Tattoos paint wrong picture, so Stevenson plans painful erasure

HEARTS midfielder Ryan Stevenson reckons his 'addiction' to tattoos has hindered his career – and is hopeful an operation to remove some will help erase the view that he is trouble.

The 25-year-old was Tynecastle manager Jim Jefferies' only recruit in January. For a player who began his career at Chelsea, Stevenson insists his subsequent moves to St Johnstone and then Ayr United resulted in people judging him unfairly. What was supposed to be a season at Ayr before bouncing back turned into three and left him contemplating the need to go part-time this summer. But, with others unwilling to take a chance on him – partly because of his body art, he believes – the Irvine-born player was thrilled when Jefferies made his move.

Stevenson is now desperate to do all he can – even if it means painful laser treatment – to prove wrong those who questioned his attitude. Speaking ahead of Wednesday's clash with Dundee United, he said: "Sometimes people get opinions about you with the tattoos and maybe they judge a book by its cover.

"Over the summer I'm going to look at getting a couple of tattoos off. I'll see how sore it is first and take it from there. I have well over 20 tattoos. I had some when I was younger but when I moved to Ayr I had a lot of spare time. Instead of going to the bookies, I went to the tattoo parlour. I think it was a kind of addiction. It maybe spiralled out of control a bit. The older you get, maybe you regret some of the ones you've got.

"The biggest I have is a full arm of Chinese symbols. A lot of them mean good luck and one is my wife's name, Anna. I have 'God's Fate' and 'Self Made' on my hands. I don't know why I got those, I think it was a mate that persuaded me. I had to try and find words with four letters in them.

"I heard teams were looking at me and the feedback I got was that they maybe weren't sure about my attitude because of the tattoos. It would be disappointing if that's how I was judged. Nobody questions the likes of David Beckham but that's because of where he is. It was always about someone taking a chance on me and I was just hoping it would happen. It was a touch of luck the manager getting a job at Hearts and now I want to repay him."