ON a day when the football community of the present remembered the sacrifice of players of the past, it almost seemed like a sacrilege to think of the future of something so comparatively trivial as the SPFL Championship title race.
Yet, after tribute had been paid to the 10 Hearts and Raith Rovers players who failed to return from the First World War, thoughts did indeed turn to whether Robbie Nielsen's Tynecastle side can keep ahead of Rangers in the pursuit of the top spot that guarantees promotion to the Premiership.
Hearts had to rely on the long-range shooting of Turkish defender Alim Ozturk to supply their only goal for the second league game in a row. As the defender gathered the ball 35 yards out, the home fans yelled: "Shoot", hoping - half in jest - for a repeat of his sensational equaliser in the recent derby match against Hibernian.
While that long-range effort had been unsaveable, this one should have made for a simple parry for Raith goalkeeper David McGurn. Sadly for him, he failed to stop the ball tumbling into the net behind him.
After his previous match-saving effort, Hibs manager Alan Stubbs had moaned that Ozturk could try the same thing a thousand times again and not score. "So that was another fluke," the Hearts player said with a wink. "I heard the fans shout and just went for it."
Ozturk's goal should have been the cue for the home team's young forward players to show the skills and panache that have lit up this division since August. The trio of Billy King, Jamie Walker and Sam Nicholson interchanged positions and buzzed about behind Soufian El Hassnaoui, but time and again they came up against a solid wall of Raith defenders. Clearly they missed the powerful presence of Swedish forward Osman Sow, sidelined by a thigh strain.
It says much for Hearts' lack of penetration and Raith's doughty defending that the unfortunate McGurn was given no real chances to atone for his error. Instead, the visitors grew in confidence before subjecting the Hearts goal to a sustained but ineffectual assault in the closing minutes.
By that stage the home side were down to 10 men due to Adam Eckersley limping off with a hip injury moments after his team's third substitution.
A minute from time Hearts goalkeeper Neil Alexander rushed a clearance that was met by the boot of Raith midfielder Liam Fox 40 yards out. Fortunately for his team, Alexander scurried back to his goal to make a flying save and secure three vital but barely justified points.
"Raith deserved something," admitted Neilsen. As for Ozturk's winning goal? "Another lucky strike," the Hearts manager said with a laugh.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article