Romanov said it with flowers and chocolate

VLADIMIR Romanov always used a moniker to refer to Phil Anderton in absentia: he was the "Wunderkind".

Two days after the dramatic departure of George Burley, the Wunderkind was called into a meeting that Sergejus Fedotovas had organised with Brodies [Hearts' lawyers]. Anderton was asked to recount details of the comments he had made about George Burley at a board meeting earlier that month. The chief executive was also asked if there were any other issues or stories concerning Burley.

Phil replied that he'd had a brief discussion with a director of a leading Edinburgh company after a completely unfounded allegation against George Burley had been made public but the director confirmed that no such incident had ever taken place. Despite the confirmation that it was untrue, the allegation still found its way onto the list of reasons to get rid of Burley (several of which were incorrect) prepared for Vladimir Romanov, which the Lithuanian hoped would ensure he would not have to pay his former manager for the remainder of his contract.

It quickly became clear to Anderton that Fedotovas, on behalf of Romanov, was trying to find any possible means to justify the termination of Burley's contract on the grounds of gross misconduct in a bid to avoid paying compensation. Using Burley's alleged problems as the only reason for his sacking would not be acceptable from a legal point of view. The chief executive had also confirmed at a previous board meeting that there had never been any allegation of misconduct mentioned in connection with Burley. The head coach had done nothing wrong and the club had not invoked any disciplinary procedures against him - trying to proceed with a case for non-payment of compensation was nigh on impossible.

A chronology of events was drawn up for Romanov by Brodies, although it transpired a lot of the content supplied to the law firm was factually incorrect, including details of a meeting Anderton was supposed to have had with a director of Derby County in relation to Burley - Phil had never even met the man before! Three days later, interviews took place with Sir Bobby Robson and Claudio Ranieri. This was the first occasion when Phil Anderton was introduced to Rolandas, a Russian lawyer representing Vladimir Romanov, who was also used as a translator for Romanov.

Talks finally broke down with Claudio Ranieri, following his exorbitant wage demands (reported to be in the region of £1.7million per annum), but discussions were ongoing with Sir Bobby Robson. Phil Anderton was in attendance at the Radisson SAS in Edinburgh, along with Romanov and Rolandas, when Robson was interviewed again. Romanov was asking Robson questions (through the interpreter) when suddenly Rolandas, on behalf of Romanov, asked Anderton to leave the room as Vladimir wanted a few minutes on his own with the former Newcastle boss.

Sir Bobby emerged a short time later and told Anderton that he had been offered the job but for a miserly amount of money. Robson announced his concern that his salary would not be paid from Hearts' bank account, while the former England boss also expressed his disappointment that Anderton was not allowed to sit in throughout the whole interview. Despite all this, Robson told Anderton that he remained very interested in the post. The chief executive promised to get back in touch within 24 hours.

The next day Anderton attended a meeting at Brodies' offices in Atholl Crescent in Edinburgh with Rolandas and Iain Young, a senior partner at the firm. Rolandas asked Young to sign the chronology-of-events paper to make it look more legitimate - but he steadfastly refused to put pen to paper. Phil was also asked to sign the document and refused to do so. When Anderton enquired why they wanted him to sign the paper, Rolandas - in front of Young - said that Vladimir Romanov would be negotiating with Athole Still the following week, and if he had a document with Anderton's (or Brodies') signature on it, then it would carry a lot more clout.

Anderton, as promised, got back in touch with Sir Bobby Robson in a bid to strike a deal. Robson was still angry at the level of cash promised - it was reported at the time that he had been on £2m per annum at Newcastle - and while he stressed that money was not his number-one goal, he claimed he had been insulted by the initial offer. The chief executive asked if Robson still wanted the job, at which point Sir Bobby said yes, subject to an acceptable salary offer.

Saturday, 29 October 2005 - Easter Road 2.10pm. After mingling with Hibernian directors on arrival at Easter Road, Phil Anderton made his way over to the other end of the boardroom for a chat with Vladimir Romanov to inform him that Robson had agreed to take the job as long as the club was willing to offer an increase in salary. Romanov, though, demanded that talks were put on hold until the Burley situation was sorted out.

At this time, George Foulkes, having witnessed Romanov's animated retort , suggested it might be better if that specific discussion took place after the game.

Hearts lost their first league match of the season - a 2-0 defeat to Hibernian. In the boardroom after the game, Vladimir Romanov, pointing his finger at Phil Anderton, told his chief executive that the team had lost because of George Burley, despite the former head coach having been away from the club for a week. Anderton countered this claim by suggesting the match was lost because Burley was no longer in the dugout.

The discussion from earlier in the day restarted, with Romanov reiterating to Anderton that he would not appoint a new head coach until the situation concerning the old one had been sorted out. He told Anderton that he had to sort out the problem and sign the chronology-of-events paper. Again, fingers were pointed in the direction of the CEO, but Anderton informed the majority shareholder that he'd been told by a third party that Romanov was going to take charge of the Burley situation. At this point, things were starting to get heated - although no voices were raised - leading George Foulkes to intervene and suggest that it was not an appropriate place for a discussion of that nature. Vladimir Romanov shrugged, laughed and then walked away.

Phil Anderton knew the writing was on the wall.He'd been told to sack Burley against his wishes and had been blackballed by Romanov for refusing to sign the chronology-of-events paper. Anderton was guilty of insubordination in Romanov's eyes. He was well aware he was not Vladimir's favourite employee.

The chief executive decided to inform George Foulkes and Roman Romanov that, although he wanted to stay at Hearts, it was his intention to resign when his contract expired at the end of that season unless things changed dramatically and the interference from Vladimir Romanov ceased. Anderton left Easter Road for home, where he drew up a letter explaining his intentions. The letter was emailed to George Foulkes on the Sunday morning.

As he was leaving Easter Road, George Foulkes's mobile phone rang - Vladimir Romanov wanted to see him later that evening in his hotel suite at the Radisson SAS. This was a surprise, as the chairman had already suggested that they would reconvene the following day. Four people were present in Romanov's suite that night: George Foulkes, David Southern (Hearts' communications director), Rolandas and Vladimir. Needless to say, the chief executive's position was the only topic for discussion. "I said to Romanov in the hotel room that it would perhaps be better to leave things alone until the following day when we could meet again to discuss the situation further," said Foulkes. "Following talks, Vladimir agreed to a meeting with Phil Anderton and myself on the Sunday, at which point I said my goodbyes and headed back to Ayr."

As the chairman was heading along the M8, his mobile rang again. "Roman phoned to say that Vladimir was now unable to meet Phil and me the following day - he was going to Tannadice instead to watch Dundee United and Celtic."

The match at Tannadice had been finished for about an hour when George received another phone call from Roman Romanov. "I was at home,' said Foulkes, "but Roman asked if I could come to Edinburgh right away to meet Vladimir. I said, 'Look, I am in Ayr - it's at least an hour and a half away. Anyway, I'm doing things tonight that I have not been able to do over the weekend because of my commitments to Hearts. I have other important work that needs done - I am doing it now, and I simply do not have the time to come up to Edinburgh.' Roman said that it was vital that I met with Vladimir that evening, but I explained that I could come up the following day after attending a funeral. 'No, no. We must see you tonight,' said Junior. 'We will come to you'.

"They eventually arrived and presented my wife with a bunch of flowers and some chocolates that had been purchased at the BP filling station just up the road from my house! Liz had prepared some coffee, tea and smoked-salmon sandwiches but they got straight down to business. They were at my home to persuade me that Phil Anderton should be sacked. I told them they had no reason to do so, but they said he had to go for refusing to sign the document justifying George Burley's sacking.

"I explained to them that of course Phil had refused to sign the document - some of the allegations were wrong and others were impossible to verify. They had strengthened it, and they obviously wanted to use this as part of the justification for getting rid of Burley. There was no way I was going to agree to Anderton's sacking anyway, but for them to try and use this as evidence beggared belief."

"I was planning to go to a funeral in Cumnock the following day but was suspicious so pulled out and headed for Edinburgh instead," said Foulkes. "On the way, I received a phone call from Irene McPhee [club secretary] informing me that an emergency board meeting had been called by Roman Romanov for 12 pm. - high noon, if you like. I said, 'But the Lithuanians won't be able to get over at such short notice,' to which she replied, 'Oh, they are on their way or are already here!'

"The whole thing had been planned. That is why Vladimir had to see me on the Sunday night - he knew exactly what he was doing. It had all been set up to try to persuade me to back the sacking of Phil."

When Foulkes eventually arrived at Tynecastle, he saw a member of staff crying and immediately knew something was up. "I told Vladimir and Roman they could get rid of George Burley, even though I thought they were wrong doing that, because he could look after himself - but now they wanted to get rid of the chief executive and had also got a lady who had worked for the club for many years into a state," Foulkes said. "I told the pair of them I was not going to have that, and I poked a finger at Vladimir, to the utter amazement of Roman, who immediately shrieked loudly and looked as though he had seen a ghost. Well, I soon realised I had gone too far and it quickly became apparent that no one had ever stood up to his father before!"

The emergency board meeting was subsequently convened, and Roman Romanov immediately moved that Phil Anderton be sacked. "Roman said it was time to vote on the issue," explained Foulkes. "I said, 'No - we need to discuss this.' Three times I asked for a reason, and three times they refused to give me one. Stewart Fraser, to his credit, made a very positive statement and backed Phil, even though I found out afterwards he and Phil did not always agree. I also mentioned that Phil had been doing really well and was, quite rightly in my opinion, getting a lot of credit for the increase in sales and in season-ticket holders. They still, however, refused to give a reason why they wanted Phil sacked, and a vote was taken. Inevitably, it was 4-3 in favour of Romanov and the Lithuanians, and that was that."

At his home in Ayr the previous evening, Foulkes had told Vladimir and Roman that if they went ahead with the sacking of Anderton, he would intimate his resignation. They tried to persuade Foulkes to stay on as chairman, but he declined. "The Romanovs also tried to persuade me to stay as a board member," said Foulkes, "but, again, I declined.

"Perhaps I was naive in thinking that by threatening to resign I would head them [the Romanovs] off in a bid to keep Phil. That was a mistake. Soon after - in retrospect - I made another terrible mistake! In a moment of spontaneity, I said, 'Since I plan to resign as chairman, would you care to nominate someone to replace me?'

"Roman said, 'I nominate myself.' I laughed. Of course, that did not go down well either, but by that time I was past worrying! It didn't take a genius to work out why I was not the most popular person in the Romanov household at that time - pointing a finger at Vladimir and chortling at Roman!"

Vladimir Romanov tried to shed some light on the situation when he revealed he did not think that Foulkes and Anderton had done a good enough job for the club. "They've had over one year and not been able to do the things I've wanted to do for Hearts," he said, even though Anderton was only in office for seven months!

Former director Liutauras Varanavicius, pictured left, added: "Romanov's general plan is to ensure Hearts are successful in the long term. He expects all the employees of the club to work together to achieve this goal. Individual achievement is frowned upon if it does not benefit either the team or the club as a whole. Maybe some of the people who were at the club during my time there did not respect this idea and that was why the club parted company with them."

Taken from the Scotsman