Hearts vote with their feet

IAN PAUL

11 Sep 1995

Hearts 4, Falkirk 1

TO THEIR credit, the Falkirk fans showed admirable maturity and sound commonsense in ignoring the temptation to barrack their ex-manager, Jim Jefferies, who left the club after saying he would stay.

They might feel that decent behaviour brooks pretty poor dividends after Jefferies' new team gave their own side a proper going-over.

Nobody ever said the old game was fair.

The two conclusions which were not difficult to reach were: Hearts have indeed been given a new lease of life by the arrival of their biggest fan in the manager's room, and Falkirk' new leader, John Lambie, has a big job on his hands to erase the persona of his predecessor from the minds of players and fans.

Jefferies himself said it best.

"Jim Jefferies is in the past for Falkirk.

John will take time to get things the way he wants, but that is the Falkirk future.

My concern now is Hearts."

His concern is not too demanding at the moment in that the staff have at least voted with their feet to demonstrate that he is welcome.

That is a large asset for a new manager and a sound foundation to build upon if the talent is there.

There were signs that considerable ability still lurks in the Tynecastle dressing room, particularly in the younger element, Gary Locke and Alan Johnston.

Locke, who had to be taken off with an injury early in the second half, had shown his promise in the Under-21 match during the week and it was the turn of Johnston to take the spotlight.

He didn't let himself down either.

Not for a long time has a Hearts player dazzled with such close control, wispy deceptive feints, and incisive passing that there was a temptation to believe Jefferies had sprung a "ringer." Was this Son of Laudrup?

If that sounds a touch exaggerated, listen to his team-mate John Colquhoun who, incidentally, was selected as man of the match: "Alan is one of the most skilful players I have ever played with, maybe even the most.

He could be anything, maybe a tanner ba' player, but he could also be the best player ever to come out of Tynecastle.

What you see is only 70% of what he can do in training.

He is a frightening talent."

Colquhoun, who is articulate and thoughtful about the game, is not one to overstate any young player's case, and for that reason his assessment is especially interesting.

The young man's new manager, who has quickly brought him back to the first-team scene after he and Locke had disappeared for a while last term, also expressed his delight at the performance.

"Alan has got real, natural talent.

He will make mistakes but he is the type of player who can have you on the edge of your seat.

He has wonderful feet and the ability to go past people.

"He has to have belief in himself but he is the kind of player the Scottish game needs.

I don't know why he and Locke were out of things here, but sometimes club confidence can slip, and young players like them will make mistakes.

If he keeps playing as he is, there is no doubt he will be back in the Scotland eye."

Colquhoun believes that Johnston will bloom now that he knows he will be given a run in the first team.

He is not doing too bad in the blooming stakes himself.

Scorer of two of his team's four goals, John was playing in his third different position for Jefferies already.

"I have been wide on the right, through the middle and wide of the left, and I have enjoyed them all," he said.

He and Dave McPherson agreed that the dressing room has had a buzz about it since the new man's arrival.

"He is the type of manager who talks the same way to young lads as he does to experienced players," said Dave McPherson.

"We are trying to play good entertaining football and if we do that, people will turn up," said Colquhoun.

Jefferies' team were much better than Falkirk but that is not excessive praise.

The Brockville side were ominously vulnerable, almost naive at the back, to the point where they may have been fortunate not to lose more goals.

A defence that seemed to have become reasonably solid last season seems to have sprung alarming leaks, and you might not be surprised to know that their new manager had used his own picturesque language to highlight the deficiencies.

"We were raped," he said, "after we made crazy mistakes.

We don't look fit, do we? I don't know where to start sorting it out.

We lost crazy goals.

If this was midway through the season, I would be a worried man.

"There is a long, long way to go but we will have to sort this out quickly.

We have lost 11 goals in three games, so it is back to the drawing board.

We'll start on Monday, and if that doesn't work, we'll be in every afternoon and then on Sundays."

He had some consolation in the debut of Derek Ferguson who, as Lambie said, did well enough considering he had played only two games this year.

He, Maurice Johnston, and Colin McDonald tried desperately hard to lift their colleagues but the cause was lost virtually from the fourteenth minute when Alan Lawrence put Hearts in front after a neat flick from Johnston.

Falkirk were two behind five minutes later when Colquhoun found himself with an inexplicable amount of space in the middle of their defensive area, took a pass from Brian Hamilton, and shot past Neil Inglis.

Lambie's side did get a toe-hold on a comeback when McDonald took advantage of a comedy of errors in the Hearts defence to pull a goal back, but they never really looked like rescuing the situation.

Colquhoun nipped inside a static Steve Kirk to head in a Johnston cross for the third and the fourth came when John Robertson scored from the penalty spot to pass Willie Bauld's league scoring record of 182 goals and is now chasing Jimmy Wardhaugh's all-time Hearts record.

The penalty award was indisputable when Inglis brought down Lawrence after he had been put through by a superb pass from substitute Scott Leitch.

Referee Jim McCluskey decided to show only the yellow card to Inglis, and, at the time, I felt that was reasonable as another Falkirk man was in hot pursuit of Lawrence.

However, with the benefit of TV evidence, I reckon Inglis was fortunate indeed to stay on the park.

Maybe some kind of compassion was due, however.

Falkirk had been through enough for one day.