C’mon, Hearts!

Warning: if you have no interest in football this post is not for you …

Celtic play Heart of Midlothian on Saturday in a match that will decide the Scottish Premiership.

Hearts are one point ahead of Celtic so a win or a draw will be enough for the Edinburgh club to win the title. Celtic must win but they have home advantage and will be urged on by almost 99 per cent of the 60,000 crowd, Hearts having been allocated just 752 tickets.

I know how important that is because, in their Eighties heyday, my team, Dundee United, lost several cup finals to Celtic (and Rangers) despite scoring first and outplaying their opponents, only to lose to late goals that owed a huge debt to the Old Firm’s delirious fans.

So far this season Hearts have played Celtic three times, winning twice and drawing once, so they shouldn’t be overawed or intimidated, but this is probably a once in a lifetime opportunity for many of their players so the pressure will be enormous.

To put it in perspective, Hearts haven’t won the league championship since 1960. Since then they have come close to winning it just once - in 1986 - when they were defeated by Dundee in the final match and lost the title to Celtic on goal difference. A draw would have been enough but they lost 2-0 with both goals scored in the last ten minutes. I suspect that some of the players that day still have nightmares about it, but that’s what pressure can do.

Funnily enough, Dundee United were in the same position in May 1983. Like Hearts, their last match was against Dundee at Dens Park. Thankfully, and unlike Hearts three years later, they held their nerve after going two up within eight minutes, but I was at that match and the second half - with United 2-1 ahead at half-time - was the longest 45 minutes of my life.

Tomorrow’s game is huge because the last year any club other than Celtic or Rangers won the Scottish Premiership (or Premier Division as it was then), was in 1985 when it was won by Alex Ferguson’s Aberdeen. Under Ferguson, Aberdeen won the Premier Division three times - in 1980, 1984 and 1985. Since then it has been won either by Rangers or Celtic, with both clubs winning the title nine times in a row during that period.

Hearts have been the third largest club in Scotland for as long as I can remember, so they have clearly underperformed for decades. (In terms of average crowds, the top six are Celtic, Rangers, Hearts, Aberdeen, Hibernian, and Dundee United in that order, while the most over-performing club has been, without question, Motherwell.)

Having been relegated and then promoted only a few years ago, Hearts’ transformation this season has been remarkable, albeit it may be partly attributed to a £9.86m investment from Tony Bloom, the owner of Brighton & Hove Albion, who secured a 29 per cent stake in the club last summer. Nevertheless, few people would have predicted such an immediate upturn in fortune because the financial gap between the Old Firm of Celtic and Rangers (the former in particular) is still enormous.

Unlike other provincial clubs, Hearts also benefit from what I consider to be the best stadium in Scotland. It may not be the largest (the capacity is ‘only’ 20,000), but the steep stands sit close to the pitch on all four sides and create a great atmosphere.

If that sounds like I’m a secret ‘Jambo’ (Hearts fan), I’m definitely not. For whatever reason, I’ve never warmed to the club, partly because I always considered Hearts’ teams to be over-physical, like Rangers. Whether that’s true today I don’t know because I haven’t watched them more than once or twice but, credit where credit’s due, they have led the league all season and would be deserving champions.

But what about Celtic? I should start by declaring that, when I began following football in the late Sixties, Celtic had just won the European Cup (the first British club to do so) and I loved their brand of attacking football.

Jock Stein was clearly a great manager, and I also loved the iconic Celtic strip (plain green and white hoops with no Adidas stripes, corporate logos, or numbers on the back to spoil the aesthetic). They also had some brilliant players. Over the years, however, something changed, and it wasn’t just the players. I began to dislike the atmosphere at Celtic matches, home or away.

First and foremost, that nine-in-row run of titles bred an air of entitlement, and I noticed that if Celtic weren’t winning their fans (especially at home) quickly grew restless and many would leave the ground before the end.

Today, there’s a group of Celtic ‘supporters’ called the Green Brigade who seem more interested in parading their hatred of Britain and the Crown alongside their support for Irish republicanism and, more recently, the Palestinian cause. OK, a lot of this is performative, but I go to football matches to get away from politics, not have it shoved down my throat.

Meanwhile, supporters of provincial Scottish clubs have been convinced for years that the Old Firm regularly benefit from tight or dubious decisions on the park. I’m not a conspiracy theorist and I accept that such bias, perceived or otherwise, is not exclusive to Scotland. ‘Big’ clubs in all countries benefit in much the same way, perhaps not deliberately on the part of the referee or the football authorities, but my gut instinct, having attended hundreds of matches, is that there is an unconscious bias towards the biggest clubs which makes life even harder for the smaller clubs.

Which brings me to the events of Wednesday night. With Hearts beating Falkirk in their penultimate match, a Celtic defeat (against Motherwell) would have handed the title to Hearts, and at one point, with Motherwell leading 1-0, that was a possibility.

Instead, Celtic came from behind to lead 2-1, but then, in the last ten minutes of normal time, Motherwell equalised and it was 2-2. A draw kept Celtic’s hopes of the title alive, but with Hearts winning 3-0 it meant Celtic would have to beat Hearts in Saturday’s final match by three goals.

With the Motherwell-Celtic game all square, an additional five minutes were signalled by the fourth official. Somehow this was stretched to eight minutes and, following one final desperate throw-in into the Motherwell box, Celtic were awarded a penalty for hand ball against a Motherwell player.

TV replays showed his hand was high but he was competing for the ball with a Celtic player and he clearly headed the ball because it flew a good 20 yards back in the direction from which it came. To achieve that with his hand he would have had to punch it pretty hard, which he clearly didn’t do. Yes, the ball may have grazed his hand (which was next to his head) in the act of heading it, but there appeared to be no significant contact between hand and ball, and the TV replays were inconclusive.

Despite that the VAR assistant sent the referee to the pitch-side monitor and after the briefest of checks (timed, I believe, at 15 seconds) the referee pointed to the penalty spot. Contrast this with the six minutes it took VAR to rule out a last minute equaliser for West Ham against Arsenal on Monday night that, potentially, may have a similar impact on the outcome of the English Premiership.

Yes, a six minute delay is ridiculous (which is one of the reasons why I detest VAR), but the officials were clearly aware of the enormity of their decision and wanted to get it right. (The fact that it took them so long suggests that the original on-field decision by the referee wasn’t a ‘clear and obvious error’, but that’s another matter.)

Anyway, Celtic duly scored from the penalty, which was the last kick of the game, to win the match 3-2, and they are now just one point behind their rivals so any victory against Hearts on Saturday will be enough to win the title.

As a Dundee United supporter for almost 60 years I ought to be neutral, but I’m not. In fact, I have never wanted another team to win the Scottish Premiership as much as I want the Edinburgh club to win it tomorrow. So for the first and only time in my life, c’mon, Hearts!

PS. I had to laugh earlier in the week when I read a headline on the BBC Sport website suggesting that another Celtic title would be a ‘fairytale’ (Celtic eye own fairytale as Hearts’ story continues to captivate’).

For the record, since the club was founded in 1874, Hearts have been champions of Scotland four times, two of those titles coming in the 1880s, the last one in 1960 (the year after I was born). Celtic, in contrast, have won the title 55 times, including 13 of the last 14 seasons. So if they beat Hearts on Saturday that will make it 56 titles including 14 of the last 15 seasons. Some ‘fairytale’!

See also: Why May 14, 1983, was one of the best days of my life

Update: I was unaware that there was another year Hearts lost out on the title on the last day of the league season. In 1965, needing to avoid a 2-0 defeat, they lost 2-0 at home to Kilmarnock who consequently won Scottish Division One (as it was then) on goal average (goals scored divided by goals conceded).

See: Third time lucky? Hearts fans recall old scars as they brace for Celtic showdown (The Times)

Today such things are decided by goal difference (goals scored minus goals conceded) and had that been the case in 1965 Hearts would have won the title because their goal difference was significantly better than Kilmarnock’s (41 versus 29).

Interestingly, in an 18-team division, Rangers came fifth and Celtic were eighth that year. Dunfermline were third, Hibernian fourth, Dundee sixth, Dundee United ninth, and Aberdeen twelfth.

I should also add that while there is broad support across the country for Hearts to win the league today, a friend of mine supports Hibernian, Hearts’ Edinburgh rivals, and he does NOT want them to win! I sympathise because, as a United supporter, if Dundee were in Hearts’ position, I wouldn’t them to win either.

Also, my friend makes an interesting point. If Hearts win the title they will gain entry to the Champions League and the money they will make from that will create a significant financial divide between them and the other provincial clubs, even the larger ones like Hibs and Aberdeen. However, taking everything into consideration, I still think that it would be good for Scottish football.

Update: So, Celtic won 3-1 with two late goals. The third was the last kick of the match, with the Hearts keeper out of position having gone up to the other end of the park for a free kick. Briefly, when Hearts went one up just before half-time, it appeared they might win the title if not the match, but they conceded a penalty right on half-time and on this occasion the referee got it right.

Fair play to Hearts, though. They played conservatively but they didn’t freeze or park the bus. In fact, I thought they played pretty well and were comfortable for large parts of the game. They had to work hard, though, in a feverish atmosphere and gradually ran out of gas. As I predicted, the vociferous home support made a difference too, although the scenes at the end - when Celtic fans invaded the pitch after the third goal went in and before the final whistle had blown - were pretty unpalatable.

Media reports have suggested that some Hearts players were manhandled by Celtic supporters before they were ushered off the pitch by stewards and police officers. I’ve also read reports that the Hearts players left the stadium almost immediately, some still in their playing kit.

But let’s not be a party pooper. This is a day to celebrate Celtic’s 56th league title, their 14th in the last 15 years. Now that’s what I call a fairytale!