The Thistle Archive

Media report

WALLACE MERCER hinted at the weekend that the deal done to bring Maurice Johnston to Hearts had contributed towards the buildup in pressure which the Tynecastle chairman has now found to be intolerable. Johnston could not have been afforded by the club two weeks ago, according to Mercer. However, after a defeat from Raith Rovers put the extent of Hearts’ plight into perspective, the chairman and his manager, Sandy Clark, had the kind of discussion that takes place between those who burden the responsibility for an institution like the Tynecastle club. “I asked him who we really needed. He said Mo and Maurice Johnston was delivered. That is all that need be said on the subject,” Mercer stated. Finding Johnston’s reputed weekly wage of £3,000 was Mercer’s business, and the strain of constantly having to think of ways to keep Hearts alive now shows definite signs of taking its toll of the chairman’s health. “I can’t take the pressure any longer and I want out. Some of the fans want me out of Tynecastle as well and I hope I am not Hearts chairman next year,” he said at Firhill. “While I am involved with Hearts, though, I will not hide, and until my dying day I will do what I think is best for the club.” Acquiring Johnston will surely go down as one of Mercer’s shrewder moves. The forward exuded quality, energy and commitment.

Maurice Johnston, John Colquhoun, Craig Levein and Alan Johnston graced an undistinguished match that would have done little to lighten Mercer’s mood, stuck, as he is, with something he can no longer handle, but for which he has too much regard to hand over to those he does not trust. The demands that have been placed upon Johnston, specifically to score the goals that have dried up and free the club from the spectre of relegation and its ruinous consequences, do not intimidate him. “I have seen it all before,” he remarked. “Partick Thistle, Watford and Nantes were down when I joined them. I would feel the pressure if I had cost Hearts a fortune, but I joined the club on a free transfer and I am happy to oblige them with my services.” Such a sentiment might, given the player’s level of remuneration for services rendered, provoke outrage were it not for the fact that Johnston looked on Saturday as if his agent might have sold him short. He played with the verve of a man who was, with Everton, deprived of doing the thing he enjoys best. The complete breakdown in communication between him and his former manager, Howard Kendall, consigned him to his garden most Saturday afternoons. It was clearly a spot of mischief making on the part of Partick Thistle’s manager, John Lambie, when he said that his defender, Willie Jamieson, “had Johnston in his back pocket.” The main problem faced by Hearts’ new signing was the lack of support he received in the form of decent passes with which to threaten the opposition goal. He and Colquhoun worked tirelessly up front, but were ultimately defeated by their own side as much as by Partick Thistle. Clark’s recreational time, should there be any as he combats the difficulties confronting his team, might provide a helpful insight to the managerial psyche. If the manager relaxed with a jigsaw, for example, would he keep a pair of scissors in his back pocket to expedite matters and cut the pieces to make them fit? Clark’s decision to play with three men at the back while using Gary Mackay and Jim Weir in the wide positions to push down on Partick Thistle’s defence was entirely commendable. The problem, though, was that the players did not fit the system. Weir has always been a central defender and did not look comfortable as an impromptu winger. Hearts, though, were forced to deal with injury to John Robertson, Gary Locke and Justin Fashanu. Maurice, too, will be even more of an asset once his match fitness has been sharpened. A draw was therefore a fair result on the basis that neither side deserved to win or lose.

Lambie fought his side’s corner as vigorously as any of his players, making pugnacious statements such as “if anybody played football out there, it was my team” and “that’s five games in a row we’ve gone undefeated and seven of my team cost nothing.” The precise relevance of the last pronouncement was uncertain, unless it was meant to suggest that the opposition can pay as many of their players £3,000 a week as they like but money does not compensate for spirit. Any man who has played for Celtic and Rangers in his time is unlikely to be affected by what anybody says about him any more, however.

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