Remembering the whirlwind few hours when Hearts sacked Csaba Laszlo and brought back Jim Jefferies

It is exactly 11 years to the day since the Tynecastle side fired one manager and brought in his replacement within a matter of hours
Hearts unveil Jim Jefferies as their new manager on Friday, January 29, 2010. Picture: SNSHearts unveil Jim Jefferies as their new manager on Friday, January 29, 2010. Picture: SNS
Hearts unveil Jim Jefferies as their new manager on Friday, January 29, 2010. Picture: SNS

A whirlwind 24 hours in the recent history of Heart of Midlothian. Well, ‘24 hours’ is quite an exaggeration. Only a Friday afternoon and evening were required for Hearts to jettison one manager and have another announced, standing pitch-side, all smiles with the scarf above his head.

In fact, it would have been possible for a Jambos supporter on night-shift to go for a few post-work beers, stumble home to bed and wake up in darkness with several missed calls and messages telling him all about the drama. Is this writer coming up with this convoluted scenario purely to reflect on personal experience? Maybe.

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Though it only took a few hours for change to occur in the manager’s position at Tynecastle, it had in fact been brewing for months. Hungarian coach Csaba Laszlo was hailed as a saviour when he took over a rudderless club and managed to steer them to third place in his first season in charge, earning manager of the year honours in the process. However, even as the successful 2008/09 season was coming to an end there were rumblings of discontent between Laszlo and Hearts’ neurotic majority shareholder Vladimir Romanov. The pair came to an agreement which saw the head coach remain for the following campaign but cracks were quick to appear.

Subpar signings in the transfer window, some of which were foisted upon the frustrated boss, coupled with the departure of key talents Hristos Karipidis and Bruno Aguiar saw Hearts struggle to replicate their form of the previous season.

The biggest bone of contention circled around the striker’s position. Christian Nade fell in and out of Laszlo’s bad graces, Austrian import David Witteveen clearly didn’t have the talent for the Scottish top flight and youngster Gary Glen wasn’t showing the kind of consistency required to be the No.1 striker. This saw the promotion of teenagers Gordon Smith and Scott Robinson to the first team, but nobody could make the position their own.

The situation reached farcical levels at the beginning of the January transfer window when Laszlo brought in two players available on a free in Izale McLeod and future Hearts striker Steven MacLean to train at Riccarton. The manager wanted both but didn’t get either as Romanov didn’t sanction the deals.

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Though Hearts were actually in good form going into the Wednesday, January 27 clash with Aberdeen at Tynecastle, going unbeaten in seven league games, the 3-0 defeat was to be the last straw for the club’s hierarchy. Laszlo was out.

Club legend Jim Jefferies has always insisted he didn’t know anything about Laszlo’s impending departure until it had already been announced and he received a phone call while shopping in a local supermarket. Whether you believe that or not is irrelevant, he didn’t have to think twice about returning to the club he’d supported as a boy, captained during his playing days and managed successfully for five-and-a-half seasons, including ending the agonisingly long wait for a trophy with the 1998 Scottish Cup final triumph over Rangers. He would soon be joined by long-time assistant Billy Brown and former Tynecastle captain Billy Brown.

There wasn’t an immediate turnaround. The returning hero lost his first three games, including a horrendous League Cup semi-final defeat to St Mirren at Fir Park, a memory that’s sure to send shivers down the spine of any Hearts fan unfortunate enough to witness it. However, things soon started to pick up. Thanks, in part, to an oddly effective tactic of using mercurial wide-player David Obua as a beanpole striker. Hibs were defeated home and away in the final two derbies of the season, though Jefferies’ men could pick up enough points in the other games to catch their rivals and finished the campaign in sixth.

Optimism was renewed for the following term with a raft of new players coming in, including Kevin Kyle, Stephen Elliott and the eventual return of Rudi Skacel in late September. However, results were still a bit patchy with four victories from 10 in the league and a bonkers 4-3 League Cup exit to Falkirk.

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Then everything clicked. A 2-0 win at Easter Road started a run of 10 victories in 11 games (drawing the other) that concluded with a smash-and-grab victory over reigning champions Rangers at Tynecastle, pulling Jefferies’ side to within seven points of the top with a game in hand.

It was a team that shone so brightly yet burned out almost immediately. A hip injury to Kyle ruled him out for 18 months, effectively bringing his Hearts career to an end. Without the focal point in attack, the house of cards collapsed and a side previously laying waste to everyone in front of them struggled to navigate even the most meagre of obstacles. They won only one match in their final 12 and barely finished ahead of Dundee United in third.

A return to European football was still looked upon as a success given the frustrations of the season before and Jefferies was given the summer to add to the squad. It soon became apparent, though, the alarming form had showed several seeds of doubt in the volatile mind of Mr Romanov and just two games into the following campaign Jefferies and Brown were out.

Paulo Sergio was hired and it was a case of ‘all’s well that ends well’ for the Hearts support as they watched their side hammer Hibs in the 2012 Scottish Cup final under the Portuguese boss. But it wasn’t the type of departure that a club legend deserved.

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