IAN GETS CHRIS OF LIFE
have many of the training facilities either. The pitch is the same but the building, the structure, has changed dramatically.
“Hopefully that’s a sign of the way the club is going and we can become a force again in Scotland.
“I spoke to people I know who told me that, off the pitch, the club has never been stronger. It’s now our job to start winning games.
“When I came through there were guys like Paul Hartley, Steven Pressley and the like.
“I was a youth player and if I was in the top-team dressing room doing my job I wouldn’t talk back or look up – I did my job.
“Football has changed. A lot of youth players in England don’t have respect. That’s maybe how society is today. It might be different up here, I don’t know if there are as many egos here because the higher the level the bigger the ego.
“At Ipswich we had really great characters and everyone in the dressing room was good. Hopefully it’ll be the same here.”
After eight and a half years down south Berra revealed he has never taken his eye off what’s happening at Hearts, even if it meant stealing the TV remote control off his team-mates as he whetted his appetite for the chance to play in an Edinburgh derby.
He said: “When I left Hearts I kept in touch with results.
“Even in the changing room at Ipswich for a three o’clock kick-off I’d be switching the telly over to the Scottish football to see the derby.
“I got stick for it but I know what it means to play in those games.
“No disrespect to Wolves and West Brom or Ipswich and Norwich but I never had that same feeling in those games.
“Going to Easter Road on the bus for the derby, getting people sticking the finger up at you … you’re buzzing because you know what it means to the people.
“There is a hype about any derby but, because a lot of us weren’t from Ipswich or Wolverhampton, we’d just concentrate on the football.”
Meanwhile, boss Cathro admits previous skipper Perry Kitchen will still have a part to play at the club and insists the American’s demotion for Berra isn’t a sign he’s about to be shunted out of Gorgie.
He said: “He’s not had a great time, having not been in the side as often as he’d have liked but that’s a personal thing.
“These things happen as a team evolves, as a team grows and moves on.
“We need more captains, we need more leaders.”
CHRISTOPHE BERRA