Hearts Redevelopment Programme - 01/02/03

Those of us who can remember the mid 1950s recall Hearts as the leading club in Scotland at the time. Now, with Scottish football dominated by the Celtic-Rangers duopoly, the club is the equivalent of a Nationwide Division One club. The club has now completed its main redevelopment programme with three new stands built in three years pushing up capacity to 17,500. The £8m cash injection by Scottish Media Group in September 1999 (which could ultimately give them 37 per cent of the shares) was seen as a big boost to the club and scuppered talk of a revival of a Hearts-Hibs merger as Edinburgh United, a scheme which fans loathe. However, the extra money does seem to have produced 'the move to the next level' which was hoped for. In 2001-2 there was a £2.70m pre-tax loss on a turnover of just over £6 million which had fallen back from just over £8m. This reflected a lack of European football and a lack of progress in the two Scottish cup competitions.