Penitent Rix runs gauntlet of deep suspicion

ALAN PATTULLO

"Young girl, get out of my mind
My love for you is way out of line
Better run, girl,
You're much too young, girl"

IT'S UNLIKELY Graham Rix entertained any cosy illusions of what might await him in an unforgiving environment where fierce receptions are afforded players who have the impudence to return to the home of a former club. Yet if he had expected a warm welcome the notion lay speared outside Tynecastle yesterday, along with the discarded Russian hats that served a new symbolic purpose on the grimy floor.

After all, the taunts he heard were coming from his own team's supporters, or, more accurately, from the sleek Jaguar parked on the concourse outside Tynecastle with windows fully wound down and CD player blaring. Out spilled the words of Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, and a song which still has people way-laying the singer in the street to tell him they fell in love to it. Young Girl, quoted above, was played on loop, for possibly the first ever time outside a football ground.

Puckett would have been surprised to learn yesterday that his song had become the sound-track to some menacing scenes being played out in a corner of Gorgie that is making agitators out of even the local school-children. One suspects their impatience to reach the stadium and add their voice to the ferment had more to do with a thirst for adventure than an angry desire to see a moral code up-held. Perhaps the same could be said for some of their elders in a throng that began to congregate at just after midday. One arrived in a taxi. Probably because he was driving it. "Taxi for Romanov!" he shouted after screeching to a halt.

When told the major shareholder had already left, he cried: "Taxi for Robinson - ach, he's away too!" The outburst spoke of another era at Tynecastle, when bogey-men took the plump form of a former pie-maker. Here was something altogether more sinister, and it was hard to pin-point what proved more disquieting: the fact Hearts had decided to appoint a convicted sex offender as first-team coach or the implacable mood of some seeking to deny Rix a chance at rehabilitation.

It's normally reporters that need to take notice of the time and location of press conferences. At Hearts, however, it's a rallying call for the dejected masses to appear. Last week it was Roman Romanov who drew a mid-afternoon crowd of malcontents to the Tynecastle doorstep. Yesterday it was Rix whose presence provoked more wild tempers in Gorgie, as Cossack hats were sent flying back towards the Russian Steppes with the force of a Drew Busby buzz-bomb. One fan, William MacDonald, said he wouldn't be going back, while another, Callum Anderson, the owner of the once Hearts-friendly bar Dickens, has already intimated to the club that he is considering withdrawing multiple sponsorship deals.

In a way it was the Romanov regime rather than Rix who lay in the firing line, although the former England internationalist endured a sudden burst of venom when walking from the outhouse that is the club reception to the Gorgie Suite inside the stadium itself. "Beast!" a fan shouted, before adding, for good measure: "Michael Jackson!"

One presumes this was an attempt at a sneer but it really only amounted to a slur. On the singer's character, that is. If only he was Jackson, or at least someone given a formal exoneration in a court. Instead, Rix had felt the grave consequences of actions that left him despised.

This is something Rix might have contemplated in the moments before he faced a perky press pack, before he had to declare himself a convicted sex offender once again. "I will say this only once," Rix said when asked to ponder the offence he committed - unlawful sex with a minor - in the light of his appointment to such a high-profile job. He paused for a few seconds, then addressed the floor: "Seven years ago I made a mistake and once I realised I'd made a mistake I held my hands up and I was punished."

But he didn't have to say it only once. He had to say it to the radio stations, the daily newspapers, the Sunday titles and the television reporters. He had to tell us how he felt again and again and again. Each branch of media was treated to a confessional, although there also existed hints of a yet untold story, and, perhaps, mitigating circumstances. "I know the full story that I have never, ever said," he stated at one point in this dizzying and surely taxing round of interviews. One story could be seen plainly enough, and it was inscribed across features too lined for his 48 years. Rix has clearly suffered.

There was a big mesh gate between the party of Hearts officials who walked Rix to the press conference and the fans who had given up an afternoon to vent their displeasure in the freezing cold. It was a deeply distressing scene. Not because these good citizens were employed in anything other than a legitimate protest, but, rather, gloom accumulated with the realisation that threats of season-ticket returns and sponsorship cancellation are a long way from the bright new dawn the Romanov regime promised.

A sign on the ticket office window said tickets were still available for the next three home matches. It's a far cry from the Sold Out posters of not too long ago, although the lack of takers might have something to do with another sign propped up outside newsagents all over town yesterday: Fan Fury as Hearts Appoint Sex Offender Manager.

Of course, there's every likelihood that these games next month, against Livingston, Inverness and Falkirk, will sell out, particularly if Rix is able to do what he says he can: make Hearts even better.

Taken from the Scotsman