How Hearts broke Old Firm’s hold in best Scottish title fight for 40 years

The Hearts media department has had requests for access from Brazil, Mexico, Uganda, Australia and Kazakhstan, among umpteen other countries. The club’s star striker, Cláudio Braga, has featured on CBS’s huge Sports Golazo show. The German football media have been queueing up to speak to goalkeeper Alexander Schwolow. This week Radio 4 was looking for Derek McInnes, the manager, and Tony Bloom, the Hearts shareholder and Brighton & Hove Albion chairman, to appear on The Artificial Human and discuss AI. Bloomberg, Canal+ and the Financial Times have interviewed the chief executive, Andrew McKinlay. Hearts are big news. International news. Global news, even. The man from the Edinburgh Evening News is being squeezed in the Tynecastle press box.

That is what happens when you make good on Bloom’s stated ambition to disrupt Scottish football. That is a box Hearts have ticked already, regardless of how things pan out in the climax of the country’s most compelling title race in more than 40 years. Hearts have shaken things up and turned football’s most predictable two-horse race into something fresh and invigorating. The last time a club other than Celtic or Rangers won the league it was Aberdeen in 1985, managed by a 43-year-old Alex Ferguson. He is a knight now. And 84. With just a handful of games left Hearts are top of the league, a point clear of Rangers and three ahead of Celtic. Any of them could win it but around the maroon half of Edinburgh there is barely suppressed euphoria and anticipation about still being in the mix so close to the end. They all know this could be the season of their lives.

They are within touching distance of being Scotland’s Leicester City, the also-rans who came from nowhere to pull off something sensational. It’s not just that Hearts themselves finished seventh last season, 42 points behind Celtic and closer to the team who were relegated than to the champions. It’s that these days the natural order in Scotland is never disrupted like this. Since the dawn of time Celtic and Rangers have harvested 85 per cent of the league titles and taken 55 each. No one else has managed more than four. Celtic and Rangers’ domination is just one of football’s everlasting truths, as eternal as the sun rising and the tide coming in.

In the past 30 years the gap between them and the rest has grown wider than ever. The mushrooming season-ticket base and hyper-commercialisation of the Glasgow giants, accelerated by frequent and massive cash injections of Uefa money that is beyond the reach of other clubs, means that the traditional best of the rest, like Aberdeen, Hearts and Hibernian, are tiny specks in the rear-view mirror. Three seasons ago Celtic reached 99 points and Rangers 92, with Aberdeen — telescopes out, everyone — third on 57.

To give a sense of how well Hearts have punched above their weight across 33 of the league’s 38 rounds of fixtures so far, their latest annual turnover was a club-record £24million as Rangers posted £94million and Celtic £143million. Their season-ticket base is 15,500 compared with Rangers’ 45,000 and Celtic’s 53,000 — and the Glasgow clubs both charge higher prices. The Old Firm exert such a gravitational pull that fans are drawn to Ibrox and Parkhead from all over the country and beyond. But this is old hat. Everyone knows this. The new, irresistible story has been Hearts overcoming all of that to draw eyes away from Glasgow and to the east. How much of a shock is on the cards here? Think both Oxford and Cambridge being overtaken in the Boat Race.

So far, the stars have aligned. In June, Hearts announced Bloom had handed over £9.86million for a 29 per cent stake. He had been looking around for a suitable investment and was seduced by the club in Scotland’s capital city. This has been a revolution based on intelligence and judgment rather than money. Bloom has close connections with the data experts Jamestown Analytics, whose bespoke input on the suitability of signings has driven recruitment at Brighton, the Italian club Como, Union Saint-Gilloise in Belgium and, since 2024, Hearts (hence the interest from The Artificial Human). Bloom’s faith in the company is absolute. It is why, in August, he sat with a few of us inside Tynecastle and said he would provide no further money beyond his initial sum but would be very disappointed if Hearts were not champions within a decade. Jaws hit the floor, but they are way ahead of even his schedule.

For months they have refused to follow the usual script and melt away. Jamestown recruits like Braga, the Greek winger Alexandros Kyziridis, and Harry Milne, a 29-year-old defender who had never played in the top flight until Hearts signed him last year, hit the ground running. With other players delivering huge campaigns — Cammy Devlin, Craig Halkett, Lawrence Shankland — Hearts found a Goldilocks zone. They have been top of the league after every round of games since September.

McInnes has been the seasoned, experienced coach who generally dealt well with months of scrutiny about whether their bubble will burst. If he has appeared tetchy at times recently, in the home straight, few could blame him. This is uncharted territory and for him, especially, the pressure and the stakes are enormous. At 54, his own stock and appeal would soar were he to become the first since Ferguson to properly topple the Old Firm.

Celtic and Rangers have been woeful at times. That has helped. It was astonishing that, within weeks of each other, both appointed the worst and shortest-lived managers in their history. Rangers would be clear as leaders were it not for winning only one of their first eight league games under Russell Martin, who was duly sacked after 123 days in charge. Celtic saw that and said hold my beer. When Brendan Rodgers resigned he was eventually replaced by Wilfried Nancy, during whose chaotic eight-game reign they dropped 12 points out of a possible 18. The Old Firm have stabilised and improved under Danny Röhl and Martin O’Neill but this season’s champions are on course to finish with only 80 points. Over each of the past five seasons that figure has been more than 90 and in 2021 it was more than 100.

Bloom is not making occasional visits north to sashay around with a cigar out, rejoicing in how well things are going. Hearts insiders say that when he does appear he is demanding, challenging and unfulfilled. This may not feel as unusual to him as it does to everyone else. Last season Union Saint-Gilloise became champions for the first time in 90 years and right now they are top again. Bloom is not about the sugar rush of one-season wonders and his vision for Hearts is long-term. Those within the club talk with certainty about growing and consolidating, even if there is recognition that Celtic and Rangers will flex their muscles and present a greater challenge next season.

The present is tantalising and Scottish football’s split makes the run-in incredibly dramatic. After 33 games the 12-team Premiership divides in two for a final set of meetings and that means Hearts must navigate the final five games against all of their strongest rivals. Next up, an Edinburgh derby next weekend away to a Hibernian side who will throw the kitchen sink at them to spoil the dream. Then Rangers come to Tynecastle. On the final day, a trip to Celtic.

The tension is off the charts because Hearts have slowed down and been clawed back. They were once 13 points ahead of Rangers and eight clear of Celtic, with a superior goal difference to both, but that has been eroded. The Old Firm are on their shoulders, but of course the Glasgow pair must play each other and come through tough post-split games of their own. Not since 1982-83 has there been the real prospect of three teams being in the hunt on the final day of the season and this title is impossible to call with any confidence. Another element of intrigue is the fact that the last two times Hearts came closest to being champions, in 1965 and 1986, they lost out on the final day of the season. That is almost unendurably heavy baggage for supporters and those within the club who know the history all too well.

All of this is box office, which is why Sky Sports has the Edinburgh derby in its crown jewel Sunday 4.30pm slot next weekend and Hearts-Rangers sandwiched between Chelsea-Nottingham Forest and Everton-Manchester City on Bank Holiday Monday. The chief executive of the SPFL, Neil Doncaster, is also a board member of the European Leagues organisation and at a recent meeting in Germany he found the only title duels colleagues were fascinated by were those in Poland and Scotland.

“There is no question that across Europe the title race in Scotland has absolutely caught the imagination,” he said. “People have seen it as a two-horse race for so long that to have three clubs absolutely vying for the title has resonated with people watching from afar. We’re very aware that this is an international story, not just a Scottish story.”

The last time Hearts were champions, in 1960, Harold Macmillan was prime minister, Ben-Hur won best picture at the Oscars and Upper Volta became independent from France. They have been the team of the season, Braga has been the player of the season, and the fans’ paean to him, to the tune of Queen’s Radio Gaga, has been the chant of the season. The final matches will be the toughest so far and the bookmakers have Rangers as narrow favourites and Celtic second. Maybe it will slip away from Hearts and being pipped in a photo-finish would be agonising. But Hearts are still there and most neutrals long for them to pull it off. They are five games from making news around the world.

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