Inside Hearts' frosty AGM: Ridicule, cocktail bars, 'embarrassing stuff on pitch', referee preponderance and James Anderson

An air of discontentment hung in the Tynecastle air as shareholders grilled the hierarchy

Merry Christmas messages adorned the walls of the Gorgie Suite. Festive tunes assailed the ears of those who arrived ahead of the 11am kick-off clutching their shareholders forms or the forms of those who could not attend and had therefore nominated a proxy.

Welcome, then, to the 117th Heart of Midlothian AGM, where there was not a lot of goodwill to all men in evidence, especially if your name happens to be Steven Naismith – or a referee from the west coast of Scotland. One shareholder enquired why the manager was not present at top table. Andrew McKinlay very sensibly pointed out that as manager of the team, was it not better Naismith was out training with his players two days before such a challenging fixture as Celtic away. “If he was here there would be complaints about him not being on the training field,” added the chief executive, again quite reasonably.

You can’t win. And therein lies one of the problems. Hearts are not winning. Well, they didn’t win their last game. Or the one before that. No wonder McKinlay made reference to how upset he was by the second-half performance against Aberdeen on Saturday, when Hearts let slip a half-time lead to lose 2-1. He knew it meant he could expect a rougher ride in the agm as a result, although that wasn’t the main reason he was so depressed during the journey back south. It's clear the supporters' – and shareholders' – concerns about style and perhaps even recruitment are shared by the hierarchy to some degree.

Finance director Jacqui Duncan, chief executive Andrew McKinlay and chairwomen Ann Budge during Hearts' AGM at Tynecastle.

McKinlay said he had driven home “with his own thoughts”. He barely spoke to his family all weekend. At times, especially when things got a bit heated towards the end, one felt a need to consult the Premiership table. Yes, Livingston were still bottom. It isn’t Hearts. The Tynecastle side are currently sixth, two points behind third-placed St Mirren with a game in hand. Naismith, meanwhile, is the current manager of the month.

Mention of this by McKinlay drew laughter. It was not the kind of laughter that suggested the body of the kirk enjoyed this quirky but indeed factual detail being pointed out to them. It was laughter ridiculing the very concept of Naismith being awarded this bauble when the football has been for the most part so poor. “You can laugh all you want,” said McKinlay. “But it is a fact. I am just stating a fact.”

But this fact didn’t fit with the main agenda of the meeting. Or at least the unofficial main agenda. Because Naismith wasn't mentioned when notice of the agm was published last month. Indeed, his permanent appointment, announced as recently as this summer, barely fits into the financial year under review, which ended on 30 June. The primary business was receiving and adopting the company’s accounts, which saw the club post a record turnover of £20.8 million. All good, then?

No, of course not. This is football. This is Heart of Midlothian. Although style, or at least style as a mission statement, is more associated with the other lot from the east end of town, it’s clearly becoming an ongoing preoccupation in Gorgie as well. And we are not talking plush cocktail bars, although that, too, was covered. One is being installed at the “Tynecastle Park Hotel”, which is scheduled to open at the start of February to paying customers. "You can't have a hotel without a nice bar," said chairwoman Ann Budge. "Yes, we are spending money on this but we have to in order to support the football activities," she stressed.

Hearts' sporting director Joe Savage was grilled on signings.

The hotel will have 25 bedrooms and means the ground will become a 24-7 operation, with all the associated costs that involves due to security and staff being required to be on site around the clock to deal with the inevitable dramas such as lost key cards and the like. But the prospect of a city break in Gorgie was not of much interest to fans. Many seem to resent the 90-plus minutes they are spending there every other weekend. One shareholder got to his feet to state that "the stuff on the pitch is embarrassing!"

He directed his question at Joe Savage, the director of football: “Are the coaching staff good enough to get the message to the players, or are the players not intelligent enough to do it?” There is, he added, a seven-yard gap between the striker and the midfield, before he finished with an accusatory flourish at Savage: "These are all players you are signing!"

Savage took it on the chin. Some of the players, he accepted, had not met the standards expected. McKinlay had earlier dealt with a question about the "preponderance of referees who come from the west coast of Scotland", playing down a further suggestion that the SFA – where he of course worked for several years - "is corrupt".

“It’s getting closer to 1pm," announced Budge. “I am not going to cut questions, but…” More hands shot up. She finally called a halt at 1.36pm and even then shareholders milled around her table, aiming to make one last point. We had questions about handrails in the main stand and even one about parking, which, while it was greeted with muffled guffaws, is the kind of housekeeping one expects at an AGM.

Head coach Steven Naismith's absence was questioned - he was on the training pitch.

All the while James Anderson stared out into the room from his seat at the top table. A penny for his thoughts. Indeed, over £20m for them, which is what he is estimated to have gifted to the club, with more to come. Christmas is a time for giving, we know that. But it did seem odd that amid all these questions about Naismith’s tactics, the current management’s team inability to react to events on the pitch and yes, even about parking, there wasn’t a single thumbs up directed at Anderson. His continued benevolence, along with the remarkable monthly financial input from Hearts supporters, is what keeps this fine old club ticking along.

The football might sometimes hurt the eyes but Hearts clearly still stir the soul.