About Me
Hearts were founded in 1874 and are named after a dance hall, which in turn took its name from the novel The Heart of Midlothian by Sir Walter Scott.They played at parks such as The Meadows, Powburn and Powderhall and moved to the Gorgie area sometime in 1881. They moved to their current Tynecastle site in 1886. Hearts' major rivals in Edinburgh are Hibernian F.C. Hearts' first match was on Christmas Day 1875, when they beat Hibernians 1–0. It wasn't until their titanic five game struggle for the EFA Cup in 1878, that the two clubs became the dominant ones in Edinburgh. Hearts won the fifth match 3–2 after a ridiculous run of 0–0, 1–1, 1–1 and 1–1 draws.Hearts had considerable success in the early years of the Scottish Football League and won the league championship consecutively in 1894-5 and 1895-6. Four Scottish Cups were also won between 1891 to 1906.Between 1906 and 1954 Hearts did not win a major trophy. The most successful period in the club's history led to the 1958 League title with a record 62 points, with 132 goals scored in 34 matches. They also won the League in 1960 and during this period won the Scottish League Cup four times in 1955, 1959, 1960 and 1963. During this time the club contained many top, now legendary, names such as Alfie Conn,'King' Willie Bauld, Jimmy Wardhaugh, Dave Mackay and Alex Young.From the mid 1960s Hearts went into decline and with the advent of the ten team Premier Division in 1975 spent several seasons outside the top flight. However, the arrival of chairman Wallace Mercer led to a revival in the club's fortunes, with the team narrowly failing to win the league in 1986 and finishing runners up in 1988. Since then the changing economics of football have made it almost impossible for Hearts, like other Scottish clubs, to compete with the dominant Old Firm clubs (Celtic and Rangers). Hearts recently beat Gretna on penalties to win the Scottish Cup on the 13th May 2006 under interim coach Valdas Ivanauskas, following from their cup success in 1998 under the management of Jim Jefferies.In recent seasons Hearts have usually been the third best side in Scottish Football. Since the Scottish Premier League introduced an end of season split into two groups of six, Hearts have been the only team other than Rangers and Celtic to have been in the top six each season. They finished third in 2002-3 and 2003-4 and have acquitted themselves well in the UEFA Cup, having reached the inaugural group stages in 2004-5, which they finished bottom of. During the 2004-5 season, they finished fifth in the league which led to the resignation of former manager, and playing legend, John Robertson.
