Five of Hearts is a title calling card

Moira Gordon

ACCORDING to the statisticians, the last time a non-Old Firm team won their first five league matches was in 1984/85. That team was Aberdeen. That season they won the league and it remains the last time the Glasgow duopoly lost their grip on the league title. More than 20 years on there is a growing suspicion they could be about to do so again. At the very least there are some sizeable sums going on Hearts providing the filling in an Old Firm sandwich.

Flight of fancy or fact? Five games in, 15 points and 15 goals to the good. Only Kilmarnock, on the opening day, have succeeded in scoring against them in open play. Those facts may not be concrete evidence but they do offer some indication. This, after all, is a time which still has to gel. A team of players barely introduced to each other before the season kicked off. It is also a squad which has strength and depth.

The absence of quality in numbers is what has proved the deciding difference between sustainable challenges and hopeful posturings of the past. But now, at Tynecastle, just as at Celtic Park and Ibrox, there are internationals rather than teenage insurgents occupying the bench, while the more experienced exponents on the park are used to feeding off success rather than the scraps left over after the Old Firm have gorged themselves on all domestic silverware and the Champions League placings. The conservative plan outlined publicly by the men in the boardroom may talk of UEFA Cup placings but such morsels will not sustain these players.

Not only are their international caps aplenty, but also Champions League appearances and a European Championship winner.

There is also the very clear promise of more names to follow, should Hearts still be in contention and that be deemed necessary, come the opening of the January transfer window. It is a promise, for once, the Old Firm may not be able to match. The Celtic plc demand balanced books before speculative spending. The individual billions of Hearts' Vladimir Romanov means their spending is constrained only by the Lithuanian's moods. At the moment all he seems to be in the mood for is proving they are no fleeting force. A man used to getting what he wants in business, when it comes to his footballing pleasures, he has the same desire and it is reflected in all key personnel. Manager George Burley can almost smell success, why else would he endure a situation that allows an owner to meddle in team selection? There's also captain Steven Pressley, who is speaking the diplomatic speak of someone who senses something big but is scared to voice it for fear of jinxing it.

"I think January-February, if we are still in the hunt we will consider ourselves serious contenders but certainly not after five league games. Of course, it has given us a base to build on and given us a confidence within the squad. The important aspect is building momentum and if you continue to win games you build momentum and confidence within the team. Another encouraging aspect is that it looks like another couple of new faces within the football club this week and that for me signals an intent. When you are winning and adding to the squad there is a genuine belief that the club want to move in the right direction."

A genuine belief that they are already doing so. The vibrancy of the home crowd, which is now reaching capacity for home games, is in marked contrast to the angry with polluted the air in past seasons. They see a team with a presence both physical and mental with which to batter teams into submission; players with passing ability, technique and bite.

For a team supposedly still to gel, there is also a togetherness. Anyone hoping that the multi-cultural, multi-national conformation of the squad will prove its undoing need only witness the blossoming team spirit, as body language and the thrill of winning bridges the linguistical divide.

"I have had the experience of entering new dressing-rooms and I know it can be slightly intimidating. I think it is important to involve the players right from the off; make them feel part of ther football club but the lads have settled in really well," says Pressley, a man who now has the welcome speech off pat. "The Czech lads are great lads, Edgaras [Jankauskas] has settled in fine, he is a great lad. There is a good feeling among the dressing room but there always is. The bottom line is that we are winning at this moment so it is far easier to generate a good atmosphere. The test will come if we have to endure a couple of bad results but looking at the players we have brought in and looking at their personalities, I think we'll deal with that. That will be the real test."

No barrier to team morale, the fact that the Scottish backbone of the side is dressed with foreign talent may be no bad thing. Just as Romanov has proved himself unwilling to kowtow to the Old Firm and the SFA, the influx of foreigners will be unburdened by the inherent sense of inferiority homegrown players seem to have to overcome before they can really challenge the Glasgow pair on the pitch. That will help the Scottish players who are aware that the underdogs rarely prosper in the Scottish top flight.

"That is an aspect that players looking in from the outside at the Old Firm don't realise is difficult to live with," says Pressley. "If we continue to get results these expectancy levels will continue to grow. That will be new to a lot of us and something we will have to learn to handle."

But those who sneer that the bubble will burst the minute Burley's recruits come face to face with the sturdier test posed at either Celtic Park or Ibrox, may care to remember the calibre of those enlisted. The results in those matches may not be in Hearts' favour but if not, a weak will is unlikely to be the cause. As a member of the Greece side which not once but twice squared up to Portugal on their own patch at last summer's Euro Championships and pinched the trophy from under their nose, Takis Fyssas is unlikely to be fazed by braying Old Firm fans, even if there are 60,000 of them. He is not the only big-game player now on the books.

"We've played five games so I'm not getting carried away. I think Alex McLeish has already been on record saying this is the best squad he's ever had and when Alex says that, you've got to think that they are very strong this season and will be fighting up at the top again. We've got good players with good character who have worked very hard. We have got a nucleus of Scotsmen there who are quality players and we brought in more quality players and have blended them together. We have got them enjoying the training and working hard on the training ground and getting the organisation right."

While goals seem to be on tap for the Tynecastle team, it is their meanness at their own goal which could be the bigger factor in the long term.

The last time Hearts came close to winning the title, in 1986, they traversed every home game unbeaten in the league. They thrived on the noise and fervour of their fans and came so near but yet so far. They had everything it took to win the league that year except maybe the strength and depth to cope with dips in form and injuries to key players.

It has also been levied that they lacked the self-belief and the experience to contend with the final-day pressures. Those are all common complaints for teams with ambition but lacking the Old Firm's resources. That is why the bubble bursts. This year it may still. Everyone employed at Hearts is only too aware of that, which is why they are being so canny. But on inspection, those drawbacks don't seem relevant to this Hearts squad which is why, even after only five games, this already appears a more realistic threat and why the Old Firm can't afford to be anything other than canny.

When only splitting the Old Firm was considered a missed opportunity

IT WASN'T just disappointment in 1986, it was sheer emotional devastation. Scott Crabbe was right behind the goal at Dens Park on the last day of that season, just another fan in tears as the dream died. That summer he signed for his boyhood idols and his task was to try to make amends for that upset. As 1991 turned into 1992, he believed he and his team-mates had the chance to do just that.

"It was just after Christmas and I remember we played Celtic and won 2-1, I scored the first, and we were top of the league. That night we thought we had a right good chance but from then on we only won about three games and Rangers just kicked on. Although we still split the Old Firm, by the final month there was no likelihood of us winning the league, so I suppose we at least spared the fans the agony of another final-day shoot-out.

"Too many of our big-game performers all lost form at the same time and we didn't have the quality in reserve to rest them and still give both the Old Firm clubs a run for their money. I suppose that has been the case for so many of the clubs and explains why no club outwith Celtic and Rangers have won the league since Aberdeen in 1984/85."

It also explains the cautionary tales fathers are currently using to try to tether the expectation and unbridled excitement of the younger generation of Hearts fans. 'Always the Bridesmaid' was chosen as the title for a fanzine with good reason.

"The atmosphere around the club just now is mega and it's understandable because of the start the club's had but I'm like a lot of the fans who have been through this before. We want to believe we can go all the way but are trying not to get too carried away.

"It's Alex Ferguson who is always going on about judging a club's title credentials on where they are at Christmas. If, by the turn of the year, you're still in there, then you have a chance, of course you do. I believe that too, but after what happened to us, even then I wouldn't be taking anything for granted."

The Class of 91/92's collapse is the only warning fans and players should need to keep their feet on the ground. Circumstances are different and things do bode well but Crabbe knows better than most that sustaining championship-winning for an entire campaign is no formality. Which is why he is certain few if any within Tynecastle's inner sanctum will be allowing thoughts of a title win to formulate, far less articulate, such a notion.

"No-one wants to jinx things by talking about it, so while subconsciously the optimism and the attitude of the fans begins to seep in, you consciously try not to think about it too much. I'm sure that's the way it will be for the players just now. They know they have had a mega start but they also know there is a long, long way to go. In that sort of situation no-one wants to be the first to talk about it.

"I remember, even after that win over Celtic, we were all thinking about it and I think that when we all finally acknowledged we had a right good chance but no-one really spoke about it. It goes through stages. From not even allowing yourself to think about it, you maybe start talking to family and close friends, then maybe, if you share a car with a few of the lads into training, you will have a wee nibble at it, but I don't think it was ever really talked about in the dressing room.

"No-one wanted to be big-time and we didn't want people or other teams to think we were getting ahead of ourselves so you just keep the thoughts to yourself and try to focus on the next 90 minutes. As it turned out it was just as well we hadn't allowed ourselves to get caught up in the hype or start making rash predictions because we would have looked a bit silly.

"Splitting the Old Firm was still a great achievement and it's not something many teams have managed to do in recent years so it wasn't a terrible season but it wasn't the league win that the fans and the players had been hoping for at the turn of the year."

The excitement generated by the pre-New Year run, albeit tempered by the inferior form of the second half to that season, is still something that lives with Crabbe. A spectator at the recent Hearts v Hibs derby, he says the noise and the feelgood factor that day was reminiscent of bygone days.

"Tynecastle was very different then. There was The Shed and the fans were still standing. We were getting big crowds of 16,000-18,000 for big games so the sellout on derby day was no surprise but the noise and the excitement reminded me of back then. With all due respect, what is unbelievable is the fact that they are selling out matches against teams like Motherwell this early in the season. If we were in the final few games and the title was still a possibility, then, yes, but after a handful of games and everything still to play for, it's incredible. I see that and there's a sense of disbelief. I think it's the same for a lot of supporters who have been around for a while. I have a lot of friends who are season-ticket holders and they think it's amazing when you talk to them but then they go along to the games and get caught up in it all as well. That's why I think it was mad that the club ever considered moving away from Tynecastle. If they want to win the title they need to make the most of the positive vibe Hearts players get from playing at that ground.

"Every team that wins the title needs to be hard to beat at home and at Tynecastle, I think this current squad of players will be. I also think that because they are not all burdened by history or probably even aware that it's been 20 years since a team outwith the Old Firm won the league, they won't understand why people think it will all fizzle out. These are international players who have great self-belief and who won't feel second best to Celtic or Rangers and they won't be fazed by the big crowds and the atmosphere at places like Parkhead and Ibrox."

Crabbe believed he could help end the club's barren spell in 1992 before settling for second best. This time he is choosing to remain more cautious. "I think we will split the Old Firm but I'm not so sure we can win the league." How he would love to be wrong again.

Taken from the Scotsman