Hearts and Aberdeen give thumbs up for Murrayfield

Hearts' temporary flit to BT Murrayfield was judged to have got off to a promising start, with Saturday's visit of Aberdeen attracting a crowd of 24,248, believed to be the highest league attendance for 27 years at a game in Scotland involving neither Celtic or Rangers.

The Hearts and Aberdeen players shake hands at BT Murrayfield. Picture: SNS

Around 7,000 Aberdeen fans swelled the gate and you have to go back to the Edinburgh derby of 1 January 1990 to find 
a bigger crowd for a fixture excluding Glasgow’s big two.

Hearts beat Hibs 2-0 at Tynecastle on that occasion and Craig Levein’s side will play two more games at the rugby stadium before returning to their Gorgie home where the main stand is being rebuilt.

St Johnstone and Rangers will visit in October and defender Aaron Hughes believes Hearts are not overly disadvantaged by playing at Murrayfield.

“It still felt like a home game just with having more supporters,” Hughes said. “I don’t think in our heads it ever felt like an away game. When you have that amount of supporters in the stadium it’s always going to feel like a home game. It’s a lovely stadium, it makes the pitch feel a bit bigger than it is just because of the sheer size of it. I can imagine when the rugby is here and there is 60-odd thousand it would be some place to be.”

Aberdeen’s Graeme Shinnie was also impressed.

“I think the grass behind the goal made the pitch feel huge but it was good,” he said. “It was something different and it is always good to experience different things. We brought a great crowd down and the Hearts fans were there in numbers so it was a good occasion.”