No promises, just a burning ambition to end Hearts' 30 years of drought Jefferies, a true fan and a bit of a dervish

Brian Meek
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6 Nov 1997

Can Rangers make it 10-in-a-row or will Celtic be able to stop them? That was the question, the only one indeed, posed at the start of the league championship campaign - unless you counted who is going to be third? Now, a quarter of the competition over, there is an univited guest at the party, a poor man at the rich men's table, a surprise challenger.

Hearts, only by goal difference it is true, are sitting on top of the table and, if they were to beat Edinburgh rivals Hibernian - not exactly a rare occurence - while the Old Firm were to draw, or Rangers win, they would move a point clear.

Pass the smelling salts Samantha, as they are wont to say in Morningside.

The architect of this astonishing state of affairs is Jim Jefferies, a man with maroon coursing through his veins, a Hearts supporter since childhood, a player at Tynecastle for 15 years and in his third season as manager.

In both of his first two the club reached a cup final only to fall at the last hurdle.

The supporters wait, not all that patiently it should be noted, for the first tangible success, a trophy, in over 30 years.

Jefferies urges them to get behind the team he has built.

''Yes, I realise that it has been a long gap, I feel it just as badly as any other fan.

But this is a young side, some of them have hardly been through the door five minutes and they can't be blamed for three decades of failure.

''I cannot promise anything.

All I can tell the support is that this is a talented squad, capable of playing exciting, stylish football, who could be together for the next six to seven years.

''If, at the end of this term, we are closer than anyone else to the Old Firm and manage to make it into Europe again, that will all be part of the move forward.

I challenge anyone to say that this club has not progressed.'' Or to infer that Jim Jefferies is not the Jambos' biggest asset.

He is, out of the dug-out, a rational, articulate exponent of his trade; on match days, at critical points, he can be transformed into a whirling dervish.

''I do get a bit excited,'' he concedes, ''but this is an emotional game.

Yes, I would see it better from the stand, but I would not be as involved.

Sometimes the players cannot hear me shouting, sometimes they don't like it too much but I am determined they are going to play a certain way.

I will stand or fall by the results.'' Jefferies, unlike most of his colleagues, never wanted to be a manager and walked away from playing and into insurance.

He was so succssful at it that he was soon doing the hiring and firing.

As a favour to pals he did a little coaching with the Lauder amateurs as well as Hawick Royal Albert then Gala Fairydean.

Still as a part-timer he was persuaded tp take up the managerial reins at Berwick Rangers, who were officially the worst team in Scotland at the time.

He brought in 16 new players in his first season and went 21 games without defeat.

The following season they were fifth top.

''I actually made a lot of mistakes at Berwick as I was learning my trade.

They were only noticed by about 50 folk; if I err today it is spotted by 50,000.'' Jefferies feel passionately that managers must serve an apprenticeship.

''I just find it incredible that successful players believe they can become competent managers overnight.

The record shows it rarely happens that way.

Even Alex Ferguson, the best manager in Britain in my book, got fired at St Mirren.

''Of course the pressures are greater today.

We live in an age of hot-lines and phone-ins, of demonstrations against managers when the results don't happen.

This is a tough business so you need all the grounding that is available.'' Jim finally threw up the day job and took the manager's role at Falkirk, a club wracked by internal division at the time.

In five years he took them to two first division titles and ended with a team lying in fifth place in the premier.

Brockville was sudddenly a field of dreams.

The day they were shattered was when Jefferies told chairman George Fulston he wanted to take up the vacant post at Tynecastle.

There followed an amazing, he's going, he's staying, no, he is really going saga which left strained emotions on all sides.

Jim admitted later that even as he agreed to Mr Fulston's overtures to remain at his desk he knew he had done the wrong thing.

He changed his mind again and came to Hearts for less money.

Nor did he have any to spend.

''The then chairman, Chris Robinson, listened to my ideas for the development of the club and said he agreed with them all.

It was just he was building a new grandstand and did not have much cash to spare.

''That was why the cup runs were important - they provided me with some money.

Colin Cameron, Jim Hamilton, Neil McCann, and David Weir were bought for modest sums, the whole first-team squad has cost less than #700,000.'' He picked his foreigners well, too, the giant Gilles Rousset, Stafano Salvatori and Thomas Flogel augmenting the local talent.

Experience in the shape of John Robertson and Dave McPherson have still a part to play.

I put it to Jim that continued success might mean the arrival of the predators willing to pay big bucks for the best of his bunch.

''Yes, I realise that and it is up to us to make sure that we do not let them go.'' And what, I posed, if somebody came for him? ''I would obviously have to listen to any offers.

Having said that, I am not looking for another job.

''I am a Hearts man - I would be very upset if I had to leave this position before I saw them end the trophy drought.

''Last season we played well in parts without achieving the kind of consistency required.

''There were a lot of changes, people had to be given time to settle in, new partnerships had to be formed.

''So far this season we have performed well.

Even when we lost to Dunfermline in the Coca-Cola I was not upset, because we had given our all.

''If we steer clear of serious injuries and retain our form maybe we will surprise quite a few people.'' For Jim Jefferies, nice guy, devoted family man, keen golfer, is not a good loser.

At anything.

Taken from the Herald