Blair Spittal reveals he was in Hearts end for 2012 Scottish Cup final as Neil Critchley reads up on history

No-one need articulate to Blair Spittal what Scottish Cup success means at Hearts. The midfielder didn’t grow up supporting his current employers but, curiously, found himself in among their supporters at Hampden Park on 19 May, 2012. Watching them annihilate city rivals Hibs 5-1 in the biggest result in their history gave Spittal memories for life.

They may well spring to the forefront of his mind on Friday evening when he strolls out of the Tynecastle Park tunnel for a Scottish Cup quarter-final against Dundee. A place in the semi-final at Hampden is the reward for the victors and, ahead of the tie, Spittal’s mind casts back to 2012.

“I was actually in the Hearts end that day,” said the player, then a 16-year-old youth at Queen’s Park, the club which owned Hampden then and played weekly there. “One of the Queen’s Park directors - Andy McGlennan - would have the young players working at the finals, handing out programmes. I was in with the Hearts fans that day with the programmes. I managed to get a couple extra and sold them in the street afterwards for a profit! By the time I got home, I had none left.

“I made a hefty profit and, added to my paper round at the time, it topped up the bank balance. Those are my memories of that day and it was mental to see the Hearts fans celebrate and what it meant to them. Being in the Hearts end was an experience for sure. It’s every player’s dream to lift trophies and we have an opportunity to win a quarter-final and get to Hampden. We don’t want to let that slip. We want to get to the semi and then deal with it.”

Dundee United, Motherwell, Partick Thistle and Ross County - but no major honours in Scotland

Major honours have hitherto eluded Spittal during a decent career in Scotland. He left Queen’s Park for Dundee United in 2014, moved on to Partick Thistle three years later and then joined Ross County in 2019. The switch to Motherwell in 2022 saw him become a frequent goalscorer and creator from midfield, prompting Hearts to sign him on a pre-contract agreement last year.

“My mum and dad have kept the medals I won as a young player,” he explained. “At Partick, I won a Player of the Year at the club and that was the first time. That was a good feeling to be recognised, as was winning Players’ Player of the Year for Motherwell last season. The ones that are voted for by your fellow pros mean a lot.

“To get a Scottish Cup medal would be the best - 100 per cent. That is why you come to clubs like Hearts, but we have a lot of work to do before that happens. The team got to two semi-finals last season and we want to go one better than that.”

Spittal played in every round of the 2016/17 Scottish Challenge Cup for United but injury precluded him from the final, which ended in a 2-1 victory over St Mirren at Fir Park. He is eager to lift major silverware, with some Hearts team-mates having already done so with previous clubs.

READ MORE: Baningime’s Hearts shock

“We have two of the St Johnstone boys who won the double in the squad now - Zander Clark and Jamie McCart,” acknowledged Spittal. “They have experience of winning trophies and it’s massive for us to draw on that. We want to create our own success here now.”

The Edinburgh club’s head coach, Neil Critchley, is educating himself on Hearts’ Scottish Cup history. His head has been in a book called Reminiscing with Legends by Anthony Brown, which tells the story of 1998 Scottish Cup success in Gorgie. “You want to be at a club that has that expectation, because it means you're fighting for something. Pressure should be something that you want,” said Critchley.

“It's a nice pressure to have and you have to use that to your benefit. You've got to thrive and use it to your advantage. You can't see that as a negative. You have to understand those feelings, deal with them and channel it into positive feelings all the time. We've been close in the last couple of years - finals, semi-finals, etc. So, when you get to cup competitions and you start to win a few games, then that feeling of having something there to try and achieve, then your excitement grows.

“With the excitement, then comes the external pressure and we have to deal with that. Internally, we just focus on the things we can control, which is how we prepare for the games and what we need to do to keep moving forward and improve as a team. I know it's a bit of a cliché, but you get the comments from all the spectators and they see you on the street, the old cup tales and all that stuff. That should inspire.

“I've been reading the book that I was very kindly given and it's really interesting. It's fantastic listening and reading about players and managers and coaches and staff and supporters, everyone talking about the cup runs and what happened along the way. You feel it, you see the pictures and it's brilliant. You want those things to happen for us, for the players, for the group, because you want to create memories along the way. That's the beauty of this game. You want something at the end when you're getting older and moving forward. You want something to look back on and remember. We're close, but we're still far away at the moment.”

Critchley is not in it for personal gain. He knows Hearts is far more than one man. “It would mean more for the people of this football club and the supporters. You desperately want to bring success to the people because you see what it means to them,” he explained. “You see the passion that they have for the football club and this is their club. There are people who've been here a very long time within the staff and you know what it means to them.

“When you love what you do, you're passionate about your job, your role and your connection at the club grows with time. Then that feeling inside you and that special feeling that you have, that connection becomes stronger and those emotions become more powerful and then that meaning becomes a little bit greater. For us to collectively achieve something together for this football club would be unbelievable.”

READ MORE: Hearts v Dundee injury latest: 10 players out but one man returns