RYAN STEVENSON
LEAVING Hearts will be a big thing for Christophe Berra.
Whether he could have been used in another avenue or to help bring on some of the younger kids, I don’t know.
I do know it’s sad to see him go. He’s been an amazing servant for the club, an amazing player and an amazing captain.
When I got called up for Scotland I actually shared a room with him and he’s a gem of a boy. I’ve kept in contact with him over the years.
He was pretty boring as a roommate! But no, he’s a top man and a top professional.
He lived and breathed football every minute of the day, which I didn’t at that time.
Some people are different than others and he did everything he could to be in the best possible shape, eating right and giving himself the best opportunity to do well.
More than anything, he was a captain and someone who has come through all the levels to play for and captain Hearts. He’s truly been a great servant to the club.
Some people always remember the 21-year-old Christophe that was lightning quick. Age does catch up with you – he’ll know that.
But when he does leave, you step back and look at what he’s achieved for Hearts and how many games he’s played.
I know he is very highly thought of among the players, past and present.
In this day and age, it’s very difficult to find people with loyalty. He is a fan, he’s loyal to the club, so you take all that into consideration.
Hearts are losing a leader and when you look at the state they’re in just now, they need them all the way through the club. They don’t have them.
They need it on and off the park, from the board and from Ann Budge. I read the statement from her last week and it was devoid of leadership. You need someone at the top who’s going to drive the club forward and, for me, the jury is out on that.
Some fans want her to go and she won’t survive with that kind of statement. After the Brora game you’re looking for her to come out and say it’s not good enough, the players and manager know that and we’ve let down the fans.
It’s a unique situation as these fans are pumping money in every single month and to read the statement she put out, it was so backhanded towards them.
Do I see any way back? Not particularly with the way it is now. It’s not just a clear-out of players that is needed. She’s not putting everything that she’s done to waste but when you break it down and look at the managers who have been in, Ian Cathro, Craig Levein and Daniel Stendel were all poor choices. And things haven’t gone the way everyone was hoping under Robbie Neilson.
Yes, they are where they are in the league.
But performance-wise, you can tell there’s a massive crack within the club – and I mean massive.
The club needs unified and whether that means the fans taking over, as is the plan, or getting someone in who’s going to unify them, the club is built on the fans. In that respect, it’s unique to any other club I’ve been to. It needs someone at the helm to bring them together and I don’t think they have that right now.
I had a few dealings with Ann when she came in and I’ve met her a couple of times since – at a Rangers game I was invited to and sadly at Zal’s memorial service. I don’t hold a grudge because of how things went for me – I’m not that type of person.
People might look at this as if it’s a vendetta against Ann but it genuinely isn’t. There’s nothing more I’d want to talk about than Hearts absolutely flying but that isn’t the case.
Nobody’s really taking responsibility. I don’t see anyone putting their head above the parapet and saying, ‘This isn’t good enough, we aren’t good enough’. It’s not just been one bad week. This has been building up for a while now and I feel it’s just being palmed off.
The fans are pledging money every month and I’m led to believe some are stopping paying in. That they feel they have no other choice is disgraceful on the club’s part.
If they are going to make a change, they should do it now. A new manager will come in and identify what’s not good enough. And again, they’re going to have to overhaul in the summer.
The number of players who they’ve gone through since Ann came in is enormous – it’s more than 90, which is mental.
What chance have the club got if the ethos from the top is, ‘We’ll just to do it all again in the summer, the fans will donate more money?’ That goes for the academy as well – they should bring through players by the bucketload.
Right through that club they should be doing more. Robbie and the players will get the slack but this is a much bigger situation than on the pitch.
Performance wise you can tell there’s a massive crack within club and I mean massive