"The club possesses a special quality in that it is always interesting. Capricious and captivating."

When Hearts Standard was launched two months ago I included the above line in our introductory message. It is a quality which every fan could hang their hat on. Heart of Midlothian are a lot of things. Boring they are not. That has proven to be quite correct over the last nine weeks or so, on and off the field. 

It is why we think our Black Friday deal of an annual subscription at just £10 for a year is excellent value for money. It is the best offer Hearts fans will receive to subscribe to the site which covers the club in an in-depth manner across various platforms seven days a week.

We have been overwhelmed by the reaction so far but at the same time not overly surprised, knowing how passionate the support is and how much they want to engage with all areas of the club. Some fans may still be swithering over subscribing and perhaps need a bit of encouragement. With that in mind, I thought it would be good to highlight what we've been doing and why.

One of our aims was to provide Hearts supporters with even greater depth of coverage of their club whether that be through interviews, features or, alongside industry-leading data provider StatsBomb which is used by clubs around world football, tactical and statistical analysis.

For our launch day it was important to provide content which resonated with readers. What better way to do that than a sit down with perhaps the club's greatest ever goalkeeper, Craig Gordon, and talk to him about his journey in mastering the art of being a goalkeeper. Since then we have spoken to Andrius Velicka, one of the club's most underrated strikers, Branimir Kostadinov, the one-time Bulgarian wunderkind, and Lewis Neilson, the Hearts centre-back currently on loan with Partick Thistle. My colleague James Cairney has also tapped into the club's history with interviews with Alex MacDonald and Iain Ferguson.

As well as players, we also want to find out about the inner workings of the club, what's going on behind the scenes and, of course, tap into the Foundation of Hearts, the club's majority shareholders. We've done that by charting the process of creating the club's anniversary kit, while also sitting down with the club's sporting director Joe Savage who oversees various elements of the footballing side of the club. You can find in-depth pieces on recruitment, the sporting director role, Steven Naismith's appointment, the B team and the academy.

For the Foundation of Hearts, we sat down with Gerry Mallon to look at what the future holds for the organisation, while also chatting with the members up for board election.

As stated previously, tactics and statistics play a key part in our offering. We want to pose questions with regards to line-ups and players as well as scratching below the surface of issues, problems or successes. Take James' deep dive into the team's struggles with attacking set pieces which involved watching a lot of corners. We analyse every single league game in depth, the latest being the win over Motherwell, we look at individuals' performances, including how Frankie Kent has filled in for Craig Halkett in an effective manner, as well as more collective analysis, such as is this the best midfield three for Hearts?

We of course provide all the latest news and cover every press conference on top of every game Hearts play. In addition, we provide at least three videos each week via our YouTube channel and they are also available as a podcast on Spotify, iTunes or Google podcasts. There is also an app in the pipeline. We try to cover all bases when it comes to Heart of Midlothian and try to ensure nothing is off limits.

That can be seen in features, whether it is a look at Ricardo Fuller's time at the club, Eduard Malofeev's dysfunctional interim spell or Lawrence Shankland's journey to Tynecastle Park. These articles are great examples of what your support allows. The subscription model provides myself and James time and space to work on long-form content which involves speaking to various people within football, whether they have a connection with Hearts or not.

And we've only just started. We have so many more ideas, features and interviews either lined up, planned or on our long 'to do' list. It has been absolutely brilliant launching this website and seeing how fans have reacted to it and interacted with us. We really believe it is some of the best Hearts coverage you can get anywhere and would love for more Jambos to come on the journey with us. A journey which, in the next six months or so, hopefully ends with at least a third-place finish.

Subscribe to Hearts Standard by clicking HERE.

Terms and conditions apply. Offer ends December 1 2023 at 23:59 GMT. Offer only valid on digital annual subscriptions. Subscription auto-renews unless cancelled. After the first year, annual subscription will be charged at £34.99 per year. Offer is exempt from gifting subscriptions. All subscriptions can be cancelled and refunded within 14 days of purchase. Hearts Standard reserves the right to change or remove the offer at any time. Please see Terms & Conditions for full details.