Scottish Cup final: Ink Craig Beattie’s name in Hearts final line-up

Published on Wednesday 16 May 2012 00:00

IT TOOK Craig Beattie two touches to become an Edinburgh derby legend. With the first he brought a long pass from Ian Black under control. With the second he prodded the ball past Graham Stack and into the Hibernian net.

That was at Tynecastle back in March, as Hearts claimed their third league win of the season over Hibs, Suso Santana adding a second goal in stoppage time.

Since then Beattie, who joined Hearts as a free agent in February, has further enhanced his status as a hero with the club’s support, above all thanks to his last-gasp penalty winner against Celtic in the Scottish Cup semi-final – and the madcap Victorian-athlete celebration which followed it.

But, even if you had never seen those goals, you would be able to deduce Beattie’s value to his new club a different was – from the sheer number of rumours surrounding the state of his health.

He has been nursing a hamstring strain for several weeks. Hearts fans have expressed cautious hope that he will be fine for Saturday’s Edinburgh derby cup final, Hibs supporters are split between those who believe he will not make it, and those who think it’s all a confidence trick and he is sure to be in Paulo Sergio’s starting line-up.

So what will happen? Beattie said yesterday that he cannot be certain yetbut, like his club’s fans, he is quietly optimistic.

“I’ve got a tight hamstring,” he said. “It’s not torn, it’s tight. So I’m just trying to get rid of the tightness. I did a lot with the physio this morning. It should ease overnight and I’ll go back into training tomorrow. It got tight against Dundee United [at the end of last month]. I got it scanned after, no tear, seven or eight days off, then went back into training for a few days and it just got a bit overstretched, a bit tight again, but there’s been no tear. So I’m just trying to get the tightness out now just to free it up.

“I think I’ll be alright. It’s day to day, but I think I’ll be okay. We’ll see later in the week. If I’ve not done enough or I’m not ready, he [manager Paulo Sergio] has to make that decision.

“We don’t have the luxury of having extra subs. He’s got to pick a team that he thinks is going to win it and, if he doesn’t think I’m ready, then he won’t do it.”

Having signed a short-term contract with Hearts after agreeing an early end to his stay with Swansea, the 28-year-old could be looking around for a new club come Monday. At the moment, though, he is thinking no further ahead than Saturday and, whatever the future might bring, he is desperate to end the season with a win at Hampden.

“I’ve got this cup to win. I’m not thinking further. Nothing is signed, nothing is lined up. All I’m concentrating on is the cup.

“I don’t want to be [injured], but I’m not thinking about that. If it happens, it happens. It can happen to anybody, so I’m not in the slightest bit thinking about that. If I’ve got any chance of being out there at all, I will.”

Some players retreat into their shell before a big game but it is a measure of Beattie’s extroversion that he spent the evening before the semi-final on Twitter, conducting an informal competition for Hearts supporters to win tickets for the game. And the banter did not stop there, for the winner of that competition has also got himself a pair of tickets for the final.

Beattie explained: “I got stuck with two tickets before the semi, the night before the game

“I thought, right, let’s have a carry on on Twitter.

“I said whoever makes me laugh the most I’ll give two tickets to the game tomorrow. They thought I was taking the p**s, so they start tweeting with all different stuff – Hibs this, Hibs that – and that’s not my sort of humour so I said come on, someone send a joke.

“The boy sent me a cracking joke and I gave him the two tickets. I met up with him and gave him the two tickets.

“Straight after the game, he said ‘I’ll get your name tattooed on my arse if you get me two for the final’. I said ‘All right, as long as I get proof first’.

“Yesterday he said ‘I’ve got my tattoo booked in for Monday – you’d better have my tickets now.’ I tweeted him saying, ‘Are you sure you want to have my name on your arse for the rest of your life?’

“He tweeted me back saying ‘Listen, this is my only chance of getting tickets: I need to do what I need to do’. I thought, this kid’s desperate, so I said ‘Just come up and I’ll get you the two tickets’.

“I gave him them anyway, but he didn’t get the tattoo. I made him.”

Or at least that’s the position at present. If Hearts are victorious on Saturday, however, Beattie has reserved the right to go back on his magnanimous stance and make his biggest fan go through with his promise.

“I gave him the tickets anyway but, as he was getting the tickets, I said ‘If now I score the winner, I’d better see a f***ing tattoo’.

“He’s away with the two tickets anyway, the kid. He was going to get it done.”

That is just one example of the mania which is gripping both sides of Edinburgh football, with much of the hysteria expressing itself as a dread of losing rather than the more usual desperation to win. Yet Beattie himself is remaining calm. For one thing, he lives some way west of the capital. For another, he is conscious that, unlike the supporters, players can do more than just sit and watch the game.

“Someone asked me about the penalty [against Celtic] and said ‘Were you nervous?’ Everybody else was sh***ing themselves, but I had control of the situation.

“Fans say ‘You’d better win, I can’t go to work all week if you don’t win the game’. But we’re in control of it, so we’re a lot more relaxed than the fans.”

Behind that relaxation, however, lies a determination in Beattie to make quality count on Saturday, and to produce the sort of performances and goals which have already helped Hearts see off Celtic and Hibs in the handful of matches he has played for the club to date.

“It’s been 100-odd years to get this final on,” he said. “I certainly don’t want to be waiting on another one to put it right.”

Taken from the Scotsman