New Hearts signing Toby Sibbick's story at odds with Hibs' version of events as d

As a capital derby warm up act, the hullabaloo surrounding Toby Sibbick’s return to Hearts has been intriguingly effective.

The 22-year-old did make it onto a list of possible targets in Gorgie and in Leith, but when it comes to explaining why the former Barnsley defender ultimately ended up at Tynecastle, accounts of who delivered the custard pie and, who took it flat in the face, vary depending on the tint of the narrator’s spectacles.

“I think the two clubs [Hibs and Barnsley] were speaking about it. But, when my agent proposed it to me I said: 'No, I don't want to do it.' I just don’t think it would’ve been right considering the history between the two clubs,” said the Englishman, who had impressed in his previous spell at Hearts, before illness and the first lockdown curtailed his involvement and brought that loan to a premature end. “The type of person I am, I couldn’t do that to a club like Hearts.

“When my agent mentioned [Hibs] to me, I just thought I couldn’t do that. It wouldn’t be fair on the fans. They had seen me here, they took to me so well and I’d been linked with Hibs before, but I said no, because that was just after I’d been with Hearts and to go there wouldn’t have been right on the club or the fans.

“In the back of my mind, I always wanted to come back here, and I think now is the perfect time to do that.

“The fans kept messaging me when I wasn’t playing at Barnsley, they kept looking out for me and telling me to come back and now obviously I’ve listened to some of them.

“I’ve played for a fan-owned club before, so I know what it means for the fans, they give the club everything, so us as players, should give it back to them.”

The version across the city is different.

“No, that’s not true,”