Why aren't Hearts a bigger club?

Edinburgh teams you’d think could be big clubs.

Maybe it’s the league that’s always been dominated by the Glasgow teams.

But I suppose it’s like asking why aren’t Bristol City a massive club. Big city isn’t enough need tradition, history, football culture.
 
Papac said:
Watching them struggle against Dundee Utd tonight in a pretty much empty stadium has made me wonder again why Edinburgh has failed to have one decent team for the last 30 years or so at least. Rangers and Celtic have obviously dominated Scottish football and there was the brief period in the 80s when Dundee Utd/Aberdeen became the best clubs in the country. It's nearly 60 years since they won the top league in Scotland.

Too many people in Edinburgh who aren't interested in football?

Rangers and Celtic holding far too much influence over most football supporting people in the Central Belt?

Hibs and Hearts splitting the city in a way that it can't cope with in the same way Glasgow has?
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Rangers and them are and will continue to be too strong,the so called "new firm went through a purple patch back in the eighties however any like minded old firm punter could,back then see it as simply a phase.

Hearts nor Hibs will ever become stronger than us or them ( well not in my lifetime ).
 
For those suggesting that Edinburghers' fondness for egg chasing is a factor limiting Hearts' growth as a club, why then are the crowds for club rugby so poor? And what do the rugger fans do outwith the small Six Nations window?

I'm sure some of these rugby types actually like football too - so why are more of them not going along to Tynecastle?
 
Thanks for Neil McCann. Even then it was Dundee who brought him through.


Actually don’t mind the jam tarts. Admired robbo growing up.
 
It's a hard one in Edinburgh them and spoonburners only care about who finish above who. And if they can beat the famous and that beastie lot from the east end. But in saying that they screwed up in 2006 due to a mad Russian
 
I live in Edinburgh, the guy across the road is a rugby man like many. But tells me he would go to the Rangers games with his sons before they left home. Other 2 next to me are from Glasgow ones Rangers the other not bothered for football. One further down is from Aberdeen and a sheep fan. There’s plenty of Hearts and Hibs fans there but I’ve been here 7 years and you don’t find many people here actually from Edinburgh. I know more Rangers fans here than the Edinburgh clubs and I’ve not tried to seek out a supporters club or Rangers bar. The pool of supporters for these clubs is small whereas Rangers are the biggest club in the country, stands to reason they’d have more fans all over. As for them, well %^*& them!
 
Maybe the “up and coming” women’s game provides an opportunity for them to find some success?
 
Edinburghs also full of folk not from Edinburgh. Plenty of good players produced come from the Lothians and not the city itself. Plenty Hearts fans around but then again I lived in Gorgie/Slateford.

Got to look at the quality of the football and the same can be said for most teams it's not an attractive prospect at £25 a ticket to watch.
 
Rangers and Celtic are too big for the rest. Not even the national team can compete with their popularity, as Berti Vogts once observed when talking about the differences between Scotland and Germany.

The turgid football Hearts are known for doesn't help matters, though.
 
sheddensbear said:
Apparently Hearts had the biggest average crowds for 3 seasons in the 1930s.
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From 1921 until 1939 Rangers and Hearts were the two best supported clubs in the country from 55 to 61 the same. They were always top 3-4 they have a big support for team who don’t win much in a country the size of Scotland.
The problem with comparison is that Rangers and in the last 50 years or so the other big Glasgow team have been had freakishly large crowds for the size of the country.
 
Papac said:
You're right in that they are. The question I'm asking is why our second biggest city can't produce a club capable of challenging the biggest one here. England has Manchester and London, Germany has Munich and generally speaking the Ruhr area. Holland has Rotterdam and Amsterdam, Portugal has Porto and Lisbon. I don't see why Edinburgh has failed as much as it has to produce a club that challenges for the national league.
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It’s a population issue plus the industrial v professional history of Glasgow v Edinburgh
 
It would be the same with us if we had no chance of ever winning the league again, let's be honest. It's like our early 80s, permanently. That's the reality now for every other club in Scotland, outwith us and them.
 
J Spaceman said:
For those suggesting that Edinburghers' fondness for egg chasing is a factor limiting Hearts' growth as a club, why then are the crowds for club rugby so poor? And what do the rugger fans do outwith the small Six Nations window?

I'm sure some of these rugby types actually like football too - so why are more of them not going along to Tynecastle?
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If you are referring to Edinburgh in Pro 14 then it had roots in what was traditionally the district team in the amateur era - just like Glasgow Warriors through this side of Scotland.

However, unlike Glasgow, there are a lot of more established "smaller" rugby clubs in Edinburgh (and the Borders too) where I would suggest there is a lot more loyalty to those clubs rather than going to see the pro club. Not saying that it's massive crowds going to see these clubs but it is significant enough (when you add it up) to impact football. You also have to consider that the Borders region is very much a rugby area and very territorial at that - fans of the local clubs by and large refused to go an see the Borders district before it merged in with Edinburgh.
 
Edinburgh isnt really a sports city these days. Both Hearts and Hibs should have far bigger crowds but Edinburgh locals just don't back their sports teams.

But more than that, Hearts are suffering from the same problems that all of Scottish football is experiencing. Football is no longer a core part of our culture - at least not Scottish football - and we don't have enough quality youngsters coming through. We don't have enough quality youngsters coming through because we have less kids playing football. All Pro Youth has done is limit the number of kids playing football and take money away from many smaller teams.

Tynecastle should be packed out game after game. Kids should be playing football as much as possible. Neither of those things are happening because Scotland has turned it's back on Scottish football. Too many people see football as something you watch on TV and too many kids see football as something you play on a playstation.

It's going to be a pretty great afternoon today and we've got competitive football all across Scotland. How many of those games will have decent crowds?
 
Michael Mols said:
Too many teams in Scotland.
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Nonsense.

You don't attract bigger crowds to football by cutting the number of teams. All you achieve is to kill clubs and drive fans away from the game.

You think that if you merged Hibs and Hearts you'd have 40,000 fans turning up at Murrayfield to watch a team that could fight it out with the old firm? Or the 2 Dundee clubs? The 4 Angus clubs perhaps?

The whole "too many clubs" argument is promoted by people with absolutely no appreciation for lower league football and who have absolutely no interest in our game beyond single club loyalty.
 
Papac said:
It wouldn't be popular but it would be the best thing for football in the city. I've never really appreciated the argument of sentiment in regards to this. You'd probably lose a few hundred or even thousands fans, but the second the amalgamated team starts picking up a bit of success, there'd be fans piling in. I'm sure that was the case in Livingston and Inverness (at least). Dundee could probably do with one team as well.
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As could Lanarkshire too many teams l, clyde, motherwell, hamilton, airdrie and Albion rovers and none of them have a gate over 4k
 
Broxibear1873 said:
As could Lanarkshire too many teams l, clyde, motherwell, hamilton, airdrie and Albion rovers and none of them have a gate over 4k
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And a combined team would have similarly terrible crowds.

Merging clubs doesnt work. We've seen that all too well with Caley Thistle. Caley are hated in Inverness and don't attract anything like the crowds they should because the merger still causes significant unhappiness.
 
As has been said before Edinburgh is a city full of people who arent from there. Of the 6 Season ticket holder who I drink within my local 1 could be said to be from Edinburgh. The others are from Greenock, Ayrshire, Mid Calder, Broxburn, Dalkieth.
The thing that I have always thought laughable about the two is that they win a cup and parade it in front of 250,000 on Princes St, but cant fill a 22,000 seater stadium on a Saturday afternoon.
There was an old Jambo, now gone, who said to me that Rangers & Celtic were only the size they are because of sectarianism and Hearts & Hibs couldnt fill their grounds because of all the buses leaving Edinburgh to go to Ibrox & Torbett Towers. He was a bit stuck for an answer when I pointed out to him that he therefore wasn't opposed to sectarianism, just that it wasn't filling his clubs ground.
 
I just don't think Edinburgh has enough indigenous working class males. It is a middle class city with lots of economic migrants.
 
Lance Uppercut said:
As has been said before Edinburgh is a city full of people who arent from there. Of the 6 Season ticket holder who I drink within my local 1 could be said to be from Edinburgh. The others are from Greenock, Ayrshire, Mid Calder, Broxburn, Dalkieth.
The thing that I have always thought laughable about the two is that they win a cup and parade it in front of 250,000 on Princes St, but cant fill a 22,000 seater stadium on a Saturday afternoon.
There was an old Jambo, now gone, who said to me that Rangers & Celtic were only the size they are because of sectarianism and Hearts & Hibs couldnt fill their grounds because of all the buses leaving Edinburgh to go to Ibrox & Torbett Towers. He was a bit stuck for an answer when I pointed out to him that he therefore wasn't opposed to sectarianism, just that it wasn't filling his clubs ground.
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He had a point. Provincial teams do suffer because of the number of fans who travel from all over Scotland to go to Rangers or Celtic games.

He was wrong for his reasoning. It's largely down to the success of both sides rather than any sectarianism.

The problem is that if those fans who travel to Glasgow didnt make that journey, would they go along to their local club? The sad fact is that they wouldn't. We've got more than enough people in Scotland for clubs to attract sustainable crowds. What we don't have is any public will to support Scottish football. Too many people won't go along to their local ground on a Saturday afternoon. Football isnt part of our national psyche anymore.
 
iaatpies said:
Nonsense.

You don't attract bigger crowds to football by cutting the number of teams. All you achieve is to kill clubs and drive fans away from the game.

You think that if you merged Hibs and Hearts you'd have 40,000 fans turning up at Murrayfield to watch a team that could fight it out with the old firm? Or the 2 Dundee clubs? The 4 Angus clubs perhaps?

The whole "too many clubs" argument is promoted by people with absolutely no appreciation for lower league football and who have absolutely no interest in our game beyond single club loyalty.
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I’m not suggesting mergers. It would never work but if there had only ever been the one team in Edinburgh do you not think they’d be a bigger side than Hearts and Hibs?
 
Broxibear1873 said:
Nailed it
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So cutting the number of teams in Scotland to 20 (for example) would suddenly see crowds rise across the remaining 20 teams?

Aye. Course it would. The inhabitants of Dundee are going to put aside their differences and support a combined Dundee team and absolutely won't simply stop going to football games.
 
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Michael Mols said:
I’m not suggesting mergers. It would never work but if there had only ever been the one team in Edinburgh do you not think they’d be a bigger side than Hearts and Hibs?
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No. They wouldn't.

They'd still face the same problems getting people to go to a game on a Saturday afternoon. The issue isnt whether fans choose Hibs or Hearts. The issue is whether or not people choose football or something else to do on a Saturday afternoon.
 
iaatpies said:
He had a point. Provincial teams do suffer because of the number of fans who travel from all over Scotland to go to Rangers or Celtic games.

He was wrong for his reasoning. It's largely down to the success of both sides rather than any sectarianism.

The problem is that if those fans who travel to Glasgow didnt make that journey, would they go along to their local club? The sad fact is that they wouldn't. We've got more than enough people in Scotland for clubs to attract sustainable crowds. What we don't have is any public will to support Scottish football. Too many people won't go along to their local ground on a Saturday afternoon. Football isnt part of our national psyche anymore.
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A Hearts fan I worked beside in 2012 actually though that Hearts could benefit from an increase in crowds if Rangers completely folded.
I left him in no doubt that wouldn't be happening and from my point of view only Junior teams may benefit.
I personally would never have set foot in a senior ground again.
 
When Burley was at Hearts they were packed out every week, they have been rank rotten ever since and the fans aren’t going to pay £25 to watch it.
Hibs are the same, their fan base aren’t willing to pay to watch dross. Living here I know a few fans of both teams and that seems to be the reason.
 
Lance Uppercut said:
A Hearts fan I worked beside in 2012 actually though that Hearts could benefit from an increase in crowds if Rangers completely folded.
I left him in no doubt that wouldn't be happening and from my point of view only Junior teams may benefit.
I personally would never have set foot in a senior ground again.
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Which highlights the big problem in Scottish football. If Rangers had folded that almost no supporters would have found a new club to follow. Fans would simply have walked away from Scottish football. Same for any other club.

The public needs to decide whether or not it wants a professional game to follow in Scotland? If it wants professional football then the public needs to start to go to games.
 
Because they play in a city that is full of weirdos who don't like football, and the few who do have to come to a real football city for their kick.
 
Made their bed with the 19th Century Terrorist element of Scottish football 7 years ago.

They'll continue to shrink and I hope to %^*& we aren't holding an Olive branch in their hour of need.
 
Kimarcus said:
They were stronger than Aberdeen from about 1995-2010. They've been mismanaged frankly. No matter if people won't admit it but McInnes has been a success for Aberdeen. Very consistent and that consistency has grown their revenue to a significant extent where they are now ahead of the Edinburgh clubs for sure.
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McInnes has been consistently mediocre, if you include his record v the mhanks, consistently rank. P24, W4, D1.
 
Fingers1872 said:
McInnes has been consistently mediocre, if you include his record v the mhanks, consistently rank. P24, W4, D1.
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Finishing in the European spots for 6 years in a row isn't consistently mediocre for Aberdeen at all. In fact that's consistently an overachievement for them compared to what came before.
 
Used to not mind them, but unfortunately a lot of their support, maybe the younger ones, have jumped in bed with the nationalists, thus a loathing for us and a liking for the scum . At least this is the feeling you get from their forum, although to be fair, their forum is full of real morons and quite possibly not representative of their support as a whole. It’s probably one of the most laughable forums in Scotland. Still take them over Hibs every day of the week.
 
Football was on a steady decline for decades up here, and the events of 2012 saw it drop off a cliff. It's not just about Hearts, it's about all the other so called "top clubs" up here. It's gash, they killed football off up here and unless there is a massive rethink on how football works across Europe then it will never change. We will have the odd flashes of joy and success, but fundamentally Scottish football is probably third tier at best now. The inability of the likes of Aberdeen to land a punch on the scum whilst we were down the leagues, and at various points so were Hearts, Hibs and Dundee Tesco, sums it up.

Whether or not Hearts should be "bigger" is just a moot point in the middle of the bigger mess.
 
Papac said:
I think that's maybe a part of it but there should still be enough people in Edinburgh that aren't interested in rugby to fill a 40,000 stadium. I think the problem they've got is that Hibs/Hearts split that between a population that isn't capable of filling a stadium in the way Glasgow managed to.
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Our support just doesn't come from Glasgow there is many thousands from ayrshire also Ulster bears account for a lot not withstanding East and North Scotland bears WATP
 
EverGer said:
I get bored of posts like this on here. People constantly say stuff like this then at the same time constantly go on about how bad Scottish football is.
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And about how much Scottish football hates Rangers.

If Scottish football is hating itself to death as is a popular view on here then Rangers fans are certainly contributing to that.
 
iaatpies said:
And about how much Scottish football hates Rangers.

If Scottish football is hating itself to death as is a popular view on here then Rangers fans are certainly contributing to that.
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By packing out grounds up and down the country week in week out?

Rangers fans owe Scottish football nothing.
 
Walters80 said:
Bit off topic but quite amazing how differently both clubs were treated for insolvency events.

- Rangers were fined for going into administration they weren’t.

- They failed to pay players on several occasions (no action from the SFA/SPL)

- Hearts taken to court by HMRC several times for failure to pay tax. No 7 plus year investigation into them by the football authorities?

- Hearts debt was around £30m at the time of admin which was bigger than the debt we went into administration with but somehow we were cheats and they were victims????

The hypocrisy of Scottish football is staggering at times.
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Scotland's then First Minister, Fat Eck, actually flew to Lithuania to assist Hearts extricating themselves from their problem. We received zero help or comment from any politician to the best of my knowledge.

There was also the case of Dunfermline who had a £12million debt written off by BoS - the same bank which...
 
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