Credit to Hearts for keeping their focus

TALKING FOOTBALL

DAVID HARDIE

MENTAL toughness is an attribute you’ll hear most managers wish to instil in their players, the ability to shrug off outside influences and concentrate solely on what is happening on the pitch.

Football players are, of course, human like the rest of us, a fact often overlooked by their fans who put them on a pedestal and forget that they, too, have all the trials and tribulations of life to deal with on a daily basis.

But no matter what might be happening in a player’s personal life or that of his family, he is expected for those 90 minutes on a Saturday to produce the goods regardless.

Normally it would be unusual to have more than one or two players at any given time at a club finding themselves under pressure from external sources, but that’s certainly not been the story at Tynecastle over the past few months.

Hearts’ proposed plan to abandon their home of more than 100 years to property developers and begin cohabiting with the SRU at Murrayfield in an effort to drastically reduce a crippling £17.6 million mountain of debt has, naturally, met with fierce opposition. Every day Levein’s players see evidence of the level of anger Chris Robinson’s proposal has engendered, Gorgie having been liberally sprinkled with posters demanding the chief executive’s removal and the abandonment of his plan. During matches the hostility towards Robinson is evident with even Jambo legend Gary Mackay making his own on-field protest.

And almost daily, it seems, comes news of plans to either buy-out SMG’s shareholding and so block a switch to Murrayfield or build a "New Tynecastle" across the road from the present stadium.

Enough to have anyone’s head birling, far less Levein’s players who also have had to contend with the news that despite severe slashing of the wage bill, their manager has to find nigh on another £1m worth of savings. This particular scenario obviously places an additional burden on those who are out-of-contract this summer and, as yet, not knowing whether Levein can afford to offer them a new deal.

The Hearts players could readily have been forgiven if they had allowed such a distraction to impinge upon their performances, but to their credit, Levein’s stars have ploughed on regardless, their entire focus on achieving their goal of European football again next season.

The strength of their resolution could hardly be better exemplified than over the course of the past few days in which seven points have been garnered from three difficult matches to tighten Hearts’ grip on third place in the SPL table.

Having fallen behind to Derek Riordan’s wonder-strike in the derby, Hearts would probably have settled for a point. But, in fact, Levein and his players were disappointed not to have taken all three.

An early lead against Dundee United disappeared but again Hearts came back, okay with a touch of luck thanks to Mark Wilson’s second own goal at Tynecastle, the win clinched with Kevin McKenna’s first goal of the season.

And most sides would have been happy with a point from a visit to Almondvale, particularly if, as happened to Hearts, they had fallen a goal behind, hauled themselves into a lead only to be pegged back. But not Hearts. Up popped McKenna again with a late winner not only to extend their lead over Dunfermline but to give the Gorgie outfit their first win at Almondvale since Livingston entered the top flight three seasons ago.

Scoring late goals has become something of a habit over the past couple of seasons for Hearts, a feature which sets opposition fans grumbling at what they see as luck with a number of unlikely scorers emerging as the match-winner.

Rather than luck, though, it should be viewed as a test of the strength of character of those in maroon, a measure of their determination to emerge as "the best of the rest" for the second year in succession.

In different circumstances it would be the results achieved by Levein and his players which would be the talking point around Tynecastle rather than the future of the stadium itself- and rightly so.

SFA should show sense over Dougal's indiscretion

REFEREE Stuart Dougal is to be hauled over the coals by the SFA for apparently swearing at Rangers star Christian Nerlinger with the prospect of a fine being imposed.

Although Alex McLeish insists the whole thing has been blown out of proportion, Dougal has been called before the referee committee after its members studied video footage of the incident during a match against Partick Thistle at Firhill.

No doubt Dougal, who is one of the elite group of refs who have been appointed fourth officials for Euro 2004 in Portugal, now regrets what was undoubtedly a momentary loss of temper.

But while you can’t condone his outburst, it is easily understandable. Watch any match on television and you’ll see players telling referees, their assistants and opposition players in no uncertain terms exactly what they think of decisions.

The use of "industrial language" on the football pitch is nothing new, the only shock here being that it was a referee who let the F-word slip in the heat of the moment.

However, if the SFA are going to be even-handed about the use of such language, will they haul every player caught on camera firing a foul-mouthed volley at officials before them?

If so, lip readers are going to do a roaring trade with dozens of players trooping along to Hampden to explain themselves.

Taken from the Scotsman