What’s going on at Hearts?

Alan Campbell

AT the end of a week when the colour of Vladimir Romanov’s money was again conspicuous by its absence, the Hearts manager, John Robertson, admitted the final solution for his club could be a variation on an old theme.

Ground-sharing with Hibs at a stadium owned and run by Edinburgh City Council is likely to be marked by a squadron of maroon and green pigs making a fly-pass over the capital. But that the concept should be revived again only underlines the growing unease over Romanov’s proposed takeover of Hearts.

First there was the Lithuanian’s failure to complete his purchase of chief executive Chris Robinson’s shares by the deadline of December 8. Then, on Friday, came a further postponement when an egm of Hearts shareholders due to be held tomorrow night was rescheduled for January 27. Understandably, bells of the alarm variety are starting to ring in Gorgie.

Despite escaping from Easter Road with a 1-1 draw last Sunday, it was a pretty dreadful week for all at Tynecastle. Two of the club’s best players, Alan Maybury and Mark de Vries, predictably left for Leicester City once the January transfer window opened. Simultaneously, the club lost out to Dundee United in the bid to purchase Scotland striker Stevie Crawford.

Adding insult to injury, as far as many within the club were concerned, was the incongrous sight of 20 Eastern European players, mostly Lithuanians, playing bounce games at Hearts’ youth academy. The tab for this “training camp” was picked up by Romanov.

The failure to buy Crawford best sums up the limbo the Edinburgh side find themselves in. Plymouth manager Bobby Williamson contacted a number of clubs, including Hearts, Aberdeen and Dundee United, in November, to inform them that his striker wanted to return home. Aside from the transfer fee, the deal was that the purchasing club would pick the terms of Crawford’s remaining three-and-a-half-year contract.

According to the player’s agent, Bill McMurdo, the striker was “desperate” to join Hearts. Most of the talks were conducted through Robertson, but McMurdo claims chief executive Robinson also told him Hearts could get very near to Crawford’s basic wages of £4000 a week.

“Hearts wanted to do the deal after December 8, but that (the purchase of Robinson’s shares by Romanov) never happened,” said McMurdo. With the revised date for the Lithuanian’s takeover being set for February 4, that meant the new regime would be unable to sanction the deal during the January window.

Instead the decision on whether or not to purchase Crawford was taken by a meeting of the existing board after last Sunday’s derby at Easter Road. Their decision that it was economically impossible to justify a deal which would have netted Crawford £1m over the period of his contract is entirely understandable in the current climate, but the episode sums up the frustrations within the club caused by the failure to conclude last month’s takeover.

“It’s just a nightmare,” said McMurdo. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with, or anything about the financial stability of the club. If Romanov does take over, we don’t know what’s going to happen to John Robertson if it turns out he can’t live with this director of football, Anatoly Byshovets. I’ll be honest with you, JR was the only thing that kept us in the frame at Hearts.

“Romanov is an unknown quantity. I don’t know what he is, and nobody seems to be able to put a finger on him.”

The latest delay in the takeover process came on Friday. The egm was called by Romanov, whose purchase of a parcel of shares belonging to former director Leslie Deans has now been concluded. The Lithuanian owns a 10.3% stakeholding and he wanted his fellow shareholders to agree to cancel the proposed sale of Tynecastle to Cala Homes. Essentially, the Hearts board say they do not have enough detailed written information about Romanov’s plans for the future and need a three-week postponement of the meeting.

Whether the latest delay has been innocently caused by the Christmas holidays preventing the information being supplied on time, or more serious concern by the Halifax Bank of Scotland and the Scottish Media Group over the viability of Romanov’s proposals, only time will tell.

One source within Tynecastle conceded: “It’s accepted there will have to be a robust analysis of latest events, and it’s right these questions should be asked. But most people at club still think the takeover will happen and that there’s nothing sinister going on.”

The next four weeks will be crucial for Hearts. The best case scenario for the club is that the egm on January 27 agrees to the sale of Tynecastle to Cala being aborted. Romanov would then complete his legal agreement with Robinson to purchase his shares the following day, and the cash would be paid by the deadline of February 4.

That would give Romanov 29.9% of the club’s shares and the new regime would take over. The failure of any of the above to happen would almost certainly see the sale of Tynecastle to Cala go through and Romanov’s takeover cast into serious doubt. As one insider pointed out, it could then all get very messy.

Despite the disappointments of last week, including being told by Foulkes that his budget for next season will be cut by £1.2m if the takeover doesn’t go through, Robertson was remarkably upbeat ahead of yesterday’s Tennent’s Scottish Cup tie against Partick Thistle at Firhill.

In his most relaxed interview since taking over as manager in November, the former Inverness Caley manager talked of his love for the Gorgie club and his plans to give youth its fling regardless of what the future holds.

Robertson is thought to have a poor opinion of last week’s Eastern European training exercise organised by Byshovets, and instead chose to praise the work of John McGlynn, John Murray and the club’s other youth coaches in developing a clutch of highly promising young players.

With Lee Miller, the former Falkirk striker, having joined on loan from Bristol City until the end of the season, Robertson attempted to put a positive spin on recent events.

“We’ve got a fantastic training facility and support,” he said. “We’ve got a huge debt to address, but although we’ll still pay what I’d call decent Premierleague wages and incentives to win trophies, I only want people here who want to play for the club and take it forward. We’ve a small staff on the football and business sides, but they’re all very loyal and work very hard.

“I love football. It’s the hassles outwith which annoy and frustrate me. I hate doing press conferences and television because I’d rather be out on the training field, but it’s part of the job and you do the best you can.

“I say some things I shouldn’t, like letting the fans know the budget is being cut by £1.2m, but that’s the way I am. If I tell the truth, the fans know where they are. They may now know that the market we are targeting in the summer is not necessarily the one we were previously.

“But I won’t be bringing in any players who are inferior. They would have to be pretty special, because if our 16-18-year-olds continue to improve we won’t need to bring in new players.”

In football, a sense of optimism is never far away.

09 January 2005

Taken from the Sunday Herald