FOLLY OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

IT could be worse I suppose. They could still have Chris Robinson in charge.

Apart from that? Sorry. There's not a single consolation you could even think of offering Hearts fans this morning.

Because when you boil it down there is absolutely nothing they can do about the nick they find their club in. Not a sausage.

The paddle store at the far end of S*** Creek has just put the "sold out" signs in the window.

And even the most diehard fan of their ancient submariner must have upped periscope by now and seen enough to know that. SURELY?

They have been told for long enough even though their heads have been buried in the sand.

They've bought into the whole paranoid package peddled by garbled outbursts on the club website that the world's out to get them - ref s, the anti-Hearts Weegie media, the SFA (sorry, read that as Glasgow FA). They've turned a blind eye to the systematic sackings of managers, incessant interference in team selection, bizarre medical practices of Rima with the golden sticks and the Pyjama Man.

And to a certain extent you can't blame them.

To your average football fan all that matters is what happens on a Saturday afternoon.

They pay their money, take their seat, see their team win, go home happy. Three points provides cover for a multitude of sins.

The night Hearts sealed their Champions League place against Aberdeen six months ago will live long in my memory for sure.

And their Scottish Cup win will live long in the supporters'.

For days and nights like that you'll forgive almost anything.

But the day your three most influential players - the only guys in your team who are absolutely untouchable - come out together, unprompted, and tell you the game's a bogey? It's the point of no return. Now you HAVE to listen.

Vladimir Romanov's threat to the players on Friday morning - beat Dunf ermline or you'll be sold and I'll play kids against Celtic - was one of the most ludicrous pieces of man-management ever.

Yet you don't doubt he would carry it out. It would go against every fibre in his megalomaniacal body to not follow through a threat.

And that's where the problem lies for Hearts punters today. Vlad has total control. He can do what-ever he wants and there's little or nothing anyone can do about it.

The fans are the ones who sold their souls to him. And again it's hard to blame them when the alternative was Robinson, selling Tynecastle and crowds in the single-figure thousands wading through the misery of Murrayfield.

But now Romanov has more than 80 per cent of the club and he's accountable to no-one but himself. He IS the law.

And no matter how much the players or fans protest he'll decide when he's had enough, no-one else.

Let's take that scenario to the nth degree though. Let's say he does decide he's offski. That he doesn't need the flak. Where does it leave Hearts?

Romanov will sell his shares if he can find a buyer. He'll hand back the debt that was the albatross round their neck in the first place - and the tragedy is it will be untouched if not bigger than before.

The debt that's been earning Vlad's bank a million a year in interest since he moved it from HBOS mind.

He'll hand back a stadium not a jot further forward in its development than when he came in.

Sure, he has plans in place for a 40,000-seat dream home but the game isn't played on an architect's drawing board.

And it will be right back to square one. Flog the ground, yadda yadda yadda...

Rock. Hearts. Hard Place.

The only constant in all this for Jambos fans has been the immovable solidity of Steven Pressley.

He has led them impeccably on and off the park for two years, occasionally while all hell was breaking loose around him.

And he's kept his counsel all that time. As have stand-up football guys like John McGlynn.

But no more. And that's when you know you're in trouble.

The language of Pressley's statement on Friday was as brutal as it was honest.

How bad do things have to be when he says that whether their absentee manager returns or not is "incidental" to the problems?

The big question is WHY has it all gone pear-shaped? What Hearts achieved last year could have been a springboard to a real season of glory this time.

Yet it's almost like Romanov has deliberately gone out of his way to sabotage that. Sounds ridiculous, and I don't buy it, but more than one person is convinced that has been his plan.

If it carries on the way it's going though there will be no more Hearts, Hearts, Glorious Hearts.

They'll be left with flats, flats, glorious flats.

Taken from the Sunday Mail