Into Edinburgh’s Haymarket station, up the stairs, out into the puddles, right onto Dalry Road and along to Gorgie. That’s Gorgie with two hard Gs.
Under the railway bridge, a sharp right and there it is: Scottish football’s current destination of choice. Tynecastle, home of Heart of Midlothian.
The walk’s about a mile and lamp-post banners show they’ve taken to calling it the “Maroon Mile”.
No one’s arguing. In autumn 2025, maroon is the colour.
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It’s 10.50am on a Sunday and a group of Hearts fans are being ushered into the porch of a bar to get out of the rain. “Can’t serve until 11,” the host says cheerily. Again, no one argues. Farther on, past the Destiny Church, outside the Tynecastle Arms there’s a queue to get in.
Everywhere there is maroon optimism but there is also maroon experience, maroon fear. Celtic are in town and while Hearts can go eight points clear at the top with a win, they’ll be just two points ahead with a defeat. What would that do to maroon anticipation? A pint might quell some nerves.
Tynecastle, where Hearts have played since 1886, is sold out. The capacity is just under 19,000 but on the good days, the noise generated feels twice that. This was a good day. Five minutes before a high noon kick-off, as the teams walk out the Tannoy announces “it’s first versus second here”. The volume increases.
Second is not often the role allotted to Celtic in Scotland. But they were second frequently last Sunday. The tone was set by Hearts creating a fourth-minute opening for talismanic striker-captain Lawrence Shankland. Three minutes later Kieran Tierney, back at Celtic from Arsenal, passed the ball into touch.
Sixty seconds on and Hearts were 1-0 ahead, a Shankland cross-shot being shanked into his own net by Celtic’s Dane Murray. Hearts had 68 per cent possession.
And then Hearts stopped. Galvanised by their captain Callum McGregor, Celtic assumed the place they consider theirs – first to the ball. McGregor scored an equaliser and for 20 minutes it was as if Hearts had forgotten what it was like to concede.
This was understandable – McGregor’s goal was the first Hearts had let in since August. Four league matches had passed since and Hearts had won all four with an aggregate score of 9-0. Their goalkeeper is Alexander Schwolow, a 33-year-old German who has spent his career in the Bundesliga with the likes of Freiburg and Hertha Berlin and who joined Hearts on the last day of the summer transfer window. Schwolow was a free agent and was given his debut away at Ibrox. Hearts won 2-0, one of those results to provoke a second look.
Another three clean sheets followed, but now McGregor had ruined the sequence and shortly before half-time Benjamin Nygren was about to blemish it further. Lovely footwork from Celtic’s new Swede appeared to be finished with a goal, but out stretched Schwolow and it remained 1-1.
Given what happened next, at Celtic Park as well as at Tynecastle, it could come to be seen as a hinge moment. By 1.15pm the entire main stand was singing “Tony, Tony Bloom”, to the tune of Boney M’s Daddy Cool.
Not only had another new signing Alexandros Kyziridis put Hearts 2-1 ahead, Shankland had guided a penalty-kick past Kasper Schmeichel not long after. At 3-1 Hearts were eight points clear of Celtic, effectively nine given their superior goal difference, and 13 ahead of Rangers. Hearts were already the division’s top scorers, averaging 2.4 goals a game and they had added another three.
Unbeaten in the league under Derek McInnes, appointed at the end of last season, Hearts have found different ways to win with a starting formation that is essentially 4-4-2 – at Ibrox they won with 33 per cent possession, at Tannadice with 72 per cent. Here Celtic had nine corners, yet the home team were comparatively comfortable against opposition who beat them three times last season. The improvement is clear. Crazy like a fool? Not Tony Bloom.
The reason Bloom was being serenaded at Tynecastle was not simply his £10 million (€11.4 million) investment in Hearts in June, but the access this has given the club to Jamestown Analytics, Bloom’s scouting system which has lifted Brighton and Hove Albion up the Premier League. Schwolow and Kyziridis were both recommended by Jamestown, as was Claudio Braga, whose name is also sung lustily.
Ownership regulations prevent Bloom from investing substantially more, but the Jamestown influence can continue – a Kazakh striker, Islam Chesnokov, is already signed for January and may arrive sooner.
And as he heard the chants directed towards him Bloom may well have absorbed the goodwill and considered that while at Brighton he can change a football club, at Hearts he can change a league, a country. The torching by Celtic 24 hour later of Brendan Rodgers’s green Honda Civic, as the manager had alluded to his team a couple of weeks ago, symbolised this.
By the final whistle the rain had gone. There was sunshine on Gorgie.
Yet all inside the stadium know it’s fragile. Hearts have won the Scottish title only four times in those 139 years at Tynecastle, the last being in 1960. There have been challenges since and, most recently, in 2019 Craig Levein’s team were top after winning eight of the first 10 games. They finished sixth.
Everyone in Scotland also recalls last season when Aberdeen began with a rush to 31 points from the first 33. The Dons ended up fifth. It provides context, although last season Celtic also had 31 points from 33 and a better goal difference. They were actually above Aberdeen.
McInnes wisely stressed the embryonic nature of things, adding the following match, at St Mirren on Wednesday night, must not be “after the Lord Mayor’s Show’. St Mirren is where Aberdeen lost for the first time last season.
When the scoreboard in Paisley showed St Mirren 3-1 Hearts, McInnes’ warning was prescient. At the same time “Martin O’Neill’s Celtic” were winning against Falkirk. Suddenly it all felt familiar.
And dull – the reason, at 9.07pm, more were following the BBC’s online feed from St Mirren than games in England involving Chelsea, Manchester City and Newcastle-Tottenham is because across the UK people want to see Celtic’s numbing title processions overthrown.
So there was relief when St Mirren’s third goal was controversially ruled out by VAR. Then Braga nabbed an equaliser. There was no winner, but Hearts had not lost.
With Celtic playing Rangers in the League Cup on Sunday, fans walking down the Maroon Mile on Saturday will know a win over second-bottom Dundee would take the lead at the top to nine points. Regardless, Hearts have already won. They’ve made us look again.
