that all bets come off in those circumstances.
Months have gone by with this as the depressing scene:
I must admit to having been one of the ones who thought that this project was a recession victim, one that would perhaps return in mutilated form in 2011 when the sun returns to the sky.
We were all wrong: it wasn’t that kind of delay at all. I learn from the Stockbridge and Inverleith Community Council that work begins in a few weeks.
And Alex Massie’s mob are good enough to admit that they got away with it on Saturday.
Welcome back.