Tynecastle finds itself caught in the grip of a Great Terror

Heart of Midlothian Football Club is in the grip of a great terror. Dread and anxiety hang over every move made, every word spoken - and this air of apprehension is in danger of crippling a great sporting institution.

Manacled in a marriage of convenience, those who care about Hearts are right to be worried. The two points dropped on Saturday are, sadly, the least of their worries by some distance.

Will the entire starting line-up - plus subs - from the 1-1 draw with Dunfermline be moved on? According to those actually in the dressing room when Vladimir Romanov made his eve-of-contest threat, the majority shareholder was deadly serious.

Will Eddie Malofeev continue, indefinitely, to direct his brand of hoof-and-hope football with a stream of Russian instructions from the technical area?

The acting gaffer felt it would be disrespectful to talk about Valdas Ivanauskas while the head coach was on sick leave, though he gave the impression that he wouldn't feel too bad about nicking his job.

Will Ivanauskas return, in any capacity? And is there anyone out there who might bring calm and assured leadership to a team still sitting second in the SPL by virtue of failings elsewhere - but capable of so much more?

Nothing good is going to happen, you feel, until the atmosphere of trepidation and anxiety is removed from Tynecastle.

You could feel it in the air on Saturday, the worry and the confusion over what might happen next. Perhaps that is why almost no one dared raise their voice in serious protest.

There were plenty of cold glances and dark mutterings towards the central figure in the directors' box, of course, and the vocal support for rebel leaders Steven Pressley, Paul Hartley and Craig Gordon let everyone know where the fans' loyalties lay.

But the vast majority, complicit in welcoming the obviously naked emperor to conquer Gorgie and fearful of the power he now wields with such indiscriminate abandon, did not join together in open revolt.

The Hearts family love the attention-seeking loon for helping them split the Old Firm, for delivering the Scottish Cup, for calling referees cheats at every opportunity - and for unveiling the great media conspiracy responsible for all of their club's troubles.

Yet the hearts of these fans are being broken, if you'll pardon the pun, by the club's slow descent into madness. And their spirits have been crushed by the thought that there are few alternatives to life on the zany fringes of Romanov's football empire.

Will they be happy to watch many more performances like this? Would they tolerate Vlad carrying out his threat to field a team of reserves and youths against Celtic this weekend?

In truth, Hearts were lucky that they weren't up against a better team than Dunfermline on Saturday. A really good side might have murdered them.

'If we are going to make high, long passes, we are going to make them to the goals and score more goals'

They opened the scoring through a combination of woeful goalkeeping and Hartley's quick thinking, the Scotland midfielder capitalising when Roddy McKenzie allowed a Pressley punt to bounce over his head, back-heeling the ball across goal for Andrius Velicka to score with his knee.

And there were some good moments after that early opener, most notably Pressley charging out of defence and playing a one-two with Velicka on the edge of the Dunfermline box, his shot dragged just wide.

Most of Hearts' game plan seemed rooted, however, in an ancient belief that simply thumping the ball forward towards the opposition finds itself caught in the grip of a Great Terror would eventually reap dividends.

John Beck and Graham Taylor would have been proud.

"We have to strive for scoring more goals," explained excitable Malofeev. "If we are going to make high, long passes, we are going to make them to the goals and score more goals."

By not playing their normal passing game, Hearts did little more than create a series of set plays for Dunfermline to defend. With Andy Tod towering at the back, the Pars hung on.

The equaliser had more than a hint of foul play about it, with Jim Hamilton possibly using his hand to help bundle the ball over the line, though it was arguably deserved.

The remodelled three-man Hearts defence had looked uncomfortable and, while Jose Goncalves may have a long throw-in to make Robbie Neilson's seem like a bean-bag toss at the annual Girl Guides summer fete, he is woeful under a high ball.

Whoever was to blame, someone should have prevented former Hearts kid Stephen Simmons from heading the ball towards Hamilton on the goal-line.

Mark Burchill, another in the Dunfermline line-up with time at Tynecastle under his belt, squandered a great chance to grab a winner nine minutes from time.

The entire match, he admitted, probably represented the best opportunity ever for the Fifers to end a long run of miserable visits to west central Edinburgh.

The visitors knew they'd find their hosts in something of a state and, during the match, they could sense the trepidation taking hold. It won't be easy to shake.

The reign of Romanov is, of course, nothing compared to the original Great Terror wrought by Joseph Stalin back in the 1930s.

As far as we know, there are no plans for show trials in the Wheatfield Stand.

There may yet be a purge, however, leaving perhaps only Deividas Cesnauskis, Edgaras Jankauskas and Saulius Mikoliunas standing.

Or perhaps Pressley, Hartley and Gordon will simply be punished as examples. They could become the footballing equivalents of Leon Trotsky, Grigory Zinovev and Lev Kamenev - the first high-profile trio expelled by Stalin in 1927.

Uncle Joe got away with it all because he inspired fear, but also because there were many apologists arguing the he was doing more good than harm. Sounds familiar.

All who love Hearts should fear the silence of a powerful man who should be issuing apologies and publicly backing his players. This particular horror isn't likely to end with the passing of Halloween.