Hearts 1
Clydebank 0
League (Division 1)

Match Report

I wonder if the Clydebank Travel Section consulted a crystal ball before deciding to boycott Tynecastle?

For Robert Casey and his band of diehard supporters couldn't have picked a better day to stay at home and pick their ITV Seven. That's how bad this game was.

The coaches would probably have dubbed it a "tactical midfield battle." The ordinary punter on the terraces would have had a less kind name for it. Like a bore.

And while the tacticians might have enjoyed watching the ball ping about the middle third of the park, I am inclined to side with the latter view. For as a spectacle, this ran a close second to watching wood rot.

Bankies struggled to put together the football of the past few weeks, although they did worry a decidedly shaky Hearts defence on several occasions.

Relying mainly on breaks out of defence, they strung together a few good moves, but weren't nearly as fluent as in previous weeks. Still, you couldn't expect much else from a match riddled with petty fouls, bad passing and poor finishing.

The near-6,000 crowd (minus the aforementioned Clydebank fans) had rolled up in bright sunshine, hoping to see a show from Hearts' new boys Pettigrew and Addison to justify their joint £180,000 transfer fee.

Derek Addison was booked early on for going "over the top" on Gerry McCabe, took a head knock, and stayed in the pavilion - probably the best place to be after half-time..

Willie Pettigrew, however, fared somewhat better. His inch-perfect cross, after a lightning turn and surging run, put Derek O'Connor in to score the winner. The standing ovation the former Motherwell and Dundee United man received was well-deserved.

The goal stunned a Clydebank side which had given everything in the struggle for at least a point. They had, in fact, looked the better side for long periods of the game. Or perhaps they were just less bad than Hearts.

Whatever they were, they deserved more than a defeat. From the start, they made it patently obvious that they were going to give away very little in defence.

What they did miss made no difference anyway, as Hearts and particularly eventual hero O'Connor, were totally inept in the box. On one occasion in the second-half, the big number nine beat two men, dummied Gallacher - but still somehow managed to hit his shot against a defender. He would have kicked himself, only he'd probably have missed that, too!

In midfield, as well as up front, Bankies worked tirelessly to punish the mistakes made with alarming regularity by the homesters. Young Tom Harkins almost made a name for himself in an impressive performance, only to be denied by a mixture of bad luck and weak finishing.

Hearts' frustration was highlighted by the bookings first of Addison and then McNeill, who whacked the impressive Jim Given on to the track as he sped down the wing. These two hefty tackles were probably the most decisive efforts from any home players in the first-half. I honestly can't believe that Hearts are going to mount a serious challenge in the First Division this year. On the evidence of this match, the defence look shaky, their midfield struggles to put two decent passes together and their forwards can hit just about anything except the back of the net.

And Clydebank? Well, I thought they were an excellent side against Kilmarnock, Dumbarton Dunfermline, but I reserved judgement on their chances until they came up against a side like Hearts.

I was impressed. They played a very cagey, cat-and-mouse sort of game, but there was still evidence of enough skill and fire to suggest that very few sides will take them as easily as they did last year.

Certainly they more than contained the home side. I apologise for harping back to their ineptitude, but, judging by the money they have spent during the close season and the class of player which has arrived at Tynecastle, I expected much, much more than I saw last Saturday.

It wasn't the best way to spend a day in lovely Edinburgh. And there's no truth in the rumour that from now on, Hearts are to let away fans in free, but make them pay to get out!