‘BRORA DEFEAT PROBABLY WORST IN CLUB’S HISTORY’
Andrew McKinlay (main) was brutally honest about Hearts’ humiliating loss to Brora Rangers in the Scottish Cup (inset) last season
He continues: ‘We think they may be more suited to the Premiership — we signed them on this basis.’
He is bullish about Hearts’ prospects and the state of the national game.
‘We are at more than 10,000 season ticket holders with renewals and we will move on — when more fans can get in — to new season ticket holders because we have a demand for that. We are expecting around the 13,000 mark.
‘The fans have been incredible because they also still put in excess £100,000 a month from the foundation.
‘You feel a great responsibility to put something on the park that matches their expectations because I do believe we are the third-biggest club in Scotland.
‘But that is just talk, we have to prove that. We have to prove we can finish above Aberdeen and Hibs on a consistent basis.’
On the national game, he says: ‘We should stop talking ourselves down. We have an exciting product. I think it will be a good season.
‘We should have a clear unique selling point and so become better commercialised.’
McKinlay is tasked with bringing greater revenues into the club and also ensuring the academy can bring through talent.
This is all business. But he remains a fitba’ man.
‘The buzz came back quickly,’ he says of his return to football. ‘When we beat Hibs in the semi-final, that was a massive result and halfway through the penalty shoot-out against Celtic in the final I was ecstatic as they had missed one.
‘But that didn’t last for long as we immediately missed two. The low was Brora. We were gutted by that. But that is the reality of football.’ So how does he cope? ‘I have on my screensaver Rudyard Kipling’s If. I read it a lot,’ he says of the poem that talks of meeting triumph and disaster and treating “Those two imposters just the same”.
He adds: ‘My job is to stay calm when others get excited. supporters have a right to get carried away but I have to make rational decisions.’
That sang-froid will be tested in the heat of Tynecastle tonight. McKinlay will relish the buzz but knows he and his team will have to focus on doing the biz.