A GROUP of long-standing Hearts supporters with an interest in the side's links to World War I have settled the club's debt for unpaid poppy wreaths.
Officers from McCrae's Battalion Trust settled the outstanding bill with the Lady Haig Poppy Factory for at least four wreaths bought by the Tynecastle side before it went into administration, with one member saying that more than £400 was handed over.
The trust commemorates The 16th Royal Scots, which suffered heavy losses during WWI with casualties including many football players from Hearts and other Scottish clubs, including Raith Rovers and Dunfermline.
Hearts FC has heavily promoted its links to the Great War with a memorial to the fallen players in the process of being reinstated at Haymarket.
Antony Kozlowski, officer of McCrae's Battalion Trust, said that he and colleague felt moved to settle the bill.
He said that around £400 was collected between half a dozen officers to cover the cost of wreaths, including one yet to be laid at the McCrae's Battalion Memorial Cairn at Contalmaison in northern France, where many of the soldiers died in the opening stages of the 1916 Battle of the Somme.
Documents from the club's administrators show that Hearts owed £185 to the poppy factory, with a spokeswoman for Poppy Scotland saying the difference may cover wreaths which had been ordered in advance.
Mr Kozlowski said officers used their own money to pay the factory and that it would not be appropriate for the trust to foot the bill.
"The people at Hearts would not be willing to let a debt to Lady Haig to go unpaid.
"We stepped in because we knew that nobody else could by law."
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