Is this the best sports video ever?

The video is shoddily shot on a handheld mobile phone. It is often out of focus, far too wide and merely pans back and forth across the horizontal.

The audio is not fit-for-purpose either, often “blowing out” at the top of its register. Given that the idea was to capture the singing of a song, that is kind of important.

But then the tune is the opposite of your usual football chant anyway. It is an ultra-slow, plodding ballad; a waltzing love song dominated by piano and violin that tip-toes on for more than four minutes. There is even a 25-second instrumental break in the middle.

And yet this video is perhaps the most mesmerising piece of sports content I have ever seen.

The study of outliers, those trend-buckers that defy the odds, has become seen as a shortcut to success. Malcolm Gladwell founded his career on it.

And if you dig deeper into the story behind that lung-bursting rendition of “Sunshine on Leith” by ecstatic Hibernian fans at Hampden Park in 2016, you begin to reveal a crucial formula for content.

Meaning x emotion x authenticity > everything.

A tapestry of overlapping narratives played out over different timespans - the previous 30 minutes, the entire day, a host of failed Cup finals and throughout the 20th century - conspired to create this one moment.

That is why everyone is singing every word and holding aloft a green and white scarf. Everyone understands what this moment means. Sons sing for their Dads, and those Dads sing on behalf of long lost great grandfathers who passed away waiting for this day.

And, on top of all that, their ‘hymn’ was written by two of their own.

When the video opens, the first thing you notice is the confrontational feel, even though the opposing stands are empty. It seems as though the supporters are directly addressing ranks of stewards, officers and mounted police stretching across the pitch. And there is almost a menace in the way these authority figures stand, silent and motionless, staring back. It is a stand-off as much as a song.

This situation was sparked when David Gray guided home a header two minutes into injury time to give Hibernian their first Scottish Cup win for 114 years. Their previous 10 finals had ended in disappointment. For years this had seemed to be their elusive holy grail.

Emotions overflowed when the whistle blew seconds later. The Hibs supporters invaded the pitch, as did some Rangers fans in response. There was fighting.

One set of the goalposts were broken, sections of turf were ripped up and Rangers players alleged they were assaulted. As a result, the losing team received their medals in their dressing room and left the stadium without talking to the media.

In this video, order has been restored, thanks in part to those police horses, but clearly emotions are still high. And, who knows, the very broadcast of Sunshine on Leith over the PA may have been a method of placation by diversion.

The camerawork is horrible but it succeeds in showing you the scene. You are one of the crowd, scanning around and drinking in a moment that has taken well over a century to unfold. That raw energy is the secret of the video’s success.

A well-produced effort by Hibs TV was published the same day. It captured the same song at the same time, even cutting-in shots of players joining in. However, it has received a third of the views and likes plus a fifth of the comments. This moment belonged to the fans so you want to experience it through their eyes and ears.

Most of the tunes subsumed by football supporters are bouncy, overtly positive or at least well-known. Sunshine on Leith was a minor hit, reaching No41 in 1988 when the UK music charts actually meant something. The words, all 97 of them, are self-deprecating, maudlin yet grateful and loyal.

The Hibs hook is “Leith”, the area of north Edinburgh in which the team plays and Craig and Charlie Reid were born. They broke through as the Proclaimers in the late 1980s and were initially seen as almost a novelty act. They were bespectacled, unphotogenic twins who pointedly sang in their own broad Scottish accents. I bought both their first two albums and played them relentlessly in my first year at Newcastle University. It was all soaring harmonies and clever wordplay in songs of love, lust, politics and Scotland. They even sang of their footballing fandom back in 1988, a time before Italia 90, the Premier League and Euro 96 would transform the perception of the sport in the UK.

In my first term, I saw them live at the old Newcastle Poly. I was all on my own of course, my much-cooler-than-me mates screwed up their faces at my suggestion of coming along and I distinctly remember being teased by a Prince-worshipping flat-mate.

But The Proclaimers would go on to prosper and, though not troubling the charts these days, they retain a loyal fanbase and remain a festival favourite. They are still bespectacled, unphotogenic, singing in broad Scottish accents and entirely uncool. But the Reid twins have literally sung and (kind of) danced to their own tune when the easier path was to buckle under.

Sunshine on Leith, the album, was turned into a musical and then a film while the track is said to have inspired Dead Man’s Trousers, the latest novel by Irving Welsh.

“I’m Gonna Be (500 miles)”, which was written en route to watching Hibs play at Aberdeen, has been heavily featured in Hollywood films and has been used as a de facto national anthem at Scotland games.

Had that song been sung that day, with its shouty, bouncy, back-and-forth chorus, I would not be writing this piece. That would make sense.

But the emotional energy shown in this rendition of Sunshine on Leigh does not unless you fully understand the context.

Ultimately, this is a sad song about longing, home and the love for someone (or something) better than you. It is written by two men who, but for their music career, would have been in the stands that day.

The Hibs fans know this and others can feel it. That is why the video received an endless stream of utter respect from non-Hibs fans in the YouTube comments.

While in no way condoning it, the pitch invasion, scuffling and police response will have heightened the emotion too.

This was Hibernian’s special day and every fan seemed determined to mark it with a special rendition of their special song written by their special guys.

The result is a piece of simplistic yet stirring sports content that produces that rare quality: full-on, mesmeric attention that stirs the emotions no matter how often you watch it.

* NOTE: I have no particular affection for Hibs or Rangers, I just like this video. My only ‘bias’ is towards the Proclaimers, I have always thought they are just great.