BOTTOM THE

I’ve been getting judged since age seven. Was I good enough to get signed, good enough to be kept, good enough to make the first XI? That experience is getting me through this test SAYS PAUL HECKINGBOTTOM

PAUL HECKINGBOTTOM has had a lifetime preparing for any scenario that comes in today’s League Cup semi-final against Celtic.

Even if a heavy defeat and the sack are the eventual outcome, the Englishman insists he has already been well schooled in a game of hard knocks and knows the consequences of failure.

Hibs may be unbeaten in their last six games but it has been nowhere near enough to silence dissenting voices at Easter Road which are in danger of reaching a crescendo.

But Heckingbottom prefers a philosophical approach to management where fate plays a hand and admits he has learned to turn down the background noise as he aims to book a final spot and ease some of the pressure.

The Easter Road boss said: “There is no point in worrying about your job when you are a manager. Not at all.

“The one thing you have to get your head around, and what you have to understand, is that you get judged on everything.

“I had a chat with an ex-England international before coming to Hibs and we were talking about all things management, football and coaching. Just picking each other’s brain.

“He said ‘I’ve never had an argument with an owner. I said, ‘You’re not doing your job properly then!’

“However, he said something else to me which I hadn’t even thought about. From when you are seven years old, everyone has an opinion on you.

“Then you get older and people judge you against the other good players, then it’s whether to sign you as a schoolboy and whether to keep you. Then it’s whether to give you a YTS, then are you good enough for pro?

“Then you have 30,000 people shouting at you, saying you’re no good or you are good. That’s tenfold when you are a manager. It gives you a bit of perspective.

“So you can be thickened, hard-skinned and grown up in that sort of way. You can become hardened to it. You need to keep your distance from all that.

“If you let every little thing that’s said about you get to you then there’s not a chance you’d be able to do the job.

“The majority of people talking about you or writing about you don’t really know you.

“But once it’s down in print or being spoken about, people take it as fact. It’s a sort of mindset that you learn to ignore.”

All of this brutal honesty on the day after his counterpart Craig Levein was sacked at Hearts for his failings across the city.

But Heckingbottom claims he won’t be putting in a call of condolence to a man who’s taking his turn to suffer at the most ruthless end of the business.

He said: “I don’t have Craig’s number. But we’ve come across