Forgotten Scotland Players

To mark Remembrance Day two more entries in the Scottish Football Blog's Forgotten Scotland Players series.

Two players who were part of the most famous Hearts team of them all.

Forgotten Scotland Players: George Sinclair

Football in Scotland didn't stop during the conflict of 1914-1918. Players, officials and supporters fought for their country. Many never returned.

But, rightly or wrongly, the game continued. It did so against a backdrop of criticism and recrimination that the sport was ignoring its patriotic duty and encouraging others to do the same.

Yet some players had answered the country's call without delay.

One of those was the Hearts winger George Sinclair. Formerly a regular soldier he'd left the army in 1905.

He signed for an under performing Hearts in 1908. When George McCartney replaced James McGhee as manager he decided that Sinclair was of only four players who would meet the standard he was demanding.

Sinclair, he recognised, was one of the finest wingers in Scotland. In a new era for Hearts he was deserving of his place.

Scotland's selectors seemed to agree. In March 1910 Sinclair made his Scotland debut against Ireland in Belfast as the Scots fell to a 1-0 defeat.

As McCartney strove to build a team that would achieve his goal of being the "perfect combination," Sinclair continued to impress.

In 1912 he was again called into the Scotland team. On 3rd March he was part of the team that beat Wales 1-0 in front of 31,000 fans at Tynecastle.

Two weeks later he got his revenge in Belfast as Scotland, sent on their way by a first half double from Blackburn's Walter Aitkenhead, beat Ireland 4-1.

Two years on and McCartney's Tynecastle dream was coming close to being realised.

In the summer of 1914 Hearts played a friendly in a Copenhagen before returning to Edinburgh to beat Hibs 6-0 in the Dunedin Cup.

People suddenly realised that McCartney might have been deadly serious when he predicted that his team would win the league.

Then, on 4th August, Britain wasn't provided with the assurances it demanded that Belgium's neutrality would be respected by an advancing German Army.

The European powder keg had exploded and Britain was about to join the conflagration.

When Sinclair had left the Field Artillery in 1905 he had made a commitment to rejoin the forces in the event of such a conflict.

On 5th August 1914, in keeping with that agreement, he rejoined his battery. Britain was at war. And so was George Sinclair.

Driver George Leckie Sinclair of the Royal Field Artillery didn't serve in the famous McRae's Battalion that became inexorably linked to Hearts.

His war took a different route. And he was one of the lucky ones.

Injured while on active service he was discharged from the army. His injuries weren't serious enough to stop him from playing football and he returned to see out his career with Hearts, playing his last game in 1920.

He was also apparently spared the after effects that scarred the lives of so many veterans.

When a free scoring Hearts side, perhaps fulfilling the destiny that was denied the team of 1914, won the championship in 1958 Sinclair was running a pub in Edinburgh's Abbeyhill.

Forgotten Scotland Players number 10: George Sinclair, Hearts. 3 caps.

Forgotten Scotland Players: Bob Mercer

When George McCartney began his rebuilding job at Tynecastle he immediately recognised that the player he could build the team's success on was already at the club.

Robert 'Bob' Mercer was a young centre half when he first met McCartney.

In the pre-war years footballs were like boulders, boots like concrete and defenders were rugged characters. Mercer was a modern centre half before the phrase was invented.

Ball playing, skillful. Classy.

He was the young talent at the centre of the manager's "perfect combination" philosophy.

He was just 22 when he made his Scotland debut, alongside team mate George Sincliar, in the 1-0 win over Wales at Tynecastle.

His second cap came in March 1913 as Scotland beat Ireland 2-1 in Dublin.

Mercer was injured during the course of Hearts' impressive start to the 1914-15 season. An October return proved too soon for his damaged ligaments and he was ruled out again.

Despite his injury, as the captain of the league leaders and as one of Scotland's bright young things he was a lightning rod for the ire of those who felt football wasn't pulling its weight in the war effort.

When Hearts answered the call from McCrae's Battlalion, Mercer's injury meant he was unable to join his team mates.

15 players did join McCrae's Own. Three of them were to die on the first day of the Battle of the Somme on 1st July 1916.

Mercer was eventually to join the Royal Garrison Artillery. In 1918 he was caught in a severe gas attack.

Unlike many of his team mates he survived. He returned to play for Hearts for another two seasons.

In 1919 he joined George Sinclair in the side that won the SFA's Victory Cup.

It was clear, however, that Mercer wasn't the same player. When a doctor diagnosed a weakened heart, Hearts insisted he retire. He reluctantly left the club but went on to play another couple of seasons with Dunfermline.

In 1926 he played a game as a guest for Hearts in Selkirk. He collapsed and died of heart failure.

The "war to end all wars" had claimed another victim.

Forgotten Scotland Player number 11: Bob Mercer, Hearts. 2 caps.

31 Hearts players saw service during the First World War. Six were killed in action. Another three died during the conflict. Three more, including Bob Mercer, died after 1918 as a consequence of injuries suffered during the war.

Hearts: Community Stadium, Civil Strife

"Hearts are to work with City of Edinburgh Council to look into the feasibility of a community stadium, the football club have revealed." (BBC Sport)

And the alarm bells start ringing.

Yes, I'm a Hibs fan.

And many Hibs fans will recoil at the very suggestion - and at this stage a suggestion is all it is - that the City of Edinburgh Council should get involved in a Hearts stadium scheme.

But that's not the motivation for my concern.

There are obvious benefits to Hearts leaving Tynecastle. It would end a chapter of Scottish football history - Hibs have plenty of bad memories and a few good ones to remind us of trips across the city - but it seems clear that the old ground is now too restricted for development.

If a move was to make Hearts stronger then it would be up to the rest of us to try and match them.

It might also ease whatever financial pressures continue to swirl around Gorgie. There would have to be - in the sensible execution of local government - questions asked if the council was to play a role in soothing those maroon economic ills.

That should probably not detain us right now. I'm certainly not a Hibs fan who sees any direct benefit in financial catastrophe befalling our nearest rivals.

The very idea of a community stadium should appeal to my politics and my ideas of a healthy civic life.

For a good few years I was of the opinion that Hibs and the local authority should have worked together on the redevelopment of Easter Road in tandem with the redevelopment of Meadowbank.

I now think I was wrong. And I worry that any joint moves by Hearts and the council would be folly on a grand scale.

A football stadium can - perhaps should - be a community hub. But that doesn't mean council funds should be appropriated. I'm convinced that source of funding would fail, especially in a city of Edinburgh's size.

Maybe my views have been tainted by reading Dave Zirin's Bad Sports: How Owners Are Ruining the Games We Love.

The book is a Zirin polemic and one that features the worrying American trend of sports franchise owners turning the hunt for public money to build new "ball parks" into an Olympian pursuit. (For UK reference see the grappling over the London 2012 stadium).

But he does tell us that the idea of council funds being used to lift Hearts from Gorgie and dropping them elsewhere in Edinburgh - inevitably and unimaginatively pitched as an exercise in regeneration - would likely fail.

Researchers at the University of Maryland and the University of Alberta looked at thirty years of evidence and "failed to discover a single example of a sports franchise jump-starting the local economy."

Not that Hearts would be a franchise dropped from a great height. But location would be everything.

Even more so with a "community" stadium that would necessarily have to act as a multi-sport and leisure hub for the whole city. Where would it be? What facilities would be lost elsewhere? Would people travel? Or would participants - young, old, serious, just-for-fun-ers - be lost to sport?

As an Edinburgh resident, as a council tax payer, I'd want answers to those questions.

But that wouldn't be my biggest concern.

Edinburgh has a council that is morally bankrupt, teetering on the financial brink, possibly criminally corrupt and too often indulgent of incompetence.

What confidence should anybody - Hearts, Hibs or football hater - have in that council to make the right decisions on the location or construction of a football stadium?

I'm not sure how many people in Edinburgh would accept that these councillors or their officials have either the moral authority or the basic ability to make those decisions.

We have a right to expect better. We also have a right, I'm afraid, to expect that the council won't build a stadium - for Hearts, for Hibs, for the Scottish Rugby Union - at the same time as they're handing out compulsory redundancies.

It would take a hell of a business plan - complete with every social contingency for every area of the city that might feel knock on effects - to convince me that this partnership could work.

Anything else would feel like a stab in the dark. Mr Romanov has always struck me as a man appreciative of the legend of Hannibal. White elephants are probably not his thing.

Hearts would be advised to ca' canny.

Jump into bed with just anyone and they might suddenly find that Scotland's monkeys wear many a different disguise.

Donate to the Scottish Football Blog Blogathon, 19 November 2011

Europa League: Hearts Look To Earn Their Spurs

The return of European football. Scotland expects.

The worst, usually.

Dundee United have already shuffled off, cramming a qualifying defeat into the SPL's blink-and-you'll-miss-it summer holiday.

Three survive. Rangers reward for not winning their Champions League qualifier is a shot at the Europa League if they can negotiate past Slovenia's NK Maribor in the play off round.

Celtic take their first steps in this season's continental competition against Switzerland's FC Sion, opponents who may or may not be on the verge of fielding illegally signed players.

Big games both. Big questions to answer. Ally McCoist has lost out on the Champions League cash 'n' carry already. Can he - or Rangers - afford the ignominy of another exit before August is out?

Neil Lennon's Celtic pulled off that unfortunate double last season. The Europa League might not be his European tournament of choice but unfinished business remains.

It's Hearts though who have landed the plummiest of plum draws as one of London's biggest clubs come calling.

Heart of Midlothian v Tottenham Hotspur.

As someone said to me over the weekend: "That's the sort of draw you want, none o' this fittering around wi' Eastern European clubs you cannae pronounce."

Can neither pronounce nor beat most of the time. But it's fair to say that non-Old Firm Scottish clubs rarely get a chance, now that we're very much the paupers of UEFA's stratified society, to get these sort of fixtures, games that hark back to the golden age when Europe was smaller and we took our place at the top table.

Another Battle of Britain. A clash that resonates with a certain history. In 1902 these clubs battled for the (albeit contrived) title of world champions - Hearts took the honours.

Memories of Dave Mackay have resounded through the decades at both clubs, a name never far from any list of all time greats at Hearts or at White Hart Lane.

Spurs' coach Joe Jordan spent a couple of years as manager at Tynecastle in the early 1990s.

His time as boss coincided with the first Gulf War. A joke from that period:

"What have Saddam Hussein and Wallace Mercer got in common? They've both got Jordan by the balls."

Funny? Not now. Probably not then. But illustrative of how Jordan's memories of Hearts might not be the fondest of a storied career.

If he is at all motivated by revenge the odds looked stacked in his favour. Fifth place in the English Premier League, on the back of a top four finish the previous season, requires a weight of resources and talent that Hearts, Scotland's "third force," can't begin to match.

As the Bard wrote: "O wad some Power the giftie gie us, To see oursels as ithers see us!"

The power is the internet. The "ithers" are Spurs fans less captivated by this fixture than their Caledonian cousins:

"Heart of Midlothian are more or less everything that is disappointing about the Scottish Premier League. They started off the season with a couple of good results, then canned their manager for no good reason. They have a few high quality players, but the squad is a whole is not good enough to be terribly competitive. The sponsor on their jersey looks like crap. None of their good players are actually Scottish. Hearts are a microcosm of everything that blows about the SPL. They are a random clusterf--k of 'meh.'" (Cartilage Free Captain)

Which would suggest that hopes of maroon glory are little more than a foolish notion.

Perhaps.

It's hard to see how Hearts can possibly win in Edinburgh let alone in the return leg. Spurs are simply a better team. There's a gulf that will show over the course of 90 minutes, let alone over the course of two matches.

But Tynecastle can be inhospitable and rumbustious. Hearts have players who will give themselves fully to the cause. And there will be some in attendance who have, at the back of their minds, a slight conviction that - even when hampered by a crap corporate shirt sponsor - David can sometimes slay Goliath.

Harry's army have already been rebuffed once, sent on to St Andrews tae think again with Edinburgh's hotels fit to burst at the height of the festival.

Will they be repelled again? The fact that some of the tartan media is presenting 'Arry's 'otel 'orror as being an important psychological blow suggests straws are being clutched.

On the other hand Spurs seem to be worried about injuries, have not yet played a competitive game after their league opener lost out to rioting youths and have a manager prepared to give as much time to the Europa League as he would to a journalist asking questions about dodgy deals.

Impossible is nothing? No, it's definitely something. But it would be nice to think this could be one of the great Tynecastle European nights, that Hearts can be competitive enough to stay in touch, to at least travel to London with something at stake.

If, at the end of the night, Joe Jordan's removing his specs anticipating a run in with Ian Black then the Jambos might even have got them rattled.

> That Spurs injury list in full:

• Sandro
• Wilson Palacios
• Steven Pienaar
• Luka Modric
• Jermaine Jenas
• Tom Huddlestone (maybe)
• Ledley King
• Alan Hutton
• William Gallas

Which will leave the squad looking a little something like this:

Gomes, Friedel, Cudicini, Bale, Kaboul, Bassong, Dawson, Corluka, Walker, Assou-Ekotto, Huddlestone, Lennon, Van der Vaart, Kranjcar, Rose, Livermore, Pavlyuchenko, Defoe, Crouch

Pretty much devoid of the well known, the well paid or the odd bloke who finished a World Cup final captaining his country.

A squad, in fact, that would be happy to simply establish itself among the SPL's middle order.

Hearts: Romanov Strikes Again

It seems we're running out of ways to describe Vladimir Romanov's unpredictability.

Apparently from nowhere came the news that Jim Jefferies was to be relieved of his position as manager. Shock, gnashing of teeth and frank changes of opinion followed.

Jefferies' assistant Billy Brown was sacked. Jefferies himself was offered a position as director of football and is said to be considering his next move.

"Nasty foreign owner treats club legend and all round Scottish fitba' gentleman with a continental disdain."

Or, "struggling manager pays the price of a poverty of ideas in a poor sequence of results."

As in life, so in football - these things are rarely rendered in such contrasting black and white.

One win in 14 games through the end of last season and the opening fixtures of this campaign aren't the kind of statistics likely to appeal to Romanov.

Given that I'd had a good five or six discussions about that very record between the end of Sunday's loss to Dundee United and Twitter breaking the news of yesterday's departures it should have been less of a shock.

And the textbook nature of the change - the quick, cool act of regicide and the new king across the water, in the shape of Paulo Sergio, ready to take over - suggests this had been brewing.

Clearly Mr Romanov hadn't flown in for Sunday's game just to see how Dundee United would cope in the post-Goodwillie era.

Has he made the right decision?

Jim Jefferies, club legend and the bulwark of stability that Romanov's Hearts seem to have lacked, had taken his team to third place. In February there was talk of a sustained challenge to the Old Firm.

That challenge fell away and results tailed off as an apparent over reliance on the creaking joints of Kevin Kyle was exposed.

But with that third place came the promise of European football. Jefferies appeared to have weathered the storm of some interference from his owner in team selection at the end of last season.

An uneasy alliance it might have been, an almost stereotypical product of Scottish football steeped in its traditions and eccentricities and the self-made outsider who sees subterfuge and enemies in every corner, but Jim Jefferies looked like he could prosper.

He was given the freedom to strike early in the transfer window and the players brought in seemed more likely to be targets identified by the manager than Romanov's own, at times idiosyncratic, scouting system.

Pre-season went well. The Craig Thomson furore was mishandled in Lithuania but soundly enough negotiated by the manager. Pundits fell over themselves (this blog included) to declare Hearts the only real contenders as the best of the rest.

A draw at Ibrox in the SPL's curtain raiser and a sound 1-1 away draw against Paksi in Europe seemed a confident enough start. But somewhere along the line Romanov's frustration and concerns had bubbled over.

Experience tells us that when that happens a very public parting of the ways is inevitable.

Jefferies, the stoic, grumpy survivor hewn from Scottish footballing granite, will offer the prevalent narrative its victim. Romanov, whose Eastern European villainy seems to predate the end of the Cold War, its James Bond baddie. Mad, Vlad and dangerous to work for.

How Jefferies and Brown would have fared this season will forever be open to conjecture.

My own view is that stability would have helped Hearts more than another step into the unknown. But perhaps this time Romanov's timing has some justification.

The new manager will have the benefit of Jefferies' pre-season preparation and his recruitment of a group of players who look well equipped for the rigours of an SPL season. And, if Romanov gets his way, Jefferies will remain involved.

The new manager inherits that legacy and a European platform to build on.

In Paulo Sergio, a peripatetic coach in Portugal over the last decade or so, Romanov has an employee who might more gladly embrace the Tynecastle way of doing things.

Short tenures at a series of Portuguese clubs will have given him experience in the necessity of making an immediate impact, of adapting to different club environments and adopting a malleability that would have stuck in Jefferies' craw.

He last worked for Sporting, a club whose turnover of coaches in the last decade almost rivals that of Hearts (managerial carousels seem an Edinburgh failing at the moment).

Suggestions of a link with Romanov through a trusted agent also point to a coach who will know what to expect and be prepared to hit the ground running.

Romanov's unpredictability enthrals us and decisions like this seem to play up to the caricature he has created since arriving in Scotland.

That yesterday's events also throw up a wronged and respected Scottish manager being replaced by a foreign hired hand allows us to indulge our distrust of change and perhaps even our continued - misplaced - footballing xenophobia.

But what if, for once, we take Romanov at face value? What if Jefferies' usefulness in the front-line has been expended and in Sergio he has found the "new direction" the club needs?

That reading of events would allow us to agree that Jefferies has been treated shabbily - behaviour that is hardly unique in Scottish football - but that he's also the victim of a decision made in the best interests of the club.

It remains a gamble - and one suspects Romanov's known both the joy and the despair of a roll of the dice - and only time and results will offer conclusive proof of the wisdom of the change. But sometimes strange, oddly timed decisions can work.

Even for this observer, planted on the other side of the Edinburgh tracks, it will be compelling to watch. Whatever else we think about Romanov and his modus operandi it's hard to argue that he adds drama and an unpredictable gaiety to this little footballing nation.

SPL: Attack On Neil Lennon Overshadows Celtic Win

"It could be a stoater."

That's how I signed off my preview of tonight's Hearts v Celtic game.

We got a rather one sided 3-0 win for Celtic. We got two red cards as the referee stuck rigidly to the letter of the law.

And, above it all, we got someone from a home section of Tynecastle trying to attack Neil Lennon.

Other reports suggest trouble breaking out in elsewhere in the ground in an atmosphere widely described as "poisonous."

Jim Jefferies, who has seen more than most at Tynecastle over the years, said there "was something in the air, ready to kick off from the start."

A poisonous atmosphere is one thing. Disliking an opposing manager is part of the game. Combining that into a platform to try and assault someone? Well, I suppose that's just beyond my ken.

This season of woe and despair takes another lurch towards abject misery.

A lone attacker. An eejit. A lunatic. Whatever.

It seems too many of these idiots are currently feeding off a footballing atmosphere that is becoming more hysterically putrid with every passing week.

Given all that's happened this season I suppose we should be thankful that the assailant seemed to be held up as he approached Lennon. And that he didn't have any kind of weapon except his own brainless bampottery.

Again we ask ourselves how much of this Neil Lennon can possibly take before he walks away for his own safety?

Imagine that. Scottish football in 2011. And we might be looking at a man hounded from a job he loves because his personal safety is being compromised.

What does that say about Scottish football?

You don't have to pretend to be a fan of Lennon to realise that something is going horribly wrong here.

How can we persuade people back to the game, bring families to our stadiums, when a manager no longer seems to be safe inside or outside the ground.

Hearts, the SPL, the SFA and the police will launch investigations. Hearts, I suspect, will face severe censure.

But Lennon was only a leap and a sprint away from his attacker. Difficult to see what clubs can really do to stop people who see that intimacy - which should enhance the atmosphere at the game - as an invitation to go crazy.

Celtic's win set up another title deciding helicopter Sunday this weekend. But the front and back pages of the newspapers, the news and sport bulletins, won't be talking about that.

Instead we'll be reliving another disgraceful chapter in this toxic season.

Most of us just want it to end now. It stopped being anything like fun a long time ago. And amidst talk of the severity of the incident, of investigations and concern, the authorities don't seem to have any real sense of how they can prevent it.

Somehow Scottish football has descended into a morass where a minority - and thankfully it is a tiny minority that seems to either go to these extremes or condone them - think they are entitled to act like this.

Most of us are sickened by this kind of thing. Most of us love the game despite everything that's been thrown at us over the seasons and this new level of madness that we're being subjected to at the moment.

But how much longer can Scottish football be dragged through the gutter before we decide that this really isn't worth the hassle?

And where does the game go from there?

SFA Hit Neil Lennon For Six

Dearie me. Just when you thought we'd all recovered our equilibrium along comes another furore, threatening to turn into a Scottish football civil war.

Celtic manager Neil Lennon has been hit with a six match ban for losing the rag at Tynecastle after his team were denied what appeared to be a fairly blatant penalty and Joe Ledley was sent off in a 2-0 defeat to Hearts.

Lennon was given an automatic two match ban. He subsequently appealed and it was at yesterday's appeal hearing that the SFA's Disciplinary Committee took the decision to treble that original punishment citing excessive misconduct.

That this news has not received a particularly warm welcome in certain quarters would be an understatement.

Clearly this story is going to run and run. Here are some initial thoughts:

An "unprecedented" punishment? It's not. Derek Adams, then manager of Ross County, had an 18 match ban earlier this season. The circumstances were different but the idea that the SFA have quietly introduced something akin to capital punishment to deal with Lennon and Lennon alone is misleading.

It was a first offence. That makes no difference. I spent longer than anyone would want to yesterday reading the SFA's Disciplinary Procedures for Club Officials’ Misconduct. The number of offences is only relevant to the initial automatic suspension, at the appeals stage each case is treated as a one-off.

For once, and unfortunately for Lennon, the SFA have been as good as their word. After the referee's strike SFA chief executive Stewart Regan said:

"There is a process in place already for dealing with anybody from any club that steps out of line and those individuals are dealt with through the various committees who operate within the SFA and that will continue.

"But obviously we'll take a much tougher stance going forward."

It's Neil Lennon's bad luck - or depending on your viewpoint the SFA's good fortune - that this was the first such case to be considered since then.

My own view is that the punishment was harsh. We don't know the exact nature of what Lennon said to the fourth official although we can tell he was rather miffed.

Nor do we know how the appeals hearing unfolded.

So we are not in possession of the full facts. What we can say for certain is that the SFA have acted within the limits of the rules. They've been severe, I think overly severe, but they've done it by the book.

Excessive misconduct, incidentally, is defined as:

“Excessive Misconduct” shall include, but not be limited to, prolonged incidents of misconduct, the
continued use of offensive, abusive and insulting language, calling a match official a cheat, failure to comply with a referee’s requests, the adoption of threatening and aggressive behaviour towards a
match official.

Celtic's reaction?

Predictably they've decided against rolling over and accepting the punishment:

“Celtic and Neil Lennon confirmed today that they will be appealing today's decision by the SFA Disciplinary Committee to impose a six-match touchline ban.

“The matter is in the hands of the club's lawyers.

“We are very surprised and extremely disappointed at today's decision - we believe the punishment imposed was excessive in the circumstances and to our knowledge unprecedented for a first offence.

“We have maintained for some time that a range of SFA's processes and structures needed to be reviewed and updated. This view was supported recently by Henry McLeish in his review of the SFA.

“Today's events only underline and reinforce our opinion. Without question Celtic will be supporting its manager Neil Lennon in his appeal .

“As well as challenging the severity of the punishment imposed, our appeal will also focus on issues of procedural fairness and the manner in which such hearings are conducted.”

A bit of naughtiness in there. Celtic should be aware of the rules. As I've noted the first offence makes no difference once the appeal process begins.

And a broadening out of the case. The involvement of lawyers, we can imagine this to be Paul McBride QC, and an attack on the whole disciplinary procedure at the SFA.

An attack vindicated by the findings of the McLeish Report. I'm betting that George Peat is happy he didn't get a hard cover put on that report because he's about to be hit about the heid with it.

So where are we now? The SFA will claim that they've acted honourably and delivered on the get tough promises they gave to referees.

Celtic claim, with some justification, that the punishment is overly stringent and that the very method of deciding that punishment is flawed beyond repair.

We've got, in essence, another sorry mess.

There are faults on both sides. We all know the SFA is in need of urgent repair. Most of us could see that Lennon's behaviour towards the fourth official, however justified he felt at the time, could not go unpunished.

We can only wait and see what happens next. I dislike the idea that Celtic taking a sledgehammer to the SFA is the best way to bring about the change we all want.

I've also been of the opinion for some time that, for whatever reason, these are fights Celtic want to have. It seems the SFA and their Disciplinary Committee are now ready to go toe to toe with them.

Once again I fear that Scottish football, its reputation and the campaign for real modernisation are going to be the major casualties.

Aye, its a joy to be a fitba' fan in 2011.

> Celtic statement via STV

> The SFA's rules document. Thrilling read that it is.

The Scottish Football Blog News Feed

Vlad's Back Part Four

The latest statement from Tynecastle pulls one of Vladimir Romanov’s favourite tricks. He is the wronged party, attacked at every turn by a Scottish establishment that seems to mistrust any new kids on the block.

Interestingly enough Tam Cowan and Stuart Cosgrove made a point about the media’s treatment of Romanov being in some way racist on Off the Ball a few weeks ago. I disagree with that analysis and, it must be noted, Vladimir doesn’t seem to have too high an opinion of Scots.

But the statement, in my opinion, doesn’t fully convince as a disavowal of the earlier interview. Romanov concedes that there is no corruption in the Scottish game. That seems to take care of the allegations of “buy-offs” in the Daily Record transcript.

But – and inevitably there is a but where Vlad is concerned – the talk of player “betrayal,” “hooped shirts,” “kids being pushed” and “seduction of the soul” seem to chime with comments in the earlier interview.

Does that mean the much maligned translator has made only one or two mistakes? Or that the Daily Record deliberately and knowingly included “distortion” in their story? Or that the Russian journalist – who must be bemused by the storm this has created - lied in the original interview?

The Andy Webster comment and the national team remarks leave me quite bamboozled. Given his extensive knowledge of UEFA’s rule on club ownership and loan deals, I would have felt that Romanov would have few quibbles with a player exercising his legal right. I’m not sure which Hearts players have badly let down the national team while on Romanov’s payroll.

George Burley, Phil Anderton, Graham Rix and George Foulkes probably all agree with Romanov that there is very little “heroic” about betrayal. But will Romanov now only sign players that are out of contract. Or will the lure of his wages and a maroon shirt not “seduce” players from other clubs. Will that be a betrayal of their clubs?

As for the Edinburgh section at the end. Well, you tell me? Who are these monkeys? Is it a dig at Tom Ponton for questioning the valuation of the land around Tynecastle?

The bizarre Photoshop monkey would seem to point at the media but Edinburgh’s paper, the Evening News, tends to display only sickening acquiescence to the city’s clubs and – thank God – does not rule the city.

So it was Vlad’s day. Again. But we’re not really any closer to finding out the truth about the interview or what his motives were with the statement of denial. If the statement was intended to calm things down it has failed. The monkey picture is a PR disaster that the media will pounce on.

Does he love publicity? Once again he has put himself and Hearts at the centre of a media storm that has now gone global. A Google News search reveals the story is being run in Australia, America and the United Arab Emirates. But surely nobody craves this kind of publicity?

Is he creating an exit strategy by showing that despite his efforts he can’t succeed against the obstacles that Scotland has put in his way? Only he can tell us that and I doubt he’ll do that anytime soon. So we wait and we wait. We hypothesise and we gossip but we don’t really know.

It will be up to history to judge if Pressley and company betrayed Hearts or if the Romanov rollercoaster will derail. All we can say is that, with this interview and this statement, Romanov has done very little that could be called “heroic” for Hearts. But as if to prove that his unpredictability is his only consistent trait Romanov has ordered Craig Gordon back into the squad for this weekend's game.

Truly Vlad moves in mysterious ways.

Congratulations to the SPFA, Time for Others To Wake Up

Congratulations to the SPFA for coming out and making a stand against Vladimir Romanov.

Fraser Wishart, secretary of the Scottish Professional Footballers Association, said:

“The SPFA condemns in the strongest of terms what it regards as the wholly unjustified treatment of Heart of Midlothian FC towards our member, Steven Pressley.

"The SPFA and its parent body, the GMB union, have long been concerned about the unorthodox managerial and employment practices of the club and the effects this has had on the personal and professional welfare of our members at the club.

"Steven Pressley has had and will continue to enjoy the full support and backing of the SPFA.

"We, along with our legal team, will offer Steven every assistance to enable him to seek redress via internal football procedures or other means."

I’ve said before that Pressley is the only person to come out of this whole mess with any dignity and he deserves the full backing of everyone in the game.

I almost hope this does end in a Scottish courtroom and Romanov’s running of the club, good or bad, is exposed once and for all.

George Burley and Phil Anderton also still have issues with Romanov that may only be resolved through some kind of legal process.

At the same time Romanov, and his represent on earth, Pedro Lopez, are trying to ensure that any staff leaving Gorgie sign confidentiality agreements that keep a lid on the Tynecastle drama.

The mysterious Mr Lopez now seems to be calling the shots as Director of Infrastructure. Does any other club in Britain have a Director of Infrastructure?

But the fact is that individual disputes, even those backed by trade unions, will not go far enough. The SFA, the SPL and UEFA need to act.

Hearts seem to be in the process of being ripped apart by the personal whims of a man that still has no official role at the club.

Many people will enjoy one side of Edinburgh being made a mockery of. But the whole of Scottish football is suffering whilst this pantomime is being played out.

For the good of the game Vladimir Romanov must be brought to heel by the football authorities.

The Week in Scottish Football

The runners and riders in Scottish football over the last seven days:

Well Done You!

Until this afternoon Kilmarnock were going to get this for performance of the week. But Falkirk made a late charge and came through on the inside after putting Rangers to the sword.

A special mention to Scott Brown. After building up a reputation as the player other teams love to hate he’s achieved a double whammy by becoming the player the Hibs fans love to hate. A transfer request months after signing a new contract is not endearing. A transfer request minutes after an abject performance is insulting.

Oh Dear!

Stephen Kenny went back over the water to win the FAI Cup with Derry City. Congratulations but after a 6-1 loss yesterday Dunfermline fans will be asking where the manager’s thoughts have been this week.

Paul Le Guen. Turning the corner on Saturday. Hits a dead end on Sunday. Much work still to do.

Villain of the Week

Management at Hearts. Some optimism had returned. Then Steven Pressley was dumped again and the gloom descended once more.

Willie McKay or Rod Petrie. Petrie must wonder how keeping his mouth shut has meant becoming involved in a war of words. McKay says Petrie is in the wrong. Thomson and Brown act like children. Somewhere along the line football becomes the loser.

Hearts: End of the Affair as Fans Wake Up to Vlad?

On Friday Rangers and Hearts sat second and third in the SPL table. By Sunday evening Rangers had moved back into second and Hearts had fallen to fifth.

But has a game between two sides occupying such lofty status in the top division ever been overshadowed to the extent this one was?

Sure Rangers haven’t exactly been resting on a bed of roses this season but Paul Le Guen must at least be grateful that it’s David Murray that wields the axe at Ibrox and not Vladimir Romanov.

Last season as the Jambo’s won the cup and split the Old Firm in the league the Tynecastle faithful were on top of the world. The west coast media, they claimed, had done everything they could to pour cold water on the Romanov revolution. Now with the silverware locked up in the trophy room and the Champion’s League just around the corner Mad Vlad was exonerated.

Sure there were concerns over the number of loan deals, over the revolving doors to the manager’s office and Romanov’s constant tinkering. But so what? Why not just get on with it and see if Hearts could actually break the Glasgow duopoly on the title this year?

And what’s more the spine of the team, Gordon, Pressley and Hartley, were there to ensure continuity and Scottish passion. It was these three who would let the newcomers know what it meant to be Hearts players, would ensure the traditions of the club would be upheld.

And now? Hearts are to all intents and purposes managerless. The only remaining Scottish coach, John McGlynn, no doubt sprinted across the Forth Road Bridge as he escaped to Raith Rovers. And what of the big Scottish three?

Pressley has been dropped for the last two games for having the temerity to speak out at the Romanov grand plan. Hartley and Gordon, who sat next to their captain as he finally broke the united front on the Lithuanian takeover, are being tolerated in the side but look set to join Elvis on the transfer list in January.

So the fans have woken up. Dropping Pressley, the talisman, who has acted with nothing but dignity through the whole sorry saga, was the final straw for many of them.

The protests after the Rangers game only amounted to a couple of hundred disgruntled supporters. But at football clubs these thing snowball and there was many more than that booing the ineffectual Lithuanians who filled the team on Sunday.

That was nothing more than racism according to Sports Director Alex Koslovski, neatly sidestepping the reality of the growing unrest towards the regime he represents by accusing his own fans of bigotry.

It was nothing of the sort – it was a protest at inferior players. No doubt Vlad and Alex had a good laugh at their cleverness in attacking their own fans. Perhaps the SFA and UEFA would like to challenge that by slapping a fine on Hearts for racism, with their own Sporting Director as the chief prosecution witness and all right minded football people on the side of the defence.

The truth is Hearts are in turmoil. Expect Romanov to make some principled declaration about wanting only good men, honest and true, in the dressing room when he sells Pressley, Hartley and Gordon (probably along with Robbie Nielsen).

The truth is all three are a drain on resources and Hartley and Gordon can still command large transfer fees.

By speaking out, by acting with integrity, Pressely gave Romanov the chance to act. He’ll exercise his power by bringing in much needed revenue to offset his eccentric handling of the club’s finances.

Like George Burley and Graham Rix. Pressley and co have become pawns in the game that Vlad is playing. So from January young Scots will take to the field with a ragbag of Lithuanian loan signings. For the good of the club Romanov will say. Perhaps, but also the cheaper option.

Maybe Mr Romanov knows where this is going, maybe he doesn’t. Certainly nobody else at the moment is willing to predict a happy ending for Hearts, indeed, many are predicting the death of the club.

Only time will tell. In the meantime it is the fans who are suffering most at the hands of Mad, Bad Vlad. By treating an honourable man like Pressley the way he has, the submariner had torpedoed the hopes of the faithful.