All bets are off

Alan Campbell wonders where it all went wrong for Vladimir Romanov as the bookies pay out on the title going to Glasgow

HOW did Hearts lose the league? Officially they haven’t yet, but unless Vladimir Romanov’s resources stretch to miracles it won’t need another Albert Kidd to drive the last fatal nail into their title coffin.

Kidd, as a BBC documentary painfully reminded Hearts supporters on Friday night, scarred the Tynecastle club with two late goals for Dundee in the last match of the 1985-86 season. The defeat allowed Celtic to snatch the league on goal difference, but there will be no such dramatic end to the 2006 campaign.

As far as Ladbrokes are concerned, Gordon Strachan’s side are already 2005-06 champions. Having enriched Celtic backers on St Valentine’s Day, the only question now is when the league will be statistically over.

It’s not just in Gorgie that Hearts’ lame surrender will be rued. The magnificent start to the season under George Burley, when Hearts won their first eight matches to surge clear of the chasing pack, was a gift bequeathed to those who detest the Old Firm’s domination of Scottish football. It was a gift that was to be sadly and impetuously squandered.

Burley always warned that the Premierleague was a marathon and not a sprint, but as the eleventh game approached, against Dunfermline at Tynecastle, Hearts were three points ahead of Celtic and anticipating a routine victory over the fifers. They got the win, but on the morning of the match, October 22, it was revealed that Burley had abruptly left the club.

There are those who will insist that was the day Hearts lost the title, but while it was the most damaging of all the bullets which Romanov has fired from the hip into his own foot it was not necessarily crippling. Caretaker manager John McGlynn, despite a 2-0 derby defeat to Hibs, maintained Hearts’ momentum, winning three games out of four even as chief executive Phil Anderton and chairman George Foulkes left the club in bizarre circumstances.

Hearts supporters were still reeling from these firing squad executions when Romanov stunned them with his next manoeuvre. Watching from the Tynecastle directors’ box when Hearts defeated Dundee United 3-0 in McGlynn’s final game in charge was a craggy figure who, unbeknown to the crowd, had been installed as the new manager.

If Romanov’s logic had been questioned in “losing” a manager who had steered a patchwork squad to the top of the league, a chief executive who had delivered sell-out crowds, and a chairman whose diplomatic skills had helped save Hearts, his appointment of Graham Rix to replace Burley beggared belief.

Speculation that Claudio Ranieri might be the new manager proved fanciful, but at the very least Romanov was expected to employ an Iain Dowie or Billy Davies. The momentum was still there, even if the positive public perception of the club had been shattered – but the appointment of Rix revealed that whatever undisclosed reasons he may have had for firing Burley and Anderton, the Hearts owner’s judgement was badly skewed.

To say Rix arrived with a history is like stating Edinburgh has a castle. Given that Romanov’s antics, coupled to Burley’s earlier success, had made Hearts one of the most high profile football clubs in the UK, the Englishman’s arrival in the Scottish capital was always going to be contentious. But far worse for Rix and the club was the nastily hysterical reaction of sections of the Scottish media to the news that he remained on the sex offenders register after serving a prison sentence.

Despite still not having been given a clean bill of health by the SFA, Rix may yet transpire to be a top class coach with Hearts. He was not the man to lead them to the title this season, though, as his almost frightened early appearances in the dugout, and defensive body language at press conferences, revealed only too clearly.

Needing a flying start, Rix got the opposite. Whereas Hearts had taken 26 points from 30 under Burley, and nine from 12 under McGlynn, Rix’s opening five games brought just one victory.

Had the new head coach come in and left well alone, the players might have eked more out of these five crucial matches. But tinkering with formations and positions, as well as a reduction in the high level tempo which had worked so well for Burley, cost Hearts their momentum.

Even so, Rix and his side were still within a four point touching distance of Celtic when the sides met at Tynecastle on January 1. At half-time, 2-0 ahead and in complete command, they’d whittled that deficit down to a theoretical single point – but a disastrous last 30 minutes saw Celtic snatch victory in what was undoubtedly the pivotal match of the championship.

Despite the arrival of a full new side at Tynecastle during the transfer window, the gap had extended to what Ladbrokes regarded as an unassailable 13 points last weekend. Far from keeping the pressure on Celtic, Hearts, under Rix, have failed to win two league games in succession.

Now, with the end of the season in sight, Hearts’ aim is more modest – to finish second. Apologists for Romanov will point out that this is a massive improvement on last season’s performance. It is, but the circumstances are very different.

Rangers’ domestic implosion was an unforeseen factor, while Celtic, under Strachan, have displayed a vulnerability not shown by Martin O’Neill’s more robust sides. Opportunities to beat the Old Firm arrive infrequently, and for all the talk about long term planning at Tynecastle, Hearts may yet come to bitterly regret a season which could deliver a Scottish Cup.

Listening to former Hearts players speak during Friday night’s BBC documentary, the great strength of the 1985-86 team was the camaraderie between management and the squad. For three months at the start of the season Hearts, under Burley, enjoyed that togetherness too; Romanov was also highly popular with the fans.

For whatever reason, the Russian-born Lithuanian decided it wasn’t enough.

It is probably no coincidence that his ultimately destructive actions began the day he announced he was to seek outright ownership of the club. Since then there has barely been a settled week at Tynecastle: the sad fact for Romanov is that as a soap opera it’s rivetting, but it doesn’t deliver titles.

Taken from the Sunday Herald