Former Hearts striker Donald Ford recalls last top flight penalty hat-trick - 37 years ago

DEBUTS are always memorable, but Paul Hartley was handed three reasons to further cherish his first competitive match for Aberdeen last weekend. The midfielder struck three times from the penalty spot, eschewing any first day nerves to beat Hamilton Academical goalkeeper Tomas Cerny on all three occasions.

As Craig Brown, the Motherwell manager, pointed out the following day, it's not often you are awarded three penalties in the same match, let alone score with them all. Indeed, one has to go back over 35 years to find when it last happened in a top division game in Scotland. For former Hearts striker Donald Ford, now a renowned photographer based in Carnoustie, the memory remains understandably vivid.

Yesterday he reflected on the mental toll of being required to take aim from 12 yards on three different occasions in the same match. In fact, in Ford's case, they were all scored in the same half.

"The Cappielow adventure was extraordinary," said Ford, recalling the hat-trick that gave Hearts both points against Morton on 1 September, 1973. "All three penalties came in the second half, were definitely correctly awarded, but put me under a bit of pressure."

Ford had a strategy when it came to taking penalties, and it was placed under intense scrutiny at Cappielow. Bobby Seith, the then Hearts manager, had handed him the penalty duties for a season. "I had developed my own theory on penalties," recalled Ford. "Basically the thinking was that if the ball was struck well enough, just inside the post to the bottom right-hand side of the goal, the goalie had very little chance of saving it - or would have needed to move before the kick was taken to stop it. So far, it had worked OK."

But he admits now to a late change of mind when it came to taking the second of the three penalties awarded to Hearts at Cappielow that day. "Roy Baines was in the Morton goal," recalled Ford. "He was experienced and I guessed he would have done his homework on what I did with a penalty. The first one worked fine - theory and execution perfect. When the second one was awarded, though, I had a dilemma: would he be thinking a) 'he'll do the same again because he puts them all there', or b) 'he'll know that I know where he puts them so he'll change it this time' or c) was I giving him far too much credit for in-depth analysis (remembering that he was a goalie!), so I should therefore stick to my tried and tested system again?

"I chickened out, basically, and struck the second penalty - not brilliantly - to the other corner. Roy had guessed right, got his hand to it, but it crept in.

"There was near bedlam when the third one was awarded - there were no doubts, incidentally, about any of them not being clear penalties. But the Morton guys were just dumbfounded at the very thought of them having conceded three penalties in about 20 minutes. Anyway, I had no doubts, particularly after the near-disaster of the change of tactics at the second one, that I should revert to Plan A and managed to keep calm enough to resurrect my ‘system' and sent the ball back into the ‘usual' place."