Tommy was Jambos boss for as long as 16 put together
HEARTS’ new manager will be the 17th the club have had since the turn of the Millennium.
That is a high turnover and one which can leave supporters struggling to keep track with even the most recent history.
Remember Eduard Malofeyev or Anatoly Korobochka, two of Vladimir Romanov’s chosen coaches?
Nope, well how about Paolo Sergio, the 2012 Scottish Cup winner, then? It hasn’t always been this way. For the decade-and-a-half from 1951 to 1966, there was only one man at the Tynecastle helm – the late, great Tommy Walker.
Two Scottish League titles, one Scottish Cup win and four League Cups pay testimony to the skills of one of the Edinburgh outfit’s greatest bosses.
“Tommy was a true gentleman, someone you could go to with your problems and get a fair hearing,” said Donald Ford, who played for him under the final two years of his spell.
“He made things look easy because of the calm way he went about his business. Nothing ever seemed to faze him.
“The truth was, though, that he was an extremely-talented manager.
“Like the other great bosses of the time – Jock Stein, Bill Shankly and Don Revie – he had the ability to assemble a group of players who would work better as a team than almost all the others they would come up against.
“He liked players, liked working with them and he knew how to get the best out of them.
“They, in turn, respected Tommy and were very happy to play for him.”
If Walker was fortunate, it was in his inheritance of the Terrible Trio of Jimmy Wardhaugh, Willie Bauld and Alfie Conn.
“I was brought up going to watch these guys play at Tynecastle every second week and they were just tremendous,” said Ford, who now runs his own successful photography business.
“They had different strengths (Wardhaugh was renowned for his dribbling, Conn for his shooting and Bauld for his set-up play) but they combined so well.
“On their day they could take any team apart and I know, having gone to play for Tommy, that he gave them the freedom to go out and play the way they did.
“That was a big thing for him. He loved to give players the freedom to go out and express themselves in games.
“Of course it paid rewards, too, because they were successful and that was at a time when there were strong Rangers, Celtic and Aberdeen teams.”
As he admits with a laugh, Ford can also testify to what happened at the end of Walker’s era.
“I will hold up my hands and take a bit of the responsibility for that,” he said.
“As I always say to fans, I was at Hearts for over a decade and we pretty much steadily went downhill all the way.
“What really did for Tommy was the way football changed in the mid-1960s. It got a lot more defensive with teams really setting out to negate others.
“That wasn’t his way and it was probably the beginning of the end for him.
“We had some great times, though, and when I look back now I find it sad that today’s fans don’t really get the chance to know players and managers the way they used to.
“Times change, we all know that, but it is important to ensure supporters feel a connection with the men out on the park and those in the dugout.
“To be fair, Hearts have been working hard at that in recent years. Robbie Neilson was a former player, as was Craig Levein, while Ann Budge is very much a fan.”