Levein steals back Hearts' pride
16th August 2003Craig Levein’s potentially historic refusal to pay an SFA-imposed fine will surprise nobody who is familiar with the decisiveness he brings to his work. Or, perhaps more significantly, with his willingness, however risky, to set his self-belief against the consequences of his actions.
The Hearts head coach’s growing reputation as a figure to be respected is in itself testimony to his immovable single-mindedness. Anyone who was prepared, as he was, to work for nothing under Jim Leishman at Livingston in pursuit of a rudimentary education in management needs no lessons in the matter of achieving objectives the hard way.
That apprenticeship at Almondvale led to the offer to take charge of Cowdenbeath. Other former players of his pedigree have been known to be too sniffy to accept such an appointment, but Levein was never likely to insist on starting from one of the ladder’s upper rungs.
In this regard, he has much in common with many of his trade who have achieved greatness from relatively humble origins. Jock Stein (Dunfermline), Brian Clough (Hartlepool), Bill Shankly (Grimsby, Workington, Huddersfield) and Alex Ferguson (East Stirlingshire) are convincing examples.
After three years at Central Park, an experience he now recalls as incalculably valuable, he finally returned to Tynecastle, where he had been a distinguished defender for 12 years - winner of 16 Scotland caps - until his retirement in 1995.
He was not long into his management at Hearts when, after a match against Aberdeen, he accused his players publicly of being "thieves", on the grounds that they were taking their wages under false pretences and giving nothing in return.
I counted myself among those who, at the time, believed he had made a novice’s blunder, that he had probably alienated a group of players whose commitment and loyalty he would need to rely upon in the coming months.
During a lengthy conversation at Tynecastle, Levein revealed that his vituperation had been no impulsive outburst, but an act of almost clinical calculation.
"I know there were some people who thought that was a bit rash," said Levein, "but it wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment thing. It had been building for a while and I was just waiting for the appropriate moment to do it. That performance against Aberdeen gave me the opportunity.
"I wasn’t bothered about ‘losing the dressing-room’, as the saying goes, because they couldn’t do any worse than they were already doing. And it sussed out those who wanted to leave, the non-committed. Really, we had players then who didn’t give a toss and it was going to cost me my job if I didn’t do something about it.
"There was no urgency about many of them, nobody was prepared to stand up. There was one instance that summed up their attitude. It was a simple thing, but, to me, very significant. We won a throw-in and nobody showed any inclination to move himself and take it. It was as if they just didn’t care.
"I think one of the most helpful realisations anyone in the game can come to is that every footballer - at every level, including the very best - is limited. Therefore, they all have to apply themselves as determinedly as possible.
"If we all do our best and we’re beaten, there can be no recriminations. Bad players not working hard enough is bad enough, but good players not putting it in is worse. At Tynecastle now, there are no little cliques of players trying to get away with work-shyness. People at this club now are isolated for doing things that are unacceptable and, in that way, any bad habits tend not to last very long."
The premeditation of the "thieves" affair could expose Levein to accusations of an unbecoming ruthlessness, but, in common with every manager of substance, he has a multi-faceted personality which encompasses sympathy, understanding and a readiness to make allowances in the cause of improving players.
Like everyone else who has dabbled in his demanding profession, too, he has encountered problems for which no amount of advice from established colleagues could properly prepare him. It is in the area of practical experience that he is indebted to Cowdenbeath.
"A football manager, especially at a club this size, is in charge of maybe 50 people," he said. "In other businesses, anyone with that responsibility has probably been through university and has been trained to handle it. Not only do managers have to pick a team, but they have to handle all the other problems that all of those people below him inevitably come up with.
"For example, footballers have egos at every level, even at Cowdenbeath, and they all have to be accommodated, often in many different ways. My time at Cowdenbeath was an enormous help. I made a lot of mistakes, but unless you read the local paper, you wouldn’t know about them.
"I was able to learn from those mistakes. For instance, you can be too friendly or too tough with players. You learn that you really can’t be anyone except yourself. In all my time at Cowdenbeath, I didn’t once, not once, mention that I played for Hearts and Scotland. Players have a built-in bullshit detector."
In less than three years at Hearts and under the same impossible financial constraints as his peers, Levein has fashioned a squad that bears his unmistakable signature. His insights into his own management style and the modern methods of preparation and nurturing of younger players now in use at Tynecastle make his achievement in taking them to third place in the league last year more of a natural progression than a wonder.
"We have forty-odd players here, with almost as many variations in character," he said. "So each one is a different challenge. Young Joe Hammill, for instance, is a youngster I believe to be as talented as anyone in Scotland. But he’s a quiet, shy wee lad, unlike, say, Scott Severin, who is naturally outgoing and ready to impose himself on matches. So Joe has to be handled differently.
"A typical example of a player in need of special attention last year was Robert Sloan. He’s another exceptional talent, but I felt he wasn’t quite doing enough and I sent him to Alloa on loan. I wanted to get him playing in games that really mattered.
"I wanted him to experience a place where the lad next to him in the dressing-room might need the win bonus to help make up his holiday money. He needed to experience being at a club, in a team, where every victory was precious, the kind of thing you don’t get in the reserves. I think it’s done him no end of good and I believe he could have a very big year in our team.
"Our objective here is to create a climate in which boys as young as 11 years old are already practising being a professional footballer, in their habits, their attitude, their preparation and their appreciation of the game. We have conditioning methods now that were unknown in my day, and I stopped playing as recently as eight years ago.
"In tandem with Heriot-Watt University, we have them on programmes designed to maximise the benefits of diet, work that specifically develops fast feet, twitching muscles as they call it, Olympic lifts to help with upper body and leg strength. We’re sprinting from day one of pre-season training. Our younger players are exposed to that from the start.
"I think nowadays that players should be looking to be in a club’s first team at 19, or thereabouts. You see lads of 22 or 23 who have about 20 games under their belts and you know they just shouldn’t be there. They should be away somewhere else, where they are more suited, they should be playing football in a first team at their proper level.
"You see kids taking an offer from the biggest club among several who want to sign them and they go, say, to England and simply disappear. We’re no different. We scoop up young players, knowing that we will have to let a lot of them go. But it will do them better if they find their level and play, rather than hang around stagnating in the reserves.
"Within a year or two of turning 20, a player these days should be approaching a hundred first-team appearances. And that applies across the board, not just to the bigger clubs. The point is, in this game you can’t rest on your laurels. You have to strive constantly to move forward. Otherwise you’ll get caught."