Levein's style of management reflected his playing days

STUART BATHGATE

CRAIG Levein’s four years as Hearts’ head coach were characterised by the same virtues he showed in 14 years as a player with the same club. Single-minded, dependable and an astute reader of the game, he quickly set about improving the standards of a squad which had started to lose its way after the 1998 Scottish Cup triumph.

When Levein took over from Jim Jefferies in December 2000, he was written off in some quarters as a cheap and inexperienced option who would be in the pocket of the Hearts chief executive Chris Robinson. His salary was certainly low, and his managerial experience was restricted to three years at Cowdenbeath, but he soon proved he was his own man.

Within weeks of assuming office, Levein lambasted his players after a defeat at Pittodrie, saying "it is almost theft picking up money for performances like that". He made it plain that those who wanted a future with Hearts had to buy into his own work ethic, and began reconstructing the side in his own image.

Over the coming years, in the face of swingeing budget cuts as the club’s debt deepened, he built a balanced squad which consistently proved to be far more than the sum of its parts. He nurtured the club’s youthful talent well, and also bought intelligently both domestically and from abroad.

In short, Levein probably did everything possible under the circumstances. In the past two seasons he took Hearts to third place in the SPL, firmly establishing them as the best of the non-Old-Firm clubs.

Throughout those two seasons, rumours arose intermittently linking him with a number of vacancies in England. Some were nothing but rumours; others, as he admitted yesterday, had had substance behind them.

A careful planner of his own career, he decided about a year ago that he wanted to test his managerial abilities in the English Premiership. Accepting he probably could not go direct from Hearts to the top flight south of the border, he decided that a side in what is now the Championship, one with the potential to win promotion, would be his best bet. In Leicester City, he has found a club which fits that description perfectly.

During his playing days, his status as a distinguished international centre-back aroused plenty of interest from England, with Manchester United just one the clubs who looked at him. However, a succession of serious knee injuries prevented Levein from moving south and the problem became so severe in the latter stages of his career that he was eventually forced into early retirement.

Signed from Cowdenbeath for £30,000 in November 1983. Levein soon became an integral member of Alex MacDonald’s team. The fastest player in the country, as he showed by winning the professional footballers’ sprint at Powderhall, he was the perfect complement for the veteran Sandy Jardine.

Illness prevented Levein from playing in the 1986 match at Dens Park in which Hearts were beaten 2-0 and lost the league title to Celtic as a result. He was present for most of the club’s other big matches, however, until, in the mid-1990s, when injury began to take its toll.

As a player, Levein preferred the efficient to the spectacular, and his managerial style reflected that temperament too. Although not easily riled, however, once engaged in a dispute he would persist until he saw justice was done.

Highly respected rather than adulated by the Tynecastle support, he will nonetheless go down as one of the major figures at Hearts in recent decades, a man who imposed his own meticulous professionalism on the team. Even given vastly improved finances, his successor will find him a very hard act to follow.

Taken from the Scotsman