Craig Gordon had to work hard to keep his emotions in check before leading out his boyhood club in front of his fellow Jambos.
The Hearts ‘keeper took over the club captaincy after Steven Naismith’s retirement in the summer, and finally got to sample a full Tynecastle again against Aberdeen on Sunday.
Gordon has of course captained “his” club before, but after a year and a half of empty seats, the veteran shot stopper admitted hearing 17,000 of them belting out the Hearts song was almost too much for him.
He said: “It was huge. I tried not to think about it too much, because if I thought about that then it would have been too much for me.
“I just had to focus on what I had to do in the game. Definitely in the days leading up to the game, knowing I was going to do that was a great feeling.
“I had to shut that out while it was happening because that’s the best feeling any Hearts fan can have. To go out in that atmosphere and lead the team out was special.
“Hearing that Hearts song being sung, it’s so special to everyone in my family.
“It was a great occasion for me and it was just a pity we didn’t get the three points to go with it. But it was brilliant. The fans have been missed.”
The only thing missing for Gordon was all three points. Hearts looked on course to get them after Liam Boyce’s penalty gavce them the lead, but were pegged back by a Funso Ojo equaliser.
However, Gordon reckons the start Hearts have made on their return to the Premiership has been a satisfying one, even though nine from nine would’ve made it “magnificent”
He added: “We still had confidence coming into the season that we could pick up points, we’re still undefeated, so that probably is ahead of where everybody thought we’d be at this stage.
“We can take the positives from that, we’d like to have won against Aberdeen and it was all there for us to go and get three points, which would’ve made it a magnificent start.
“But we’ve got to be satisfied with what we’ve picked up so far.
“It’s going to be a long season, so we’ll take the seven points and move on to the next week.
“We’re rebuilding. It won’t happen overnight. We’ll keep trying to improve and we’ve got a lot of fight in the squad.
“You could see that against Aberdeen in what was an intense game. High pace, high energy, not always the best quality we’d have liked, but the fight was there.
“And if the supporters see that we’re willing to fight as much as that for each other, we’ll go on and have a really successful season.
“If we put in that effort and work for each other, not everything came off for us, but we didn’t lose which is important.
“We want to be getting the points at home, especially. So we will take the positives and try to improve.
“Dundee United next week, if we can win that, then we’re in a great position going into the international break.”
