‘I am so hopeful, not confident, that I’ve put a bet on Hearts’
FORMER Hearts chairman George Foulkes has backed the Tynecastle club to maintain their strong start to the season and vie for the Ladbrokes Premiership title – thanks to their new-found off-field stability.
Foulkes, the Labour peer, was on the board of the Edinburgh club back at the beginning of the 2005/06 campaign when they went 12 league games undefeated to raise hopes of winning their first Scottish crown in 46 years.
However, Vladimir Romanov, their enigmatic Lithuanian owner, sacked manager George Burley after he had gone 10 games undefeated, and they ended up, after spells with John McGlynn, Graham Rix and Valdas Ivanauskas in charge, finishing 17 points behind winners Celtic.
Lord Foulkes resigned shortly after Burley was jettisoned and just before chief executive Phil Anderton lost his job due to his exasperation at the increasingly erratic and despotic leadership of Romanov.
But he still attends Hearts matches regularly and is optimistic that Craig Levein’s men, who have won their first five games and opened up a five point lead at the top of the Premiership table, will be able to sustain their challenge this time around.
“I am so hopeful, not confident as that would be a bit arrogant, that I have put a bet on Hearts to win the league this year and I am not usually a betting man,” he said.
Lord Foulkes believes the fact that manager Levein has the complete backing of the Hearts board, who are led by chairwoman and majority shareholder Ann Budge, will help his side to keep the impressive start they have made going.
“That is the big difference,” he said. “Back in 2005, we had the mercurial presence of Vladimir Romanov. George Burley was a brilliant manager, but Vladimir didn’t like him getting the credit for the success the team was enjoying.
“Dysfunctional is how to describe it. You never knew where you were. He used to tell the manager what to do, what team to put on the field, when to make substitutes. He had a list of all the players’ names and he used to give them points out of 10.
“He didn’t like Julien Brellier for some reason. He once said to me ‘Brellier, I give him only five, why does the manager put him on the field?’ I told him, ‘Because he’s a brilliant player’. He thought he knew better than the manager.
“Romanov arrived with all these people who had been in submarines with him, a woman with a magic wand to work miracles with injured players, all sorts of strange individuals.
“My regret was I didn’t resign when he sacked George Burley. I left a week later when he was about to sack the chief executive Phil Anderton. I was glad to get away from him. It was a load off my shoulders. I started to sleep at night. It was a rollercoaster time.”
Romanov’s eight-year reign at Hearts ended in 2013 when the club entered administration with debts of £25 million.