May days and failure leave Hearts aching with expectation

JOHN COLQUHOUN

ALWAYS the Bridesmaid is perhaps the most appropriately named fanzine in Britain.

Football fans in even the most far-flung corners of our island who look down their noses at Scottish football will be familiar with the tribulations that Heart of Midlothian followers have suffered over the last 12 years.

In 1986 I was a member of a Hearts team who will be remembered for one of the most glorious failures in the history of British football.

Tipped for relegation before a ball was kicked in anger, Hearts from the end of September 1985 went on an unbeaten run of 27 league games; securing a draw at Dundee in the final game would see them crowned champions for the first time in 26 years.Even a defeat would be good enough to take the title if Celtic did not manage to win at St Mirren.

Celtic won 5 0 and history records that in the last seven minutes Dundee's Albert Kidd scored two goals to snatch the crown away and reduce grown men to tears.

Celtic had won it on goal difference.

The Scottish Cup final the following week was to bring more sorrow as Aberdeen, under the guidance of Alex Ferguson, easily defeated us 3 0 at Hampden.

The tear-stained faces famously photographed by the newspapers at Dens Park on that fateful title-losing May afternoon have aged far more than the 12 years that have elapsed.

Choosing the Tynecastle club as the one to swear allegiance to can etch lines on any brow.

Spectacular failure was tolerated that year, largely due to the improbability of success at the beginning of the season.

Since then, however, failure has been monotonous in its regularity - though at times it has managed to be just as spectacular, never more so than when Hearts were 1 0 ahead in a Scottish Cup semi-final against Celtic in 1988 with three minutes to go; final score 2 1 to Celtic.

Today's Hearts team will hope that the comparisons being drawn with the 1986 side do not extend to the Cup final result.

There are, though, many parallels.

Both Hearts teams feature managers able to coax above-average performances from ordinary players.

With both Alex MacDonald and the current manager Jim Jefferies, it is uncanny how similar they are in their outlook to the game, the way it should be played and the belief that the team, rather than individuality, is the most important factor when building with limited resources.

Working in different eras, dealing with different problems, they have both come close to ending the quest for a major trophy that the club believes it deserves; a League Cup success over Kilmarnock in season 1962 63 was the last time Hearts picked up serious silverware.

Jefferies has proved to be easily the best manager in Scotland at exploiting the post-Bosman European transfer market, signing players such as the Frenchman Stephane Adam, the Austrian international Thomas Flogel and the former Milan midfielder Stefano Salvatori who have all contributed enormously to the Tynecastle effort this season.

While a good proportion of the money saved on transfer fees has been reflected in the players' salaries, many supposedly more capable managers have failed to spot the difference between a Continental player looking for a quick payday and those wishing to contribute something meaningful to a new club.

MacDonald in the Eighties sought his cheap recruits from slightly closer to home.

Rather than scouting foreign fields he claimed the cast-offs discarded by the Old Firm.

No fewer than nine of his first-team squad were refugees from Glasgow.

Both managers blended this experience to young home-grown talent, then plundered their provincial rivals for their best players.

The Scottish footballing public, despite being duped by Ally MacLeod into believing Scotland could win the World Cup, conform to traditional beliefs and are unwilling to consider any club outside the Old Firm winning our Premier Division championship.

This state of mind is based largely on the finances available to Rangers and Celtic compared with the funds a club such as Hearts can generate.

The Edinburgh club achieved a club record of 9,000 season-ticket holders this season - which appears very respectable until the figures from Celtic (50,000) and Rangers (30,000) are produced.

Jefferies' most expensive acquisition since returning to Tynecastle to manage the club he had played for is Colin Cameron from Raith Rovers for Pounds 240,000: equivalent to the salary a squad member at Ibrox would expect.

Chasing a title can wear down even the most hardened professional.

Losing out at the last minute can make even a cup final seem like one game too far.

After the match in which we lost the league in 1986, I recall that having completed training on the Monday we started to drag ourselves back up.

Believing that after 32 games without a defeat we had not suddenly developed a losing mentality, we genuinely believed we could lift ourselves to beat Aberdeen in that Cup final.

Once again we were mistaken.

The championship was like a beach ball.

Every victory pumped us up a little bit more until we were almost at maximum inflation then Kidd's first goal let out the air.

The deflation was immediate and final.

Trying to get the air back into the ball was an impossible task.

This year Hearts suffered their puncture several weeks ago, the final stab to their aspirations coming against Rangers in a match at Tynecastle in which the Ibrox midfield dominated the home side.

A repeat of that occasion this afternoon is unlikely.

Hearts will find it difficult to perform any worse and Rangers, with the Swede Jonas Thern injured and the influential German Jorg Albertz suspended, will do well to play as convincingly as they did that day.

For all Hearts followers it is important that they are promoted from bridesmaid to bride today or this team will simply take their place among the other glorious failures that litter the history of the club.

If sentiment fixed the odds, Hearts would be rated certain victors at Celtic Park this afternoon.

In the real world bookmakers call the shots and Rangers are odds-on favourites to lift the trophy.

Taken from the Guardian/Observer