SIGNING CRAIG WAS A TALL ORDER

THE first time I saw Craig Gordon play he was so small and frail he couldn't even kick the ball out of his penalty box.

Now he is as important to Hearts as Peter Schmeichel was to Manchester United and David Seaman to Arsenal.

Our Scotland keeper is rightly recognised as the best in the country and one of the best in Britain and will be vital to our hopes of progressing in the UEFA Cup when we take on Sparta Prague tomorrow night.

It's amazing to recall that we had to think long and hard about offering him a professional contract at Hearts because we had doubts about his size.

I've been privileged to work with Craig from under-16 level, through the youths and reserves to the first team squad.

I've seen him making top-class saves for years to the extent that the number of points he saves us every season - and it's considerable - is taken for granted.

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I first saw Craig when he played for Tynecastle Boys' Club at 12 and we took him with the youth squad for a closer look at the prestigious Milk Cup in Northern Ireland a couple of years later.

Amazingly, even at under-15 level, Craig was still struggling to clear his area with kicks because he was so lightweight but he's always been an excellent shot stopper.

But I still cannot deny the fact his lack of inches left us questioning if we should offer him a contract.

Would he grow? Well, we took a chance because his dad was fairly tall and thankfully Craig began to fill out and his body kicked on soon after he joined the ground staff.

Mind you, he might be a top class keeper but he'll never be adept with a bucket or mop - or at middle distance running.

Let's just say Craig was never a lover of the domestic tasks we used to ask the youngsters to perform, although his attitude to goalkeeping was always sparkling.

Likewise, he was never a fan of the pre-season runs we used to ask the kids to undertake around the streets of Gorgie and Murrayfield.

He always trooped in last - I think part of the reason Craig enjoys goalkeeping so much is that he only has to run a maximum of 18 yards.

Any successful team needs a great goalkeeper and Craig is sharp, brave and hard to beat.

He proved his worth in our last two games when he denied Aberdeen time and again on Sunday, especially in the first half, following on from his performance at Fir Park seven days earlier when he maintained our 1-0 lead with a great stop near the end.

He will be an important player in the Letna Stadium tomorrow night as we bid to overcome our 2-0 first-leg deficit against Sparta.

Craig may be our equivalent to Schmeichel or Seaman but we also have a striker at the club who is similar to Kris Boyd at Rangers.

Mauricio Pinilla is beginning to find his feet in Scottish football and is similar to Boyd in that he's so dangerous in and around the area.

Like Boyd, Mauricio won't always chase defenders, although he does work harder in the channels than the Scotland striker.

Crucially, he's a goal threat and if he can supply the same number of goals as Rudi Skacel did from midfield last season he'll prove to be worth his weight in gold. We relied on Rudi and Paul Hartley an awful lot during the last campaign but we need to have five or six players chipping in with decent tallies and it was good to see Mauricio score his second goal for the club at Aberdeen.

His strike at the end of a sweeping move was similar to the way we played last year and I've sensed a great desire among the players recently.

Our work rate against Motherwell and Aberdeen was back to where it has been in the past and we're also showing terrific team spirit.

We have some top quality players at Tynecastle but without these vital ingredients of hard work and camaraderie we're not as strong.

We'll need them tomorrow night as we bid to qualify for the group stages of the UEFA Cup.

And it goes without saying we must score first or leave ourselves with an even more formidable task.

If we open the scoring it's game on and if we take the initiative they might grow nervous in front of their home fans as they will be caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.

We've got to put questions in their mind and look to exploit any weaknesses they show as we bid to pull off a memorable result.

It's not beyond us, you know. Sparta are a decent side but we made them look good in the first leg and they are not as capable as AEK Athens.

We'll be without Neil McCann, who is suspended, and Edgaras Jankauskas and Takis Fyssas won't travel as they're still recovering from injury.

However, we still have enough quality in our squad to continue our European adventure long into the new season.

Taken from the Daily Record