Remnants of war lend perspective for Hearts keeper

CRAIG Gordon yesterday proved a willing testifier to the bleak consequence of war when the subject was brought up, as it had to be as the Hearts travelling party arrived in the ancient and abused city of Mostar yesterday afternoon.

Twenty kilometres away to the south-west the Scottish club will tonight seek to claim a place in the third qualifying round of the Champions League but it was impossible to let this prospect, appetising though it is, consume the visitor to a town where regeneration is the only name of the game.

Gordon sat on the bench in 2003 when Hearts were last in Bosnia-Herzegovina, contesting a first round UEFA Cup meeting with Zeljeznicar in Sarajevo and at the same time learning something more about the brutal conflict which ripped this region apart between 1992 and 1995. He recalled the splintered buildings and bullet-pocked walls, and the jolting effect it had on a young man previously preoccupied with his bid to oust the then No1 Tepi Moilanen.

"It made you appreciate what you have," he said. "Some of their football players had gone to fight in a war and had come back to try and play football again."

The Hearts goalkeeper was only in short trousers when Hearts last landed in Mostar, back in December 1988. In the years since, the town has endured becoming a laboratory for experiments in extreme ethnic engineering, with first Croats fighting Serbs along with their Muslim allies, before turning on the Muslims. The town was destroyed, a Stalingrad for our times. The famous Stari Most bridge that had stood since 1566 was blown into the green water of the Neretva river below. Two years ago the re-built version was opened.

The bridge resumes its past role as an emblematic centrepiece reaching across a divided city, while also performing its other function - as a platform from which youngsters dive into the river that flows more than 60 feet below in order to prove their manly worth. Tonight in Siroki Brijeg, effectively Livingston to Mostar's Edinburgh, the players of the Croatian-dominated local football team will engage in a task almost as daunting.

NK Siroki Brijeg must overturn the same three-goal lead that Hearts included in their cargo on the last occasion they screeched to a halt on Mostar's alarmingly truncated runway. Back then strikes from John Colquhoun, Eamonn Bannon and Mike Galloway meant that the subsequent 2-1 second-leg defeat suffered against a side that included Ivica Barbaric, the current NK Siroki Brijeg manager, was inconsequential.

That scoreline would suffice again tonight, when Valdas Ivanauskas' team attempt to keep their focus on the immediate task ahead. This might present the greatest challenge against a side whose moderateness could not be disguised amid the faux Champions League flannel of last week's Murrayfield fixture. Not only does a match against Celtic on Sunday follow the Hearts team's late arrival back in Scotland on Thursday morning, but the tight schedule of Champions League qualifiers means the identity of their prospective opponents in the next round is already known, something which only helps nourish the illusion they are already through.

So natural has been talk of Athens that it would seem like a breach in nature should Hearts not be lining up next week against AEK, who limbered up for Europe by beating Benfica 3-1 in a friendly yesterday.

"It's not done yet," warned Gordon, whose last visit to this country anticipated his promotion to the top team. Hearts drew 0-0 in Sarajevo but a 5-0 defeat at Celtic soon after led to his installation in the Hearts goal. He has rarely left it. His performances both on and off the pitch have proved him to be not just the finest practitioner of his art in the country, but also one of the most contemplative members of a footballing fraternity often lampooned for its boorishness.

Gordon was not one of those likely to miss the very human elements as the team's coach passed through Mostar yesterday, and neither was the significance of his last visit obscured by the relatively mundane matter of a football match.

"It did open my eyes," said Gordon of his first trip to the country three years ago. "There were a lot of derelict buildings and shell-holes in the walls. It was quite scary to see the extent of the damage as well as being an eye-opener. Hopefully they are getting things sorted out now. But it shows how something like this can still happen. It happened in Britain 40-50 years ago, but it's not been so long here."

Gordon's goodwill does not extend to tonight's opponents, with NK Siroki Brijeg attempting to perform one of the great second-leg comebacks in front of their boisterous fans, known in south-east Europe as the Skripare.

The thought isn't to be borne as far as the Edinburgh club are concerned. Hearts have been professional enough to study videos of their opponents' set-pieces this week. "The first goal will be important," said Gordon. "If we lose the first goal then they are only two behind. I think we have to go there looking to score. But there's no need to panic even if they do get the first goal. We just have to keep our concentration."

Gordon is as roused as anyone by thoughts of the group stages of the Champions League. He can remember the effect Iker Casillas had on him when the Real Madrid keeper came off the bench in the final at Hampden Park in 2002 and played superbly in the Spanish club's win over Bayer Leverkusen.

Gordon did not indicate whether he thought it might one day be him. If the notion had indeed struck him, it is a rare burst of reverie from an earnest young man, one of the few Scots who should not feel awed by the Champions League even though he may understandably shiver in the shadow of a still recent war.

Taken from the Scotsman