Rix back to his calling

THE sound of the bells at midnight are not so much a dawn of a new year as a mating call for managers and agents. The bells mark the opening of the January transfer window, a cue for men like Graham Rix to get familiar with the representatives of a Bosnian or a Dane or a Belgian who just might fill that gap on the right or the left or up the middle. These routines are being played out at football clubs across the land. On Thursday, Rix was just one manager in hundreds with his mobile glued to his ear.

Phone rings, 5.05pm: "Alright fella... How much?! Ah, nah, mate. Nah."

5.09pm: "Alright kid... euros or pounds? Interesting."

5.15pm: "Alright son... He said what? Christ!"

You're tempted to take Rix's phone out the door of the Dalmahoy Country Club where we've met, stick it on a tee and smash it down one of this plush estate's frost-covered fairways with the biggest driver known to golf. At 5.30pm the thing starts ringing again. Who's it now? He holds the phone up. On the display it says: "Crouch calling".

Peter Crouch: promising but unproven QPR striker bought by Rix for Portsmouth in July 2001 for £1.25m. Sold to Aston Villa 14 months later for £5m. Sold to Liverpool in the summer for £7m. Hasn't forgotten those he met on the way up.

"Big man. You know what I asked you? Is he good enough? Right, right... OK mate... Cheers kid... Buzz you later fella."

Rix throws his phone down on the table and apologises. "I'm really sorry about this," he says. "I'd turn it off only..." Only this is part of his life again. No need to apologise for that. He's waited long enough for it. He talks about all the hours he spent wishing the phone would ring, the hours spent in an armchair at home in Southampton watching Sky Sports News on television and wondering if his nightmare would ever end. There's pressure within football, he says, but just trying living on the outside for a while. Then you know what pressure is about.

A few years back, he watched a documentary one evening with his wife, Linda, and their children. It was an Alan Hansen production, a focus on how some footballers fail dismally to deal with life after the game. "That's me," he said.

"Rubbish," said the kids.

But he was exactly like that. He tried to explain what he meant and told a story from before they were born. Rix was reared in a council house in Campsall, a humdrum pit village in Yorkshire. His father, Alan, earned 40 quid a week working hard at the Doncaster Power Station, so the Rix family dream was pretty much tied up in the football ability of their eldest child.

Rix was 16 when he left for Arsenal. He made his first-team debut at 19. On April 4, 1977, he played against Leicester and scored with his first touch of the ball, a 20-yard curler that went in at Highbury's North Bank end. That was the point he made to the kids. At 19, he experienced this incredible sensation and it stayed with him for 14 years at Arsenal. Where do you go when it's over? What do you do when the music stops?

So, yeah, he was just like the guys on Hansen's programme, only worse. Rix applied for more than 30 management jobs and got turned down flat for every one. He had baggage. He was free from jail a long time but in some ways he was still locked up.

He thought about driving a taxi and then one day a card came through the door. It was an invite to the wedding of a player he once coached at Chelsea, Jody Morris. He went with Linda. During the nuptials, John Terry questioned Rix about his failure to get back into coaching. "Just not happening, mate," Rix said. "Every job I go for it's a custard pie." "Don't give up, Rico," Terry replied. "Don't ever f***ing give up."

APPARENTLY, THE CRAWLEY JOB WAS HIS IF HE wanted it. And how he wanted it. He drove home from the interview convincing himself that his breakthrough had arrived, allowing himself to get excited about his imminent return to football management.

At tea-time, the phone rang and his day took a sudden twist. The person on the other end of the line said he was Roman Romanov of Hearts but Rix suspected it was a wind-up. It was Jim Duffy taking the mick and if it wasn't Duffy it was his other great mate, Graham Bell. "Yeah, yeah, alright Belly. OK Duff. Nice one son. I know it's one of you."

Romanov told him to get to London, that his father wanted to see him. Didn't matter what time he got there. Vladimir would be waiting. Rix drove to his in-laws in Doncaster, got the train to the capital and sat down with Romanov Snr close to midnight. After two minutes he was offered the Hearts job.

"I've asked him since, why me? He said it's a secret. I've kept asking him and asking him. I asked his son. Why did your father pick me? Roman says that when Vladimir first met me he looked into my eyes and saw a passion and when he spoke to me he heard an honesty and a directness that he liked. Whether that's true or not, I don't know. But I'd like to think it is."

It's been reported in the last few months that Rix has been on the verge of quitting or of being sacked, that the intrusions in his private life, the pressure of getting results and the stress of dealing with a demanding owner and a doubtful media have got to him. According to one report, he was feeling isolated at Tynecastle without a director of football to take some of the burden off him. One supposed source at the club said he had become a broken man.

A broken man? He laughs at that. Laughs because he knows precisely what losing your spirit and your dignity is all about and knows, too, how vastly improved his life is. Sure, it's tough. His wife and family are down south and he's up here, staying in a hotel every night and living the game every minute of the day. But if his home in Southampton is his sanctuary, Tynecastle is his salvation. "I have to pinch myself. That's why I'm working as hard as I can to make a success of it."

There's a language barrier between Vladimir Romanov and himself but he says there is a warmth there, too. "Every time I see him I get a big hug off him. I deal with Roman more. Roman trusts me, he listens to me. They work hard, the Romanovs. People question them all the time but they really, really care for the club. Why knock it? What a great opportunity this is for Hearts to challenge the Old Firm. Yeah, Celtic beat us and if they play properly for the rest of the season then they're going to be hard to catch. But if they didn't know it before Sunday then they know it now: we'll be ready if they start dropping points."

There's been a price to pay for coming to Hearts, of course, and for Rix it has been unexpectedly high. "I have to be real careful here. I don't need it, you know. It winds me up. It keeps getting thrown at me. God almighty, leave it alone." You know what "it" is. "It" is still rumbling on. "We've had a few problems," he says. "Photographers outside our house on the south coast, maybe three or four people in cars, waiting for a snap. Intrusive. Needless. Just after I got the job we had to call the police four times in one day to get rid of photographers from the little road where we live. Journalists have been digging away. They tracked down family members. Look, it was hard enough for my family to go through it when they did but then for it to be brought up again, for it be thrown in their face all these years later. Well, I just don't think that's fair.

"I've got to be honest, not one single person in Scotland has given me abuse. Not one. Not a single negative thing has been said to me. The people have been unbelievable and that keeps me going. The people at Hearts? Fantastic. The supporters have been looking and maybe they're wondering and that's fair enough. I know there are people questioning me but whatever you do, you have to go home and be happy. You have to be able to look in the mirror and say 'Yeah, I was OK today, I didn't tell any lies, I tried my best'. I'm good within myself. Am I under pressure? Let me tell you, I've had far more pressurised situations in my life than this. This is a joy."

It's been a rollercoaster, though. Off the field, the SFA have hauled him up in pursuit of more information about his conviction for unlawful sex with a 15-year-old. "Hurtful," is all he'll say about that. It is perhaps a co-incidence but the fact that the association have suspended their verdict may have something to do with the complexities of the case, only a fraction of which have ever been reported.

On the field, an ordinary beginning was followed by a worrying dip and then something of a resurgence in the last two league games, even if last Sunday's meeting with Celtic eventually ended in a dramatic defeat. He went shopping in Edinburgh with his wife the following day. "She could have bought the castle and I wouldn't have noticed. I went over it and over it. You don't get much sleep after games like that."

He looked for the positives, as he was obliged to do. A Hearts fan told him that in 25 years he had not seen the team play as well as they'd done in the first half at Tynecastle. That was a boost. So, too, was the performance of young Calum Elliot. "The kid did his first press conference a few weeks ago. I met him in the hallway before he went in and his heart was beating so fast I thought it was going to jump out of his chest. He's been incredible."

The job has been a shock to him, not just the scale of the media coverage but the harshness of it. "Loads of obstacles have been put in my way, in the Romanovs way and in the way of the Hearts players," he says. "The Pospisil situation was an example. I'm supposed to have had a row with Michal, I'm supposed to have had a row with Paul Hartley, a row with Rudi Skacel and nothing is further from the truth. I don't know why people are attacking us but we've got to be strong. I'm doing what I'm doing. I'm working hard for the players, the players are working hard for me. It's not a siege mentality we have but we know it's tough for us. We're a target to be shot at. The lads at Celtic and Rangers have had this for many, many years. All of a sudden my lads are under the microscope and it's challenging."

He doesn't know what constitutes success in Romanov's mind. He's been given no targets or ultimatums. There has been no shots across his bows or threats of the sack. He is on a short-term contract until the end of the season and if he has to leave in the summer then he wants to leave knowing he gave it everything. It's what he tells his players every match day. "No 'if onlys' today, boys. No regrets'.

"Look, I'm a normal geezer who's hugely grateful for this opportunity. To be honest, I wasn't sure something like this was ever going to happen for me again. There's people digging me out but is this the first time in my life that people have tried to dig me out? Nah. It's not a perfect world, is it? There's no romance or sympathy. You do your best. If it works out, great. If it doesn't, well, I'll know I couldn't have done any more."

Phone rings, 6.32pm: "Alright pal, tell me some good news. Right. OK. Get him in mate, get him in. Nice one! Yesssss!"

Taken from the Scotsman