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This time on My Sporting Hero, our guest is Gary Locke.
Gary is a born-and bred Jambo and made his debut for his boyhood heroes at 17, going on to play over 100 times for the Tynecastle club. After a sojourn at Bradford City, Gary joined Kilmarnock, appearing 110 times during a seven-year spell. A highly-rated defensive midfielder, his career was stymied by injury, and he was unavailable as club captain when Hearts won the 1998 Scottish Cup final against Rangers. Nowadays, Gary is Hearts’ principal ambassador and a board member for Foundation of Hearts, the trailblazing supporters’ movement which helped rescue the club after it was placed into administration in 2013.
Gary’s sporting hero is John Robertson, Hearts’ most prolific scorer of all time.
When I was a kid, I admired Kenny Dalglish whenever I watched Scotland, but my best early memories are of a young John Robertson coming into the Hearts team and scoring lots of goals. When you’re that age, it’s the goalscorers who appeal to you most — and wee Robbo was unbelievable.
They didn’t have squad numbers in those days, and Robbo would wear number 9 or 11, so I would get his number on the back of my Hearts replica shirt. He was usually the one who scored the important goals. When I was young, we seemed to have the Indian sign over Hibs, and Robbo would inevitably score the winning goal in the derbies. That’s why he was such a hero to me and most of my family. It definitely does mean more to you when you’re a local lad who plays for one of the big clubs in the city. He grew up a Hibs supporter, believe it or not, and I never let him forget that. However, he was a bit like Jamie Carragher at Liverpool; he grew up an Evertonian, but he played so many times for Liverpool that he’s now more affiliated with them.
My favourite Robbo goal would probably be one he scored at Easter Road, just after Wallace Mercer had tried to take over Hibs. It was a horrible atmosphere. Wayne Foster crossed it and Robbo ran in and scored with a header to put us 3-0 up. It wasn’t a brilliant goal, but it meant so much. I was in the Dunbar End with my dad, brothers and all my mates, and it was bonkers. I’ve never seen Hearts fans celebrate a goal as much as that.
His records will never be broken because nowadays players don’t stay at the same club for 13 or 14 seasons. The number of goals Robbo scored was incredible. Then he went to Newcastle and I was absolutely devastated. I remember thinking, who’s going to score the goals for us now? Then he came back and we were all over the moon. I’m pretty sure he scored the winning goal in his first Edinburgh derby back. I was in the Shed at the time and that’s where he would run to whenever he scored a goal. To have him back at the club was unbelievable.
When I was at Hearts as a 13, 14-year-old kid, we used to train at Saughton on a Tuesday night. Robbo and Gary Mackay would sometimes come and take the training. It was incredible for me as a youngster being coached by my idols. I used to talk about it for days afterwards. When I came in full-time at the age of 16, I met them a lot more often, because they’d take the training or attend social events. To come in and train with them every day, as a full-time footballer — I was in dreamland. A lot of kids nowadays say how they’d love to play for Man United or Man City or Real Madrid or Barcelona, but for me, my dream was always just to play with Hearts.
When I first broke into the first team at the age of 17, my mum said to me, “Do you not think it’s about time you took down your photographs of the Hearts players from your bedroom wall, now that you are playing with them?” But I continued to see them as idols, and I still idolise them even today, because they were my heroes when I was growing up. I was lucky enough to get in the team and play alongside them, and then be their captain, but for me, you don’t change who your hero was as a kid. The fact that I got to play alongside these boys was unbelievable.
If you speak to Paul Ritchie, Allan McManus, Allan Johnston or any of the lads I came through with, they’ll tell you that Robbo, Gary Mackay and Alan McLaren were always on at you. I think they liked us as younger players, saw the potential in us, but they knew that they had to keep us grounded and they wouldn’t have let us get away with anything.
We were quite fortunate in those days because we would play the opposite fixture to the first team, so for instance if Hearts were playing away at Rangers, the reserves would play Rangers reserves at Tynecastle. And there’d be players like Wayne Foster and Neil Berry who would play in the reserves who we learned so much from. If you made a silly mistake, they would hammer you for it, and you learned quickly that you couldn’t afford to switch off. So as well being well coached by Sandy Clark, we were being well coached by all the professionals at Hearts at that time. I believe that is why most of us in that era had good careers because we had guys like Gary Mackay and Robbo in particular spending loads of time with us, taking time out to tell us where were going wrong. I learned loads from those two in particular.
We learned quickly that you had to look after yourself, especially when you got into the first team, because it meant everything to win the game. I had a tendency to just give the ball to Allan Johnston too much, and Robbo would encourage me to look up and find the best option. Even when I was captain, I listened to what he had to say. I did speak to Robbo and Gary about becoming captain, and I told them that it didn’t change anything, that I didn’t now think I knew everything about the game. I told them that I still considered their advice invaluable. And they were brilliant towards me when I was captain, in terms of showing me respect but still offering advice.
Like any Hearts fan, especially as club captain, I was delighted to see us win the Scottish Cup in 1998. I was gutted to miss the final because I was unfit, but to see Robbo lifting the cup as a player was special, because he wasn’t just a brilliant teammate, he was a hero of mine, and he thoroughly deserved lifting the trophy that day.
All good things come to an end, and I always remember Robbo telling me when I was a young player that your career flies in, and that’s definitely true. When Robbo’s career was in decline and he moved on, it was devastating. However, I would still pick up the phone to ask him for advice. When I was manager here, we were in a terrible situation after going into administration, with a young, makeshift team. I asked Robbo if he would come in once a week, and he would come down from Inverness every Tuesday to coach the strikers for free. He also attended a lot of the games and would give me his view from the stand. Billy Brown also came in and assisted me for free. It was a difficult season, but to have those two helping me was particularly pleasing because they’re two lads I would trust with my life.
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