Willie No Come Back Again?

‘It was rare to see so many youngsters playing in the first team together. As with most youngsters they could lack self-confidence and belief in themselves. What they needed was some old heads to lift them both on and off the park. They’re a talented bunch.’

Those are the words of a former Scotland internationalist who played for Hearts at the end of an illustrious, if controversial playing career. However, Willie Johnston wasn’t talking about the current crop of youngsters plying their trade at Tynecastle. In his excellent biography ‘Sent Off at Gunpoint’, Johnston was talking about the group of young players with dodgy 1980s hairstyles who were trying to break into the Hearts first team more than 30 years ago in 1982. One of the finest left wingers ever to play for Scotland, ’Bud’ Johnston was 35 years old when he was signed by then Hearts manager Alex Macdonald in September 1982. The likes of John Robertson, Gary Mackay, John Brough and Davie Bowman were the future of a club that was almost on its knees in 1981 before Wallace Mercer saved Edinburgh’s oldest and finest football club from oblivion. Three decades on and it seems the more things change the more they stay the same…

I wrote in a previous article about the sad demise of Scotland’s international team and how, in my view, things have been in a steady decline since the World Cup Finals in Argentina in 1978. Willie Johnston doesn’t need reminding he was sent home from those finals after admitting to taking a banned stimulant. The truth was he had taken anti hay fever medication which contained traces of the stimulant. He certainly didn’t take it to enhance his performance – Willie was one of the fastest players in the world and had no need to take any performance improving drug. As Scotland manager Ally MacLeod said at the time, perhaps unwisely, there was no way Johnston could have taken drugs on top of all the alcohol he had the night before. The bold Ally was jesting, of course, but the SFA viewed it as a serious matter and Johnston never played for Scotland again.

Johnston may have been nearing the end of a career which included two spells at Rangers – the first of which saw him score two goals to help the Ibrox side lift the European Cup Winners Cup in 1972 – West Bromwich Albion and Vancouver Whitecaps. However, Alex Macdonald saw Bud as the ideal man to bring his considerable experience to the likes of Robbo, Mackay and company, not only on the pitch but off it too.

Of course, controversy was a constant companion of Bud’s and I was at Celtic Park in March 1983 when the little winger was sent off during a Scottish Cup tie after an ‘altercation’ with Celtic’s Davie Provan. Johnston maintains to this day he barely touched the Celtic winger but the man in the hoops collapsed to the pitch and Bud was shown a red card. I couldn’t believe what I was witnessing and perfectly understood Bud’s initial reaction when he refused to leave the pitch. To Hearts credit they backed their man and Wallace Mercer wrote to the SFA to protest at the treatment of the man from Cardenden. When two police officers at the game then came forward to say Willie had not struck Provan, the SFA knew there had been a miscarriage of justice and other than the automatic one match ban, there was no further punishment meted out to the veteran Hearts man.

Bud was someone who proved invaluable in the development of the younger players at Tynecastle at that time. John Robertson and Gary Mackay still regale a Bud story or three to this day and they readily acknowledge the contribution the great man made to their development. Yes, he could be a controversial character – but he was a character, something you don’t see much of in the game today.

As the curtain falls on a disappointing season for Hearts, it would be good to think today’s young Jambos could be influenced by someone who has done it all in the game, like the left winger who helped to nurture the Hearts youngsters of three decades ago.

Bud Johnston – Willie no come back again?!

 

Mike Smith

Twitter @Mike1874

  

A Presence on the Park

No one needs to tell Hearts supporters their team’s league results in recent weeks haven’t been the best. The club has put its faith in the youngsters from the youth academy and while none of the lads has let anyone down, I feel sure many Hearts supporters of my generation will hanker for the presence of a more experienced, combative type who isn’t afraid to make his presence felt. Or, to use football parlance from yesteryear, let his opponent know he’s there…

The more mature Hearts supporter will recall with more than a good deal of fondness Dave Mackay, Hearts legendary right half of the glorious side of the 1950s. Mackay was one of those players for whom the term ‘fifty-fifty ball’ didn’t apply - the maroon shirted powerhouse would invariably ensure he won the ball no matter his opponent. No one showed more determination or guts than the man they called The Real Mackay and he was the driving force of the Maroon Machine that dominated Scottish football nearly 60 years ago. Mackay left for Tottenham Hotspur in 1959 and many fans believed Hearts were never the same force without him.

I could hark on about other players from decades ago but, in fairness to our younger readers, I offer you the names of players from more recent times who had that ‘bite’ in a midfield or defensive role. In 1995 Hearts slumped to the foot of the Premier Division and manager Jim Jefferies didn’t need to be told where the problems lay. As well as recruiting French goalkeeper Gilles Rousset, Jefferies brought Italian defender Pasquale Bruno to Gorgie. The former Fiorentina player had a reputation as a hard man and even his appearance seemed enough to strike fear into opponents. He picked up more than his fair share of bookings and the odd red card here and there but this was due to his absolute determination to get to the ball before his opponent - by any method possible - rather than the popular misconception that he was a dirty player.

I wrote recently in this column about the fast approaching 15^th anniversary of Hearts winning the Scottish Cup in 1998. A key component of that successful side was was Stefano Salvatori. The Italian, who arrived at Tynecastle in the summer of 1996, was one of the first picks in Jim Jefferies’ side and his tenacity and fearless displays in the Hearts midfield had more than an unsettling effect on the opposition. Like his compatriot Bruno, you would bet your mortgage on Salvatori being the first to get to a 50-50 ball - only he had a slightly more subtle approach! Those of us who were at the Scottish Cup final at Celtic Park in 1998 will recall Salvatori’s dominating performance in the middle of the park that day, something opponents Rangers struggled with all afternoon.

Julien Brellier arrived at Tynecastle in July 2005 as manager George Burley set about building a Hearts team that would challenge the Old Firm for honours. The French midfielder was another who could hardly be described as a shrinking violet and his combative displays immediately yearned him to the Hearts support. The former Montpellier and Inter Milan player spent less than two years in Gorgie but in that time still managed to amass 23 yellow and two red cards. One of those yellow cards came in a UEFA Champions League qualifier in Athens when Brellier was booked for failing to cover an earring on the field of play  - something you could never imagine happening to Dave Mackay!

As recently as last year, Hearts had the spirited Ian Black in midfield. The  self-confessed Hearts fan played a vital part in the Maroons William Hill Scottish Cup triumph over Hibernian at Hampden and it was against the Hibees in a league match at Easter Road that Blackie famously pulled up his jersey to reveal a tee-shirt that read ‘I’ll Paint This Place Maroon’. Again, his combative style meant he would pick up three dozen yellow and three red cards in less than three years at Tynecastle but, in my view, Hearts midfield this season has missed his presence.

Of the seemingly endless supply of young talent breaking through the ranks at Tynecastle this season, perhaps there’s another Dave Mackay, Pasquale Bruno, Stefano Salvatori or Ian Black in the making. Someone who will make the opposition think ‘I’ll not mess with him’.

Much as we all love the skilful ‘tanner ba’ players every team needs a ‘midfield presence’!

 

Mike Smith
Twitter @Mike1874

A Different Kind of Embarrassment

So farewell then to World Cup 2014. Scotland began the qualifying campaign with our Head Coach uttering, almost Ally MacLeod like, that there was no reason why the Scots couldn’t win all of their games. Yet here we are, six games in, with no victories and just two points gleaned from miserable home draws against Serbia and Macedonia. And the bitter realisation that Scotland are not only rock bottom of Group A but cannot now qualify for the football extravaganza that will be held in Brazil next year. To add insult to already gaping injury, Scotland are the first European country to be eliminated – good God, even San Marino still have a mathematical chance of qualifying…

It is 35 years since Scotland last had a team many of us thought were one of the best in the world. The aforementioned Ally MacLeod was the national team manager who took Scotland to the World Cup Finals in Argentina and the bold Ally was telling anyone who would listen that the Scots ‘would return home with a medal’. Defeat from Peru, a humiliating draw with Iran and the sending home of winger Willie Johnston for taking a banned stimulant – in truth, Willie only took hay fever medication called Reactive which contained traces of the stimulant – meant the Scots were sent home with their tails between their collective legs. Not even a thrilling victory over the Netherlands – who would go on to reach the final itself – in the final group game could save face. Since 1978, Scotland’s football team has been in steady decline.

There has been the odd occasion or two when it seemed Scottish football was about to make its presence felt again. We came close to qualifying for Euro 2008 with the Scots famously defeating France home and away. Only a narrow defeat by Italy in the final qualification game prevented Scotland from gracing the European Championship finals. In 2003 Scotland defeated the Netherlands in a play-off for a place at the Euro 2004 finals. The trouble was it was only a 1-0 win in the first leg – and Scotland crumbled 6-0 in the return in Amsterdam…

1998 was the last time Scotland played in the World Cup Finals. A brave showing by Craig Brown’s men in the opening game against holders Brazil still resulted in defeat. This was followed by a draw against Norway, defeat from Morocco and the return tickets back home…

What I find particularly sad is that decades of, for the most part, abject failure has taken its toll. Apathy now seems to reign over the national side. It wasn’t until the afternoon of the game that I realised Scotland’s tie against Serbia was live on the ‘cooncil telly’ that night – and I had far better things to do than watch the BBC’s Rob McLean and co pick over the carcass that is Scotland’s latest attempt to reach the World Cup Finals…

Unlike some so-called experts – step forward Pat Nevin – I don’t have the answer to Scotland’s troubles. I am simply saddened that our country’s football team is as poor as it is. I hanker after the days when Scotland reached six World Cup Finals out of seven. Particularly the Willie Ormond era when Scotland were the only unbeaten country at the 1974 World Cup Finals and were within a Billy Bremner hairs breadth of beating Brazil. Even the Ally MacLeod era, pre Argentina debacle, when Scotland brushed aside European Champions Czechoslovakia and defeated England at Wembley with a style and swagger that shouted ‘Wha’s like us?’

Jock Stein took over from the much maligned MacLeod and while he steadied the ship and guided Scotland to the World Cup Finals in Spain in 1982 and for much of the successful qualifying campaign for Mexico 1986 – tragically, the big man died during Scotland’s draw in Wales which secured a play-off place – there still seemed to be something missing from the Scotland sides of that era.

Sadly, Scotland no longer produces players such as Jimmy Johnstone, Willie Johnston, Jim Baxter, Denis Law and Kenny Dalglish. The focus now seems to be about trying not to lose rather than displaying flamboyance and skill by putting opponents to the sword. I’m tried hearing the same old script trotted out – ‘we’re only a small country, we shouldn’t expect to produce hugely talented players blah, blah, blah…’ I know we live in a different era now and society has changed so much in the last five decades but when I see some of the players who play for Scotland now and compare them to the greats of yesteryear it makes me mourn for our national side. Scotland has failed to adapt to the changing world. When we qualified for the 1978 World Cup Finals we did so from a qualifying group of just three countries – Scotland, Czechoslovakia and Wales. Now it seems we just don’t have the players to cope with a two year qualifying campaign and our international ranking may well be sinking to the levels of the Faroe Islands, Malta and Cyprus before long. In fact, we may have already reached that level.

The fervour and hype that precipitated the 1978 World Cup Finals will never be repeated. Indeed, the SFA would never wish it repeated given the embarrassment that enveloped the national team at that time. There seems to me to have been a deliberate attempt to play down Scotland’s prospects ever since for fear we are exposed to the same humiliation again.

Sadly, as the likes of Serbia, Macedonia and Wales pass us by, it seems we no longer need to play down our prospects – our national team’s lack of ability has resulted in a downward spiral we may never escape from.

And the consequences are Scotland is now dying from a different kind of embarrassment…

 

Mike Smith

Twitter @Mike1874

The Long Trip to Hampden

Last Sunday, I was looking forward to my second cup final in ten months, having spent decades as a Hearts supporter enjoying only sporadic visits to the National Stadium. So it was that thousands of maroon clad supporters headed to Hampden Park with more expectation than hope given our Scottish Communities League Cup Final opponents were St. Mirren.
 

My partner, Marion, having felt she missed something by not attending the William Hill Scottish Cup Final demolition of Hibernian last year, accompanied me this time round and we set off from Leith on a cold, dank Sunday morning. However, much in the same way an attempt to rekindle the spark of an old flame can fizzle out like a damp squib, there was something about that day in the middle of March that invoked a feeling of ‘it’s not the same’ right from the off.

For a start the weather was, as we say in Scotland, driech. Dark grey clouds, a stiff breeze and intermittent rain did nothing to enhance the occasion as we set off on the 10.15 train to Glasgow. The fact there were engineering works on the main railway line between Scotland’s capital city and Scotland’s largest city meant the hundreds of Hearts fans aboard, along with the usual Sunday travellers, had to endure the ‘slow train to Glasgow’ which wasn’t going the usual route via Linlithgow and Falkirk, but another route which called at every village and town on the way. We knew we were in for a long day when we started yawning at the train’s second stop on the journey - Edinburgh Park. A trip that usually takes under an hour would take an hour and twenty minutes - although it seemed much longer.

Heavy rain greeted our arrival in Glasgow and, being a Sunday, most of the pubs weren’t open until 12.30 meaning we had time to kill. Of course, I was delighted to accompany Marion to the Buchanan Shopping Centre - I mean who wants to be supping pints of pre cup final ale when one could be looking at clothes in Next and Debenhams…?

We did manage a wee drink or two before heading to Hampden but the continual rain was literally a bit of a dampener as we headed to the East Stand and joined the thronging masses of the Hearts support behind the goal. The atmosphere as kick off approached was good but perhaps unsurprisingly, it lacked the intensity of the previous cup final against Hibernian. There was almost a feeling of ‘it’s only St. Mirren and it’s only the Scottish Communities League Cup’, the winning of which would be great to see but there would be no place in next season’s Europa League for doing so. I felt like making this point as the huge Hearts support bellowed out the European song and ‘We’re Going to Europe’ just before kick off.

When Ryan Stevenson put Hearts in front after just ten minutes I was leaping about like a ten year old rather than showing the dignity a 51 year old should be displaying, something the look on my partner’s face appeared to indicate. Most of the other 25,000 Hearts supporters did likewise and it rather shot to pieces the argument that this was a ‘wee cup’ and it didn’t really matter. Hearts in a cup final always matters.

Despite dominating the first half an hour and missing a couple of gilt edged chances, Hearts lost a goal eight minutes before half time and rather capitulated in the second half. Stevenson’s second goal eight minutes before the end of the game gave us hope, albeit of the false variety. We shuffled out of the National Stadium shortly afterwards and filed along patiently in the rain for the train at Mount Florida en route to Glasgow Queen Street via Central Station. The engineering works meant it was Queen Street Low Level, which was rather apt given the mood we were all in.

The train journey back to Auld Reekie was horrendous. Given it was full of Hearts supporters who didn’t feel like hanging around Glasgow longer than was necessary on a wet Sunday evening, the seats were all taken and so Marion and I had to stand all the way back to the capital. Well, not quite all the way - we did get a seat when the train left Edinburgh Park…

The day brought back bitter memories of the last time Hearts played St. Mirren at Hampden Park. The Maroons lost the Scottish Cup semi-final of 1987 to the Paisley Buddies and I had to endure a long, painful trek home to Aberdeen, where I was living at the time. That day, like 17 March 2013, was a depressing one.

Yet, at the end of it all, there was a feeling of a shared experience. The train on the way home was full of Hearts supporters but it was a quiet, if long journey. No one was in the mood to strike up a chorus of Glorious Hearts and the feeling was one of just wanting to get home.

Such is the life of a Hearts supporter. We have more highs and lows than a liftman’s nightmare. From the ecstatic scenes following the 5-1 thrashing of Hibernian last May to the crushing disappointment of losing to St. Mirren last week. I knew that, despite everything that has happened to our club this season, those same fans would go through the same experience all over again in the name of Heart of Midlothian FC.

Follow the Hearts and you can’t go wrong. Well, it does go wrong on occasion. But no matter what, we’ll support you ever more!

Twitter @Mike1874

Scotland's Number 1

 

A few days ago, there were a couple of items in the sports pages which caused more than a little sadness. Paul Gascoigne’s admittance to a clinic in the United States for alcohol addiction was not unexpected to those who have witnessed the former Rangers and England star’s demise in recent years. His appearance at an event held just days before his trip to the States saw him cut a tragic figure with him shaking on stage, barely able to speak. We wish him well but one can’t but help make comparisons with another football icon from a generation before Gascoigne - George Best.

The other story was one that was arguably more of a concern for Hearts and Scotland supporters. The news that former Hearts goalkeeper Craig Gordon would not play the rest of this season was hardly surprising given his injury problems. What was shocking, however, was the announcement from Craig that he may not play football again at all. I have to admit this took my breath away.

It’s scarcely believable it’s more than a decade since Craig Gordon made his debut for Hearts as a young, gangly goalkeeper drafted in to the first team in place of the injured Roddy McKenzie for a game at Livingston in October 2002. The 19 year old performed superbly in a 1-1 draw at Almondvale and it was clear Gordon was about to maintain the Hearts tradition of great goalkeepers. From Jack Harkness to Jim Cruickshank; Henry Smith to Antti Niemi; Gordon Marshall to Gilles Rousset; Hearts have always produced gifted goalkeepers. Craig Gordon would prove to be one of the finest for both club and country.

His performance a year later in the cauldron of the Stade-Chaban Delmas in Bordeaux in the UEFA Cup was confirmation of the day the boy wonder grew into a man. Repeatedly, the big fella kept the Bordeaux forwards at bay as Hearts maintained a rearguard action during that first leg in an attempt to keep alive the return leg at Tynecastle three weeks later. His performance, particularly in the second half in front of the 3,500 strong Maroon Army, was one of the finest goalkeeping displays I’ve ever seen. As we kept a constant eye on the stadium clock as it edged closer to 90 minutes and a creditable goalless draw, big Mark de Vries scored a dramatic winner towards the end of the game to spark mass celebrations among the jubilant Hearts support. As a Hearts supporter himself, Craig Gordon took the acclaim of the appreciative Hearts fans. His brilliant performance, added to a fantastic result meant that day in the south of France would be etched on the memory of every Hearts fan who was there.

Two years later and Hearts embarked on a remarkable season that saw them win the Scottish Cup and qualify for the preliminary stage of the UEFA Champions League. In the course of writing a book about that incredible season, I had the pleasure of interviewing Craig at Hearts training facilities at Riccarton. He was amiable and answered my questions knowledgably and with an assurance that typified the way he performed between the sticks. He told me he prepared the same way for every game whether it was a league cup-tie against Queens Park or a World Cup qualifier against Italy. Preparation was the key - and the affable keeper said it was important to remember it was his performances against the likes of Queens Park that helped develop him as a player. His assertion that ‘if he messed up in a Scottish Cup tie against Albion Rovers, that wouldn’t do his international chances any good’ was typically modest of a man who treated every game as if it were his last.

Craig Gordon’s last game for Hearts came not at Tynecastle but at Murrayfield in a friendly against those giants of world football, Barcelona in 2007. Within days, he was heading to Sunderland in a deal worth £9m - a record for a Scottish goalkeeper that may well never be broken.

It’s fair to say things didn’t work out as well as expected for Craig during his time at Sunderland. The Black Cats lost 7-1 to Everton a few weeks later and manager Roy Keane made Gordon the fall guy. He then suffered a knee injury a year later, which kept him out for nearly a year. After a long recovery period, he regained his place in the Sunderland first team until fate took another twist in November 2009 when he broke his arm in a game at Tottenham.

He fractured the same arm again in the summer of 2010 but, once again, fought back to regain his first team place. However, he suffered another knee injury in 2011 and while he came back yet again, he was released by Sunderland last summer.

His knee continues to trouble him and he recently began helping out former Hibs player and now Dumbarton manager Ian Murray with some coaching. Like every other Hearts fan - and Scotland fan - I sincerely hope we have not seen the last of Craig Gordon as a player. I’ve seen many fine goalkeepers at Tynecastle and the big man is among the finest. Losing such a gifted player as Craig Gordon at just 30 years of age would be difficult to accept for those of us who have followed his remarkable journey.

Whatever happens, Craig Gordon will always be a Hearts legend. And, in my view and, I’m sure that of thousands of other Hearts supporters, he will always be Scotland’s number one.

 

Mike Smith

Twitter @Mike 1874

Not So Candid Camera

 

The atmosphere at the New Year Edinburgh derby last month was frenetic. A hotbed of local emotion, Tynecastle was at its noisiest and for the most part fans of both clubs behaved themselves. However, it’s well documented there were a couple of unsavoury incidents in the second half involving fans and this prompted a statement from the Justice Secretary Kenny Macaskill that the Edinburgh derby should no longer be played on an evening in order to prevent such incidents happening again. I’m not so sure the timing of the kick off had anything to do with what happened and in any case, Lothian and Borders Police praised the behaviour of both sets of fans afterwards, stating there had just been two arrests.

From my vantage point in the Wheatfield Stand, what struck me - if you’ll forgive the pun - was the reaction of many fans, particularly to the incident with the ball boy. The first reaction of many, it would appear, was to film the alleged perpetrator with an array of mobile phones, digital cameras etc. Thanks to the age of the internet and instant mobile communication, it was just a matter of minutes before the incident was broadcast on YouTube to potentially a worldwide audience. My fellow Hearts supporter sat next to me, Bill, remarked to me that it was a sign of the times that fans pulled out their mobile phones to film such scenes. Identifying the suspect and alerting stewards or the police might have been thought a better option but it was indeed a reflection of the age we live in that recording the reaction was deemed more important than shopping the instigator.

The aforementioned Bill is enjoying his retirement years while I reached the half century last year and we both recall the era before mobile phones and the internet when communication wasn’t quite so instant. Like the majority of Hearts supporters attending the magnificent all-seated arena that is Tynecastle these days, I have my mobile phone with me. With mobile internet connection getting ever more sophisticated, I have immediate access to news and, more importantly, the football results as they happen. I recall a few weeks ago Hearts had barely kicked off at Tynecastle when there was a significant audible reaction - okay, loud laughter - among those in the Wheatfield Stand to the news that East Stirlingshire had taken the lead in the first minute of their game with Rangers at Ibrox. The Shire eventually lost 5-1 and there was scant reaction to Rangers fight back. However, it was an example of people expecting, indeed demanding instant news from events happening miles away.

In my formative years as a Hearts fan, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, a mobile phone was my father throwing the old dialling machine across the room on hearing his beloved Aberdeen had lost on a Saturday afternoon. And internet was somewhere football fans in Yorkshire were urging their team’s strikers to put the ball. Unless you were at home watching BBC’s Grandstand or ITV’s World of Sport or listening to the ‘wireless’, getting an update on your team’s progress on a Saturday afternoon proved difficult.

As a child I was only interested in the Hearts score, although in those days the reserves would be playing the corresponding fixture at the venue of our opponents that day and I would always be keen to find out how the ‘second eleven’ were getting on - although I usually had to wait to get the Pink News on a Saturday night to find this out (standing outside the local newsagent about 6.00pm waiting for delivery of the Evening News football results newspaper - The Pink, so called because it was printed on pink paper - became a Saturday evening ritual)

Older readers will recall the halftime scoreboard at Tynecastle and, indeed, most other football grounds across Scotland. The scoreboard usually consisted of large letters against which numbers indicating half time scores of other games would be inserted around 4.00pm. To identify which games were which, you would have to buy a match programme to ascertain that, for example, a 2-0 score against the letter A meant Aberdeen were leading Hibernian at Pittodrie.

Some fans opted to take a transistor radio (ask your grandparents, young ‘uns) with them to games but many of these were a tad cumbersome and the reception wasn’t particularly reliable with BBC presenter Brian Marjoriebanks’ voice doing battle with the crackly VHF frequency.

The days of standing on the terracing several decades ago was a different world to what the match day experience is today. Forty years ago, there were no mobile phones, internet or YouTube to immediately broadcast trouble at football games. Now, as well as mobile media there is close circuit television also monitoring fans behaviour, meaning any indiscretion caused by any fan is almost immediately picked up on.

Given the isolated but nevertheless unpleasant incidents at Tynecastle on 3 January 2013, this is certainly not a bad thing…

Driving the Fans Away?

 

There was a touch of controversy mixed in the dying embers of 2012. As a truly memorable year for everyone associated with Heart of Midlothian took its final gasps of air, the Maroons’ fixture at Ross County was postponed barely an hour before kick off. It’s great to see Scotland’s most northerly league club in the top flight of Scottish football. When one considers Ross County were a mid table Highland League side just a few short years ago, it’s been a remarkable achievement from non-league obscurity to the Clydesdale Bank Scottish Premier League. However, a trip to Dingwall means the best part of a day away from Scotland’s capital city and isn’t one which is taken on a whim. So frustrating is one of the more gentile words I use to describe the feelings of those Hearts supporters who made the long trip north just four days after Christmas and at a time when Hearts have been appealing for those same supporters to make a financial contribution to save the club.

To Ross County’s great credit, they have offered to pay for Hearts supporters buses to take the fans to the rescheduled fixture that, at the time of penning this article, may be 2 February. Given the Highland club lost money because of the late postponement, this is a tremendous gesture and one certainly appreciated by Hearts supporters. One can only hope that when the re-arranged fixture does take place the weather is a tad kinder than it was on the last Saturday of 2012. A second late postponement would test the patience of even those Hearts fans of a saintly disposition.

I didn’t make the journey north last month. Family commitments and the cost of Christmas meant I had neither the time nor the financial wherewithal to make the trip to what admittedly is a beautiful part of Scotland. I suspect I wasn’t alone in making this decision, particularly as just three days earlier Hearts had made another long trip this time in the opposite direction to Kilmarnock. When, like most other Hearts supporters, I studied the Clydesdale Bank SPL fixture list when it was published last summer I was already marking these two fixtures as ones I would probably be giving a miss. Having spent a small fortune on Christmas presents for my partner and family, the prospect of incurring the not inconsiderable cost of going to both Rugby Park and Victoria Park was just not financially viable.

It made me think that perhaps the SPL might wish to consider looking at a new computer programme when compiling next season’s fixtures. Two away trips at the festive period are difficult enough. Therefore, it might have been an idea for at least one of these fixtures to be, if not at Tynecastle, then venues that are within relatively easy commuting distance. For example, a trip to Motherwell, Perth or even Dundee would have been better and if the inclement weather took its toll then the inconvenience cause to the supporters who gallantly follow their team all over the land would have been lessened considerably.

There’s a tradition in Scotland of having local derbies for the New Year fixtures as witnessed by Hearts playing Hibs at Tynecastle (the day after the festive holiday ended to suit the needs of satellite television, but that’s another story), Aberdeen entertaining Dundee United and St. Johnstone playing Dundee. It makes perfect sense not to have fans travelling great distances at New Year and invokes a feeling of ‘first-footing’ (even if this tradition is sadly dying out) Therefore, I would ask the SPL chiefs to look closely at the fixture list for future league campaigns. Travelling to the likes of the Highlands and Aberdeen can be a great adventure and there are some fans who make a weekend of it. If one can plan ahead then a great time can be had. However, with the greatest respect, it doesn’t make much sense to me to have supporters travelling 70 miles the day after Christmas and then another 170 miles two days before Hogmanay - particularly at a time of the year when the weather may have an impact. It’s not unheard of for police to advise people not to travel in the depths of winter unless it’s absolutely necessary.

Even alternating home and away fixtures would be a step in the right direction. At a time when Scottish football needs to attract people to games more than ever before, decisions such as having one set of supporters travel huge distances within days of each other is more likely to drive them away.

And we must surely agree that Scottish football can ill afford to do that.