STARK: I'M SO PROUD OF PAUL BUT DON'T SAY I INVENTED HIM

PAUL HARTLEY insists Billy Stark made him a star.

But Stark refuses to take the credit. He swears the player only needed redirected - not reinvented.

The pair met up at St Johnstone when Hearts ace Hartley was still raw.

And last night Stark, now boss of Queen's Park, said: "I get slightly embarrassed by this, even if it's very kind of Paul to mention me.

"All I did was make a positional change, which managers are supposed to do from time to time. The rest has got to be down to the player and his attitude.

"Commitment was never a problem to Paul. He loved training and would have worked morning, noon and night.

"That's why he'll last into his mid thirties at the very top - because he's always looked after himself very well."

When Hearts moved in for Hartley, St Johnstone chairman Geoff Brown was so desperate to keep him, he broke his own rules by offering the player SPL wages even though the club were in the First Division.

The tactic failed to work and Stark said: "When Paul left us I could never have foreseen that he would go on to be the player who would take the country by storm.

"Paul has always had self-confidence but sometimes you need to prove to yourself that you can do a certain job on the park. Craig Levein, his first manager at Hearts, had to trust Paul to lead the midfield.

"That meant he had to track runs and carry out defensive responsibilities that weren't natural to him when he was on the wing.

"Paul always had a terrific engine but the question was, did he have the inclination to work as hard as that? He did.

"The other attribute he possessed was a phenomenal range of passing, which he's now demonstrating."

Stark will take pride tomorrow when he sees Hartley line up with his Hearts team-mates against Gretna in the Scottish Cup Final.

But again he will take none of the credit if he sees him lift the trophy.

Stark said: "I want to see Paul succeed from a human point of view.

"Managers and players form close attachments and I have a good rapport with him.

"If anyone deserves the kind of success he's enjoying, it's Paul. And the good news is his peak years have still to come."

Taken from the Daily Record