On becoming the head coach of Heart of Midlothian last month, it was unlikely that Neil Critchley reached under his desk to find a document passed down by those who came before him. The dos and don'ts. The secrets, the tips, the guidance.
There is no guide to being manager of this football club. Not as far as we know anyway.
But what is it like to be the Hearts boss? What is it like being the man charged with delivering success at a club with one of the most demanding fan bases in the country?
There is no one better to provide the inside track, reveal the secrets of the job, than the man who managed the club on two separate occasions, nearly a decade apart—a man who brought silverware back to EH11 after 36 long, tumultuous years.
No one better than Jim Jefferies.
In six full seasons across his two spells, not only did he bring the Scottish Cup to Tynecastle Park but he led a title challenge, took the club to two finals beyond the one he won, and delivered four European qualifications and three third-place finishes.
Hearts Standard caught up with Jefferies to discuss the various elements of the job...
Hearts ready
"As far as being ready, I started at the very bottom and worked my way up," Jefferies said.
Before Hearts and Falkirk. There was Hawick Royal Albert, Gala Fairydean Rovers, and Berwick Rangers. Jefferies cut his teeth so far down the Scottish football pyramid, learning the ropes in the East of Scotland League, that it would have been difficult to see the top of the pyramid. In fact, at that time, there was no such thing as a pyramid.
"I said to [former Aberdeen manager] Alex Smith a couple of years ago that before you can apply for a Premier League job you should have a couple of years under an experienced manager or managing at a lower level," he said. "I made mistakes at my early clubs and got them sorted out very quickly and learned from it, learned what not to do. I think that’s what stood me in good stead for when I got to Hearts."
When Jefferies finally arrived at Tynecastle Park in the summer of 1995 he had more than a decade of management under his belt, hundreds of games. Recruitment, setting up a team to win, to entertain, man management, running a club. He was a manager, sporting director, head of recruitment, analyst, and director of football operations all rolled into one.
The chance to take on the manager position at his boyhood club could well have arrived before it eventually did.
Comfortable with the time that has passed, Jefferies revealed he received a call from a third party, testing the water to see if he would be keen on the Hearts job.
It didn't materialise, even after a further call from Wallace Mercer. But a game at the end of the 1992/93 season set in motion a range of events that would ultimately see Jefferies return to Gorgie two years later.
"They weren’t going well at the time and they were due to have a game in midweek and if it didn’t go well they were wanting to find out if I was interested in taking over because they were going to make a decision about the manager at that time," Jefferies revealed.
"I said if there is a manager there then there isn’t anything to discuss. To be fair to Falkirk, they didn’t know about it.
"Wallace was chairman at the time. Before the game, he actually phoned me himself and I told him the same as the guy who was acting as a third party. I wasn’t going to discuss anything when there was nothing to discuss. He forgot to switch off the phone so I heard the conversation between him and his wife and the basis of what the club were going to do but I kept that to myself.
"Not long after that, we beat them 6-0. That was the day which saw Joe Jordan lose his job and it was the day Chris Robinson always told me that when he went away from the stadium that day he had made his mind up to buy the club."
When the time did arrive, it wasn't as straightforward as you'd expect for someone with Jefferies' Hearts background and the natural step up from Falkirk to Hearts. Far from it.
"Having been a Hearts supporter, played for them for a good number of years it was always something I wanted to do, that’s why it was a bit strange with all the controversy at the time," he said. "There was a lot of emotional blackmail involved which you can’t blame Falkirk for because they didn’t want me to go. I felt it was probably the right time.
"I really enjoyed my time at Falkirk. It was a no-brainer going from Falkirk to Hearts. They were my club, I played for them and supported them as a boy. It should have been straight forward but that just shows you."
The first act and making changes
Hearts lost six of their first 10 league matches under Jefferies and Billy Brown, winning just two. A 2-0 loss to Falkirk in the 10th match saw the team sit bottom of the table on goal difference.
There was no panic from Jefferies. He was able to lean on his experience at both Berwick and Falkirk.
"A funny pattern that went on, after the first five or six games, we hadn’t won a game, you start to think about what you are going to do, who is with you and you start to change things," he said of his Berwick spell.
"Same pattern [at Falkirk], first five or six games not the best. Had a discussion with the chairman at the time, a heart-to-heart about what was needed. He said go and do it and you’ll be here until the end of the season to get it done."
That defeat at Falkirk would act as a turning point as Hearts manager.
"They had some great players, they had done fantastically well but it needed change," Jefferies explained. "I think one or two managers who I had spoken to before about that said that’s what they should have done.
"I gave it six or seven weeks, I think we were at the bottom of the league at Falkirk and that’s when I told them that’s exactly what was going to happen. From there on if it wasn’t going to work at least I would have the confidence [to know I did it my way].
"Hearts had no money. They avoided relegation two years on the trot on the last day of the season [by two points both times]. I don’t mean this disrespectfully, they were great players, did great for the club, great guys, it was nothing personal, it was the job and that’s what you had to do, it had to be changed.
"I told them, the same players had been there too long and it was time to move on."
Recruitment
The requirements across both of Jefferies' spells as Hearts manager were very different.
His first spell required a longer-term view and big decisions. Between 1986 and 1992, Hearts had finished runners-up on three occasions. In the three years prior to Jefferies taking over, the team had finished fifth, seventh, and sixth.
What transpired was one of the finest recruitment drives at the club in the last 40 years in the build-up to the Scottish Cup win in 1998.
With little money, Jefferies' "restructuring of the team was based on small, short-term signings or swaps".
That first season, he raided his former club Falkirk for Stevie Fulton with David Hagen going the other way. Colin Cameron was brought in from Raith Rovers and John Millar went to to Kirkcaldy. Pasquale Bruno, Gilles Rousset and Neil Pointon also arrived. It was the start of a strong spine and strong squad.
The following year, Neil McCann, David Weir, Jim Hamilton, and Stefano Salvatori joined.
"If anyone had said we’d finish top four and two cup finals after two years I think we’d accept that as progress," Jefferies said. "When we got a wee bit of money we were able to do deals that made us an even better team."
Now, not all signings were a success. No manager is going to get them all right. Even more so when there is an element of having to wheel and deal. But Jefferies trusted his eye for a player.
"We based the fact that my track record of spotting players goes back to day one," he explained. "When I was with Berwick I took players from the East of Scotland league having managed Gala, guys who I thought were impressive and thought could make the step up.
"It was the same at Falkirk, I looked at a lot of players to change the team around. And the same had to happen at Hearts."
Jefferies recalled a moment from the very start of his managerial career in 1983 at Hawick Royal Albert. His expertise was called upon with the club desperate to stay in the top league when the leagues were split.
"Half the team walked out because they were friends with the player-manager so in a very short time I had to pick out players from amateur leagues to put in for the last eight games to get them into the top division," he remembered.
"That’s when I went to Gala, won three trophies in the first year, and then went to Berwick. We played a lot of closed-door matches at Berwick to look over players. It was just something we were fortunate to have. You looked for someone who had a football brain and a good touch. Just your judgement.
"Listen, you don’t get every one right. If you sign a lot of players and only get a handful wrong you’ve done pretty well."
It didn't need too much convincing from Jefferies to get players to the club, especially those from abroad.
"Hearts are a big draw, great club, great tradition," he said. "In those days it was pretty tough because I was always working to tight, tight budgets. And Romanov’s budget was the other extreme which caused a lot of problems.
"The foreign players from big clubs was easy because we would take their wives down Princes’ St. One or two players came because their wife told them."
Jefferies is aware the game has changed in terms of recruitment. There are now platforms and analytics available to clubs that weren't there in the mid-90s. Players are, at times, signed without having been watched in person.
It's the latter part of that which doesn't sit well with Jefferies.
He remembered when he was helping the club as a consultant. One signing hadn't turned out well. Due to Covid, he hadn't been watched in person.
"On my side of things because of the experience level if you can’t see him for whatever reason don’t sign him," Jefferies said. "I would always say not to sign someone unless you spoke to them and saw them. He could be a great player until you get in front of him and think, ‘Oh I could have problems with this one’."
It led to Jefferies telling Ann Budge a story of one signing he made in his first spell.
"I went to France to watch a player," he said. "I had to fly to Luxembourg and then travel two hours. The agent couldn’t meet me so the player’s wife picked me up and took me to the game.
"The agent came out and said he is not playing. I said, ‘Is that why you weren’t at the airport because you knew I’d just go straight back?’ ‘He’s on the bench, he might get on’. He never got on.
"The agent comes across and says, 'What do you think? Would you be interested?’.
"I said, 'He’s not played, he didn’t get on, I’m not going coming back'. The club paid for my flight, a night in a hotel. It’s a lot of time and effort. I said if we can arrange for the player to come over for four or five days and then I’ll give you an answer.
"That player was Stephane Adam.
"He was a great guy, very impressive in training and we thought he’s the one. Plays on the shoulder, gets in quick, good upstairs, intelligent, makes great runs and he wasn’t a bad finisher. It’s important you see them first."
One of the buzzwords in modern-day football is 'player trading'. It's something Hearts have not been overly effective at. There are very few over the years who have left Hearts and gone on to bigger and better things.
Jefferies estimates that the Scottish Cup team was put together for around £750,000. Add in Antti Niemi who was signed as Gilles Rousset's replacement, he calculates players were sold for upward of £8.5million.
Most of those went on to play Premier League football.
Style
"The gaffer hated me passing the ball sideways or backward. He absolutely frowned upon it. He wanted me to drive forward with the ball and if I couldn't do that, I was to pass it forward. He didn't like me turning back."
Gary Naysmith, speaking in Anthony Brown's excellent Reminiscing with Legends book on the 1998 Scottish Cup win, neatly summed up not only the expectation of playing under Jim Jefferies but the type of mindset that the Hearts support responds so well to. Be aggressive, be direct.
Poll the club's support about the style of football they want to watch. Two teams will likely be offered up as examples. George Burley's side and Jim Jefferies' sides. Hearts teams that went after the opposition from the first whistle. There have been signs of that under Critchley.
"Billy and I always built a team and put a team out that could play," Jefferies explained. "One thing you’ve got to learn about Hearts, the fans want you to win but also to do it with some entertainment.
"The message was always never to go out and play defensive."
Football can be made out to be incredibly complicated and as a result tedious. Plenty of jargon has entered the footballing lexicon over the last decade - some of which, admittedly, Hearts Standard uses - and that's before you get to the sterile nature of some teams, at all levels. Possession, positioning, players micro-managed to the Nth degree.
In reality, when it is distilled down, it is often a mixture of simplicity and balance that brings about success. That was certainly the case for Jefferies at Hearts. It was why Walter Smith put his name forward for the Scotland job.
"It is putting square pegs in square holes and round pegs in round holes," Jefferies said. "He said, 'You’ve been doing that for years'."
"All our teams were based on the principles of playing a back four, occasionally a back three when we played in European ties and games like that," he said. "Rather than a 4-4-2 it was more like a 4-3-3.
"The three in the middle of the park all had to be different. Sometimes you have players who all do the same sort of job. We had a great passer in Stevie Fulton, we had a great worker to let the others play in Salvatori and Colin Cameron was the man to support the front lot because he was brilliant at getting in behind defences.
"Every time he made that run Stevie Fulton was good enough to find him and when you’ve got someone like Neil McCann we stuck him as an out-and-out left wing, great pace and trickery, great strength for a wee man and he put great balls into the box. Allan Johnston did it originally for us, just coming in off the right to tuck in a little, not playing out on the wing like Neil did, he was good at attacking full-backs as well.
"Stephane Adam did it but Allan Johnston did it before he left. And we had the main striker, we changed two or three times."
He, quite rightly, noted: "We were good to watch."
In his second spell, respectfully, Hearts didn't have a Fulton, Salvatori, and Cameron midfield triumvirate. But they did have plenty of attacking options. A midfield base provided a platform for a balanced attack. Kevin Kyle leading the line, Stephen Elliott the workmanlike forward off the right-hand side, David Templeton dazzling on the left and Rudi Skacel the roving, goal-scoring free spirit.
Speaking of depth, there was Ryan Stevenson, Andrew Driver, and Suso Santana amongst others who contributed along the way.
A stunning run between November and the middle of January brought a return of 31 points from a possible 33.
When Hearts travelled to Celtic Park on January 26 there were just seven points between the top three while Hearts had a game in hand over league leaders Celtic. Two defeats in three games to both halfs of the Old Firm and an injury to Kevin Kyle saw Hearts fall out of the title conversation but still ease to third place.
The first of those losses was a 4-0 reverse at Celtic in what Jefferies remembers as "one of the best performances I’ve seen from a side".
Owner relationship
On that second spell as Hearts boss, Jefferies knew what he was getting himself into. He knew the moment he walked back into Tynecastle Park, replacing Csaba Lazslo, he was already on borrowed time.
"I said to Billy Brown that this is a job where even if you are successful you won’t have long with the way he operates so it was a case of just going and doing your best," Jefferies recalled.
"He gave more time to people who were struggling because I think he felt sorry for them and tried to help them and would get more and more involved."
The he in question is, of course, Vladimir Romanov. It was a completely different experience to working under Chris Robinson and Leslie Deans.
"Chris had taken over the club with Les Deans," Jefferies said. "They had no money whereas you go to Romanov and he was throwing money about like confetti, rightly or wrongly.
"I remember Campbell Ogilvie when I got the job, he steered me through some muddy waters because my wage bill at Hearts was three or four times what it was at Kilmarnock."
How do you manage an owner with such a personality, such a desire to be involved and in control?
"Actually, a nice man at times," Jefferies said. "But just mad as the title the press gave him. It wasn’t all bad with him but it was just strange and I managed a few experiences..."
Like the "very first time" he had to go to Lithuania to meet him.
"Sergejus Fedotovas picked me up and we had a chat," Jefferies said. "I went downstairs and there was a massive gymnasium with a top-of-the-range basketball court. I had to sit down for 45 minutes and watch him doing dancing lessons.
"He was in the final of the Lithuanian Strictly Come Dancing.
"Of course, a couple of weeks later I asked one of the Lithuanian girls in the office how Mr Romanov got on. She said he won it. I said ‘Oh, great’. But she said he really had to because he owned the TV station. I don’t think anyone else had a chance."
Jefferies added: "He was actually not bad I suppose."
Just as he sought a balance on the pitch there had to be a balance off the pitch. It could be cat and mouse and sometimes having to use a white lie or two.
"He would try to change the team while we were at the ground, ‘Don’t play him’. Where he got his information I don’t know," Jefferies explained. "I would just say, ‘The team sheets are in and that’s it’. That’s how difficult it was at times.
"One of the guys I got on well with was Sergejus Fedotovas, who I stayed in touch with after. I assumed that he knew Romanov was wrong and I was right but he couldn’t back me, he had to back the main man."
Then the stories came. Of having to juggle the squad on the whim of an interfering owner.
Hearts went to Ibrox toward the end of the 2010/11 season and would lose 4-0. Context is required, however.
"We had two centre halves injured, the only centre half I had was Marius Zaliukas and I got the call on the Saturday afternoon, as I often got, to leave someone out," he said. "I already had Marius in the team alongside Adrian Mrowiec."
It was Zaliukas that Romanov wanted left out. It meant a centre-back partnership of Mrowiec and Eggert Jonsson.
"I had two centre halves who had never played beside each other, hadn’t worked on the training field.
"We lost 4-0 and I remember on the team bus I got the phone call from Fedotovas, ‘Romanov wants to know what happened’.
"I said, ‘What happened? I’ll tell you what happened, you left us with no centre halves. I’ve got two midfield players who did their best and tried their hardest, against Rangers at Ibrox. They were always going to be vulnerable and that is the way it turned out’.
"I think we did well to keep it at 4-0!".
Other times Jefferies was required to work around Romanov's ego.
"We were playing Union Berlin in a friendly in Germany and got word that he was flying in," he said. "Fedetovas said that we must congratulate him when he arrives, he’s a world champion.
"I said, ‘He’s a world champion?!’. He replied, ‘Yes, make sure you and Billy congratulate him’.
"I asked him what he was a world champion in and it was basketball. I said, ‘But he’s 5ft6! How do you become a basketball champion?’
"When we got back we got told he sponsored a small group of over-55 players who were playing in a senior championship in South America and he sponsored the trip. He was on the bench and it was a section thing where they were top of the league with one game to spare so they put him on for 10 seconds to thank him.
"He just loved the adulation."
Jefferies' prediction to Billy Brown would come true. Having led Hearts to third place and then an opening day draw at Ibrox the season after he would be sacked three games into the season and replaced by Paulo Sergio. Yet, Romanov wanted him to stay on in an upstairs role.
"I think deep down he liked the players I brought in but didn’t say it and I think that’s why he wanted me to stay on," Jefferies suggested.
"I never thought he was doing it for the right reasons, maybe to pay up my contract and still work there.
"I left Hearts in a good position with a good team that went on to lift the cup."
Man management
Speak to players who played under Jefferies and there is generally a consistent theme. They wanted to play for him.
Again, like the way he set out teams, it was not overcomplicating manners, explaining to players what was required and, if they weren't being used, why.
Of course, there were moments where it would get heated but it was understood that it was the nature of trying to win football matches.
"It is one area of management that you have got to excel at nowadays, man management," Jefferies said. "You tell them what they need to be told, you praise them when they need to be praised.
"I always said to them that if I ever had a fallout with a player or had a go at a player it was forgotten about. It was professional, not personal.
"Billy and I wanted to give them a good atmosphere. We worked them hard, put a lot of effort into making sure they were fit, they knew what system we wanted to play, knew what their jobs were, and made sure that when they fell short we told them."
Sticking to your beliefs
Jefferies recounts a conversation he had with his father when he was at Falkirk. It came to mind when he had just been asked about dealing with the pressure that comes with managing Hearts and the scrutiny that comes with every decision, from players signed to substitutions made.
"I think you’ve got a job for life at Falkirk," was his dad's message.
Jefferies said: "My dad was a Hearts fan, my whole family were Hearts fans so it was strange for him to say that but he probably knew that it was going to be harder because there are a lot more Hearts fans than Falkirk fans, and the expectations at both clubs."
Jefferies' response was something that he took into each position—sticking to his guns. If he was going to go down it was doing it the way he believed in.
"I said I’d stick to what I am doing which has got me success and see where it takes me," he said.
"You can’t please everyone. You stick to what you believe is right. Sometimes people won’t agree with it and sometimes they might be right. But you’ve got to hope you get a lot more right than wrong and last longer in the game."
It is an approach that served him well. One that saw him become one of the great figures in the club's history. One of 38 players to play at least 300 games for the club, pertinent now Craig Gordon has reached the milestone, and someone who delivered silverware after such a long wait. Too long a wait.
It was built up from Hawick Royal Albert and Gala Fairydean. Berwick Rangers and Falkirk.
When he finally made the move to Hearts there was a friendly at Derby County where Hearts fans wouldn't leave until he had come out to take the acclaim.
Of course, the greatest acclaim of all was reserved for a day in May in 1998 but he also had his influence over another of the finest days in the club's history.
May 2012.
"When Paulo [Sergio] took over from me we met," Jefferies remembered. "When he won the cup against Hibs he got me to come down to the dressing room because he said it was my team, that we had brought all the players in and the only one he had added was [Craig] Beattie.
"That was very nice of him and he had realised we had done a good job when we had taken over."
Still, 1998 takes some beating due to the wait, the meaning of it.
"I wish I had £50 for every time someone comes up to me and says I gave them the greatest day of their life," Jefferies said. "All the heartache they had to suffer before, the joy we created made it all worthwhile.
"That’s what the fans are like at Hearts, they will get behind you if you are giving it your all."
As one unsuspecting fan put it on the morning after the night that was in May 1998, as he unwittingly walked on from the Hearts manager in the centre of Edinburgh, “god bless that Jim Jefferies”.
Amen.
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