‘Everyone is on the green train and it keeps rolling’ - 16 of Hibs midfielder Marvin Bartley’s best quotes

Marvin Bartley: Never a dull moment. Pictures: SNS Group

On over-confident Hearts fans: “I thought Hearts had won the league earlier in the season, the amount of messages I was getting from their fans, so it’s quite surprising that we are only two points behind them. That’s interesting, isn’t it?” (March 2019)

On nearly quitting Hibs after just two games: “I’d come up through non-league football in England and the grounds at that level are far better – so it was a real shock. It was my second game and almost my last. My first had been against Montrose at Easter Road and it was brilliant, a massive ground, a great pitch and the training ground was fantastic... and then to go to Dumbarton was a bit of a wake-up call. I was a bit naive thinking all away grounds were going to be like that and I remember going back down south to my home and my partner asking me how the game was and I said ‘you wouldn’t believe me if I told you’.” (March 2018)

On Paul Heckingbottom: “Tactically, on the training pitch, he lets you know exactly what he wants from you. You run through different things that could happen in the match and it’s very much driven into players daily. If your mate goes there, where do you need to go? His organisation is very, very good.” (March 2019)

On the Hibs fans: “I don’t think the supporters realise just how big a help they are when they cheer us on in tough games. When it’s 0-0 and you’ve got a team playing against you with 11 men behind the ball, it’s a massive help when they cheer us on. As a team, we can’t thank them enough because they have pulled us through at times. Even when we lost to Aberdeen [in the Scottish Cup semi-final] they were all on their feet clapping us. That was a really special moment for us because it’s not often after a defeat that you see fans backing a team the way they did to us.” (May 2017)

On Neil Lennon’s post-derby outburst in May 2018, in which he branded the Hibs team “amateurs” and “unprofessional”: “We are a very professional group. I have been in changing rooms that are not so. So, yes, it’s disappointing to be branded as unprofessional and amateur because we are not that, we are a good group of lads. Sometimes we’ll perform well and sometimes we won’t. We’ll win games and we’ll lose games.

“I don’t think an amateur group or an unprofessional group could go and beat Celtic or go to Ibrox and beat Rangers, go up to Aberdeen and draw.” (May 2018)

On watching Old Firm games on TV: “My mum Sandra used to force me to watch the Antiques Roadshow, but now I’m sitting at home wondering what I’m doing with my life that I’m putting it on myself. The lads hammered me. I didn’t watch the game but then the lads said, ‘we’ve got Rangers’. I thought, ‘oh’, and then put Football Manager on and off I went.” (April 2016)

On support from his family: “One of my cousins called me and told me I could have done better in the [Scottish Cup semi-final win over Dundee United]. He told me somebody ran past me and I told him, ‘it happens’. But he said it shouldn’t happen. I said, ‘you’re seven’. He’s a chirpy little one, but they watched the game and they were really proud.” (April 2016)

On social media abuse / banter: “I don’t write back so it’s all part of social media. I don’t take it to heart. I think it’s very important to remember that if you are going to give it out then you have to learn to take it back.” (November 2017)

On Diego, his dog: “I take him literally everywhere around Penicuik. I take him up the Pentland Hills, into the woods, over to the school and into the woods round there. He’s living the life of Riley up here. If he wasn’t here, I’d go home and be a lonely boy in the evenings. I don’t get bored with him here – he doesn’t give me a minute’s peace. Even though he’s a Rottweiler, he’s a friendly one – he’s a big softie.” (November 2015)

On Hamilton’s tactics: “I thought we played very well in the first half and in the second I thought they got a bit more physical to say the very least. Some of the tackles were shocking. John McGinn had a few, he was kicked off the ball as well, Dylan [McGeouch] was swiped in the box and the ref said he was not touched. At our goal they’ve kicked out twice at Brandon [Barker]. There were many of them. When I played rugby at school it got physical like that. That was the last time.” (November 2017)

On dubious red cards: “I’ve been sent off a couple of times for coughing on players and had the red cards rescinded but if that’s the way we are going to play then I am up for it and maybe it is time we started protecting ourselves.” (November 2017)

On the post-Scottish Cup win atmosphere: “Everyone is on the green train and it keeps rolling. It hasn’t stopped, it has been fantastic.” (September 2016)

On Neil Lennon: “He’s worse in training. He keeps us in check, demands high standards at all times. I fall short of them sometimes and I hear ‘Marv, Marv’. It’s like being back home with my mum. It’s fine, I have dealt with it loads of times in my career. It’s not hair dryer stuff. He’ll shout at you really loud to get your attention. Then he’ll be like: ‘C’mon. And you’re like, yeah, okay’. The gaffer played my position, that’s the problem! I could have done with a goalkeeper coming in as manager so I could tell them: ‘That’s what happens when you play there’. But he played my position so he takes no s**t from me. I can learn from him, he was a very good player in my position, he did a similar job in the teams he played in.” (September 2016)

On the prospect of scoring a goal for Hibs: “I think the world would end if I scored a goal. What would I do? Probably pass out.” (September 2016)

On his friends’ reaction to him joining Hibs: “Charlie Austin was quite curious as to how I’d get on up here and the first thing he said to me was ‘how are you going to deal with the cold’ and then he sent me a picture of a snowman. Come the winter I might send him a few pictures of snowmen back.” (August 2015)

On racism from the terraces: “I take everything that is thrown at me, as untrue as it is, when playing [at Tynecastle] and simply get on with it, but the one thing that I refuse to accept is racial abuse. So maybe it is time to take action against these small-minded, ignorant people. Let’s not let it creep back into OUR game!” (April 2019)