Hearts: Warning from history for Holt and Smith

That's a paraphrase of a well-known saying and a fact that recent Hearts debutants Jason Holt and David Smith should bear in mind. The greenhorn Jambos pair made their first top-team appearances at Tannadice on Sunday in the club's final encounter of the campaign.

Such was the positive reaction to the duo's showing on Tayside that their first showing in a Hearts shirt at this level is highly unlikely to be the last, and they will hope to figure more regularly in Jim Jefferies' thoughts for top-team action next season.

While reflecting during the close season upon a major breakthrough in their respective careers, though, Holt and Smith would be well advised to be mindful of others whose Tynecastle progress has ended at a solitary first-team appearance. Derek Strickland signed for a Hearts team led by Tony Ford in the early 1980s and would be the first to warn footballers of any age not to take the game for granted after a long-term knee injury coupled with a change of manager severely limited his time at Tynecastle - and in the professional game. By the time he left around 18 months into a two-year deal, he had clocked just one appearance, a 2-1 home win over Dumbarton.

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"Hearts signed me in summer 1981 but three or four months in Tony Ford got the sack," said Strickland, 22 when he arrived in Gorgie and now 51. "I hadn't fully recovered from my knee injury - it was giving me so much trouble that I wasn't able to train properly. Alex McDonald (the new manager] took me into his office and gave me a free transfer."

Strickland has most recently been involved in the game as manager of Whitburn Juniors, but urges the best young players to aim far higher than that level of football. "No doubt about it, all the highlights I had were as a top professional footballer. I would urge any young kid who gets the chance that it's a great life - the rewards are fantastic."

Robbie Horn was once a name touted alongside Gary Naysmith as the harbinger of a brighter future for the Scottish national team's defensive problems. But, while the latter went on to enjoy long-term success with Everton, you'll find the only mention of Horn in the Hearts first-team annals under an inauspicious 1-0 win for Dundee United in an end-of-season dead rubber in May 1997. Now boss of Vale of Leithen in the East of Scotland league following a Scottish league playing career carved out at Forfar and Berwick, among others, Horn made his sole Hearts start under Jim Jefferies. "I'd had a really good season and been called up to the Scotland under-21 squad - in the summer we went to Toulon, with myself and Gary Naysmith," he said. "We were training the day before the Dundee United game on the pitch at Tynecastle and JJ warned me there was a chance I would play, so I didn't get a lot of sleep that night.

"With my first pass 30 seconds in, I gave the ball away, but went on to enjoy the game and played well. I got injured towards the end and had to have stitches in my ankle, so missed the following week against Rangers - otherwise I think I would have had a wee chance."

Horn began the next season carrying a knee injury and, even after recovery, found the promising start to his first-team run stunted by the presence of defenders such as Paul Ritchie, Dave McPherson, David Weir and Pasquale Bruno. That, coupled with self-confessed limitations to his all-round game, signalled the beginning of the end. "I probably wasn't aggressive enough at the age I was at, and probably not quick enough either. Looking back I just wasn't good enough."

Four years later, another promising defender in the shape of Paul Kaczan was knocking on the door of then-Hearts boss Craig Levein. As part of a youth team on its way to winning the under-19 league in 2000/01, "Kaz" marshalled a defence in front of Craig Gordon to such effect that he was handed his first - and, ultimately, final - start as a last-minute replacement for Juanjo against Kilmarnock in March 2001.

"It was a bit unexpected to be honest. One of the first-team players had a back spasm and pulled out the squad, and I got called on. There were a lot of experienced boys at the time, like Steven Pressley and Jean-Louis Valois, and for a young boy it was exciting. I came on at right mid, and it was probably just a kind of gesture from the manager at the time. The fans probably thought, 'Who is this coming on, a new Polish winger?'"

The Lanarkshire-born stopper, who cites the signing of Andy Webster as the most telling sign that his time was up at Tynecastle, is soon to be out of contract having skippered Elgin City to seventh in the Third Division.

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