It has been more than four months since Joe Savage, a day before his 40th birthday, informed Andrew McKinlay that he would be stepping down from his role as Heart of Midlothian sporting director - but he still slips into "we" and "us" when discussing Hearts.

He retains a close affinity to the club he spent three and a half years at and hopes to be in the away end at Easter Road later this month for the first derby of the season to get the fan experience. However, he knew it was time to move on from Hearts and his position at the end of last season. It was a decision that reduced him to tears but he has had no regrets since.

The sporting director role was all-consuming. It was one that Savage revealed took its toll with his family taking the brunt of him, admittedly, "becoming a dick". Now, having launched a new consultancy venture, he feels fresher and is taking great delight in being able to drop off and pick up his kids from school.

Reflecting on his time at Tynecastle, Savage likes to think he has left a club that is in a better place than the one he joined at the end of 2020 when the team were in the Championship.

"I wanted to leave on a high," he told Hearts Standard in his first interview since leaving the club. "We finished third, fourth, third, made history [qualifying for Europe three seasons running]."

There has been plenty of speculation as to why Savage left. It was not because another job had been lined up, not fan abuse, not a consequence of the possible analytics deal, he simply viewed it as being the right time.

He explained: "When I told Andrew McKinlay, who is the best chief executive I’ll probably ever work with, I started crying when I told him I was going to leave because the emotion of saying to him, ‘This is enough for me, I just feel this is the right time for me to leave’.

"I still remember it to this day 21st of May, the day before my birthday. Only one person knew I was leaving, my wife. I told her the night before that I was going to tell Andrew and that I was really comfortable with the decision. It’s not because of this, it’s not because of that, it’s because my time is up.

"It felt like the right time and felt like I’m giving them enough time to bring someone else in to do whatever they need to do, whatever path they need to go down. I didn’t fall out with anyone, I cuddled everyone when I left, I shook everyone’s hands when I left. I don’t have any bad blood."

The sporting director role can still be misunderstood. It is one that is so intertwined with recruitment which is somewhat understandable considering that is the remit of the role that interests fans the most. Fans like signings, and fans like discussing and rating transfers. After all, it was Savage's background when he was appointed having worked as chief scout and head of recruitment of Norwich City and Preston North End in England respectively.

Speaking to fellow sporting directors, Savage noted they all felt the same, that they were solely judged on recruitment. He wasn't, however, sitting in his office watching footage of players all day or travelling around scouting players. That wasn't the role.

Savage oversaw a variety of areas, from first-team and B team to women's team and the academy. Performance and medical, operational, and recruitment all reported to him as well.

(Image: Mark Scates - SNS Group) The "constant" responsibility and decision-making "took its toll".

"Every day I had something different to deal with," he said. "It got to a point where I felt as though I was everybody’s problem solver and people weren’t solving my problems when I had difficult conversations and difficult things to do. 

"I was dealing with the training ground, contracts, staff contracts and negotiations, equipment, the women’s team, getting flats sorted, making sure the academy was up to speed. I had to deal with all of that 24/7.

"Speak to my wife, I was becoming a dick. I was going home at night and was on my phone 24/7, texting, calling, WhatsApping, emailing. I’d be telling my kids to shut the door, keep quiet, saying to my wife I need to take this call or I need to do this. I was becoming someone I didn’t want to become. That made my decision a lot easier. I didn’t want to be that person who is always on their phone.

"I did it for three and a half years, I feel as if I did a good job but I just knew it was the right time to leave. The only thing that will leave me gutted for the rest of my life is we didn’t win a trophy. We created a strong enough squad."

The topic of trophies, or lack of, came up often. Savage watched the first-team, women's team, and youth team all lose cup finals against Rangers at Hampden Park. He still can't watch the game or goals from the 2022 final defeat.

He hopes to be at Hampden in May watching Hearts in the Scottish Cup final. But the inability to make that final step has stuck with him and will continue to do so. He felt that if the team had got past Rangers in the semi-final earlier this year they would have defeated Celtic, owing to the team's impressive results under Steven Naismith against the Scottish champions.

Without the ultimate aim of seeing the club lift a trophy, Savage takes pride in different areas of how the club progressed.

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"When sporting directors started out 10-15 years ago there wasn’t as much onus on the women’s side," he said. "I’m an advocate of women’s football. I think Eva [Olid] has done brilliant. She is a brilliant coach. We brought in a coach no one had heard of and she has transformed them.

"Trying to understand how women’s football worked, the intricacies behind it, and trying to build. I think I’ve got a lot of people to thank for that, [women's operations manager] Lisa Macfarlane, [head of women's recruitment] Sean Burt. They did great helping establish that. That was new to me.

"I think we opened up recruitment markets that previous regimes had not even dared to look at. I think we built on the academy. I can look back on it and think I achieved most things. I can’t say everything because we didn’t win a trophy."

He added: "If Hearts make the Scottish Cup final this year I’ll be there, I’ll be in with the fans, I know how much it means to everyone associated with the club and all the fans. My kids became Hearts fans. I loved the club, I just wanted to leave when hopefully I can go back into Edinburgh, shake people’s hands, and for them to say, ‘You know what? You did alright for us, that was a good time’. I’m proud of what we did there."

Twelve months ago, Savage spoke to Hearts Standard about the sporting director role and opened up about the abuse he had received from some fans.

It was something he returned to. The personal abuse hurt and perhaps the worst aspect of the job.

"This job is difficult, being a sporting director is difficult," he admitted. "It got to the point I was praying not to get beat and hoping to win.

"The scope of being at a big club like Hearts was a surprise to me. I knew they were a big club before I went in but didn’t realise just how big. Would I call the fan base fanatical? Yeah, I would say they are, and in a good way. They support you, they back you up but they let you know when you are not doing well. You need to have a thick skin in football."

He added: "I loved the Hearts fans. There is a minority that would personally abuse me to my face.

"It is not nice being called names and being personally insulted because you are trying to win a game of football. I don’t agree with that. I have seen people that say you shouldn’t be in football if that’s the case but I don’t agree with that either. That’s a really short-term view of looking at it."

Savage, in the past week, has unveiled his new business, FT FT Consultancy, a dedicated sports brokerage and consultancy firm. The name comes from the Latin phrase 'From Thee, For Thee' which is on the Savage family crest.

It will provide the former Hearts sporting director with an opportunity to return to a passion of his, scouting players, while also allowing him to "try something different, work in a different environment with not as much as pressure, not as much intensity".

In addition, there is a desire to do some media work with the belief he would be able to offer a different perspective to current pundits.

"I want to be able to consult and go to clubs to find out what they are looking for," he explained. "I think I can make connections. What Hearts has made me realise as well is what I missed and that was scouting players, watching football not worrying about the result.

"I love watching South American football, I love watching the South Korean league, I love watching the obscure leagues. I remember trying to get Norwich to sign Takashi Usami but he ended up going to the Bundesliga. That is probably what I have missed. I want to open doors for people.

"I want to scout for everyone is the best way of putting it. I want to be able to have relationships with everyone, work with everyone and be in a position to say, ‘I helped him get a move to Juventus, I helped him to get a move to Monterrey, I helped him get a move to Barnsley’.

"I’m not saying I’ll never become a sporting director again because you can’t rule anything out. But at this moment in time being a sporting director for me is not part of my plan."

He added: "I also want to break into doing some media work as well. I think I have got a different point of view from a lot of people who do punditry.

"I think my experience, the role that I have done, the jobs I have done, and how I communicate, I can get on and speak about what it is like to recruit a new manager, what it is like to sack a manager, what it is like to sign players, what it is like to work in a transfer window up to the very last day."