Robbie won't play the fame game

ROBBIE NEILSON is currently indulging the most prosperous period of his career to date. A recent Scotland debut and nomination for Hearts' official Hall of Fame will be supplemented by his 200th game for the club on Saturday and a tribute dinner in his honour at Tynecastle the same evening.

Catching a breath is a feat in itself right now for the unpretentious 26-year-old. He celebrates ten years to the day with Hearts on the 25th of the month, hence the tribute night organised by supporters to endorse the service given to their club by a favourite full-back.

Neilson's Scotland introduction was soured only slightly by defeat in Kiev as he achieved a long-held ambition and joined squad linchpins Craig Gordon, Steven Pressley and Paul Hartley in the international arena. He admits to feeling a touch of mortification about all the fuss, however his progress from youth-team hamper-carrier in Gorgie to international defender has rightly seen the young man from the west widely recognised as one of Tynecastle's own.

After being handed professional forms by Jim Jefferies in the late 1990s, Neilson wasn't able to regard the right-back berth as exclusively his until the departure of Irish international full-back Alan Maybury for Leicester in January 2005. In the intervening period, he has seen off the challenge of Slovakian internationalist Martin Petras for his position and is presently alternating his first-team slot with the versatile Senegalese Ibrahim Tall. An appearance at Tynecastle this weekend, when, in a quirk of fate, Jefferies' Kilmarnock are the visitors, will mark Neilson's 200th outing in maroon. If he emerges rather sheepishly from the tunnel, it might be understandable.

"I don't really want to make a big thing about it," he says, unaware that his favourite newspaper already had two pages to devote to him and his list of accolades. "I've been here ten years now and hopefully I'll be here for a while longer. Football is strange these days and you don't get many people staying that long at one club. Hearts is a big club, though. If you leave here you're only going to go down the way. The majority of people who have left the club in my time have only gone down to a lower league. I'm quite proud to have stayed here for such a long time."

Never in his most outrageous of dreams, however, could he have imagined supporters organising a tribute night to acknowledge him.

"Somebody spoke to me about it about a month ago and I never really thought anything of it. Then I was told it was happening last week. It's nice they've made an effort to arrange something like that and that they think so highly of me.

"I'm nominated for the Hall of Fame too but it's just nice to be recognised in that regard. It was a real surprise to me. You know, Hearts have been around for over 125 years and to be nominated for their Hall of Fame is just something else. It's a real honour.

"If I'm honest, it's not something I look forward to doing, making speeches and things like that, but it's part of football these days and both the Hall of Fame and the dinner are great honours for me. I'm sure I'll look back after I finish playing and realise that these nights were great memories. I just hope I don't have to give any speeches!"

Neilson can highlight a winning goal in the UEFA Cup against Basel and a rather conspicuous, as well as pivotal, tackle in this year's Scottish Cup final as just of his two career peaks with Hearts. Surprisingly, he admits to never having seen the moment when he denied Gretna's David Graham a goal at Hampden: "People speak to me about it but I've never watched footage of the cup final on TV or anything."

Nonetheless, moments like those propelled him amongst the club's most revered current and former players, so whether he likes it or not the adulation isn't likely to go away.

Arguments over the candidacy of Hall of Fame nominees will rage long after the first inductions are announced at a glamorous ceremony at Prestonfield on November 9. Yes, perhaps the omission of celebrated figures such as Bobby Walker, Donald Ford and Drew Busby from the initial list of 14 is fuelling debate, but Neilson is able to pinpoint more than a few reasons that may have contributed to his own nomination.

"When you're a player I think you should try to take qualities from everyone and try to learn from different people. Peter Houston was the youth coach when I first came to Hearts and I owe him a lot. He used to stay near my parents in Mount Vernon in Glasgow so I used to travel through with him a lot.

"Paul Hegarty was there at the time too and he was very dedicated towards fitness. That attitude has served me well in my career because it's a very important part of football nowadays. It's really hard to name everyone. John McGlynn has obviously been good for me and even now he is still the Scottish link, if you like, between the management and players. He keeps everything ticking over here and has been around the place for a long time, same as me.

"I owe other guys too. George Burley, Graham Rix, Craig Levein, wee Robbo. You just have to listen to these people and improve yourself as you go along. It's important that I look after myself and prepare properly for when I am asked to play. I can't be going out to nightclubs or anything like that because I would rather be playing every week. It's disappointing to sit out games like the derby on Sunday because it's one of the biggest games of our season. You want to play in those.

"When I first came into the Hearts team there were a lot of good players, and Alan [Maybury] arrived not long afterwards. There were a lot of cutbacks on the playing staff at that time and he was shifted out to left-back, which allowed me to come in on the right. Alan moved on soon after Craig Levein left and I managed to cement my place at right-back. Things have worked out well for me since then."

Champions League matches, UEFA Cup campaigns and now international recognition have all helped to raise the defender's profile in recent years, however when Valdas Ivanauskas calls time on training at Riccarton of an afternoon Neilson is only too content to head humbly along the M8 back to his family home in Cumbernauld.

"It's better for me to stay through in the west because I don't get any hassle. I can just do my own thing and go into Glasgow when I want. I prefer to be out the way a bit. It's just the travelling that's a slight problem, especially with these double training sessions just now.

"I admit I have a lot of nice times to look back on from my football but I try not to look back. These things are for ten or 15 years' time when you've finished playing and then you can look back. I don't really collect anything, like mementoes or stuff. I have shirts from some of the teams we've played against but I don't put them out on the wall at home or anything. I try just to switch off from football when I get home, and I've got an 18-month-old daughter now who helps me do that."

A year on loan at Cowdenbeath under Levein followed by six months at Queen of the South in 2002 provided vital priming for Neilson to stake his claim on the right-back slot back at Tynecastle. The idea of loaning out promising youth players, like Calum Elliot to Motherwell, is something he feels can only benefit the club as they seek more Hall of Fame nominees for the future.

"It's very important," continues Neilson. "The young boys here, because there is such a big squad, aren't going to be playing first-team football so it's important for them to go on loan if they get the chance.

"You can play reserve football till the cows come home and you're not going to improve because it's not played with the same intensity as first teams in the Second or Third Division.

"It's enlightening to see what it's like and see what these boys do. They work nine to five and then come in and train at night. That's when you realise how good you've got it at a club like Hearts."

Neilson has been aware of that fact for some time now. Ten years, to be exact.

The list of nominees for the Hearts Hall of Fame are: Stephane Adam, Willie Bauld, Alfie Conn, John Cumming, Freddie Glidden, Craig Gordon, Paul Hartley, Craig Levein, Dave Mackay, Gary Mackay, Robbie Neilson, Steven Pressley, John Robertson, Jimmy Wardhaugh.

Supporters can vote for the player or players they wish to be inducted by texting FAME followed by their choice's initial and surname - eg FAME RNEILSON - to 88442.

Taken from the Scotsman