I fear I stumbled upon an unlikely and perhaps bitter truth as we found ourselves embroiled in a high-octane Hearts annual meeting on Monday night. Chris Robinson, long a vilified Hearts chief executive, is surely correct in his view that Hearts must leave Tynecastle.

I'd go further and say that Hearts will certainly be playing at Murrayfield next season and that, on this issue at least, history will look back kindly on the brave stance which he chose to take.

At the meeting, Robinson presented a clear and convincing presentation on why Hearts must escape Tynecastle. Frankly, his case was unanswerable, yet hordes of Hearts supporters at that meeting remained more focused on abusing Robinson and trying to tar his reputation instead of producing cogent objections to his case.

There was a depressing reminder inside that hall that the majority are quite often wrong; and not just this, but often ignorant and deluded as well. As a club, Hearts are in the death throes, in a wilting economy that is directly linked to their decrepit stadium. Yet around us on Monday night some

supporters were too busy slaying Robinson and even referring to Doug Smith, the Hearts chairman, as ''an English bastard''.

Personally, I was staggered that so many Hearts fans appeared less consumed with the possibility that their club might not exist in five years time than with the dreaded thought of leaving crumbling Tynecastle. ''You're a disgrace, Robinson,'' one supporter shouted, while another bellowed: ''We're no' leavin' Tynecastle and that's that.''

Amid all this a solitary voice chimed up: ''Is it a team you support or a stadium?''

Robinson is unarguably correct . . . if Hearts stay at Tynecastle they can certainly remain snug in their

antiquated den but will forsake their historic status as one of Scotland's big clubs.

Those same supporters who are besieging the so-called ''board of betrayal'' will surely be bellowing a lot louder in five years if a Tynecastle-bound Hearts have been reduced to the status of a Falkirk or a St Johnstone.

It is not Robinson's fault that Tynecastle has become wedged within in a legal, local government, and UEFA-inspired gridlock. Here is this stadium in Gorgie, land-locked on all sides, unsuited to redevelopment because of local authority legislation, with next to no parking facilities, a solitary dining suite, and with a McLeod Street stand which, when bits of its roof aren't falling in, stands as a monument to 1914 architecture and engineering. It is almost incidental that UEFA have said Tynecastle's pitch is too small.

Tynecastle, if Hearts remain there, will become the scene of the club's suicide. Yet, astonishingly, most supporters cannot get their heads around the notion of a mere postcode change of address.

Robert McGrail, a well-meaning Hearts shareholder, is offering a myopic and doomed solution. McGrail says he'll buy Tynecastle from Hearts and then lease it back to the club, thus ensuring Hearts continue to play there.

So, first, Hearts would have flogged their prime asset without putting it out to competitive tender. Second, Hearts would face paying an annual rent, for what was once their own home, which would further bleed the club. And, third, the most critical issue - the fact that Hearts are unable to diversify economically in Gorgie and thus enhance their finances - would remain gloriously unresolved.

Before the Ibrox PR machine quashed the notion, Rangers fans were up in arms yesterday at rumours that Ibrox might be sold in a similar move. Yet legions of Hearts supporters seem to think the McGrail plan is marvellous.

Following the logic of all this at Tynecastle the other night was a baffling exercise. Even the announcement that Craig Levein is having to cut a further (pounds) 850,000 from his playing budget next season can be directly linked to the haemorrhaging circumstances of life at Tynecastle.

The sooner Hearts escape Gorgie, as an imminent extraordinary general meeting will confirm, the better. And, if there is any justice, years from now, someone wrapped in the maroon and white will say: ''Chris Robinson was right.''