a sprint, not a marathon
There is another football clich? telling us that it’s the hope that kills us. At Aberdeen we can certainly attest to there being much truth in it, for the frequent cup gut-punches we have taken have been all the more painful when genuine opportunities of success have been coughed up. But surely the position of Hearts this league season, with the almost total absence of hope, cannot be thought of as preferable? Surely, as the gap at the bottom stubbornly refuses to erode, the lack of hope must be killing them?
Particularly since, back in August, they will have had plenty, and rightly so. The smallest margin by which Hearts have finished clear of last place since the upside-down season of 1994-95 is 14 points, so their supporters will have justifiably expected their club to be capable of winning enough points on the field to at least keep them in the survival hunt right to the end. But after a promising start, the reality of the diminution in their playing staff has bitten hard – they would be bottom even without their points deduction – and the 15-point handicap has begun to look insurmountable. How do you enjoy the remainder of a season in the knowledge that, barring an unprecedented turnaround, relegation is almost inevitable?
In the case of Hearts it is because, in such critical health, every Saturday on which their club still exists is in itself a cause for celebration, and an opportunity for them to rally to its cause. Yes, they will still fervently want their players to win the match, but even if they don’t – or even if they do, but results elsewhere leave them no further forward – it is all too easy to conceive of how things could have been, could yet be, worse.
The youth of their new side must also add value to each Tynecastle trip: win lose or draw, they are watching something grow, for the future of their club. And there are always the cups, in which modern-day Hearts habitually excel – as potential League Cup Final adversaries, both their club and ours will spend the next few months excitedly watching how callow new teams are building towards a massive date in the calendar.
Hearts fans should be commended for the way in which they have conducted themselves since the club’s descent into administration. They have not lashed out nor sought to externalise blame; they have not decried the registration embargo forbidding them from fattening a skeletal squad; they have not railed against a probably fatal points penalty. If, as seems likely, they ultimately finish twelfth by fewer than the fifteen points they began in arrears, they will not claim relegation to be an imposed punishment but rather a consequence of the actions of their own clubs’ officers. That the club they have always known continues to exist, under whatever stewardship and on whatever scale, will be victory enough for 2013/14.
In that respect, I suppose, their Saturday afternoons swimming against the tide do not constitute hopelessness at all. Quite the opposite. They are escapism: the one oasis of hope for a future, among a barren landscape of grim financial news. Their battles are far bigger than the one being waged for an hour and a half today. Perhaps the mere existence of the games now means so much that the scores do not. Perhaps this is the purest form of supporting one’s club; perhaps they, for 90 minutes, are the lucky ones. Their hope doesn’t kill, because the pulse has already stopped. Their hope restarts the Hearts.
In that respect, I suppose, their Saturday afternoons swimming against the tide do not constitute hopelessness at all. Quite the opposite. They are escapism: the one oasis of hope for a future, among a barren landscape of grim financial news. Their battles are far bigger than the one being waged for an hour and a half today. Perhaps the mere existence of the games now means so much that the scores do not. Perhaps this is the purest form of supporting one’s club; perhaps they, for 90 minutes, are the lucky ones. Their hope doesn’t kill, because the pulse has already stopped. Their hope restarts the Hearts.
In that respect, I suppose, their Saturday afternoons swimming against the tide do not constitute hopelessness at all. Quite the opposite. They are escapism: the one oasis of hope for a future, among a barren landscape of grim financial news. Their battles are far bigger than the one being waged for an hour and a half today. Perhaps the mere existence of the games now means so much that the scores do not. Perhaps this is the purest form of supporting one’s club; perhaps they, for 90 minutes, are the lucky ones. Their hope doesn’t kill, because the pulse has already stopped. Their hope restarts the Hearts.
