THE only thing remotely maddening about Lee Robinson going ‘oan a maddy’ was that the Englishman didn’t actually know what the term meant.

You, dear readers, will of course need no reminding of the playground colloquialism when a goalkeeper… wait. I beg your pardon. It was normally ‘a backie’ who went ‘oan a maddy’, someone, usually highly reluctantly, forced to relinquish their position as ‘poacher’ and take their turn between whatever passed for goalposts.

Regardless, time was very much at a premium when, with his side a goal down, Dunfermline goalkeeper/backie Lee Robinson decided to take matters into his own, er, feet.

The Pars fans roared the impromptu surge on as Robinson ran out of his penalty box, dribbled down the right-hand side past a couple of his own players and – reaching the halfway line with Hearts players thinking they’d better come out and put a stop to this nonsense – launched an impressive diagonal ball into the box that, alas, came to nothing in the end.

To see ‘a maddy’ in professional fitba was marvellous entertainment.

“I’m from England so I don’t know that one,” admitted Sunderland-born Robinson of the phrase, laughing when a member of the media suggested that for him it was called ‘normal’.

“I’ve done that since I was a kid so nothing different really, but I think when everyone’s knackered late on it gives a bit of energy.

“I should be doing better in that position – the lad was backing off. I probably should have beaten the full-back!”

They do say you have to be mad to be a goalkeeper, and the amiable Robinson seems as mad as a hatter. Apt perhaps, that the only goal which decided the game came from a former Hatter – Olly Lee, erstwhile of Luton Town, driving a sweetly-struck shot from the edge of the box into the bottom corner 11 minutes from time.

“I’ve not seen it early enough,” admitted Robinson. [They’ve had] one shot on target and that’s hard to take.”

The difference between Hearts taking their place in the last eight of the Betfred Cup and Ladbrokes Championship Dunfermline shocking the Premiership league leaders was the man at the other end of the park, Zdenek Zlamal.

Granted, there were no ‘maddies’, but the Czech performed far more orthodox goalkeeping duties to the height of his abilities.

Zlamal repelled an acrobatic volley from Faissal El Bakhtaoui with the score at 0-0 that Robinson said “could have been goal of the season”.

And then after Hearts had scored, Zlamal somehow stopped a looping Danny Devine header creeping in under the bar, and, in injury-time, blocked Aidan Connolly’s point-blank shot with his legs.

“He’s been the difference between the two teams,” admitted Robinson of Zlamal. “He’s won it for his team.”

Hearts captain John Souttar – handed the armband at just 21 due to Christophe Berra’s long-term injury – confessed: “It wasn’t pretty but it didn’t matter, as long as we won.

“We showed a bit of character to grind it out with a great save from Bobby at the end there.”

Bobby? Turns out ZZ’s top choice of moniker is, apparently, Bobby because his uncle looked like Bobby Charlton.

Told you goalkeepers are mad.

“Well, that’s what he asked to get called,” said Souttar.

“It’s better than pronouncing his first name, anyway!”

Upon being told Zlamal was more akin to Gordon Banks than Bobby Charlton at East End Park, Aberdeen-born Souttar cheekily cracked: “He wasn’t in training yesterday!”

There were smiles at full-time in the Hearts camp owing to the fact that the victory was all that mattered.

“That’s the way you have to look at it,” said Souttar, whose side look to have an excellent chance of reaching the semi-finals of the Betfred Cup after being drawn against Motherwell at home in the last eight.

“We were all talking about it before the game, the boys who had been to finals. We all agreed that there are horrible games along the way, when you have to grind out a result.

“If you are at Hampden, nobody is going to be saying: ‘Oh, remember that game at Dunfermline was terrible?...’

“You’ve got to strive for it, getting to Hampden, because it’s something this club hasn’t achieved in a few years.”

If Hearts can take satisfaction from the result, Dunfermline can gather massive confidence from their display.

“If we can compete with [Hearts] then we can compete with any team in our league and roll over the top of them even,” Robinson bullishly said.

“There’s been loads of changes but we’ve got a team full of really good footballers and I think if we do the right things and don’t make little mistakes we’ve got a right good chance of winning the league.”

With performances like that, and a backie more than prepared to go the extra mile, you’d be mad to bet against them.