Maroonfield

Paul Forsyth

DAVID BECKHAM and Jonny Wilkinson have demonstrated already that, when commercial interests are at stake, the round ball need not be incompatible with its oval equivalent. An alliance of the rival disciplines is the latest avenue down which Hearts are heading in pursuit of a solution to their notorious financial difficulties.

Beggars, as they say, cannot be choosers. Chris Robinson, the Edinburgh club’s chief executive, is so anxious to sell Tynecastle while the going is good, and bring to an end his unseemly traipse, cap in hand, around the city for an alternative home, that he is said to be "desperate" to move into Murrayfield by the start of next season.

Effectively driven from their traditional workplace by a £15m debt, as well as Robinson’s claim that the pitch isn’t big enough to meet UEFA requirements, Hearts have now been forced to shelve plans for a shared stadium at Straiton on the back of Hibs’ moodswing against the project. Meadowbank Stadium, meanwhile, remains a multi-purpose sports arena, the versatility of which is valued by the city council.

So what’s left? The home of Scottish rugby, that’s what. Discussions have been ongoing between Robinson and the Scottish Rugby Union since the summer, and a new urgency about those negotiations became evident on Friday when Hearts played a closed-doors friendly there. It is, according to one insider, not so much if they will move to Murrayfield as when, with local authorities, anxious perhaps about traffic and policing issues, dragging their feet in the hope that it can be delayed until the following season.

As if to emphasise the point, Craig Levein has taken to championing the project. The Hearts manager, previously an advocate of the move to Straiton, has remained circumspect on the subject until now. Or at least until just the other day when, from his seat in the bowels of Tynecastle’s main stand, he looked ahead to this week’s UEFA Cup tie against Zeljeznicar, where Hearts hold a 2-0 lead from the first leg, and to the prospect of a new era at Murrayfield.

"We would be moving from a place where the facilities are not great to one of the most modern stadiums in Europe," he said. "For me, that’s a big positive. All the players are quite excited about it. I’m not daft. I look at this place and I realise that this whole thing, this stand especially, needs knocked down, but it’s not going to happen. We don’t have the money."

It is not, he insists, much of an issue. By the end of February, Hearts will have moved into a new £6m training complex at Heriot-Watt University, on the outskirts of the city, where the club will conduct their day-to-day business. "Whether we stay here or go to Straiton or to Murrayfield, our home will be at Heriot-Watt," he explained. "The stadium will be just a place we visit every fortnight. Not even the club’s offices will be there."

The campus at Riccarton is Hearts’ answer to Rangers’ Murray Park. It has six full-size pitches, hi-tech physiotherapy facilities, and, amongst umpteen other things, access to the university’s sports science department. Levein would like nothing better than to see this new resource dovetail at the start of next season with their arrival in a new stadium.

‘We would be moving to one of the most modern stadiums in Europe’
"It’s a big, big step for the club. We’ve been trying in the last few years to get a number of things. One is to bring the business side of things under control, and we are getting there. Secondly, we are trying to develop a younger, hungrier squad who can compete not just for one year or two years, but on a regular basis. I see a big sea change in the place. We have the move to Heriot-Watt, Murrayfield as well, and I’m saying to myself, bring it on, it’s all happening at the one time, it’s all exciting, it’s all new. It will give the whole place a lift."

The irony is that, while Hearts have been forced down this road by Hibs’ prospective U-turn, Murrayfield is cheaper, and indeed more supporter-friendly, than Straiton. The shared stadium was to cost up to £20m and foist upon fans a fortnightly trip to the city bypass. Murrayfield, virtually adjacent to Tynecastle, would keep the club in its traditional community and cost Hearts only the fine detail of a ground-sharing agreement. They could, if both parties were so inclined, later purchase a more permanent share of the facility when their economic predicament has eased.

In the meantime, they can halve the stadium overheads, much as they hoped to do at Straiton, while profiting from Murrayfield’s 67,000 seats. The visit twice every season of Celtic, Rangers and Hibs has the potential to increase revenue through the turnstiles.

The SRU have wanted to broker such an arrangement for years, but their footballing neighbours were having none of it. Until recently, Robinson was referring to Murrayfield as an imperfect solution. It is, in other words, a flawed concept that Hearts would be avoiding were it not absolutely necessary.

Most of the problems can be overcome, however. Opposition from local residents, in what is an affluent area of Edinburgh, is unlikely to be prohibitive. "The main problem in recent years has centred around rock concerts," said Murrayfield councillor Jim Gilchrist. "There will be much less opposition to this because the crowds will be much smaller."

Agreement over the use of conference facilities and such like should not be a problem, while Hearts will know that Lazio, Roma and a host of other clubs across Europe need not own a stadium to have financial security. The pitch, meanwhile, is as conducive to football as it is rugby. "It is in great nick," says Levein. "We have one groundsman who comes into Tynecastle, but at Murrayfield there are three or four."

Some other problems are less manageable. The SRU’s plans to have a ban on alcohol revoked at Murrayfield could be jeopardised by the arrival of football there. And the Old Firm can barely guarantee a sellout at Tynecastle, never mind in the wide open spaces of rugby’s national stadium. A more likely scenario is anything between 47,000 and 55,000 empty seats at every home match, a sharp contrast with the raucous atmosphere engendered by Tynecastle’s tight confines.

The party line is that, by a cunning process of screens and optical illusions, the arena can be shrunk. Espanyol, for instance, close the top tier of Barcelona’s Olympic Stadium, and cover it with sponsors’ flags. Alan Maybury, the Hearts defender, certainly has no fears that Hearts will lose their ability to intimidate. "Ibrox seems to work well for Rangers, and their pitch is quite far from the stands," he says.

"The club need to move and it’s the right area of the city for the fans. I know they are lukewarm about going to Straiton and sharing with Hibs. This would keep them in the Gorgie area, and if that’s what we have to do to get the finances back on track. It’s a superb stadium. I have been there for a couple of internationals. It has a great atmosphere."

There are more than a few who will argue that there is no such "need" for Hearts to move, and that no such debate would be necessary had Robinson not got them into this mess in the first place, but for those who can forgive and forget, for those who have resigned themselves to the financial imperatives of a move, it is the best, perhaps only, option available.

Taken from the Scotsman