The Legendary Henry Smith

For some, the bond was created by a single action, like a particular goal they scored or a challenge they made, with Wayne Foster's late winner at Easter Road in the '90s being a great example of this. Others may have remained loyal to the club over a long period of time and were people that everyone knew had the club's best interests at heart at all times, like Gary Mackay and Steven Pressley.

But the most popular characters tend to be those who wear their hearts on their sleeves, who show their emotions on the field of play. They communicate with their followers and also with those who barrack them from the other end........in different ways obviously! Hearts have had a few of these guys, but for me no-one comes close in my time as a Jambo to Henry Smith.

Henry signed for Hearts in the early '80s from Leeds United for a nominal fee and for the next decade or so the big goalkeeper would go on to become one of the most popular players to have played for the club. There were a couple of good reasons for this : as well as being a very capable goalkeeper (in fact at times he could be exceptional), he was one player that you could always rely on for a bit of banter when things were getting a bit uneventful during the match. And believe me, during some of the times Henry was at Hearts, there were MANY such occasions, particularly in the very early days!

Smith was rarely one to ignore any terracing chants that were aimed at him, whether it came from the Hearts end or the opposition's. I know several fans of other clubs who've been involved in giving him dog's abuse over the years, but the one thing they'd always say afterwards was that he used to give as good as he got on most occasions, and I think football fans appreciate this sort of behaviour if it's done in a relatively inoffensive way. It's certainly far more enjoyable to have this sort of thing going on that what we have now, in a time when if footballers so much as sneeze they seem to get hauled up in front of the beaks to explain their actions. Can you imagine the likes of Henry Smith or Alan Rough getting away with the sort of pleasantaries they used to exchange with the crowd in the game we know today? It's difficult isn't it? That's a shame.

This is definitely the one part of football that seems to have been lost in this age of all-seated stadia and 'family' atmospheres: the humour. I remember working beside a Celtic fan who once told me that at any Old Firm game in the 70s, he'd go home feeling short-changed if he hadn't caught a glimpse of Derek or Willie Johnstone's backside at least once from his position in the Parkhead Jungle! That's obviously taking things to the extreme, but generally the banter that Henry would have with the fans was just a bit of fun and everyone would be laughing, even if it was at the big man's expense. In fact it usually was, but everyone likes those who can laugh at themselves.

Let's talk a bit about Henry Smith the goalkeeper now. The majority of what you might call 'armchair' fans in Scotland never seemed to rate him at all. In fact, if you mentioned his name in connection with international caps, they'd often laugh at you and come out with all sorts of expletives to describe how bad a goalkeeper they thought he was! The reason for this is that when Henry made a mistake, it tended to be catastrophic. Not only that, but these catastrophic errors would often occur on the biggest of occasions, too.

The first time I witnessed such an error was at Hampden in the 1988 Scottish Cup semi-final against Celtic. The score was 1-0 Hearts with barely two minutes remaining and Smith, who had been absolutely immense at dealing with cross balls all afternoon, decided to come beyond the penalty spot to take a corner. It was clearly the decision of a man high on confidence who was maybe getting a bit carried away, the result being that he couldn't take it cleanly, was robbed by Mark McGhee and it was 1-1. A minute later he dropped a high cross under pressure from two players (to this day I say it was a foul though!) to allow Celtic to sneak it 2-1. Sadly with goalkeepers they tend to get remembered for their mistakes more than anything else and this match was a case in point. Until the last two minutes, Smith had been outstanding and on course to be the hero, but instead he ended up being the villain of the piece. The papers were full of this and all of a sudden, fairweather fans of football the length and breadth of the country saw Smith as a dodgy 'keeper, despite the fact he'd largely played well in the match.

He made other mistakes like this in big matches (usually against the Glasgow teams) that further led people to take this view of him. Indeed, I'm told that the infamous 'Henry Henry drop the ball' chant originated from a league game at Parkhead, where he dropped a cross onto his knee and the ball rebounded into the net! That's the level of calamity we're talking about here.

However if you speak to non-Hearts fans who regularly attended football matches back then, generally they won't be of the same opinion. This is because for a consistent period of time, certainly from '85/'86 through to the early '90s, Henry Smith was one of the best goalkeepers in the country. At his best, Smith could produce unbelievable match-winning performances. As well as making blinding saves (his reflexes were always excellent), if his confidence was high then his command of the area was excellent as well. Generally goalkeepers these days don't often come beyond the six-yard line to take a cross, but Henry would regularly come out further than that and claim the ball. His biggest enemy was actually himself, as he could become almost TOO confident and try coming for crosses that he shouldn't (as mentioned above). He was actually very similar to David James, who can be a goalkeeping genius on his day but gets remembered more for the calamitous nature of his mistakes than anything else. It goes with the territory of being a goalkeeper I suppose - outfield players can make several mistakes in a game, but if they pop up with a late goal it's all forgotten. It's the other way around for the men between the sticks.

Henry is also arguably the unluckliest goalkeeper to have ever walked this earth! I have never seen another goalie penalised and punished for every technicality in the rulebook. For example, I've seen him penalised for the 'four-steps' rule, the 'touching-the-ball-twice-before-you-clear-it' rule (interestingly neither rule now exist) and also for stepping out of his area as he clears the ball from hand. I kid you not, on each of these occasions, it resulted in a goal from the subsequent free-kick! Two such occasions were absolutely crucial. In a semi-final replay in the Scottish Cup against Airdrie (grrr!), he allegedly touched the ball twice before clearing. The linesman awarded an indirect free-kick, from which former Jambo Kenny Black scored. Another occasion was in Europe when, 3-0 up at home to Bologna, he was pulled up for stepping marginally out of his area (I think!) as he cleared the ball. It's an offence that you see countless times going unpunished, but the free-kick was given and Bologna scored the goal that eventually took them through on aggregate! The time when I saw him breaching the steps rule was at Love Street, where St Mirren's Gudmundur Torfason (now there's a name from the past!) curled in a belter from the resultant set-piece. Pretty harsh luck I'm sure you'll agree, even if it was technically his own fault!

All of the above qualities and flaws make up the great character that was Henry Smith. Hearts may have had better goalkeepers since Henry - the likes of Antti Niemi and Craig Gordon would definitely be in most Jambos' best XI in the past 25 years, but I'm sure that Henry will always have a special place in the hearts of the majority of supporters.

Here are some of my favourite Henry memories, in no particular order:

1) During the famous 3-0 win at Tannadice in '86, at 1-0 he produced a truly stupendous save from a United set-piece. After the initial free-kick on the edge of the box had been half-cleared, Maurice Malpas (that prolific goalscorer!) smashed in a netbound drive through the ruck of players. Smith, who would have been completely unsighted until the last minute, got across to beat it away at full stretch. The title was in sight.........

2) Possibly the best save I've ever seen live came during a Hearts-Celtic match at Tynecastle in the Joe Jordan era. Celtic were already a goal up when they hit the bye-line and cut a cross back for Tommy Coyne to get on the end of. Coyne cleverly headed it towards the corner that the ball came from and Smith, going the wrong way, twisted in mid-air and somehow got fingers to it to claw the ball over the bar. Had to be seen to be believed.

3) A truly inspired performance at Easter Road in the '90s to allow Hearts to get a goalless draw that they scarcely deserved. He made several outstanding saves, the highlight being from a Brian Hamilton penalty. Again, Henry was going the wrong way but stuck a hand up to deflect the powerfully-struck kick over the bar.

4) The response of the Hearts crowd when Henry was re-instated to the first team after months in the reserves when Nicky Walker was being preferred. It was a Wednesday night at Fir Park if memory serves me correctly and I'm sure I saw a wee tear in his eye as he ran towards the Hearts supporters, who were giving him a thunderous reception. Ten minutes later we were 2-0 down!!!

5) Taking the p*ss out of Frank McAvennie in a league match at Parkhead. McAvennie tried an acrobatic effort from close range that ended up going straight at Smith, who wobbled his legs sarcastically as if the shot had been powerful enough to make him nearly fall over. McAvennie was raging!

6) Making a fantastic penalty save in the sudden-death shoot-out at Dens Park after an amazing 4-4 draw in the league cup. In true Henry style though, he then stepped up to take the next kick for Hearts and sliced it wide!

7) Not many will remember an exceptional performance in a league game at Motherwell in the early '90s to earn us a draw. The rain was lashing down all afternoon and Smith was the busiest man in the stadium, diving all over the place to keep the ball out. One save in particular from a Dougie Arnott header defied belief - getting down low to claw the ball along the line and wide of the post. Henry ended the game covered head-to-toe in mud!

8) A save that little people gave him credit for came in the famous 2-1 cup win at Easter Road when Wayne Foster scored the winner. At 1-1 just before half-time, Kevin McAllister broke into the Hearts box and shot across Smith with his left foot. I don't think even the TV pictures picked it up, but in our position on the terracing we could clearly see Henry getting down to divert the ball ever so slightly onto post with his left hand. The ball then rebounded back into his arms. Fortunate in the end, but a phenomenal stop.

I'm sure there are many more memories of Henry that people have, good or bad! So feel free to remind us...........