Skipper leads by example both on and off the pitch

WHEN Jim Jefferies convinced Steven Pressley to leave Dundee United for Tynecastle in summer 1998 the former Hearts manager set in motion a chain of events which would see the defender evolve into one of the most impressive captains the club has known.

Pressley embodies everything that is good about Hearts and sits comfortably alongside other great Gorgie skippers such as Tom Purdie, Dave Mackay, Bobby Parker and John Cumming.

It would surprise no-one that when a statement of the magnitude of yesterday's had to be delivered it was Pressley who took responsibility.

Given the turmoil at Tynecastle in recent seasons - the club are on their fifth manager in two years and he is presently signed off sick - Hearts can count themselves extremely fortunate to have a leader of the calibre of the centre-back.

But Pressley's rise to prominence has been no overnight success story. The player has grown steadily in stature in each of his nine seasons in Gorgie and is now considered the club's figurehead both on and off the pitch.

Signed with a view to replacing David Weir who Jefferies suspected would soon leave for the English Premiership, Pressley endured a difficult first few months. With Weir remaining at the club until he joined Everton in early 1999, the new arrival from Tannadice was often played out of position at right-back as Jefferies tried to accommodate all his best defenders in the same team.

He overcame that difficulty in the same way he would hurdle every other obstacle placed in his path during subsequent seasons.

A prolific performer for the Scotland Under-21 side in his days with Rangers, Coventry City and United, winning 26 caps, Pressley would have to wait until the age of 26 before making his full international debut, and it was not until three years later that he established himself as a regular in the Scotland team. Now, of course, he is Hearts' most capped player, having represented his country on 32 occasions.

It was significant that at Thursday's civic reception to mark Hearts' Scottish Cup win, Lesley Hinds, Edinburgh's Lord Provost, paid special tribute to the centre-half who she described as "a fantastic role model for a lot of young people in Edinburgh and beyond".

Honest, straight-talking and always prepared to make himself available, Pressley is the personification of what Hearts stand for in the eyes of the supporters. At the annual service of remembrance at the war memorial at Haymarket, it is invariably Pressley who leads the players' delegation.

Appointed Hearts captain following the sale of Colin Cameron to Wolverhampton Wanderers in 2001, the Elgin-born defender is not one to embrace controversy for its own sake. The words he delivered yesterday were carefully considered and Vladimir Romanov would do well to heed them.

GRAHAM BEAN

Foulkes backs Pressley

FORMER Hearts chairman George Foulkes has urged Vladimir Romanov to show a "degree of compromise" to prevent the club from imploding.

After Steven Pressley's publicly declared the dissatisfaction of a number of players in a statement, Foulkes, said: "The time is now for the people in charge at the club to realise the only way forward is a co-operative way with the owner, the management, the players and the fans working together and recognising that it involves some degree of compromise."

Taken from the Scotsman