‘We are still filming away, working with Hearts’ - fly-on-the-wall series captures dramatic season

Documentary makers praise Ann Budge for allowing story to be told

Daniel Stendel will feature heavily in the Hearts fly-on-the-wall docuseries. Picture: Craig Williamson / SNS

When Mick McAvoy began filming the forthcoming docuseries on Hearts, he had vague hopes it might reach a crescendo with cup glory at Hampden.

Or else Craig Levein’s side – because that’s whose team it was then – would secure a European place in dramatic style in the last game. A season containing both scenarios even appeared possible given the seeming quality of the squad.

What McAvoy did not expect was the finale to potentially take place inside a courtroom after one of the most challenging seasons in the club’s history. Owner Ann Budge, pictured, has threatened to take legal action if Hearts are relegated with still eight games left to play due to the coronavirus pandemic.

What a time to be compiling a fly-on-the-wall production about any club, never mind one finding themselves cast in a no man’s land of uncertainty in terms of their league fate and now struggling to pay the wages of staff.

Are they going down, as would be the case if the leagues are determined on current standings, or will the resumption of the season grant them a chance to save themselves? Uefa intends for the latter. Whatever happens, the cameras will be rolling.

The docuseries – working title Inside Tynecastle – was scheduled to be broadcast soon after the campaign was originally due to end in late May. Now of course it’s anyone’s guess when it will actually hit the screen.

One thing is for sure, it’s guaranteed to be riveting and could follow such classic examples of the genre as An Impossible Job, which chronicled Graham “Do I not like that?” Taylor’s 1994 World Cup campaign as England manager, and 
Orient: Club for a Fiver, which briefly made a star of combustible manager John “And you can bring your f***ing dinner!” Sitton. A new series of Sunderland ‘Til I Die, meanwhile, is due to begin on Netflix
next month and features Jack Ross’s only full season as manager.

Back at Hearts, McAvoy confirms filming has been continuing despite all the off-field – and on-field – uncertainty. The team from Glasgow-based production company Two Rivers Media would not be doing their job if they turned the cameras off, even at this sensitive time. Budge’s announcement on Wednesday about having to cut the entire staff’s wages by 50 per cent caught everyone by surprise.

“We are still filming away, working with Hearts, who have been fantastic in that they’ve been open and honest with us and given us the access,” said executive producer McAvoy. “It [the staff cuts] is just another thing we’re covering. It’s an observational documentary. We are there to observe the highs and lows.”

The lows have been lower than anyone could have feared. In such bleak current circumstances, it was possible to wonder whether the eagerly anticipated series would ever see the light of day. McAvoy offers a guarantee that it will. They already have plenty of material from what’s been a grim – if eventful – campaign so far for Hearts.

Has this unscheduled break in proceedings offered Hearts some wriggle room in terms of canning the entire project, which one might expect them to be keen to do? McAvoy confirms there is no “get out” clause.

At the very least, then, it’s possible to imagine a certain coolness towards the crew as they go about their business of making a series that threatens to invite ridicule. “We’ve not had that sense at all,” said McAvoy, who confirms crew members – the series producer, a camera operator and assistant sound producer – have been on site this week, observing strict social distancing guidelines.

“We have had people joking to us in passing, but nothing from the management,” he added. “Hand on heart, Ann Budge is a woman of her word. She said she would open up the club to us and she has.

“They are very clever people. When they went into this they would have known there was a chance the season might not have worked out for them.

“They’ve all been fantastic,” he stressed. “They said from the outset that they wanted to be open and transparent and give the fans a real perspective on what the club’s about and take them beyond the club.

“This is not just a football documentary,” he added. “It is going out on BBC 1 Scotland. It has to have mass appeal beyond just football fans so it really does create an insight into Tynecastle, which is so much more than just a place for football. It is hospitality suites, education, it is community outreach – so there’s a lot of that in it.

“But, at the core of it, it is a football club which is having a tricky time of things on the pitch.”

He can say that again. Given the speculation surrounding Levein’s future last summer, it’s perhaps no surprise McAvoy and his team have ended up working with more than one manager this season. But it’s unusual that there’s been input from three managers already, with Austin MacPhee in interim charge for six matches. There have been microphones in the dugout for certain games in order to give a sense of the pressures of matchday. “They have all been good while under a lot of stress and strain,” said McAvoy of Levein, MacPhee and Daniel Stendel, the current incumbent.

“They are all very much used to talking on camera and being questioned about results. What I think is actually quite a nice change for them is we can talk about things in greater depth rather than just do soundbites at the end of a game. I think they have been quite glad of the time to be able to talk with a bit of perspective.”

McAvoy cannot wait for the world to see the finished product. Currently it feels like a suspense drama since no one knows how – or when – it will end. In the temporary absence of soap operas such as Eastenders and Holby City, perhaps Inside Tynecastle can provide a function.

“The television schedules are going to be all over the place,” said McAvoy. “But we will have a finished series for them whatever happens, which the BBC will be glad about because there will be a lot of other productions out there which are going to be in a lot of trouble.”