Flogel won Hearts and no bones about it . .

THOMAS FLOGEL'S eligibility as a Hearts legend has provoked many a bar-room debate as supporters contest his status within their club's oracles.

Does his name go down in history alongside those of Bauld, Mackay and Robertson, or would it be more appropriate in the cult hero category?

Technically, it would be the former. Flogel's presence on the Celtic Park pitch on May 16, 1998, ensured his name was etched in indelible ink in Tynecastle's annals as part of the side which ended 42 years of Scottish Cup hurt. Nonetheless, there are those who argue that the Austrian enjoyed more of a cult following during his five years in Edinburgh.

Flogel himself couldn't care less which umbrella he comes under. An unassuming individual, he receives any level of worship with genuine grace whilst never coveting personal extollment. "I prefer to be in the background," he says.

This desire for anonymity has led Flogel, at the age of 35, to his latest guise as director of football with the Austrian third division club Fernwarme Vienna. Well, that and the career-ending effect of having his shoulder explode in a tackle. At a time in life when most players are taking their first tentative steps into coaching, the former Hearts striker, winger, midfielder and full-back is sating his craving for the world of football administration.

"I didn't want to do coaching on the pitch," says Flogel. "When I came to the club I told them I wanted to play, but work with the management at the same time. The old sporting director didn't want the job any more because he's too old and feels the job is too stressful, so he offered it to me after my injury and I'm now the guy who sits upstairs in the office."

The story of the shoulder injury is rather harrowing, particularly when Flogel reveals he only joined Vienna in the summer and by the third league game of the season his career had been terminated. "It was a tackle involving two other guys against St Polten. They basically sandwiched me," he continues.

"As I fell down one of the guys fell on top of me and the bone in my right shoulder just exploded. As you can imagine, it was very painful. I couldn't play any more. I knew I was finished and that's when you start thinking. But over the last few years I've picked up a lot on the management side of things and the club offered me the director of football role a week after my operation.

"It was the right time and the right place for this move because this club has a very good structure and has been building for the last three years. That's why I said 'yes'. I want to help them move forward."

After filling almost every possible outfield position with accomplishment during two spells at Austria Vienna, five years with Hearts and subsequent seasons at Superfund Pasching and Admira Wacker, Flogel decided it was time to drop out of top level football. The T-Mobile Bundesliga and the SPL were all he had known, but he didn't flinch from downgrading in the twilight of his career.

The unforeseen circumstances of his premature retirement would have devastated most, but the pro-active Austrian had already been plotting for the day when his playing time was called.

"When I came back from Scotland to Austria Vienna we won the championship in my first year.

"I stayed another year then had some time with Pasching and Admira Wacker.

"It was there I began to learn about management because I was taking an interest in how football clubs were run. I picked things up through contacts and the people I know in Austria and I felt it would be easy for me to do something like this. I don't have a master in business management or anything, but football is a little different to normal management I would say. The target is to come up and progress the club. This is the first football club ever founded in Vienna, so it is a very traditional club."

In that sense, the atmosphere at Vienna's Hohe Warte Stadion is much like that which Flogel left behind in Scotland four years ago.

Not surprisingly, his affection for Hearts has waned little in the intervening period. So productive was Flogel in Scotland that many Tynecastle supporters would probably walk to Vienna to donate their own shoulder bones if it meant they could return their former player to the team.

The respect and admiration goes both ways. "I hope to come over to Edinburgh again this year. I want to come every year because I love Scotland and so does my wife. Our son was born there and he's always asking me: 'When are we going back to Scotland?' It was a great time in my career and I'm delighted the Hearts supporters remember me." So would Flogel consider a future director of football role at Tynecastle as part of Vladimir Romanov's regime? "Why not? For now I am at the beginning of a new job and I have to show that I can do it well. I want to show myself as well; I want to reach this target with Vienna. As time runs on you never know what will come up, though. Hearts are always in my mind." Legend or cult hero, it matters not. Thomas Flogel can be equally sure that he is never far from the thoughts of the Tynecastle support.

Taken from the Scotsman