by John Drake
So much for the bubble bursting then, eh?
Nine games into the 2005-’06 Season, and Hearts continue to both surprise and confound for the anticipated collapse has yet to materialise and, instead, they find themselves leading the SPL. Having experienced so many ups and downs over the years following the Club, at times I have to pinch myself that this really is Heart of Midlothian Football Club that I’ve been watching thus far this season. I have a nagging fear at the back of my mind that this all a big illusion, and that one morning I’ll wake up and open the paper to discover that Chris Robinson is still holding court at Tynecastle, Tommy MacLean is manager and that Craig Gordon has been replaced in goals by Craig Nelson! URGH! Scary stuff…..
But while it’s still very early in the Season, and it may be premature to start talking about Champions League qualification – let alone the title – it is difficult not to become intoxicated by the football the team are playing, and to try and keep my feet on the ground. The difference between this Season and last is so marked that even the Pre-Season Tour to Ireland, just back in July, now seems a world away. From the disappointing, stuttering end to last Season, the team are now playing with confidence and purpose, football that has seen the fans flocking back and a reappearance of “Sold Out” signs at Tynecastle’s turnstiles.
This year’s Pre-Season jaunt was shorter than recent expeditions to Finland or the Low Countries, but it still felt as though the few members of R.H.S.C. on tour managed to cram a week’s worth of drinking into the few days they were in Ireland. Yes, fear not, dear reader, the small party in Dublin upheld R.H.S.C.’s finest traditions of drunken debauchery in foreign lands – such as teaching the patrons of a Dublin hostelry the ‘European Song’. Oh, and enlightening them that some poor Monkey’s got a “Tony Mowbray heid”. Other notable successes included one of our number even managing to score in Bray with some of the local talent:
* No Seagulls were harmed during the posing of this photograph.
The first match of the tour - against St. Patrick’s Athletic at Dublin’s Richmond Park – ended in a drab nil-nil draw, the game’s most significant moment being the stretchering-off of Graeme Weir. Having missed most of last Season through a combination of illness, injury, and poor form, Weir’s luck did not look to have improved any after a crunching tackle left him with a broken leg; here’s hoping he is on the mend. This severe injury left Callum Elliott and Dennis Wyness as the only recognised strikers on the tour – news which, combined with the revelation that Webster had stayed in Scotland, a rumoured move to the Forces of Darkness a seeming fait-accompli, did not feel like a good portent for the forthcoming season. However, it’s amazing what wonders a few days in the sun and a few dozen pints of Guiness and Smethwicks can do for you. After a knackering dash from deepest, darkest Kilkenny - where we had been boosting the coffers of the local public houses - back up to Dublin and then a dash on ‘da Dart down the coast to sun-kissed Bray, we saw Hearts run out 5-1 winners against Bray Wanderers at the town’s Carlisle Grounds. This match was, unsurprisingly, much more enjoyable than the stalemate against St. Pat’s, with the best goal coming right at the end of the game, when Bray’s Romanian striker and cult figure, ‘Franco’ Georgescu, rocketed a 25-yard shot past young Jamie MacDonald into the top corner for a well-deserved consolation for the hosts.
Nursing hangovers, further jaunts to pre-season matches against the likes of East Fife, Stirling Albion and Berwick Rangers, left questions to be answered and the team still very much looked like an unknown quantity with the new season approaching rapidly. However, I’m sure many supporters’ minds were set at ease during the home friendly against Middlesbrough, when a packed Tynie – thanks to a wonderful piece of PR from Anderton with free entry for all – got their first glimpse of the likes of Skacel, Bednar, Pospisil and Brellier, and an idea of the caliber of player George Burley was looking to attract.
From the first day victory at Rugby Park, though, I think it’s fair to say the team has outlived all expectations. Many wondered how long it would take for the new signings to gel into the team, but the fact that we’ve been able to make such a great start to the season, playing with such verve and with so many new faces in the side, must be testimony not only to the managerial skills of Burley and his backroom staff, but also the players currently at the Club, as the team spirit is evident at the end of every game. So, all things seem rosy, with this looking to be a season to savour for those of us who have had to go through the wringer following Hearts during recent difficult times. However, despite our start, we have still had to field some criticism from the sports media.
One of the (many) bugbears the Media seem to have about our current upturn in form has been that this foreign investment will somehow dilute the Club’s identity. If anyone needs an example of a Club losing its tradition, of being stripped of its identity, then they should cast an eye over the Alps, into Austria, and the case of SV Austria Salzburg, or, Red-Bull Salzburg as they have now been renamed. In April, the Club was taken over by Dietrich Mateschitz, the major shareholder of Red Bull, who promised the fans the Club would have an annual budget of €30m and would become a major force in European football. But, rather than take the Violett-Weiss to the Promised Land, the takeover has taken the Salzburg fans on a journey to hell. Rather than embrace the heritage of the Club, Mateschitz has sought to Rembrandt it, to effectively make it a marketing tool for his drinks firm. The Club crest has gone, replaced by the Red Bull motif, the club’s history has been largely forsaken by the new regime, and, most sacrilegious of all, the club’s traditional colours of Violet and White have been changed to Red and White – again, to reflect the owning company, with the Club arguing that it “couldn’t be called Red Bull if it played in Violet!”
The new investment also saw the former Austrian Internationalist Kurt Jara take over as manager, with several high profile players being added to the squad – including the experienced Thomas Linke, Alexander Zickler and Vratislav Lokvenc from the German Bundesliga. However, having sturdy financial backing is no guarantee of success, for despite the investment, Salzburg’s fortunes on the field have not improved any. After a disappointing campaign last season, at the time of writing Salzburg are sitting near the bottom of the league. On-field underachievement has been matched by vociferous off-field demonstrations by the Salzburg supporters at the shameful “makeover” of their Club. Support for the Salzburg fans’ opposition to the new regime is starting to spread, and recently there was a weekend of action across Europe and beyond, as numerous fans groups voiced their support of the pro Violett-Weiss camp, and opposition to this blatant commercialisation of the game. And we thought we had a tough time of it with the pie-purveying regime at Tynecastle?!
Another bone of contention has been the reaction to the Hearts’ signing policy – if some reports are to be believed, the Club were being swamped by second-rate foreigners who were no better than players already plying their trade in Scotland. I suspect a lot of this was just ignorance because after that first day victory at Rugby Park many critics quickly changed their minds about the likes of Skacel or Bednar. It’s all very well for the media to decry us for not signing players from other Scottish Clubs, but you wonder where these wee gems are hidden away? I think there are some good players out there, but the other Clubs would never want to sell them, they would price them out of the market, and if we did sign any we would just be accused of tapping up all the other Clubs’ best players. The players might not want to sign for us either, as in the case with Lee Miller, so I think it’s all too easy for the media to start glibly accusing us of signing foreign unknowns, because I believe that the new players we have brought in are simply better than their Scottish alternative.
It’s not as if we’re signing journeymen from Southampton or Burnley – we’ve picked up players from established clubs such as Internazionale, L’OM, and have taken on a Champions League winner and a key member of the Greece team which triumphed in Euro 2004. Burley has gone on record as saying that Bednar is one of the most talented young players he has ever worked with, while Rudi Skacel has impressed everyone with his energy, enthusiasm, work rate, and happy knack of regularly scoring. Looking around the SPL are there any Scottish players you would willingly swap our new signings for? Would you swap Bednar for the likes of Stevie Crawford? No, thought not.
Furthermore, according to certain sages, by bringing in so many players from the continent, Hearts were not contributing to the national game and, as such, were making Walter Smith’s role as national coach even harder. My own personal favourite was one ‘learned’ (sic) pundit’s view that:
“Of course it is a crying shame that Hearts cannot seem to make the same progress with Scottish players, but that observation must be applied similarly to Celtic and Rangers. Ultimately the concerns of most fans are with their clubs. The well-being of the national team is much less of a priority than once it was, which for me is a sad state of affairs. But that's showbusiness. Walter Smith and his successors will be the real victims of the rush of foreign players to our top league but only those of us who put the state of our international side before any club will shed a tear…”
So we were getting as bad as the Old (In)Firm, were we? We have starting XI’s composed entirely of foreigners? Did we not finish the Derby against Hibs with a younger team, with more Scots in it than the Cabbage? Were there not eight Scottish players in the team that ended the game against Rangers? It seems strange then, does it not, that in Scotland’s recent internationals against Italy and Norway, the starting XI had a distinct maroon tinge to it? But then, when did the Scottish meedja ever let the facts get in the way of hyperbole…
While the World Cup Qualifying campaign ended in disappointment, I think, as Hearts supporters, we should be proud of the fact that Hearts are, for the moment, providing at least 4 of Smith’s first-choice team. Should Gordon, Webster and Hartley continue their current form for both Club and Country, I can envisage them playing for the national side for many years to come, while it can only be a matter of time before Steven Pressley breaks Bobby Walker’s long-held record of Scottish International Caps earned by a Hearts player. With any luck, we’ll have more players emulating this achievement sooner rather than later.
So what more can we expect from Hearts this season? Certainly, given the start we’ve made, expectations are understandably riding high down Gorgie way. Okay, so we’ve just missed out on the treble; so we may have a blip; so we may have an injury crisis. But then again, we may not and then… and then, who knows? One thing’s for sure, I’ve learned to stop worrying and started to enjoy the ride.
Long Live the Revolution!
J.D.