New Hearts signing lifts lid on second Tynecastle chance and why he turned down move 4 years ago
Defender delighted to get ‘another bite of cherry’ with Jambos switch
There is an air of contentment around Hearts defender Stuart Findlay as he mulls over the last couple of years.
Tynecastle already feels like home for the 29-year-old, who has settled in seamlessly ahead of the new season. Maybe it was just always meant to be that he would end up at Hearts.
After all, he’s been a transfer target for the Jambos on more than one occasion. Robbie Neilson tried to bring him to Gorgie four years ago and he’s persistently been linked with a transfer. Finally he had the maroon and white scarf above his head last month when a season-long loan with Oxford United was brokered.
It was his former manager at Kilmarnock in Derek McInnes who got the move over the line. The duo teamed up well at Rugby Park and Findlay was keen to follow him east to Hearts. Football has been enjoyable for the centre-half under the gaffer. That hasn’t always been the case after he ended his first spell at Killie to join Philadelphia Union over in the States four years ago.
“I'll be the first to admit, when I had the option to leave Oxford on a loan to go back to Kilmarnock, I didn't have many options, I've been totally honest with you,” said Findlay.
“When Derek McInnes came in for me at Kilmarnock, he was a manager that obviously I respected greatly, it was a club that meant a lot to me.
“It worked at the time, and I think for him to get me from where I was two years previous to where I was at the end of his tenure at Kilmarnock, I think it would be an absolute madness for me not to want to continue that working relationship.
“I think he's a manager that knows what my skill set is, he knows how to get out of me, and as I said, when I got the chance to learn off him again, it was something I just generally couldn't knock down.
“Not only that, to then come to a club with the stature of Hearts. I had maybe the chance a few years before I moved to America, but now that I'm here and I see what the club's all about, I'm delighted to get another bite of the cherry. And to be able to do it with an extra four or five years experience behind me, I think not only me, but the club's going to benefit from that.”
Findlay is asked to expand on what could have been in 2021. “Yeah, I don't think it was any secret, I think it was Robbie Neilson who was the manager, I was very, very close to going there,” he continued.
“But I think the opportunity that I got in America was something at the time I couldn't knock back. It was a massive, massive opportunity which maybe just didn't work out football-wise the way that I did, but it's not something I regret. It's something that I might have never got the chance to do again, definitely wouldn't have got the chance to do again, it's something I had to explore at the time.
“But as I said, there's always that little gnawing feeling in the back of your head of what could have happened if I'd went elsewhere. So to be able to come here, I think a better player to what I was back then, with a manager who fully knows what I'm about, it can only be a positive for me.”
Such has been Findlay’s form in Scotland, there are a few left puzzled why Oxford have not granted him more chances. His contract expires next summer and there is next to no chance of a return. Findlay is incredibly candid on it all.
“It's a bit of a strange situation that I've got with Oxford,” he explained. “I would first admit the year that I was down there I didn't set the heather alight. I was really disappointed, I maybe wasn't in the right place mentally and physically that I wanted to be when I was at Oxford, but these things happen, football players take dips at certain times.
“I thought they'd maybe made their mind up that that just wasn't the idea for them, I can't blame them because I didn't produce the way I did. But at the same time when you've got a manager who wants you as much as the gaffer here did, I think both clubs were happy to get something done in the meantime.
“I can't worry about what other clubs are wanting, I just only worry about the club where I am, and that's Hearts, and I just really want to have a good year for Hearts now.”
The Jambos - and McInnes - are happy to have him. He’s been part of a team that won all four Premier Sports Cup group games comfortably ahead of the Premiership opener on Monday night at home to Aberdeen. Excitement is building in Gorgie after last season’s underwhelming campaign.
“I don't think you realise how big a club Hearts is until you're involved in it,” said Findlay. “Obviously you come to Tynecastle once or twice a season, you know they're a big side. But until you come here and you see how passionate the fans are. And not only that, just the demand for success at a club like Hearts is something that I'm really happy to be a part of.
“When the manager spoke to me, we were both wanting to come here because we both knew what success looked like at Hearts. It's something that we both aligned ourselves with. So we're going to have to back it up and make sure we put in the performances to reach the ambitions.
“But the size of the club, yeah, I maybe underestimated it slightly. But now that I'm here, I couldn't be any happier to realise what this club can be and what this club I think can achieve. And I'm determined to be a part of it.”
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