Every Hearts fan can tell you that John Robertson joined the Tynecastle club after being told by Hibernian chairman Tom Hart that he was “too small, too fat and too slow” when he was a boy.
But was there another “sliding doors” moment in Robertson’s career?
The legendary striker, the man who scored a record 27 goals in the Edinburgh derby during his two spells as a player in Gorgie in the 1980s and 1990s, firmly believes that there was.
He is convinced that Jimmy Bone signing for Hearts instead of Hibs in 1983 enabled him to reach the very top of the professional game.
The former Scotland internationalist, currently in interim charge of Championship club Ross County, was deeply upset when he learned that Bone had passed away at the age of 75 on Monday.
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He paid a heartfelt tribute to his former team mate, a man who he described as his “surrogate father”, yesterday.
“I lost my dad at the age of 14,” said Robertson. “I had my big brother Chris, who played for Rangers and then joined Hearts a year or two before I arrived. So he was always a huge influence in my life.
“But Jimmy Bone kind of became a surrogate dad to me. He really looked after me. He was the first guy who saw potential in me. He pulled me aside. He was worried about the fact that I was 5 ft 6 in, weighed 11 stone and was going to be playing against guys who were 6ft 3in when tackling from behind was allowed.
“Players would get jailed now for some of the tackles that we had to deal with. But Jimmy just sat me down and said, ‘Look, these are the rules. They're going to try and intimidate you, they're going to try and whack you all over the park. So you have to be able to fight fire with fire’.
“For want of a better description, Jimmy taught me the dark arts. He taught me how to look after myself, he taught me how to leave a foot in, he taught me how to jump into people, upset them, noise them up. Crucially, he taught me how to ride tackles and keep the ball. Your first job as a striker in those days was to keep the ball and get your team up the park.
“He would grab me after training and go, ‘Right, we're going for a cup of tea’. He'd sit you down and he'd go over bits and bobs in your game and then you would go away and work away on them. He did that for two, two-and-a-half years.”
“As I said, he was a guy who would work on you,” he said. “Before one game against Aberdeen we were sitting at dinner in the hotel.
“He said, ‘Right, let's go up to the room. I want you to run me a bath, I want you to make me a cup of tea before I get into the bath and I want milk and one sugar. I'm going to be in the bath for an hour. When I come out, I want another cup of tea, milk and one sugar, and a Gypsy Cream biscuit’.
“I said, ‘Jimmy! We're in Aberdeen! Where am I going to find you a Gypsy Cream biscuit?’ He says, ‘That's up to you’. So I went downstairs to reception and they told me there was a shop around the corner. When he came out of the bath with his copy of the Racing Post he had a cup of tea and a Gypsy Cream waiting for him.
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“He said, ‘Great! Okay, we're playing Aberdeen tomorrow, Miller and McLeish. This is what we’re going to do. You stay away from Miller, he’s an absolute assassin, he'll try and break your leg. You leave him to me. You play against McLeish. He's a younger lad, he's hard but he's fair’. It was an education.
“A few weeks later we were down in Kilmarnock and I took a packed of Gypsy Cream biscuits with me. When he came out of his bath he looked at the tea, looked at me and said, ‘I want a Kit Kat!’
“I was speaking to Willie Johnston about it in the dressing room and he told me, ‘That was your mistake. It was a test. You got ahead of yourself, got too full of yourself’. He just wanted to see if you were willing to learn. It was an education on and off the pitch.”
Bone, who was 33 when he joined Hearts and in the twilight of his playing days, was still a formidable footballer on the park as well. The winner that Robertson’s mentor netted in a 3-2 win over Hibernian in a Premier Division game at Tynecastle in the September of 1983 is seared into his subconscious forever.
“The Hearts team was named Dad’s Army at the time,” said Robertson. “There was Sandy Jardine, Alex MacDonald, Roddy MacDonald, Stewart MacLaren, Willie Johnston, Donald Park. These senior players were brought in to back up myself, Craig Levein, Dave Bowman, Kenny Black, Tosh McKinlay, John Colquhoun. They were unbelievable pros.
“That game against Hibs in 1983 was the first big derby game for us young boys. We were 1-0 down early on, then I equalised. We went 2-1 down, then I equalised again. Then Jimmy scored an absolute bullet. That proved to be a winner. We didn't realise it at the time, but Jimmy was a Hearts fan. He was absolutely over the moon.
“He led us that day. We got spooked when Hibs scored and Alex MacDonald changed it. The older guys settled us down and led us. I think it was only the second time since the 1960s that Hearts had beaten Hibs at Tynecastle.
“It will go down in history. It was the day the Edinburgh derby changed. We went on a long unbeaten run against Hibs after that. I think he changed the fixture with his winning goal.”
Bone certainly changed the trajectory of Robertson’s career after signing for Hearts.
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“Jimmy was on his way to Easter Road until Alex MacDonald got wind of it,” he said. “Alex got hold of him and tried to sell him the dream of Tynecastle. He wanted good pros to help bring through kids like myself. It was a sliding doors moment for me.
“People talk about Hibs chairman Tom Hart telling me I was too small, too fat and too slow. But what would have happened if Jimmy hadn’t come in to Hearts? I might not have learned what he taught me, might not have developed as well. I could have ended up being nothing. I became something because of him.
“He was a massive, massive influence in my career. There was an event at Tynecastle a couple of months ago and Jimmy was there. He was full of beans. By all accounts, this all happened really, really suddenly. I really feel for his family right now. He was a massive character, who loved his life, loved his family and he loved his football.”
Gary Mackay, who made a record 640 appearances for Hearts between 1980 and 1997, was a midfielder, not a striker. But he was influenced enormously by Bone as a youngster as well. He also expressed his deep sadness at the passing of his former team mate yesterday.
“We were taught great professional habits - how to conduct yourself, how to train, how to behave on the pitch. It was up to us from there. Jimmy was top of that list of mentors. He was just a great individual, both on and off the park. He was somebody that was there for all the young boys to learn from, to soak up as much knowledge as we could from.
“He was a great player as well. His first touch was brilliant. He wasn’t the quickest, but he had a great footballing brain and took up clever positions. He held the ball up front for other players, not just strikers, the midfielders too. He fought every battle. That also just seeps into you. Your job as a professional footballer is ultimately about winning matches.
“The players’ lounge at Tynecastle is nothing like it is now. It was very, very small. The young boys used to fight to get in because we all wanted to hear the stories that players like Jimmy Bone and Willie Johnston would tell about their careers. It was brilliant to listen to. I was so sad to hear that he had passed away and my thoughts are with his family.”
