Hearts' Ian Black looking to give Hibernian the brush off again

When he scored with a penalty kick in Hearts’ comfortable victory in their New Year collision with their city rivals at Easter Road, Black pulled up his jersey to reveal a T-shirt emblazoned with the words ‘I’m Going To Paint This Place Maroon’.

It prompted reaction from some riled Hibs players but Black was also sending himself up after stories that he had done a painting and decorating job with a mate in the trade because Hearts had, not for the first time this season, failed to pay their players on time.

Ian Murray, the Hibs club captain, was one who criticised Black, but on the eve of the biggest derby meeting of the capital sides since they contested the trophy at Logie Green in 1896 the Hearts man - who is playing his last game for the club - responded in typical style, while admitting that he would not have another T-shirt printed for the occasion.

“I don’t think I could top the last one, so I won’t bother. The message to them will be if we can lift the Cup. That will be my message – that we are the Scottish Cup winners,” said the 27 year-old. ‘It’s going to be tough and it might take 90 minutes or even extra time but we’ll be going in about them. There is pressure on both teams with a derby and a cup final – it doesn’t get much bigger.

“I certainly don’t regret the T-shirt. It’s posted everywhere now, so I’ve made a name for myself! Nobody remembers his daft haircut but they remember my T-shirt.

“It was a bit of banter, friendly banter. If you can’t take banter, you are a very boring guy. I don’t think I’ll better it, though, so I’ll stick to my Hearts strip for this one. Do I like winding them up? I wouldn’t say that, but everybody else loves it - it’s banter, egging each other on.

“No doubt the Hibs fans will have messages for us but hopefully we can go and wipe the smiles off their faces by walking away with the trophy.”

There is a question over Black’s fitness – he will have a hernia operation in the close season - but he is so crucial a component in Hearts’ engine room that it would be remarkable if Paulo Sergio names a selection without the player, who swore his own commitment. “I’ve got all my family tickets, which is a relief because this is definitely going to be the biggest game of my career,” said Black. “I’m just relishing being involved – hopefully by starting, first of all. My fitness is great – well, obviously I’ve still got my hernia – but I feel fresh and I’ll take the injection as I have been doing, get ready to play.

“I would play with a broken leg if I could. It’s such a massive game, nothing will keep me out of it. It’s such a massive occasion that you can’t help but get excited.

“I get nervous before every game, to be honest. At the start of every game, you don’t know how it’s going to go, how you’re going to start but I think a wee bit of nerves is a good thing. Come the morning of the game, I know I’ll be nervous.

“I would have taken anybody in the final, just for us to get there but the derby makes it more special. I’m confident that, if we go about our business the right way, we’ll come out on top.”

Alan Preston, the former Hearts full-back who now works as a football pundit for BBC Scotland, champions Black, whom he regards as an unfairly maligned individual. “Yes, he kicks people, but he also gets kicked back just as much,” said Preston.

“The thing is he sucks opponents into making challenges that often get them booked and it costs him a fair bit of pain to do that. He’s done a lot of damage to Hibs in recent years and he’s probably the player they’ll want to shackle more than anybody else.”

Black embodies Hearts’ confidence and the feeling of many observers that if they score first - especially if they score early - Hibs’ failure to have their name engraved upon the Scottish Cup since 1902 will be extended for yet another season. Having said that - and despite Sergio’s insistence that his players should address each game, including their final league fixtures, with exactly the same professionalism as they intend to devote to this final - the manager omitted Black (among others) from the team to play Celtic last Sunday, a match which ended in a 5-0 drubbing for Hearts.

It can be taken for granted, therefore, that unless rigor mortis rules Black out of contention on this occasion, he will be snapping about the Hibs midfielders from the moment Craig Thomson blows his whistle.

“I am just going to go in and enjoy it, and play as I play.

“Obviously I am going out to win my battle in the middle of the park. If I win my battle then the whole team will do well,” he said, with no hint of false modesty. “I have done it in other derbies. I have got on the ball and played. I set up Craig Beattie’s goal in the last game against Hibs at our place when we beat them 2-0. Hampden is a bigger pitch. They will know our strengths and try and stop that but I am confident in my ability.

“Some say that because it’s a derby, you don’t want to lose. I just don’t think you should look at it that way. You shouldn’t want to lose any game. It’s going to be a massive last game for me, personally.

“If I can walk away from the club on a high with the Scottish Cup in the trophy room, that would be up there with the highlights of my career.”

Every player in football would agree that it’s the best way to leave a club - as a winner.”

Cup final stats

Today’s final is the 295th Edinburgh derby. Hearts are out in front with 132 victories to Hibernian’s 76, with 86 of the meetings ending in draws.
This will be the 23rd time the clubs have met in the Scottish Cup. Again, Hearts have the edge, with a 13-9 lead over their city rivals.
Hibs’ last Scottish Cup success against the Jambos came in 1979, when Gordon Rae gave them a 2-1 win in the quarter-final at Easter Road.
Hearts are unbeaten in the last 10 capital clashes, winning seven of them.
Garry O’Connor has scored five goals in 16 games against Hearts, more than the rest of the Hibs squad put together. In fact, Ian Murray is the only other player to have found the net against the boys in maroon – in a 5-1 defeat at Tynecastle on August 11, 2002.
Meanwhile, Paulo Sergio can choose nine players who have scored in Edinburgh derbies; Craig Beattie, Suso Santana, Ryan McGowan, Andy Webster, Rudi Skacel, Stephen Elliott, David Templeton, Andy Driver and Gary Glen.
Hearts beat Gretna in a penalty shoot-out to win the Scottish Cup in 2006. The only other time the final has been decided this way in the 138 years of the competition was in 1990, when Aberdeen beat Celtic 9-8 from the spot following a 0-0 draw.
Hearts are the only team to have won the Scottish Cup after being reduced to 10 men. Paul Hartley was ordered off towards the end of extra-time in the 2006 final. Midfielder Rudi Skacel, who had opened the scoring against Gretna, is the only survivor from that afternoon.

Taken from telegraph.co.uk