I scored winner in famous Hearts win and it was handball - 'tell the truth and people don’t like it sometimes'

A sizeable shock would be required for Hamilton Accies to oust Hearts from the Scottish Cup in Friday’s televised fifth-round tie. At least in their latest signing, Reghan Tumilty, the Championship’s bottom club have a man with form for upsetting the odds against the Gorgie club.

Raith Rovers' Regan Tumilty celebrates scoring against Hearts in 2021.

Just as unexpected as victory for the full-back’s former club Raith Rovers was at Tynecastle in the covid, fanless season of 2020-21 is the admirable candour the 25-year-old exhibits in recalling his goalscoring contribution to the 3-2 Championship win two years ago. A result that gave the Kirkcaldy side no less than a first success at the ground in a full 28 years.

“I scored the third one and it was a handball,” Tumilty said, unabashedly. “It put us 3-0 up, before they came back. But our fans went home happy. Well, the fans weren’t there, but I’m sure they were at home happy… I knew I’d handballed it but I ran away celebrating, pretending, trying to play it off. It just deflected up and off my hand. On Friday I’d take another like that. There’d be more cameras there, mind … but no VAR. Look, I just want to enjoy my football and enjoy being in a changing room where it is a good environment.”

By the sounds of it, that was denied the player across a discombobulating six months with Hartlepool. One of a raft of Scottish players recruited by new manager Paul Hartley last summer, all have now parted company with the club in the wake of his September sacking. After only 11 competitive games at the helm. “I’m not a big headed guy but my two years at Raith we were flying,” he said. “We won the Challenge cup, had a top-three finish and I played nearly every game. It was really positive and I left very confident. That was damaged a wee bit down in Hartlepool but that’s why I’ve come back here to play under the manager, John Rankin.

“The personal thing for me was I was playing out of position. I played 25 games but I played centre-back, where I’d never played there before. I also played left-back, left wing-back, right centre-forward, right-back, right wing-back. The only place I didn’t play was in goal … It was supposed to be a big move and it’s not gone the way I wanted, but that’s just life.”

Thrown back in Tumilty’s direction since pitching up at Hamilton the other day is a video clip of an interview he gave to Hartlepool’s in-house media on signing. In it, he said it had become “almost boring playing [in the Scottish Championship], playing the same nine other teams” before the footage abruptly cuts with him in mid-sentence. “Someone edited that clip lovely, cut it off nicely,” he said. “I’m sure people understood what I was saying. You’d love to see an 18-team league [with teams playing each other twice]. You saw the result with Darvel and Aberdeen, anyone can compete against anyone and I think fans would enjoy that.”

The handball admission, the frank, yet reasonable, acknowledgement that playing teams four times – at least – a season can become repetitive, Tumilty may be too honest for his own good. “Put that in, that’s it,” he said. “I tell the truth and people don’t like it sometimes.”