3.5.86 DAY A DREAM DIED 3.5.06 HEARTS WAKE UP

SMITH, Kidd, Whittaker, Sandy Jardine, Berry, McDonald, Colquhoun, Mackay, Ian Jardine, Clark and Robertson ...

Eleven men who took a dream to Dundee 20 years ago to the day and found themselves plunged into a nightmare from which they've never really woken up.

Exactly two decades on another set of Hearts players found themselves in an identical situation. Well, almost. There was no championship to grasp, no trophy to hold aloft this time.

But like those who fell at the last hurdle on May 3, 1986, there was the chance to write their names indelibly into the history books of this famous old club.

Most of the men who wore maroon last night would have known little of the heartache their predecessors have lived with since that fateful trip to Tayside.

The news wouldn't have carried as far as Lithuania, Greece, the Czech Republic, Portugal and Senegal two decades ago - and the foreign legion assembled by Vladimir Romanov would have been barely out their nappies anyway - but there were enough Scots scattered about this team to have rammed home what failure to win last night would mean.

Sure, this Hearts team would have a second chance at Ibrox on Sunday, a luxury the team that lost on May 3, 1986, would have loved but were denied. But as Hearts fans took their seats the palpable feeling was this was their big chance.

Yes, this team is capable of going to Ibrox and avoiding defeat but a home game against Aberdeen represented a much bigger and better opportunity to clinch a prize no one could have dreamed of on day one of a season that has spun and wrung every emotion out of every person with this club in their heart.

Was this the biggest match in this club's 132-year history? Well, victory wouldn't make them champions for the fifth time in their existence but a place in the Champions League and the £10million that could follow made it just that.

Typically, on the day everything should have been focused on the 90 minutes that were to be played out on a breezy spring evening, Hearts again contrived to make side issues grab the attention.

Romanov deciding on this of all days to grant an interview to the BBC in which he revealed their top scorer Rudi Skacel wants to play in the Premiership was a bit daft but he compounded the felony by claiming Andy Webster's parents were influencing the player.

Now if Webster's mum and dad weren't interested in their boy that would be parenthood worth criticising.

Then there was Romanov's attack on the suspended club physio Ollie Finlay. Apparently, the guy doesn't wash his hands before treating the players.Well, Pyjama Man doesn't have that problem - by all accounts he doesn't lay a hand on the players. He just points a finger at them and they are healed.

Now if all that sounds like a distraction from last night's events it was.

But the Hearts players, to their credit, have put up with far worse this season and as the minutes ticked away to kickoff they'd have psyched themselves up.

The Final Countdown was booming out the speakers and the supporters stood and waited, thousands of them, for the release that would come when their favourites marched on to the turf.

How much easier would it have been if they had opponents who had nothing to look forward to but their holidays? That's a question that can never be answered.

But Aberdeen were here with business of their own to attend to. A sensational run of form since Christmas had seen them lose only three times in the league and results elsewhere had conspired to give them genuine hope of reaching the UEFA Cup if they could help knock Hearts out of second place.

It was against this backdrop that Tynecastle bounced. The Aberdeen fans were in fine voice but only occasionally did their chants penetrate the wall of sound pumping out of the other three and half stands.

It was equally chaotic inside the white lines, with the players, finally off the leash, lunging into challenges like unmuzzled pit-bulls.

The Lithuanians, Deividas Cesnauskis and Edgaras Jankauskas, had chances in the first 10 minutes to relieve the tension but both failed to hit the target.

Nevertheless, Hearts did not start like a team paralysed by the size of the prize.

Paul Hartley was being well shepherded by Kevin McNaughton but still found time to bait the Aberdeen support and vice versa. A quiet word in his ear by ref Stuart Dougal was sufficient to take the sting out of the situation and probably did the Hearts man a favour because his team needed him concentrating on orchestrating. Half an hour flew past in a blur of lunging boots and blootered punts but precious little football. And with each passing minute, the Hearts fan became a little more fretful.

Their team put on a spurt as the first half careered to a close but Aberdeen held firm.

The second period began against a backdrop of a blizzard of maroon and white scarves being swirled furiously. Fans were doing their bit but the players had to follow suit.

An almighty goalline scramble almost brought the breakthrough but the ball was sclaffed clear for a corner.

Skacel swung it in, Roman Bednar flicked it on and Russell Anderson's fist punched it clear from under the bar.

Seventeen thousand voices screamed penalty but they didn't have to. Dougal saw it, pointed to the spot and booked the Dons player, although it could have been ared card.

Hartley stood stock still as the bedlam swirled around him. He was about to take the single most important kick of a football in his career and that kind of pressure might have caused others to implode.

Not Hartley. With an emphatic sweep of his right boot the ball exploded behind Jamie Langfield's right hand.

Before the end ex-Hearts midfielder Scott Severin was sent off for a lunge at Bruno Aguiar.

That ended Aberdeen's hopes and Rangers' for that matter. Hearts were in the Champions League and their fans were having a laugh.

So, too, were the nine of the surviving Hearts players of May 3, 1986. Sandy Clark was in the Aberdeen dug-out so he didn't find it funny.

But doubtless somewhere high above Tynecastle, Brian Whittaker, a man with an outrageous sense of fun and who was taken from us far too early, was having the biggest laugh of all.

In fact, he and Wallace Mercer were probably uncorking a bottle of celestial champagne.

Taken from the Daily Record