Hearts enter the unknown

STUART BATHGATE

IT IS the day which many Hearts supporters hoped would never dawn, but also one of serious significance for the crisis-torn club.

Craig Levein’s side play a competitive match at Murrayfield for the first time this evening, just 72 hours after the Hearts board won a slender majority for its plan to sell Tynecastle and move to the rugby ground while seeking a new home. If, after tonight and the return leg in a fortnight, they come through the tie against Portuguese club Braga, they will be in the group stages of the UEFA Cup, to be held for the first time this season.

With five teams in each group, Hearts will be guaranteed two home and two away games. Such prolonged exposure to quality opposition will be of immeasurable benefit to Levein’s younger players, and the lucrative nature of those fixtures will give the debt-ridden club some much-needed breathing space.

Indeed, Hearts’ qualification for the group stages could make the difference when it comes to attracting new investment, as the chairman, George Foulkes, has been trying his utmost to do. The closer the club comes to breaking even for the season, the more potential investors such as Lithuanian banker Vladimir Romanov are likely to be persuaded to go through with the deal.

Just as importantly, though, this evening is a chance for the club to persuade the supporters of the virtues of Murrayfield. While chief executive Chris Robinson has done little but alienate the fans over the past year, Foulkes has at least attempted to "sell" the rugby ground.

A poll found that 64 per cent of Hearts season-ticket holders would not renew if the move went through, but a section of the support is of the opinion that it will follow the team anywhere, regardless of political differences with the board. A positive experience tonight and that section will grow in numbers: a flat atmosphere and a home defeat, conversely, and there will be some who vow never to go back.

The virtues of Murrayfield are obvious. Since its redevelopment ten years ago it can seat 67,500, and it affords more comfort than the cramped confines of Tynecastle can manage.

On the other hand, that very size becomes a negative factor if you can only fill a quarter of the seats. And even when full, Murrayfield does not compare for atmosphere with more steeply-raked modern grounds such as the Millennium Stadium, where you feel you are right on top of the action. What is more, it does not compare with a full Tynecastle either.

With over 12,000 tickets sold by yesterday, there will be a reasonable attendance, and one broadly similar to what would have been achieved had the match been at Tynecastle. But if Hearts are to make a success of Murrayfield, as the board has claimed they can, there is a lot more they will have to do to attract a lot more people.

One way of ensuring a much bigger attendance tonight was obvious: cut the admission prices. Instead, the club increased them to £20 and £25.

There are several standard ways of enticing spectators to come to the ground early and spend more money there. Hearts have done little more than advertise the standard hospitality packages, and try to sell tickets for a cash bar. Those tickets cost a tenner - and that’s just to get into the bar. Give them ten pounds and they’ll sell you a pint. Tempted?

With the Roseburn and various other bars just up the road, not to mention all the usual pubs around Gorgie where Hearts fans congregate before a match? Perhaps not.

If the club does go through with the move, and if those in charge of it are at all serious about maintaining it as a going concern, sooner or later something will have to be done to build bridges with the support. Recent events, however, have seen the chasm between board and fans deepen, with the most damaging being the revelation by architect Jim Clydesdale that the Tynecastle pitch could have been reconfigured to meet UEFA requirements.

Clydesdale’s statement, made at the extraordinary general meeting on Monday night, was a flat contradiction of Robinson’s claim that any change to the ground, even if affordable, would jeopardise the players’ safety.

As the chief executive has used the question of UEFA compatibility as one of the key arguments in favour of leaving Tynecastle, the architect’s comments led many to infer that the whole bitter struggle would have been unnecessary had Robinson taken the relevant professional advice at the time. Unless, of course, he has another motive for trying to sell the ground - although he has insisted that the club’s debt is not the reason.

Whatever the real reasons behind the move, playing the tie at Murrayfield will take away at least some of the home advantage from Levein’s team. The atmosphere, or lack of it, will be one factor. The size of the pitch itself will be another.

Having been laid out to the UEFA-preferred dimensions of 68 metres wide by 105 long, the Murrayfield playing surface is bigger than that at Tynecastle. This will give some players no more than slight problems in adapting, but those who are struggling for fitness could be tired out more quickly by the extra space.

Mark de Vries, in particular, may be toiling. Levein has known since last week that the Dutch striker’s persistent hamstring problems will prevent him from playing for the whole game, but the coach’s worries deepened yesterday when Graham Weir turned up at training with mumps.

Weir, who would probably have started alongside De Vries, will thus play no part in tonight’s game, and, with Kevin McKenna and Ramon Pereira also absent because of injury, Levein’s options up front are limited.

"I’ve got Dennis Wyness, and it would be the natural thing to play him with Mark," Levein said. "But the plan was that Mark would play for an hour then Dennis would replace him.

"The temptation is to try to get Mark through the 90 minutes. It makes things a little bit different for us, and I haven’t made up my mind whether I should change the shape of the team."

Should he err on the side of caution, Levein will settle for a 4-5-1 formation, at least to begin with. Such matters of selection, however, are insignificant compared to the big questions which hang over Hearts’ future.

Taken from the Scotsman