Hartley hopes to top semi-final feat to land silverware

Heart of Midlothian’s talismanic midfield player will be back at the national stadium tomorrow to face Gretna. This time the prize is not bragging rights over your greatest rivals but something far better, precious silverware.

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Hartley only has one medal in his collection and even then he says he never earned it — a first division championship with Hibernian in 2000, when he was out on loan for half the campaign — so there is little chance of him switching off because the opponents at Hampden are from the Bell’s Scottish League second division and not Celtic, Rangers, or even Hibernian. Hartley is ravenous for success.

The man who made his Scotland debut a year ago at the age of 28 in the San Siro against Italy and who is now worth £2 million, whom his own coach, Valdas Ivanauskas, describes as one of the best midfield players in Europe, has taken a while to reach his peak but now he is ready to make the most of it by setting up what he believes can be a glittering Hearts era.

Yesterday, as he sat at Tynecastle — in a lounge that backed on to the goalnet where he calmly placed a penalty ten days earlier against Aberdeen to guarantee Champions League football for his team — answering questions with the quiet confidence that is in contrast to his more voluble displays on the pitch, Hartley looked every inch a winner. He believes he now is one, even if it has taken a while, and he believes that Hearts were the club that were made for him after a frustrating trawl around a handful of others.

“I don’t know how I can top the last game at Hampden,” Hartley admitted. “I might never play a better game in a Hearts jersey. Hopefully, I can better it on Saturday but, in the semi-final, everything just went right for me. To score a hat-trick in a semi-final against your biggest rivals is hard to beat but there is something that can beat it — winning the Scottish Cup.

“A lot of the players in our squad have not been used to winning silverware at all and, from a personal point of view, that’s something I really want. It’s what you set out to achieve when you start playing football. I might never have a better chance than Saturday, so hopefully we take the chance and I get my hands on a medal.”

Hartley recognises his own growth in the last two years at Tynecastle. “I can’t put my finger on it, I just feel that my form has been getting better and better over the last three or four months,” he said. “I’m scoring goals, vital goals in vital games, but I just can’t explain it. I’ve just been doing the same thing as I have for the last couple of seasons, only it’s all going right.

“Confidence is always a factor and my confidence is sky high at the moment. The free kick goal against Hibernian in the semi-final, for instance, I might not have tried that six or seven months ago. However, I feel as if everything I touch just now is hitting the goal. I think it’s maybe better that I can’t explain why I’m playing so well. Every time I go on to the field, things are just falling into place.”

Alex McLeish, who had Hartley at Hibernian but loaned him out to Morton, made up for his sin on omission at Easter Road by recently calling Hartley the best midfield player in the Bank of Scotland Premierleague, while Ivanauskas expanded the tribute to take in the Continent.

“It’s always nice to get compliments, especially off someone like Alex, and it’s great to know what Valdas thinks as well, but I don’t really listen to that, I just try to play my own game. I’m really enjoying it right now. Ever since I came to this club, things have gone right. I feel I’ve found the right club, the right place to play my football. Five or six years ago, I couldn’t imagine anyone paying me those compliments.”

It is hard to believe. The boy who began as a winger at Hamilton Academical, then spent a brief unhappy spell at Millwall, before shuttling between Raith Rovers, Hibernian and St Johnstone, found barely a headline to greet him on his arrival at Tynecastle in April 2003. Now he is centre stage.

“It probably took Billy Stark (his manager at St Johnstone) to make the move, he changed my position to the centre of midfield and it just worked,” Hartley said. “Then I’ve got to give Craig Levein a lot of credit, because he took a chance on me when many other managers might not have done and brought me to Hearts. I had one or two options but Craig was very persistent in trying to get me to the club.

“Maybe other managers had seen it not work out at previous clubs — it didn’t work out at St Johnstone in the past, Hibernian or Millwall — and decided not to take a chance. The positional thing might have been the reason things didn’t work out for me at other clubs but, also, I think the older you get, the better you become. That has happened to me.

“I was always inconsistent as a wide player — all wide players can be frustrating at times and it happened to me a lot but ever since I moved into the middle of the park, I’ve been consistent and that’s been for the past three or four seasons. I’ve found my true position.

“You are so involved in the game, whereas out wide you might not see the ball for 25 minutes. I’ve just gone in there and found it the position I wanted to play. I never asked anybody, maybe I was too quiet, but Billy saw something in me and it just worked.

“Since I come here, I’ve found my true home. I’ve been able to open up as a person and I’ve felt very confident. It is a massive club. There was all the talk that there might be a problem, because I used to play for Hibernian, but that has never been a problem.”

It is true to say that the Hearts fans have put Hartley on a pedestal since he stayed at the club a year ago despite a bid from Celtic, but if he delivers the Scottish Cup, the midfield player will be a legend.

“I’ve won a first division medal with Hibernian but I don’t know if that counts, because I was only there for half a season,” he said. “So on Saturday, if we win the Scottish Cup, that will mean everything to me. The fans here have been crying out for success. Everyone knows what happened 20 years ago when Hearts had the chance to win the Double and lost out on both.

“It’s now eight years since Hearts won this trophy and that is far too long. The fans have been fantastic this season because they feel that something is going to happen at this club. We’ve achieved something already by getting that Champions League place — the next thing is to get that silverware they crave.”

Naturally, Hartley is not inclined to overlook Gretna’s potential to upset the odds. As a man who has come from out of left field himself, he is simply not the sort to get too arrogant about opponents with lesser CVs. “Our attitude has to be spot on and our workrate has to be the same as it has been all season,” he said. “If we’re off the pace there could be a shock but we will go at Gretna as if they are Celtic or Rangers. “

Taken from timesonline.co.uk