You've got to hand it to Gordon

AT A recently held quiz to raise funds for Hearts' youth development programme, Craig Gordon found himself in a team of Tynecastle present-dayers doing battle with old timers who included one of his antecedents in the Hearts goal, Henry Smith.

"We beat him," Gordon grins, before going on to offer some nicey-nice line about how he hopes to be as fondly remembered as the 1980s Tynecastle No1.

He will be more than that. In today being revealed as the Scottish Football Writers' Association player of the year, Gordon has beaten all previous goalkeepers at the Gorgie club. By us hacks at least, he will now be remembered fondly as the first of these custodians to be so voted in 39 years; and only the second Hearts player, after Sandy Clark in 1986, to land the honour. As a product of the Hearts youth development programme himself, when at the grizzled stage Gordon might find himself filling the Smith role at one of their quiz nights and be able to ink in his own moniker to the poser asking for the only player reared by Hearts ever to earn the highest accolade from the SFWA.

A young man patently on a mission to achieve and archive milestones, he will probably spend the week until he speaks at the SFWA dinner memorising the years and names of the four goalkeepers whose footsteps he is following in. For the record he joins Andy Goram (1993), Hamish McAlpine (1985), Alan Rough (1981) and Ronnie Simpson (1967) as the only gloves men the award has fitted. When so often - as a keeper in a good side - you are reduced to the role of bystander, it is no mean feat to be judged a stand out to stand by.

"With Andy Goram being the last keeper to win it 13 years ago, and not too many goalkeepers or Hearts players having won it, the award counts as a very big honour for me and the club," Gordon says. "Sandy Jardine was 20 years ago so it is nice to be branded with some of the great names at this football club and there are some very big names on the list of winners. To take an award these guys have won is a fantastic achievement for me."

Gordon accepts that this has been the best of his three-season, 128-appearance - a figure he can rhyme off - 15-Scotland cap senior career. The force of Hearts on the field, his form and the small matter of the folding stuff allow for no other conclusion. He should end it with a Scottish Cup winner's medal, barring a humungous upset in the final against Gretna. More importantly, he could prove the sharpest point in the defensive Tynecastle triangle comprising Stephen Pressley and Andy Webster that earns Hearts the SPL runners-up berth and a Champions League qualifier.

He will, meanwhile, end the season having become the ultimate symbol of the seriousness with which club owner and coach-unfriendly Vladimir Romanov is determined to go after the Old Firm. Signing a deal reputedly worth a guaranteed £15,000-a-week to him for the next three-and-a-bit years made Gordon all of that. "Other people might see it that way but I'll just try and do the things I've been doing and try to improve," the keeper says.

Gordon has been trying and succeeding on that front since July. "I'd say it has been my best season so far," he says. "So far it is the most consistent I've been and to add to that there have been some pretty good stops along the way. I think the main reason behind that is the settled defence we have. We haven't lost many goals and that is in single figures at Tynecastle. With Webbie and Elvis it has almost become the three of us at international and club level. They know what I'm good at and I know what they are good at. As long as we stick to what we know we are a formidable three to play against. I'd have to pay tribute to a lot of the guys in front of me for helping me get this award. There's a lot I'll need to thank in my speech and I've not even started writing it yet."

Gordon could write a book on his smart stops from the season. Asked to recount a few of the best, the assured but never cocksure keeper asks with a smile: "How long have you got?" In the end he settles for a save made from David Clarkson to stretch Hearts' season-opening winning run to five; the blinding block to deny Billy Gibson in the Scottish Cup quarter-final defeat of Partick Thistle and his Antti Niemi-lauded thwarting of Thomas Buffel in last month's draw with Rangers. "You never know how important these saves are going to be and I still don't," he says. "At the end of the season I hope they will have contributed to Hearts having a great season and a lot to shout about."

He does not dispute that Hearts players have almost had to become self sufficient, capable of managing themselves, in order to retain their focus in the midst of Romanov's ruthless dispensing of coaches.

At the top of the pyramid this has accounted for John Robertson, George Burley and Graham Rix. But it has also meant Gordon being on to his third goalkeeping coach, Jim Stewart now designated a role that was previously carried out by Malcolm Webster and, before that, Peter Latchford. Experiencing so many influences, Gordon accepts, might be considered one upside of the upheaval.

"I have a fair bit of experience behind me and had a fair few managers and coaches," he says. "These things are going to make you stronger as a person and a footballer. It was my 100th league game last week and with Hearts and Scotland I'm starting to get in to the moderately-experienced bracket. I think I'm in the top three or four for Hearts appearances at the club now.

"That comes with its own responsibility and I'm happy to shoulder that with the rest of them." No-one, Gordon is at pains to stress, shoulders more responsibility than player, shop steward-cum-counsellor Pressley. "Most of the success we have had this season I'd attribute to him for the way he has kept the players together through everything," the keeper maintains. "He has almost 50 players to try and look after and make sure are all right. He has shouldered most of the responsibility when times have been tough and there have been new managers going, or coming and going. For him to do that and take the pressure off the rest of the players has been fantastic. I'm sure he'd do it again and that shows his commitment to Hearts."

Gordon is interested in the number crunching that illustrates his contribution to the club cause and his own. He sets targets and while at 18 that was to make a first-team appearance, his personal goal this season was 20 clean sheets; a figure he is four short of. A red-card against Falkirk in February stopped his run of consecutive games for the club at the irksome 99 and left Smith's record sequence of 164 matches intact. "If I can maybe catch him one day that would be nice but I think that is pretty safe."

So are Gordon's banking arrangements. If he claimed one record of note this season it was for salary awarded to a resident Scottish player when wanted by one of the Old Firm; in this case Rangers. "There was always going to be speculation and that probably wouldn't have been the only club waiting to see what happened," he says. "As far as I'm concerned Hearts made me an offer I couldn't refuse. They were very serious in their quest to keep me and it was all done very quickly; within a week of serious negotiations all parties were happy."

Hearts can be even happier now that, in Gordon, for the first time since Maurice Malpas with Dundee United in 1991, they have a non-Old Firm player on whom football writers have bestowed pre-eminence.

Taken from the Scotsman