Hearts family embrace return to traditional remembrance venue

THE debate about whether international teams should be allowed to wear poppies on their jerseys deflects from the quiet dignity of football clubs such as Heart of Midlothian in this week when the war dead are remembered.

The club’s annual remembrance service returns to Haymarket tomorrow after a two-year absence, to the area where the Hearts war memorial stood prior to its temporary removal.

The famous clock remains in storage in Midlothian as the controversial tram project continues to cause maximum disruption. But the people will gather to pay respect again from 10.40am in Grosvenor Street, the closest suitable area to the site, after two years when Tynecastle stadium hosted the service.

Ryan Stevenson, the Hearts striker who watched Scotland’s 2-1 win over Cyprus from the bench last night, is due to read a poem. On the 90th anniversary of the poppy appeal John McCrae’s three-verse In Flanders Fields has been chosen. It begins with the line: “In Flanders fields the poppies blow/Between the crosses, row on row/That mark our place.”

Stevenson has been using any down-time he has had this week in Cyprus to practise reciting the poem. “The kind of person I am I don’t intend to do things by half and want to give it my best shot,” he said. “I asked my wife to email it to me. I have been going over it in my room and I am determined to do it justice on Sunday as it is such a significant event for the club.”

Stevenson volunteered his services, something which further reflects well on the player. Craig Herbertson, a Hearts supporter now based in Germany, will give an a capella rendition of Hearts of Glory, a song he wrote himself.

The clock will return. It’s just that no one is quite sure when. In the meantime, a group of Hearts supporters hope to ensure that another symbol of the club’s war effort – which went so far as an entire team of players signing up for the 16th Royal Scots in November 1914 – can be erected, this time nearer to Tynecastle itself.

Gordon Angus, who has helped form the 1914 Memorial Trust, will lay a wreath at the service tomorrow, as will representatives from a number of Hearts fans’ groups. But Angus is involved in a longer term project to commemorate those Hearts players who fell, specifically in the Great War.

These include those who helped make Sir George McCrae’s 16th Royal Scots Battalion what it was, with 11 players from Hearts, who were then top of the Scottish League, becoming the first to enlist and inspiring over 1300 more to join the unit.

The story has been re-told in meticulous detail in Jack Alexander’s superb McCrae’s Battalion. The author has been a leading light in the re-appropriation of the service by Hearts after a period when the club’s link with the Haymarket event diminished.

“I have been involved in helping resuscitate it as it became apparent that Hearts were no longer playing such an integral part in it,” said Alexander. This is not a charge that could be laid at the club’s door now. Manager Paulo Sergio will be present tomorrow, as will the full first-team and Under-19 squads.

“Jim Jefferies spoke last year, while Christophe Berra took part two years ago. Michael Stewart was always a great supporter when he was at the club, as was Craig Levein. It’s a football club where the guys have more reason than most to understand what it is all about.”

Alexander is keen to point out that it is not just about Hearts, however. Included among other football clubs represented at the service tomorrow will be Hibernian, Raith Rovers and Falkirk. The game has a deep connection with both world wars. But it’s fair to say that no team are more closely identified with death and glory than Hearts. Theirs is a story which does not require celebrity patronage.

Ian Hislop, the editor of Private Eye and presenter of the BBC series Not Forgotten, has, however, expressed interest, returning Angus’ call about the plan to erect a statue. It will depict a life-size World War One soldier with a football in one hand and a rifle in another, and will be in place in time for the McCrae’s Battalion centenary in 2014.

A local Edinburgh company is on stand-by to begin work on the figure, which will be set on a stone plinth. First, however, £60,000 needs to be raised. A booth will be set up at the next two Hearts home games where fans can become official donors by pledging a sum of £19.14 towards the total. As the experience with the clock at Haymarket illustrates, nothing is permanent – not even war memorials. However, should Hearts move away from Tynecastle, Angus has been assured by the club that the statue will move with them.