CATHRO COULD BE A GAME CHANGER
– See Page 111
IF any Scottish football club has earned the right to a degree of trust over the big decisions, it’s Heart of Midlothian. In a league blighted by historic mismanagement, the Edinburgh club have emerged as a progressive, forward-thinking sporting institution. A cause for genuine optimism.
When administration struck three-and-a-half years ago, nobody could have anticipated a rate of recovery on this scale.
With the help of supporters, the admirable, unshowy Ann Budge has performed a small miracle.
Hearts now turn profits of £623,000 in their accounts, play to sell-out home crowds every second week and have begun the construction of a new £12million main stand to increase the capacity of Tynecastle to more than 20,000.
The team are far from the finished article. Will they pip Celtic to the league title? Well, no, they won’t.
But, after a bruising experience as Scotland manager, Craig Levein is slowly eroding age-old suspicions over the role of a director of football. It’s hard to think of anyone with a cannier appreciation of what it takes to build a successful football club in the SPFL.
All of which makes the latest bout of national knicker-twisting over the appointment of Ian Cathro as Hearts head coach an incredible business.
In five days, the Scottish game has witnessed more fall-outs and discord than Joey Barton managed in four months.
Two camps have emerged, each untroubled by self-doubt.
The ‘dinosaurs’ are few in number. Three footballing figures — Jamie Fullarton, Kris Boyd and Motherwell coach Stephen Craigan — have queried Cathro’s suitability in tones uncomfortably close to sounding personal at times.
We can all speculate on the reasons for this.
Jealousy that a younger man has landed the Hearts job might be one of them.
But an army of new progressives who roam the internet are peddling another theory. Scottish football’s ‘show us your medals’ mentality, they claim, is alive and well.
Painting Scottish football’s ‘establishment’ — journalists included — as protectors of a cosy, complacent, jobs-for-the-boys status quo, Cathro has become their poster boy. The antidote to an ‘old guard’ spearheaded by the likes of Boyd, Fullarton and Craigan.
Last time anyone checked, Boyd was only 33.
But the real anomaly in all of this is the accusation of media complicity.
Celtic’s exit from the Champions League leaves Scottish football — yet again — with no clubs in Europe after Christmas.
Scotland’s World Cup qualifying campaign, meanwhile, is dangling by a thread. For journalists, this is a doomsday scenario.
There are good reasons, then, to welcome new ideas and initiative. To be positive and hopeful for the new head coach of Hearts.
If Levein believes that Cathro and right-hand man Austin MacPhee fit into a carefully developed Hearts structure, then bring it on. This is a club who haven’t got much wrong in recent times. If they call this one right, it’s a game-changer.
Nevertheless, the determination to silence all dissent and opinion on Cathro has been disturbing.
People with no axe to grind are entitled to wonder how a 30-year-old in his first head-coach post will handle difficult, testing characters in a dressing-room context.
It’s obvious that Cathro is an intelligent, bright football coach with an enviable CV boasting experience in Portugal, Spain and England.
But he has never been the main man.
And opinions should never become so entrenched that he can avoid all scrutiny. All managers get it sooner or later.
The further portrayal of Scottish football as a dark haven for a tired old managerial merry-go-round is another argument damned by facts.
Celtic’s last two managers have been Ronny Deila and Brendan Rodgers. Neither of those two appointments could be described as either safe or cosy. Rangers appointed Mark Warburton: a former city trader with no history of playing or managing in Scotland.
Go through the recent history of the SPFL Premiership, indeed, and left-field appointments abound.
Robbie Neilson, Alan Archibald, Martin Canning and Richie Foran were managerial novices before landing the jobs at Hearts, Partick Thistle, Hamilton and Inverness Caley Thistle, respectively.
Lee Clark came to Kilmarnock from English football. Tommy Wright, a former goalkeeper, worked down south before pitching up at St Johnstone.
Scotland’s top league, then, has embraced different faces and ideas.
It may be wise, then, to tone down the expectation and hyperbole over Cathro.
Irrespective of whether he’s a computer geek or the new Messiah, finishing third in the league and winning the odd cup may be the best he can do with the resources available.
Generally, Hearts know what they’re about.
Let’s give their new head coach a chance.