His injuries were treated but Kyle still feels former colleagues' pain

KEVIN Kyle did not simply pay lip service to the idea of sympathy for those who have been made redundant by Hearts yesterday: they are people he knows.

Kyle sat in a lounge at Ibrox to publicise an upbeat book about Rangers' recovery from being dropped from the top flight to the fourth tier, but Scottish football's ills cannot be brushed off and condemned to the past. He played for both Rangers and Hearts, and the latter's stresses are all too current.

He was at Tynecastle from June 2010 to March 2012, making him a working colleague of the 14 non-playing staff made immediately redundant by administrator Bryan Jackson in a fraught day yesterday. A further four from the playing staff – two full-time, two part-time – will leave the club today. Kyle's immediate thoughts were with the behind-the-scenes staff. "The players can go and get other clubs, because they are a good standard of player at Hearts," he said. "But the people working in the ticket office or other parts of the club: where are they going to get a job tomorrow? They are the ones you have to feel sorry for. It is brutal."

The former Scotland striker has known periods of feast and famine in a career which included spells at Sunderland and Coventry City, in addition to a handful of loans elsewhere, before moving north to join Kilmarnock in 2009. He once confessed to a gambling addiction so serious he regularly blew his £7000-a-week wages. For the moment he does not have any wages at all: his last appearance for Rangers was in December and he left the club by mutual consent in April.

"After I left Hearts I went for about four months without wages. I know what it's like," he said. "I finished with Rangers in April this year and it might take me until August to get a new club. But what must the people who get made redundant at Hearts be thinking? I've got a friend who is getting £70 a week, or whatever it is, on Jobseekers Allowance from the Job Centre. There are just no jobs. How are they going to support to their families?

"Looking back on my time at Hearts, the warning signs were there. You sign a contract and expect to get paid on time but the wages were almost always late. In the two years I was there you could count on one hand the amount of times we were paid on time. You didn't mind it being 10 days late or whatever, but there was a time when our September wages were not paid until just after Christmas. That was horrendous. Not everyone is clued up with money, and not everyone was on that great a deal.

"You would go and speak to the manager [he played under Jim Jefferies and Paulo Sergio], who would then go and speak to someone else but you would never get any answers. You would phone the poor wee girl in the accounts office and say 'Fiona, what's happening with the wages this month?' and she would just say they didn't know."

He had no doubt who was to blame – Craig Whyte for what happened at Rangers, Vladimir Romanov for the collapse at Hearts – and who ought to have done more to police them. "The SFA should definitely take a closer look at the people running clubs. I don't know how they operate their 'fit and proper person' test, but I'd love to sit in on one of them. Even I could pass one of them! I don't know what procedures were in place when Mr Romanov took over the club a few years ago but they have to make sure the next owner passes a proper test.

"For two clubs like Rangers and Hearts to find themselves in the situations they have done is absolutely astounding. The SPL and SFA set a precedent with the way they treated Rangers – is the same thing going to happen with Hearts? Are we going to end up with them in the third division? We've already got both Rangers and Dunfermline in the second division next season: Scottish football is turning into a shambles."

Still, it is a shambles which may again give him a living. Kyle got an injection yesterday to reduce inflammation on his ankle, which means that in around a week he will regard himself as ready to properly look for a new club. "I was going to wear a t-shirt today with my phone number on it, saying 'I'm available'."

He has had hip and hernia operations in recent seasons and knows how his record looks to potential managers. His own view is that being wrongly diagnosed added to his problems in the past. "If I was a manager, I'd look at me and think 'he's 32, he's always been injured – no thanks'. But I've not been continuously injured, the treatment just hasn't been great.

"I was injured for 18 months at Hearts and had two hernia operations and two groin operations before I got the hip operation I actually needed. Is that my fault? I can't go into any great detail of what happened to me at Rangers, but it didn't go to plan.

"I still believe I have a lot to offer. I only turned 32 last week and don't really have a lot of miles on the clock. I just need a bit of luck. When given the right treatment for my injuries in recent years, they weren't actually that bad. If someone does give me an opportunity, they will know what they are getting. I've got good SPL experience. I've started taking my coaching badges, so I've got more to offer.

"Clubs might offer me a pay-as-you-play deal. If that's the case, so be it. But I still believe I can do someone a good turn if I get the chance."

Taken from the Herald