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Search: ' Vladimir Romanov'

Stories

Heart problem

wsc300 Mark Poole explains that even though their club is owned by a millionaire, one group of SPL players are not having their wages paid regularly

Last month the Scottish Sun reported that Hearts midfielder Ian Black had taken on casual work as a painter and decorator to pay for his children’s Christmas presents. It was perhaps the most evocative example so far of the current turmoil at Scotland’s third biggest club. For three consecutive months, the players’ wages have not been paid on time. Their October wages weren’t paid until weeks after they were due, and their November pay arrived in their accounts a month late. At the time of writing they are still waiting for their December pay.

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Hearts and minds

Gordon Cairns reports on a player who made transfer law history, but who now finds himself back where it all started

The career of Andy Webster to date could read as a morality tale for the modern footballer. As this year’s winter transfer window closed, the centre-half was quietly released by Rangers and rejoined Hearts, a reunion which only a month previously seemed as plausible as Paul McCartney welcoming Heather Mills back with open arms. It wasn’t that Webster had left Hearts that had made him persona non grata at Tynecastle, it was the manner of his going. He was the first player to invoke clause 17 of FIFA’s transfer regulations which states that a player can buy himself out of a contract three years after the deal was signed, leaving Hearts with 
no transfer fee.

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Firm foundations

Despite recent problems at both Rangers and Celtic, Glasgow's dominance of Scottish football is unlikely to change soon. Neil White explains

The new Scottish Premier League season marks a depressing anniversary for that competition – it is now 25 years since a team other than the Old Firm won the championship. Since Alex Ferguson led Aberdeen to their third title in six years, in his penultimate season as their manager in 1985, an entire generation of supporters and players have known nothing other than the dominance of Celtic and Rangers.

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Playing patience

Thaksin needs to learn that only stability will bring long-term success

With the news as we went to press that Sven-Göran Eriksson was set to be sacked after his new club’s best top-flight season since 1992, Thaksin Shinawatra appears to have confirmed his ambition of turning Manchester City into the English equivalent of Hearts. That story started quite well, too, back in 2005. The club’s new Lithuanian owner, Vladimir Romanov, loudly proclaimed his determination to challenge Rangers and Celtic, and the team led the SPL for just over three months. But even with the team topping the table, manager George Burley was manoeuvred out. Half a dozen less successful men, whose names even Hearts fans would struggle to keep track of, have followed.

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Michael Stewart

The Hearts man has moved back and forth between city rivals, rowed with managers and fans, and frequently seen red. Gordon Cairns looks at the one–time Manchester United prodigy

The surprise move of last summer in Scotland was Michael Stewart joining Hearts on a free transfer. This was not because he wasn’t born in Lithuania, where most of his team’s recruits now come from, but because he was returning to the club he left in 2005, from city rivals Hibernian. While it is not unusual for a player to appear for both of the Edinburgh clubs, it is rare to yo-yo between them, with Stewart being the only player to do so since the Second World War.

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