Progress silences Romanov sceptics

STUART BATHGATE

A YEAR ago this week, Vladimir Romanov gained control of hearts when he agreed to buy a 19.6 per cent stake in the club from the then chief executive, Chris Robinson. The announcement on the morning of 30 September gave the club's supporters cause for celebration - and they were given further cause that night, when a 2-2 draw with Braga in Portugal gave hearts an aggregate win and a place in the group stages of the uefa cup.

In the intervening 12 months, Romanov has faced a barrage of scepticism - some of it understandable, given the magnitude of his ambition, but much of it motivated by hostility verging on the xenophobic. Step by step, he has proven the sceptics wrong.

He might have agreed to buy Robinson's shares, we were told by some of them last autumn, but he doesn't have the money to go through with the deal.

He completed the deal.

He won't put any money into Hearts, was the claim when, before a new manager had been appointed, the club failed to secure the services of Lee Miller, the striker who had been on loan from Bristol City. George Foulkes, the chairman, was also the subject of scepticism when he tried to placate the fans by saying it would be wrong to enter a bidding war for Miller if the club were shortly to sign a striker with Champions League experience.

Since then, Romanov has put a substantial sum into the club, and Hearts have indeed signed a striker with Champions League experience - Edgar Jankauskas - not to mention a few other players who also seem quite good.

Having been proven wrong on that front, the sceptics have since fallen back to an apparently more secure position. You can't compete with the Old Firm, they say. Not with their resources.

In its most extreme form, this argument asserts that the evolution of Scottish football has somehow come to an end, and that from now on Rangers and Celtic will occupy the top two positions in perpetuity. Unsurprisingly, most of those who claim this either support one of the Old Firm clubs or have a vested interest of another sort in maintaining the status quo.

In other words, Romanov is threatening the cosy conservative consensus at the centre of Scottish football. Far from being a fantasist, he has shown over the past year that he has a practical grasp of the task he has taken on. Far from being cowed by the forces ranged against him, he is relishing the challenge.

In one sense, at least, the sceptics are right. Hearts are not splitting the Old Firm. Hibs and Kilmarnock are. George Burley, understandably, persists in lowering expectations. For all that his club have won their first eight matches in the SPL, the man named manager of the month for September yesterday insists that finishing third will still be a remarkable achievement.

The initial plan was indeed to start off by consolidating Hearts' position as best of the rest this season before mounting a challenge for the title next year. Or rather, the presumption was that the first year would have to be a settling in period for the many new arrivals at the club.

Such has been the speed with which those new arrivals have learned to play together as a team, however, that such plans have been revived. The whole Hearts project, in fact, is progressing faster than usual. Season ticket sales, for example, are already at record levels, and yesterday the club announced it is to put a further 1,500 up for sale on 5 November.

Everything has gone so well so quickly that there has hardly been time to take stock, but at least there will be a fortnight's break from the domestic game after tomorrow's match against Falkirk. And, if Hearts needed any incentive to round off the first tranche of the season with a ninth straight league victory, there is the fact that if they do so they will set a new SPL and club record.

Last week's 1-0 victory against Rangers equalled the eight-win starts to the season by the Ibrox club in 1999-2000 and by Celtic the following season. Going back much further, it also emulated Hearts' own record, set in 1914.

Celtic's run came about in Martin O'Neill's first season with the club, and was testament to the speed with which the Northern Irishman was able to get his team to gel. Burley has achieved something similar, but he has claimed from the start that his squad is too small to go through the season in style, and he has been vindicated this week.

The injury which has ruled out Roman Bednar leaves the manager short of options to partner Jankauskas up front. He is anxious to play Michal Pospisil, but the Czech has only been back in training a week and is clearly a bit of a risk.

"We'll see how he goes - he'll be in the squad," Burley said. "Ideally, Michal is the replacement for Roman, but he hasn't played in six to eight weeks.

"He's worked hard, and hasn't had any adverse effect on his hamstring, so he's getting there. Ideally you'd want him to play one or two reserve games first ..."

The unspoken but at the end of that sentence suggests that Pospisil will start, as did the disgruntled expression on Stephen Simmons' face after training at Riccarton yesterday. Simmons came on for Bednar last week, but is far more a forward-going midfielder than a striker and may have to be content with a place on the bench.

With Takis Fyssas also doubtful because of injury, Hearts will need to maintain the hard-headed attitude which has served them so well this far. If they need any reminder of the dangers Falkirk can pose, they only have to look back to the end of January 2003, when, in their last meeting at Brockville, they lost 4-0 to Falkirk in the Scottish Cup.

The Hearts defence is unlikely to be as bamboozled as it was then, and the team has yet to draw a blank in the league this season. If they do fail to win, the sceptics will no doubt re-emerge in numbers. But it will take much more than the odd blip to throw the single-minded Romanov off track.

Taken from the Scotsman