IAN Crawford scored twice and Alfie Conn scored the third when Hearts beat Celtic in the Scottish Cup final of 1956, but the abiding image of that April afternoon is of a man who, though not on the scoresheet, still played a critical role. As friends, families and supporters joined many of the team from that day at a 50th anniversary dinner at Tynecastle last night, many must have recalled that image - of a man who defied a head wound to help his club win their first trophy for half a century.

The man in question was John Cumming, whose part in the 3-1 win looked like coming to an end just before half-time when a sickening clash of heads with Willie Fernie left him bleeding profusely. The most memorable photograph of that match on 21 April shows the wing-half being helped off the field, apparently stricken - and yet, after being patched up, he returned to the field to play his part in overcoming Celtic.

Cumming, who was unable to attend last night's dinner because of a serious illness, is remembered to this day as an inspiration by his former team-mates. Had substitutes been allowed back then he may just have been prevailed upon to stay off, but, faced with seeing his side down to ten men, he insisted on returning.

"He took a bad one that day," his team-mate Bobby Kirk recalled yesterday. "The blood was flying off him. He just said 'Bandage it up', but he was off for about half an hour. It was really difficult for them to stop the bleeding.

"If it had been anyone else we'd have finished up with ten men. John was a hard man."

Kirk was Cumming's closest friend in the team. Now 75, the same age as his old team-mate, the full-back remembers Cumming as a player who was as industrious as he was undemonstrative.

"The ground he covered was unbelievable. He wasn't a big powerful boy, he just played away. He was a proper gentleman too, and never bothered anybody."

Hearts' failure to win the Scottish Cup since 1906 had made them the butt of music-hall jokes in the years immediately after the Second World War, but by the early 1950s they were becoming a team who could no longer be dismissed by casual jibes. They won the League Cup in 1954, with Cumming in the side as he would be in all their triumphs of the ensuing eight or nine years, and they therefore went into the 1956 final with some experience of rising to the occasion.

It came as a surprise to them, nonetheless, when they took so sure a grip of the game against Celtic. "To be honest, we controlled the game," Kirk explained. "We were surprised, but we controlled the game right the way through. They didn't play like the old Celtic.

"I was marking Charlie Tully, who would try to talk you off your game. I never gave him a kick of the ball that day. I was faster than him, and because I knew I was faster I could let him go past me and then catch him."

Kirk was not so fast in making the return journey to Edinburgh - nor were his team-mates. This was partly their own doing, as they decided their route back to the capital should take in many of the villages with strong Hearts support. They were also slowed down, however, by that support, who, still relatively starved of success after nearly half a century without the Scottish Cup, turned out in force to greet their homecoming heroes.

"The celebrations were unbelievable," said the full-back, who stayed with Hearts until 1963. "You couldn't get moving coming home from Glasgow. There were supporters' buses, cars, people standing on the side of the road . . .

"It took us a long time to get back. We went through all the wee villages on the way back into Edinburgh, then had the celebration dinner in a restaurant at the West End."

The victory rounded off a remarkable first season with the Tynecastle club for Kirk, who had only signed from Raith Rovers the previous May. He had been on Dunfermline's books before then, but had always hoped he would be taken on by Hearts.

"I was a Hearts supporter before I signed for them," continued Kirk, who finally retired two years ago after suffering two heart attacks and a massive stroke. "I had to be - my two brothers supported Hearts, and so did my seven sisters. Arniston Rangers were my first club. My brothers played junior football but didn't go any further, although one became a junior referee."

Kirk's wife, Tina, was at the cup final, but also recalled the more mundane afternoons of watching her husband at work and wondering how much money he would have in his pay packet for the week. "I used to sit in the stand and if they were losing I'd think 'There goes my bonus again'. People think if you were a footballer you must have had lots of money, but not in those days.

"It made a big difference to your pay packet if you got a win bonus. We had two wee boys and if Hearts were winning I'd think of what we could do with the bonus.

"A lot of the players' wives didn't go to matches, but I used to go because it was my only day out, and I'd get my mum to look after the boys. Me and Bobby got on very well with John and his wife, Jean. In fact I still go up and visit Jean."

A physiotherapist by profession, Kirk ran his own business in Morningside after retiring from football. Cumming, who kept on playing up until 1967, took up a similar trade, becoming Hearts' trainer, as these physiotherapists-cum-fitness coaches were known in those days. He remained in that post for a decade before taking up employment in the steel industry.

By the time he hung up his boots the Carluke-born Cumming had two league championship medals, a Scottish Cup winner's medal from '56, and four League Cup winners' medals, as well as nine full Scotland caps and a handful of runners-up medals too.

There are several players on Hearts' books who have represented their country more often, but even if Vladimir Romanov's most ambitious schemes are realised they will be hard pressed to come close to Cumming's haul of domestic honours. He was the only man in that halcyon era for the club to gain a medal from all seven triumphs, and was rightly remembered last night as one of the great Hearts players.

Taken from the Scotsman