At Hearts, ‘something special’ is brewing in historic Scottish title challenge
The banner in the Gorgie Road end of Tynecastle was ready, waiting to be unfurled as the tense, nervy final minutes ticked away. Hearts supporters are becoming reacquainted with these emotions on a weekly basis, the intensity sharpening now as winter turns to spring. Even today, on a grey, sodden afternoon where Aberdeen offer virtually nothing after falling behind to Claudio Braga’s first-half opener, the sense of what is at stake is never far from the surface: when Aberdeen’s Stuart Armstrong goes down in the box in the 83rd minute, having brushed past a Hearts challenge, there is a dramatic intake of breath. Hearts, though, survive.
Then it sinks in. It’s the final day of February and Hearts have gone seven points clear at the top of the Scottish Premiership. A day later, over in Glasgow, Rangers and Celtic play out a chaotic 2-2 draw at Ibrox. Their advantage is trimmed back to six, but with the Old Firm clubs both dropping points and looking vulnerable in a game of two distinct halves, Hearts are announced as the afternoon’s only winners. As the banner at Tynecastle proudly declared just as the referee’s final whistle blew: “Nine to go… Believe!”
This season, things are happening in Scotland that have not been seen in a generation. The last time a club outside the Old Firm stood at the top of the table at this stage of the season was 1992, when Hearts led but ultimately finished second to Rangers. The last time a club outside the Old Firm were crowned champions was Aberdeen in 1985, and it did not go unnoticed that the manager of that side, Sir Alex Ferguson, decided that this was the weekend to accept an invitation from Derek McInnes and pay Hearts a visit. That Ferguson wore a maroon tie to Tynecastle did not go unnoticed, either, as Hearts bid to win their first top-flight title since 1960.
It would be understandable, then, if anyone with any close association with Hearts is beginning to get a little jumpy at the opportunity that sits in front of them, while rubbing their eyes in disbelief at how rapid the transformation has been. Less than a year ago, Hearts were toiling in the bottom half of the table and looking over their shoulders at being dragged into a relegation battle. They would finish 40 points behind champions Celtic. The first step was appointing McInnes, who helped Aberdeen regularly punch above their weight during his eight seasons at Pittodrie, from his post at Kilmarnock, where he had also overachieved.
Any mention of Hearts this season invariably also comes while highlighting the impact of their use of Jamestown Analytics, the data-driven scouting network that has allowed the club to revolutionise their recruitment model by tapping into undervalued sources. The Brighton owner Tony Bloom is a minority shareholder in Hearts, with Jamestown Analytics an offshoot of his Starlizard company, which utilises data for its betting markets. Hearts are one of several clubs, including Belgium’s Union Saint-Gilloise, that have exclusive use of Jamestown Analytics in their region.
The Portuguese striker Braga, for example, spent three years in Norway’s second-tier before Hearts signed him from Aalesunds last summer, while the Greek winger Alexandros Kyziridis was bought from Slovakia. They are two of the success stories.. The grinning Braga has quickly emerged as the heartbeat of the title leaders and is so obviously the best player in the country, to the extent that it is quite baffling the 26-year-old went unspotted for so long. But his name flashed up when Hearts went looking for a forward of his profile, with the final sign-off coming from McInnes. And, in a season where the Old Firm’s recruitment has been misguided, it has allowed Hearts to move ahead.
Against Aberdeen, and for the first time this season, Hearts went into a game against a team other than Celtic, Rangers or their city rivals Hibernian with it feeling like a significant occasion that needed to be met with a big arrival. Here, they invited Colin Chisholm, the voice of the ‘Heart’s Song’, to give a rousing rendition of the club’s anthem before kick-off. The 73-year-old Chisholm had been receiving messages about jinxing what Hearts are trying to achieve now he’s been invited onto the pitch to sing the anthem live for the first time, but it works. The place bounces in appreciation for the boys in maroon.
And Hearts were terrific in this opening spell, as if carrying the energy from the stands onto the pitch. Hearts begin with purpose and intent, even with 11 players out injured. Captain Lawrence Shankland and key midfielder Cammy Devlin watched on like caged tigers on the sidelines, desperate to return to bolster their title bid.
McInnes set up his team to stretch wide, with Harry Milne pushing high on the left and given license to whip crosses into the box. Each one brings a stir from the steep sides of Tynecastle. Then, just at the moment where Hearts could have allowed a few missed chances to build into frustration, they strike. Pierre Landry Kabore skips around the outside of the lunging defender and pulls it back to his strike partner Braga for his 15th of the season.
The forward looks made for Scottish football, with a strong but slight build and a velvet touch, even if he has to force himself to embrace the physicality and roughhousing he gets from opposition centre-backs. He plays with a smile and when he scores, and can’t help himself from whistling along with the chants of “All we hear is, Claudio Braga” to the tune of Queen’s ‘Radio Gaga’. At full-time, he is the last to walk off the pitch at the end, having handed away his shirt and one of his boots.
Braga later says, sensibly, that it will be important for everyone to keep their feet on the ground and take their title challenge game by game. “But you can feel that there is something special around this club and something good is happening,” he adds. “Everybody feels it, that’s why the tension is sometimes there.”
The tension, the nerves, they will be unavoidable between now and the end of the season. But there was a clear difference in how Hearts handled being ahead against Aberdeen to, say, Rangers went about managing a second-half lead against an admittedly more dangerous, experienced and more motivated opponent in Celtic.
Against Aberdeen, Hearts went through long spells where they refused to allow anything to happen, while Rangers offered encouragement through mistakes and loose passes. When it came to grinding out what was a narrow advantage in the closing stages, Hearts came together, while Celtic sensed how edgy Ibrox had become. “The [home] crowd were perhaps turning on their own players,” Martin O’Neill said after his Celtic side dominated the second half to salvage a 2-2 draw at Ibrox.
And Hearts will have to overcome many more of those moments if they are to break the Old Firm’s hold of the title. McInnes had Sir Alex waiting in his office while he conducted the last of his post-match media duties, with the legendary former Manchester United manager keeping in tune with their season from afar. He will not need to remind Hearts of how far there is still to go. No one is getting carried away yet, but Braga could not deny their dream is getting closer. On days like this, he said, “it’s difficult not to believe even more”.