Interview: David Cooper Templeton, Hearts winger

• Purple patch: Young player of the month David Templeton has scored against Hibs, Celtic and Hamilton. Photograph: Robert Perry

IT is not known whether David Cooper Templeton has an interest in the music of Johnny Cash. It would be a pity if the Hearts winger were unaware of the country colossus's work. Or A Boy Named Sue at least. A song that expresses a sentiment with which the latest Clydesdale Bank young player of the month could surely all too readily identify. The protagonist in it bemoans the moniker his dad landed him, even if done for the best intentions. Pretty much how Templeton feels about the fact he has had to live with footballing father Henry's fascination with legendary Rangers winger Davie Cooper since his birth was registered.

"I didn't really like my name growing up, to be honest," Templeton says. "My dad left and I went to my mum's side who were all Celtic fans so I ended up following them. So it was odd being a Celtic fan called Davie Cooper. I got a bit of stick when I was younger but I obviously don't bother about the Old Firm any more."

And Templeton doesn't seem to bother about what people may attempt to invest in the fact he is a winger just like his namesake. His dad has jokingly said that with the christening act he mapped out his son's destiny. Yet the youngster suggests another exhilerating Rangers wide man may have been just as influential.

"I don't know why I got the name because I've an older brother," he says. "It's weird, you see it in the programme as David Cooper Templeton but I'd rather just be known as my own name. He was known as an unbelievable player and if I could get anywhere to half as good as he was then it would be amazing. When I was younger, he always told me about him and I saw a few videos of him. Obviously what I saw was amazing. The way he just went past people made it look so easy, that's what I liked about him being a winger. It was good for me watching players like that. I grew up as a Celtic fan but I loved watching Brian Laudrup because of the way he played.

"When I was younger I liked playing up front, I used to want to go past everyone and do everything myself, try and score goals. I wanted all the glory about scoring goals. Obviously the older I got, managers wanted to start trying me out wide because I liked going past people. It's probably the best thing for me, if I was playing striker now I wouldn't be doing so well."

The way the slight 5ft 9in Templeton plays is said to recall the skilful trickery of his striker old man. Footage of the Ayr United hall-of-famer - whose west of Scotland lifestyle put limits on the lengths his attacking abilities ought to have taken him - was in short supply for young David, though. "I only saw a couple of my dad's games. One was against Celtic [in a League Cup tie in Glasgow in 1990] and that's the only one I remember because that's when he broke his leg. I heard he was a good player and everyone tells me that, but I want to do everything myself and want to be known for myself and not as Henry Templeton's son," says the player, who lives close to Celtic's ground in the Parkhead area.

In his award-earning month of November, Templeton has acheived his aim of carving out his own place in the Scottish game and, it might be argued, eclipsing even the impression left on it by his dad. The 21-year-old has netted in three of Hearts' past four games. In his longest run of consecutive first-team outings, in this spell he has proved a major contributor to the Gorgie club's quartet of 2-0 wins that has brought them their longest sequence of clean-sheet league victories in 40 years. Templeton can be regarded as the catalyst. Hearts' succession of wins began with his marvellous, mazy run, which saw him cover half the length of the park and take out half the Hibernian team to score the opener in a derby victory at Easter Road. A goal that may claim him end-of-season accolades and screamed out he had truly arrived on the senior stage.

"It was brilliant, to turn round and see the fans was the best feeling I've had in my career so far," he says. "I hope the next few Edinburgh derbies I can do that as well because it helps my confidence so much and I took that into the next game against Celtic."

Another goal in another 2-0 win was not his only spoils from a midweek Tynecastle success. On ESPN, anchor man Ray Stubbs became excited as it appeared the cameras caught Celtic's Emilio Izaguirre asking for Templeton's strip. In reality, it was the other way round, but the winger got more than that off the Honduran; crucially, he also got the better of him to indicate his progress after it had been a very different story in Hearts' 3-0 defeat in Glasgow earlier in the season. "I did play quite well against him in that game," says Templeton. "I was expecting him to go forward more. At Parkhead, every time he got it he just bombed forward. I was having to track him back all the time, so that was a hard game for me. At Tynecastle he never really got to go forward, so it was a lot better for me."

It couldn't get much better for Templeton than right now which is why he was understandably frustrated that the weather put paid to Hearts' scheduled appointment at Ibrox yesterday. Yet, having waited so long to make his expected impact, one weekend's downtime is a minor inconvenience. The player has had to cope with the major variety since his freescoring form for the Hearts reserves in 2008-09 had given rise to a belief he would make the breakthrough the following season. A foot fracture on the second day of pre-season put paid to that promise. "I came back in November and I broke down again for six weeks with the same thing after one game and then again in January - the same thing," he says.

Templeton was the sort of bright young prospect heard of before he was seen because of his early impact at Stenhousemuir under Des McKeown. He was only 16 when, with the Third Division side trailing 2-0 away to East Fife, he was told to get stripped. "I was playing 17s at the time and Des just says to me to train with the first team one day, then I was in the squad not thinking I'd be involved, but made the bench," he says. "I think he just flung me on for the sake of it and we ended up winning 3-2 and I scored the winner."

He cemented a place and learned the game through being regularly cemented in tough environs. "I was in the first team playing against men. I was 16 and it helped a lot. I toughened up a bit more. Then going to Hearts back to the youth teams, the full-time training helped me so much as well. A combination of both came together and that helped me."

It was something of an eyebrow-raising development when, in January 2007, Hearts academy director John Murray convinced the, then, Lithuanian-heavy club to go native and pay a 30,000 fee for a skelf of a player who had been operating in the country's fourth footballing tier. Yet it didn't concern Templeton, farmed out on loan to Raith Rovers the following season, that Hearts weren't exactly considered to provide the perfect platform for young Scottish talent. "I was happy to go full-time to try and benefit me," says Templeton, who had a trial with Newcastle United around that time. "I wasn't thinking about the first team."

The return of Jim Jefferies last January following the sacking of Csaba Lazlo, however, made the Glaswegian think that first-team opportunities might improve from a two-year situation wherein they had proved irregular.

"I knew about his record of bringing along some great young players first time around at Hearts so I was happy when I heard about the appointment. He's been good with me and the way he wants me to play. He brought through wingers Allan Johnston and Neil McCann and it's great to know that players like that got the chance under him. That has helped me." Templeton has helped himself by walking, and running, the line.