Laudrup and Gascoigne may prove too much but .... MacDonald hopes that Hearts will be trumps

By IAN PAUL

23 Nov 1996

IN his day he was one of their most committed and effective players, as a lad he was a devoted fan and, away from his duties with Airdrie, he still has Rangers close to his heart, but Alex MacDonald will be thrilled and delighted if Hearts beat his old team at Parkhead tomorrow.

"I will be singing whoever wins," he said when we discussed the Coca-Cola Cup final this week, "but I will be over the moon if it is Hearts, mainly for the sake of players like John Robertson, Gary Mackay, and John Colquhoun.

"To go through their careers and give so much to the game without collecting a winners' medal would be an injustice, and it would mean so much to them that I would love to share in their delight." If anyone has any greater insight than MacDonald into the ways of both clubs, the joys and depressions of cup finals, he does not readily spring to mind.

As a player with Rangers and manager with Hearts and Airdrie, this single-minded man has been in 14 major cup finals, including a winning appearance with the Ibrox side in the European Cup-winners' Cup.

If his disappointments have come as a manager in finals - with Hearts and Airdrie - the achievement in taking these clubs to that last stage is testament enough to his talent for man management.

When he reminisces about his cup final times he stops and thinks aloud: "I wonder how many semi-finals I have been involved in.

That might be quite something." The same could be said of his staying power in the most precarious of all businesses.

It is 15 years since he first accepted the job as manager of Hearts, a position he refused at first.

"I told them they should get someone with experience but they thought otherwise." "They" turned out to be not bad judges.

MacDonald has proved as determined to succeed behind the desk as he was on the park.

He is self-effacing enough to dismiss suggestions that if his Hearts side had won the premier-division on that painful day at Dens Park in the spring of 1986, the future for himself and the club could have been very different.

"I don't know about that because when you see the way the game has changed since, you wonder what would have happened.

"What I would say is that it might have taken the pressure off Wallace Mercer and allowed him to stay in the club.

He was always under pressure trying to get finance to improve the team but if that result had gone right, maybe it would have eased things for him.

It would also have helped the players' self confidence." The eight years he spent at Tynecastle left him with a deep affection for many of the people at the club and its fans.

The players he and his former co-manager, Sandy Jardine, saw rise to the top in the Gorgie dressing room remain close friends, and his desire to see them get at least a taste of the rewards he enjoyed during his playing career is patently sincere.

He can remember the day that Mackay and former Hearts man Dave Bowman joined the club.

"I was always kidding people with one-liners (he still does) but it was fascinating the different way they reacted.

Bowman laughed and didn't care if I was serious or not, whereas Gary would panic in case it wasn't a wind-up.

I suppose that in a sense was learning about man management, although I didn't know it at the time." Now, of course, Mackay is the longest-serving player at the club and may not get too many more chances to realise his ambition, to win a medal with the team he has always supported.

MacDonald has sympathy with Hearts' reticence to overplay the build-up to this final after having lost 5-1 in the Scottish Cup final a few months ago to the same team.

"They won't want to put their necks on the block and I can understand that." Then that impish smile takes over: "Keeping it to 5-1 is a good performance against Rangers, anyway." Seriously, he believes the only way to prepare a team for a game in these circumstances is to fill them with self-belief.

"I think you have to give them all the confidence in the world.

In the end the players have to do it for themselves.

The only chance you have against Rangers is to keep the ball and keep it in the right areas." He saw Ajax against Rangers at Ibrox and was fascinated by the way the Dutch side played.

"They put four men up and that kept five Rangers men back.

It was simple but it worked." He does not believe the result in the Champions League on Wednesday will have any major bearing on the final What MacDonald reckons is vital from Hearts' viewpoint is that they start well.

"If they can get in a good first tackle, a close shot or something that lifts their supporters, they will then get a feedback from the fans and their own confidence will be lifted." Having been over the course so many times, the Airdrie manager anticipates more nerves among the senior players than the young bucks.

"The young guys are full of their own self-confidence, just wanting to get out there to show what they can do, but the older guys will be far more aware of what it can mean." Despite his feeling for Hearts, MacDonald confesses that he can't see any other winners than Rangers.

"They have Laudrup and Gascoigne and they are different class.

Mind you, they can't do it by themselves." If they are the main men for Rangers, Robertson is MacDonald's key figure in the other team.

"Robbo will be a big player for Hearts as he has been so often in big occasions.

He and the others, like Mackay and Davie McPherson, will not want to be on the losing side." MacDonald's career has had its share of ups and downs, but his biggest disappointment with Airdrie was the cup semi-final defeat by Dunfermline when referee Davie Syme awarded the Fifers the penalty that wasn't.

After 13 years has he lost any of his motivation? "Anybody in any job gets tired at times - you must get weary asking the same questions - but the thrill is still seeing a kid who has that extra something that will get him to the top, even if he doesn't know it.

"It is depressing when you get huffy players and I admit we get more of them now than we did in my day.

In my time, a huffy player was called a name that I can't use in public any more." The challenge, none the less remains, especially as Airdrie are serious first division contenders despite having been homeless for two years, a state that has left the manager despairing on occasion.

"Obviously, now that we are promised the new stadium we have been planning for six years I would like to be a part of the scene.

But you never know in this game."

Taken from the Herald