No private party for `Slim' if he adds to cup medals Chance to make amends cannot come quickly enough for McPherson

Paul Sinclair

22 Nov 1996

IF you are talking to a Hearts player who owns a cup-winners' medal the chances are you are talking to someone who uses a zimmer, or Dave McPherson.

The Tynecastle defender has known the despair of cup final defeat in both his spells with Hearts, and the joy of winning in his two sojourns at Ibrox.

On Sunday he has another chance to share the feeling of victory with his Edinburgh team-mates when Hearts play Rangers in the Coca-Cola Cup final at Celtic Park.

It is the ideal opportunity for McPherson and his colleagues to make amends for the 5-1 thrashing they received from Rangers in the Scottish Cup final six months ago, but McPherson still cannot be sure he will be fit enough to play.

An ankle injury which has dogged him for the last few months has recurred.

"The chances of me playing on Sunday are 50-50," he said yesterday, "and we probably won't make a decision until the last minute.

"I took a knock on my ankle in the semi-final against Dundee and had to go off, but I've been doing some light training since then and we'll see how the injury responds." Memories of that balmy day in May, when Hearts yet again saw their hopes of picking up a trophy end in humiliation, are, needless to say, a lot fresher than recollections of a cup final victory.

It is 34 years since they last won a trophy, but the nightmare at Hampden will be a source of inspiration at Celtic Park.

"The players are desperate to make amends for what happened last time," McPherson emphasised.

"After 30-odd years without a cup this is pay-back time for the fans." Rangers will, of course, be firm favourites to win, but the League Cup has been a lucky tournament for McPherson.

He has appeared in four finals and been on the winning side in all of them.

Could this mean that, as they say, this is Hearts' year? "We say it's our year every year," he confessed.

"But you need some luck to win any tournament and for once we've been getting the breaks." "I think the quarter-final against Celtic was the turning point for us.

We had lost four players in the previous match against Rangers and had to bring in a number of youngsters.

Gary Naysmith was outstanding that night and Andy Thorn had a great game." Thorn was, of course, on loan from Wimbledon at the time, but has since left Tynecastle.

He will not qualify for a medal of either sort, and such is the interest in the game that, according to McPherson, "he won't even get a ticket." Once again the large Hearts support are gearing themselves up for a grand occasion.

McPherson is conscious of how important that cup win would be.

"I think if we win the cup you could see a quarter of a million fans on the streets in Edinburgh to welcome us back," he said.

"It is a family thing.

There are generations of Hearts fans who've been waiting for a trophy.

I can't imagine what it would be like to win." The fact that Hearts have not lost a goal in the last three games McPherson sees as a good omen.

The portents got darker, though, when he saw his former colleague Ally McCoist score twice for Rangers against Grasshopper on Wednesday.

"Its bad news that he's playing, let alone scoring," he said.

"He's deadly.

People keep writing him off, saying he's over the hill or over-weight.

Rangers keep on bringing in strikers to re-place him, but he keeps on scoring goals." McPherson, himself, is getting to the stage when he will join Ally in the veteran class.

This is his testimonial year, but that does not mean he is making any plans for retirement.

"I'm only 32 and I am planning to play for a lot longer.

Sandy Jardine was still playing at 40, and I see no reason why I cannot do the same," he declared.

"I feel fit enough and I haven't put on any weight.

They still call me `Slim.' " His last appearance for Rangers in a cup final is another unhappy memory for McPherson though.

He was pilloried for giving away the goal in the 1994 final which gave Dundee United their first Scottish Cup win and denied Rangers back-to-back trebles.

In his new autobiography, "A Tale of Two Cities" (Published by Mainstream, £14.99), he lays the blame at the door of Rangers' goalkeeper that day, Ally Maxwell, and chastises him for pointing the finger at McPherson.

"I would never have done the same to him," he writes.

"If you look at that goal on video, there was absolutely nothing wrong with that (my) passback; all he (Maxwell) had to do was boot the ball straight out of the park." It is uncharacteristic for as genial and gentlemanly a man as McPherson to criticise any of his colleagues.

The buck has unfairly stopped with him often enough.

On Sunday, if he plays, he has another chance to answer his critics, taste that winning sensation again and earn another medal which would be unlike any other.

"It would be special to win something with Hearts and to celebrate properly," he said.

"In Glasgow if you win something the Old Firm tend just to go back to their grounds and have a private party.

If we win, we'll have an open-topped bus go round Edinburgh."

Taken from the Herald