Gary Mackay: Where I put Rudi Skacel in pantheon of Hearts greats

Rudi Skacel won the Scottish Cup twice with Hearts. Pic: TSPL

There is no doubting his place in the folklore of our club. I grew up watching legends like Jim Cruickshank and Donald Ford, then I was lucky enough to play with John Robertson and see him score a phenomenal amount of goals. The 1998 team rightly deserve their place among the legends.

Rudi is up there with all of them. He found his heart and soul when he came to Tynecastle. He was one of the top attacking players ever to play for our club. He was a game-changer, someone who got people off their seats.

We don’t have somebody like that in the squad right now. Steven Naismith is probably the closest to Rudi at the moment in terms of how the supporters relate to him. They are totally different players and totally different characters, though.

There was already plenty fanfare surrounding Skacel towards the end of his second spell with us. His last game ended up being the Scottish Cup final against Hibs and, clearly, there is no better way to bow out.

His contribution was wonderful before that final but it takes your status to another level when you score two goals in a national cup final against Hibs. If you were marking Rudi on his contribution, he was probably an ‘A’ at that time. The two goals in the cup final took him to an ‘A+’.

I felt it was right to recognise what he did at Hearts and that’s why I organised a tribute dinner for him a couple of years back. I thought it would be a nice idea but it quickly became impossible to satisfy the demand for tickets. We couldn’t find enough tickets for all the people who wanted to attend. Rudi actually found that difficult.

He genuinely isn’t someone who liked that attention. He appreciated the acknowledgement we gave him that night but he never looked for that adulation. He just wanted to go and play and express himself. He did that in a wonderful way.

He will forever stand tall for what he did at Hearts. He is somebody who is revered by the supporters and rightly so. Most players at most clubs generally split opinions. I don’t think Rudi Skacel splits opinions very much.