Hearts Preview...Fae The Red Side

So? Am I worried about this new improved all conquering Jambo behemoth?

Er......no.

Leaving aside the fact it takes a helluva a lot more than 3 August wins and Andy Wanker calling ye 'ex-cullunt' on Scotspunk to send a shiver down this Dandies spine....I seem to recall the Bonnetti Bros garnering similar August plaudits upon their arrival.

I do have the sneaky feeling though that we may indeed become the latest scalp on their bandwagon come 5pm tomorra...what wi our poor record at Tynie, Tango and Sash having never won there and the usual post hun Game hangover to deal wi...fate isnae really on our side in this one.

But even if we do go down, who cares...I'll see it for what it is a lost skirmish in a longer war we're destined to win...who cares if they make the first bend ahead of us we'll still take them in the home straight after all this is a marathon not a sprint.*

(*This paragraph brought to you in association with 'Clichés R Us')

So given the short term pessimism, why the long term optimism?

Well mainly cos this is just what the Jambos do and I've heard and seen these revivals umpteen times before and they never amount to very much.

Indeed they almost always follow a pre-ordained pattern that goes a little something like this...

A new board sweeps in at Tynie, a manager is selected and they put together a decent side who briefly challenge and promise to live up to their own hype and that of the Weejia who are happy to indulge their fantasies as they know fine well they'll bottle it and never become a credible threat.

And then with almost clockwork precision, they sell their best players usually as back ups for the Huns reserves, the manager storms off in a huff/gets punted and having risen Icarus-like from the masses they promptly fall like the mythical aviator straight back from the dross from whence they originally came...the fans turn on the previous messiah asking 'where's all the money gone?' back the first passing charlatan force a change in the board and the whole sorry process begins again.

One can only marvel at the Jambo's almost goldfish like blissful ignorance of the repetitive cyclical nature of their existence...around and around and around and around the bowl they go completely unaware history keeps repeating itself around them.

Aye but this time it's different they proclaim....Vlads got millions...aye and?

Romanov is just doing what every new chairman does...splashing the cash to win over the fans and no that's not deja vu those proclamations really are exactly the same as the ones we heard from Wallet Merger and Pieman Robinson when they were the ones basking in the glow of the Jambos acclaim...mainly cos they weren't their predecessor...methinks a similar fate awaits their new messiah 18 months or so from now.

In fact to date the only thing he's done to date that Merger and Pieman haven't is to transform Hearts from a proud if flawed Scottish 'Provincial' team into a shop window for talent from other clubs...if you like Hearts are no longer a club but a shop window for FB Kaunas talent....a strategy not dissimilar to that adopted by the Bonnettis/Marrs at Dundee...hardly therefore a blueprint for sustained success then.

Aye but what about Burley...true when we were linked with him when Ebbe left I would have taking him in a shot but lets not forget however attractive his Ipswich sides were they were renown for making late runs into the Playoffs and then bottling it....sounds like Hearts have found their perfect soul mate then!!

Aye but what about a new players (none of whom were signed from agencies to which Mr Romanov or his associates are linked of course...oh no nothing shady like that honest guv!!)...aye I'll grant ye they look good but then so did Toni Koumbouare...say no more.

So really all this latest Jambo revival amounts to is what they always amount to ...their own fans hot air.

They seem desperate to claim and be known as "Scotland's Third Force" (A title they can have as far as I'm concerned) though to be fair since we went into decline a decade or so ago they probably have a better claim than most, provided of course you prefix it with the word 'Distant'.

Now I've put at least 30 seconds thought into this and with the use of Cod Psychology (Freudian),sweeping generalisation, unscientific observations and with Ed's permission Pie Charts, and one can only come to the conclusion that Jambos suffer from a collective case of Footballing 'Penis Envy' and that their 'Third Force' fixation is to deflect attention from their..ahem...inadequacies in certain areas.

For taking this dangerously close to a Graham Norton monologue (OOOOOH COCK!!!) any Jambos shy of retirement age who indulge in a bit of 'you show me yours and I'll show ye mine' wi anything tangible like say... oh I dunno...silverware, will discover St Mirren's is just as big and Hibs is twice the size of theirs ......god can you imagine the mental anguish this causes them!!!

It does explain the Tennent's Sixes Lap of honour thing though a case of "LOOOK !!! Another Half inch!!" perhaps?

This must be compounded when given a decade long free run of being best of the dross they haven't even reached the foothills graced by the Arabs let alone the Olympian height scaled by us in our pomp...and we had no need for superfluous words such as 'Third' when bummin up our team.

Thus the frustration that they feeling with the knowledge they have never and will never be as 'big' as us burns deep and torments every Jambo's soul.

Anyway as enjoyable and infantile as it is to make as many Jambo/Todger allusions as possible this is meant to be a match preview.

I've already indicated that precedent and my gut suggests we'll go down tomorrow but that doesnae mean we cannae well...hell no !!!

Even wi our patched up defence and threadbare attack we're more than capable of going down their and putting in one of our trademarked away days...sluggin it out, frustrating them, grabbing a goal or two and shutting up shop before nonchalantly ambling back to Aberdonia wi full points.

Defensively we can throttle any SPL side (and there's no Prso running at us to contend wi this week), in Nicholson, Demps and Seve we had a triumvirate of crack supplier to rival Tilly's widest which is handy cos Lovell looks the mutts on the deck and of course "We got Zizou Smith OOH We've got Zizou Smith!!"

So in the Bob the Builder stylee can we fix them yes we can!!!

So the head says aye, the heart desires it - it's just the gut says no...my heed/heart/arse prediction are as follows...

Head: 1-1 (including the obligatory Pressley dive/pen) Heart: 4-1 us (including the obligatory Pressley dive/pen) Gut: 1/2-0 them and yep that includes the obligatory Pressley dive/pen n'aw.

Fortunately though due to my diet my guts are often wrong and my predictions arenae that much better but as I said earlier defeat tomorrow disnae bother me, we'll simply do them in November up here...no long term damage done.

In the short term....och a few Jambo cyberwarriors giving it the biggun on messageboard...you know I think we'll survive and get over it pretty quickly.

Though any potential gloaters should be wary of the maxim about laughin last and loudest and recall the similar comments made about being a 'class above' last August...and then recall what happened in May.

Alas wi the Radio Red Army the morn nae the real deal (no ticket), but even in my absence I'm sure they'll outsing and noise up the swollen and newly enlisted ranks of the 'lifelong Jambos'...and surely as we take the points we should remind them that unlike them...

"WE WERE HERE WHEN WE WERE SHITE"

Forza Dandies

The Red Avenger