Rix eager to get another chapter in his life started

IF YOU were asked who in Scotland yesterday made the assertion "I'm enjoying every single minute of it", there would be more likely candidates than Graham Rix. In the week and a half since becoming Hearts' first-team coach, the former Arsenal player has, after all, had a certain amount of pressure heaped on his shoulders.

Given a hostile reception by some fans outside the media reception to unveil him nine days ago, Rix will have a steward all to himself at Pittodrie on Sunday, when he takes charge of his new team for the first time. His 1999 conviction for sex with a 15-year-old girl will ensure he gets the attention of coarser wits around the country's grounds, and was also the reason why a majority of Hearts supporters who voted in an online poll said they did not want him at the club.

That latter reaction has since been counterbalanced by messages of support, but it has nonetheless been a difficult time for the 48-year-old, especially as in England he had stopped being the focus of controversy some time ago. Yet there he was yesterday afternoon at Riccarton, declaring his enthusiasm for this fresh challenge.

"Walking in this morning, I'm still excited," he said. "I've had trouble sleeping every night because my head's full of things that I want to say to the guys. There's an excitement about me all the time. I'm enjoying every single minute of it." Of course, "every single minute" means the job, the involvement with football, not the external attention. Yet it is his ability to take refuge in this devotion to the daily grind of his trade that has helped him cope, and also in a sense allowed him to feel less pressure than he otherwise would.

Under more usual circumstances, after all, joining Hearts at this stage would surely be fraught with tension for many people. Could they cope with the expectation? If they lost a game in the SPL, unlike their predecessor, George Burley, what would the club's majority shareholder Vladimir Romanov have to say about that? If Burley was dispensed with while his side were top of the table, how much job security could anyone else really feel in the role - especially given the supposedly imminent appointment of a director of football, someone who could clearly have very different ideas about the game from Rix?

Those questions and more, not to mention a whole heap of self-doubt, would surely nag away at many. Certainly, with days to go before their first match in charge, they would be filled with more than a hint of trepidation.

With Rix, though, the opposite is the case. He arrived in a vacuum, with a fortnight between club games because of the break for internationals, and now he cannot wait for the match in Aberdeen. It has felt like an age since he watched from Tynecastle's main stand a week past Saturday as Hearts defeated Dundee United 3-0, especially as he was so enthused by what he saw then. "Coming away from that Dundee United game I was really excited with what I saw," he recalled. "Obviously it was a great result, but I could see there were things to work with.

"I thought they [Hearts] were fantastic - their enthusiasm, their work-rate, their togetherness. To produce that sort of display after what had probably been traumatic weeks for them speaks volumes for the professionalism and strength of character within the squad, and obviously there's key people within that.

"And I thought, yeah, you know, [when it comes to] motivating these guys, I think they've got self-motivation. And to be fair John McGlynn deserves a lot of credit there for keeping it going."

McGlynn remains as an assistant coach, and Valdas Ivaunaskas will also continue to help out, but Rix will be the one to carry the can. He is well aware that Romanov and his son Roman, the chairman and acting chief executive, are hungry for success, but he has not been given a specific definition of what will be deemed to constitute that success come the end of the season when his six-month contract runs out.

"I've got a great relationship with Roman. He's my man, he's my boss, and I speak to him every day. I can assure Hearts fans he's as ambitious, if not more ambitious, than I am for the club.

"How far did Hearts finish behind [the champions] last year? Twenty points or so? More than that. So anything less would be progress. But obviously, after the start they've had, the closer you get to it the more you think, hey, this could happen.

"But I'm not going to put myself or my players under pressure by saying we're going to do this, we're going to do that, because I think you're setting yourself up.

"What I will say is that we will give everything we can to finish as high as we can. And I think, to be fair, if you give your best, if you give your lot, and it doesn't quite work out for you, then people will find it hard to criticise you.

"You don't find yourself walking into a job very often where the team are top of the league. Very rarely does that happen - usually it's the different kind of pressure where you're bottom of the league and you've got to stay in the league.

"I think we'll stay in the league this year. That's one pressure taken away. [And] I've taken so much pressure off the lads.

"It depends how you judge success, what would be success at the end of the season. I like what I see here, I think there's some great raw material to work with.

"I said to the guys in my first little chat with them: Fellas, you've got so much to be happy about. Look at the training facilities. You're top of the league, you're absolutely buzzing. Walk about with a smile on your face. And if I see you without a smile on your face you are fined £10 immediately."

Only one person has so far had to cough up, and that was not even a player. "Valdas," Rix admitted when asked who had failed the happy test.

The Englishman himself passes it with ease. Not in every aspect of everyday life, for he is still understandably a touch cagy about meeting unfamiliar people, but on the training pitch or anywhere else to do with football.

"Already I'm really happy. To win a trophy, to achieve something, would be fantastic, not just for me. I go out on the training pitch in the morning and I say to John McGlynn, 'this is my office'. And he always laughs at me when I say that but it is. This is something I really want to do and be a success at."

The Doncaster-born Rix knew he would be a success at playing football from an early age, and went on to have a successful career at Arsenal before eventually graduating to coaching with Chelsea. His home since his stint at Portsmouth has been on the south coast, where he lives with his second wife, Linda, whom he married five years ago.

His whole life, however, could have followed a more northerly route had he accepted one early offer. "I don't think anybody knows this, but I'm a South Yorkshire boy, and at the age of 14 I was approached by Hearts to come up and play, have trials with Hearts. And I didn't. I was already at Arsenal. Strange now, you know. Some years later I've found myself here in charge of it." Strange does not begin to describe the situation in which Rix now finds himself. This turbulent period has seen more words written about Hearts than probably any other time in the club's history. The trouble for Rix, though, is that his latest move means another postponement of his written assessment of his own life.

"I've written a synopsis," he explained of his planned autobiography. "But just when you think it's time to write it, another chapter needs to be written. It's a book about my life. [There will be] a few extra chapters, I hope."

Taken from the Scotsman