Something for the Romanovs to consider
By: Graham |
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It was a full Tynecastle that watched Hearts fail once again to rise to the occasion on Saturday. Falkirk were worth their point in a grim nil-nil but, as so often this season, the home side did little more than turn up. In a week when it has become clear that the club has racked up record debts - more than that of both Rangers and Celtic combined, apparently - the Romanovs must be wondering what sort of crowds can be expected at Tynecastle next season.
Gordon Strachan raised the issue of attendances and the low quality of the SPL ‘product’ a week or so ago and it is a surprise that so little is done to try to boost crowds. Hearts may very well be the third best supported team in Scotland but with an average gate of 16,280, they fall behind all 20 English Premier League clubs, 12 in the Championship and even two in League One. An extra few thousand squeezed in when the new stadium is completed will make no impact on this dreary performance. The fact that even Scotland’s national stadium has had its capacity almost halved since my boyhood days says something about the decline in support overall but when 23 people and two small dogs make up the crowd for a game in our top league, it must be time to ask where Scottish football is headed.
There are no easy answers, of course, but a club like Hearts - proud history or not - cannot afford debt on the current scale, however much it may be protected by the peculiar situation of its owner also running the institution that owns the debt. That can only ever be a short term protection. Boredom, illness, changing business fortunes can all strike quickly - witness Gretna’s painful demise - and Hearts would become simply another asset to be disposed of.
A city the size of Edinburgh should surely be able to support two football teams. But Hibs got 12,000 for their game against Kilmarnock. Neither Hearts nor Hibs can remain financially viable with crowds like that with a wage bill in the millions.
Romanov - Major or Minor - should be involving himself in schemes to raise the profile not just of Hearts but of the SPL and trying to make heading off to the game on a Saturday afternoon (remember when games were played on Saturday afternoons?) part of a good week-end. If crowds remain at these levels across the SPL, Hearts will guarantee themselves a top three finish in a few years as the SPL will only have three clubs.
Category: Hearts
St. Mirren 1, Berra in line for first Scotland Cap
By: Graham | 1 Comment
Christophe Berra’s inclusion in George Burley’s first Scotland squad is a rare positive note in what has been a pretty dismal season. Saturday’s 1-1 draw away to St Mirren, coupled with Falkirk’s victory in Inverness, has made a top six place once more nothing more than a possibility and a European place a fantasy. And the St Mirren game? Nothing to say. Absolutely nothing. Well, perhaps I could say, “We did well to grab a point from the second bottom team.” Moving on….
There are one or two bum notes surrounding the Berra inclusion, though. When Burley was manager of Hearts - remember that? - the team had Pressley, Gordon, Webster, and Hartley in the Scotland squad. And Robbie was soon to break in for his solitary cap against Ukraine. Does Berra’s potential cap herald trouble between him and Vlad or will Vlad simply be doubling the fee he’ll be willing to accept from one of the Old Firm in the close season?
Under Burley, it looked like Hearts could produce top players and hold on to them. It didn’t last long. Now, ironically, under Burley, inclusion in the Scotland squad may be the very thing that triggers the latest hunt for Hearts players.
The solution seems obvious: Hearts should bite the bullet and field only Lithuanians.
Oh, wait a minute……
Category: HeartsBendnar’s sale will cover furniture costs
By: Graham | 2 Comments
It now appears that the driving force behind the likely sale of Roman Bednar this summer to West Brom is a furniture bill that lay unpaid for some time. Long enough, in fact, for the courts to become involved. Who knew cash was so tight at Tynecastle?
Perhaps something was lost in the translation when Vladimir Romanov talked of seeing Hearts leading the table.
Category: HeartsRoman in the Midlands
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Apparently - according to the BBC’s round-up of sports gossip - West Brom are hoping to make Roman Bednar’s loan permanent and are willing to pay £2m for him. That makes sense, of course. Bednar has been banging them in and has helped West Brom to a likely play-off place in the Championship. The pound signs will be spinning in Vlad’s eyes and, even with the departure of Velicka, it seems unlikely that Roman will be crossing back across Hadrian’s wall. So, further good business for Vlad and further mystifying decisions for Hearts fans.
There’s no mention of any of this on the all-new splendiferous web site. A glossy front end that takes most of your computer’s resources simply to display and then it’s the same old tosh behind the scenes. Sounds familiar.
Oooh but I’m grouchy this morning. And no Hearts game to get worked up about for another week.
Category: HeartsHearts destroy Inverness jinx
By: Graham | 2 Comments
On the back of the drubbing by Rangers at Tynecastle, a trip to Inverness would not have been the choice of many at Hearts for the game in which the team had to make some sort of redeeming statement. CT have already beaten us twice this season and under Craig Brewster have recaptured much of their resilience and ability to frustrate the opposition. Then again, with Hearts in yo-yo form, there were no SPL fixtures - including a match against Gretna - that Hearts could have chosen with anything approaching confidence.
So, northwards it was. Although the wind that had made much of the Motherwell game so dreadful was of less intensity this week, Hearts and Inverness contrived to play for the first 20 minutes as though gales were sweeping across the pitch. Fraser and Banks could both have returfed their penalty areas with little distraction. Then a neat Nade turn in the box forced a good save from Fraser and from the corner Karipidis scored with a free header. Poor defending but Hearts did well to take advantage.
This spurred Inverness into increased indifference and, ten minutes later, Nade again showed glimpses of the strker we hope he is and need him to be now that Velicka has gone to great fjords. A strong run down the right, including a nutmeg and a hint of a step-over, was followed by a surge into the box and a neat cut back to Elliot, who took the majority of travelling fans by surprise and scored.
There was more to come from Elliot when, shortly after half time, a dodgy back pass led to a bit of pinball on the edge of the box and Elliot scooped the ball high and over the head of the desperately retreating Fraser. Caley had made a couple of chances by then and missed them in ways that summed up their afternoon. Hearts rested on their laurels for much of the rest of the game and it gradually eased into a torpor reminiscent of the first 20 minutes.
Hearts won. Inverness posed little threat up front and even less of a threat in defence. To have lost would have been disastrous for us but Elliot’s confidence will have been given a welcome boost and Nade showed some promising touches. St. Mirren next and a real chance of getting that 6th place spot next week, if other results go our way.
Category: HeartsHearts 0, Rangers 4
By: Graham | Add Comments
This was a performance as poor as Tynecastle has seen from a Hearts team. Ever. Rangers played well enough to win but, in truth, they could have put their under 19s on and probably have still beaten this Hearts side.
The only explanation for the whole side playing so poorly simultaneously was that they had hatched a plan in the dressing room prior to kick-off. Perhaps this was their protest against the sale of the team’s leading striker just when he was most needed. If we have become more and more accustomed to Romanov’s decisions and, consequently, less and less surprised by their apparent lunacy, this still took football club ownership to a whole new level of mystery.
One of the strangest sights on Wednesday was Velicka sitting in the stand and coming out to wave to the fans at half-time. I’m sure the player was responding genuinely to the warm reaction he is used to from the fans but there was a temptation to view this more cynically: here was Romanov showing his total control over the club and reaffirming that he won’t be bullied, cajoled, or persuaded into actions other might find more in keeping with an affection for Hearts. On Wednesday night, Andrius Velicka was the perfect stand-in for Vladimir Romanov’s extended middle finger.
True, Velicka was not a Hearts player. True, £1m is a lot of money. But surely Velicka ensuring Hearts ending up in the top 6 merits postponing his sale until the end of the season and £1m may be a lot of dosh for you and me but Romanov owns a bank, for goodness sake! Where will the £1m end up? Not, I suggest, in the funds made available to Hearts for new players. If the money makes it to Edinburgh, it’s more likely to be absorbed into the building costs for the Tynecastle redevelopment. Will there be a team left to support? Will there be supporters left to fill the new stand?
And Hearts, being Hearts, will travel north to Inverness in good spirit and expect to win.
Category: HeartsHearts now relying on wind power
By: Graham | Add Comments
Stephen Frail is reported today suggesting that games should be called off when it’s too windy. The temptation to link such a remark to the normal status of commentary emanating from Tynecastle is severe but I shall pass.
And it was passing that gave Hearts victory against Motherwell on Saturday. Both teams struggled with the conditions but Hearts simply coped the better. A poor game, made poorer still by the wind (as spotted by Mr. Frail) but Hearts ended up slightly less poor than Motherwell. Last week, Hearts played as well as they have done in recent weeks and got thumped 3-0: this week they were back to the form of their slump phase and snatched a win. That’s football, of course, and Hearts especially.
With Andrius Velicka out ‘injured’, we had to rely on Motherwell to score our goal. Stephen Craigan’s winner was a belter, hitting the roof of the net before Graeme Smith could raise his mits. As soon as the goal went in, Hearts seemed to think the game was won and began to sit back. Perhaps they assumed the rest of the Motherwell defence was going to add further goals.
Oh, and Mr. Frail? It was windy and Hearts won. That’s 3 points. We need points. I’ll take a win in the wind any day.
I doubt Hearts can rely on other teams being as generous and Wednesday’s game against the ‘Gers may well be hairy if we’re expecting Cousin and Boyd, for instance, to start cracking them in at the wrong end. If Velicka’s £1m pelvis is better, then that would be something at least. However, it seems increasingly likely that this is one Lithuanian pelvic injury that will be getting better on the other side of the North Sea.
Category: HeartsVelicka to fulfil ambition to play for major European team
By: Graham | 1 Comment
The BBC is reporting that Hearts have accepted £1m for Velicka from Norway’s Viking Stavanger. Oh, well.
It makes sense, of course. Hearts have no trouble scoring goals at the moment, they have a glut of top quality strikers (so many, in fact, that they can afford to loan one of them to West Brom), and it’s hard to stand in the way of a player moving to a top European side. And the money will come in handy.
I know I’ve been giving Velicka a bit of a hrd time recently but I expected him to start banging in the goals again soon. I just didn’t expect him to be banging them in against a backdrop of fjords. It makes me proud to think Hearts have now become a feeder club to the Norwegian Premier League. Oh, and I think that £1m goes to Kaunas, not Hearts. We’re not a feeder club, we’re a shop window for a feeder club.
Category: HeartsHearts are virtually there
By: Graham | 1 Comment
We’ve had plans to redevelop the stadium. Indeed, the model presented to the City Council as part of the planning submission is now on view at the ticket office. Whoopee.
And there’s more exciting news. Big name manager? No. Big name signings laid on for the close season? No. Large cash investment to see Hearts compete with the Old Firm for years to come? Er, no.
Better than all that. The official web site has had a revamp and is being relaunched under a new name. So, no more http://www.heartsfc.premiumtv.co.uk/page/Home/0,,10289,00.html to get to the home page: now all you need is www.heartsfc.co.uk.
But not yet. It launches on the 26th of Feb.
Maybe.
Category: HeartsCeltic 3, Hearts positively 0
By: Graham | Add Comments
Strange as it may seem, this 3-0 loss to Celtic was further evidence that some sort of corner has been turned. No clean sheet, and no goals scored, but the performance was certainly better than the scoreline suggests and this was no abject Celtic Park capitulation. Andrew Driver fluffed a couple of clear chances and Andrius Velicka continues to go through a spell of wearing his feet on the wrong leg. But Velicka’s blight is normal for a striker upon whom the pressure to score is heaviest and he will turn it around in a game or two. A lucky mis-kick or a ricochet off his head and he’ll be back in the groove.
So, nothing more than disappointment that we couldn’t keep the sequence of SPL wins going.
But, what is more telling is that, only two seasons on from the Burley Revolution, we’re back looking for the positives in a defeat at Celtic. The corner we’ve turned is still just in a side street of a small town, rather than onto the main drag of a major city. After a brief glimpse of potential success, we’re relearning the habit of being grateful for small mercies. Thanks, Vlad.
Category: Hearts
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