David Templeton: Vladimir Romanov stole my boots for training at Hearts

David Templeton says he was disappointed to leave Hearts in 2012.

Hamilton winger David Templeton today revealed how Vladimir Romanov used to steal his boots to wear at training during their time at Hearts.

The controversial Russian, who owned the Edinburgh club between 2005 and 2013, attended sessions at Riccarton whenever he was in the country and had a penchant for Templeton’s footwear.

Speaking to the Football Daft podcast, Templeton explained how Romanov’s assistants would run around the pitch retrieving balls for him.

“[Romanov] hit shots in to his interpreter, and if there were no goals, he would just kick the ball and his interpreter would have to go and get the ball and bring it back to him,” said the player, who recently signed a new two-year contract with Hamilton.

“It was like a wee puppy dog, having to get the ball for him. But we’d be training, and a couple of the boys would be like ‘by the way, he’s got your boots on’.

“He [Romanov] used to just go in the boot room and put my boots on, because he was the same size as me. I was the only one that was a size seven; he used to take my boots. I swear, I’m not even joking.”

Templeton insisted he never planned to leave Hearts when he was sold to Rangers in a £700,000 deal in August 2012. The Glasgow club were restarting in the third tier of Scottish football that season.

The night before the transfer went through, Templeton had scored for Hearts against Liverpool in a Europa League play-off tie at Anfield.

“The thing that was easy about it was I was getting forced out from Hearts, because they were struggling financially and they needed the money badly, or else I think they were going to go bust, to be honest,” he recalled.

“So, I got told, they phoned my agent and said when I was going through if I don’t sign, I’ll never play for Hearts again – I’ll go back, I’ll train with the kids – all that type of stuff.

“So, I just thought to myself it’s better playing in the third division than not playing at all. And obviously financially it was good as well, so there’s no choice to make there.”

“The thing that annoyed me as well, after I signed, Hearts came out the next day with a statement saying that I had a bad attitude, I wanted to leave, they’d offered me umpteen new contract offers and I rejected every one.

“They hadn’t; they’d offered me one new contract, and I think it was £200 more than what I was on. And I was one of the lowest paid at the time as well. They came out and made it as if I was a bad egg, basically.

“That annoyed me, because I loved Hearts, I had nothing bad to say about them whatsoever. I got on well with everybody, so for that to happen, that was quite annoying.

“But I don’t know if that’s purely been from Romanov, passed down having to say that?”

Templeton also revealed a tale about playing for Hearts reserves in his younger days.

“When I went I was a kid, so I was in the youths, and that’s when it was mainly all the Lithuanians and foreign coaches, so I never really got to train with many of them.

“I started training when it was actually [coach] Stevie Frail, I started training with the first team, and then obviously Csaba [Laszlo] came in. But he was a strange character, Csaba.

“He used to slaughter the young boys. I remember we played the reserves, and we were playing Celtic at Forthbank, Stirling Albion’s stadium, and if Celtic won that day, they would have won the reserve league.

“So, they had Paddy McCourt playing, and he was tearing us apart, and it ended up it was 2-1 – 88th minute.

“I scored to go 2-2, and then I think it was wee Scott Robinson scored the winner, 3-2 – stopped them winning the league.

“We came back in training on the Monday and Csaba was like ‘it’s not good enough, you can’t lose to them’, and stuff.

“Like, what the f***? What’s he talking about?

“He left at 86 minutes - he thought we got beat 2-1. Didn’t have a clue.

“And we’re looking at him like ‘what the f***?’ This is the first team manager and he’s slaughtering us for getting beat when we had won.”

Listen to David Templeton’s interview here: Football Daft

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