TWO years ago to the day since they engaged in a fairytale Scottish Cup final, Hearts and Gretna meet at Fir Park tonight with expectations rising that it will prove to be the last act for the 'home' side.
Gretna's administrators have placed a deadline of Saturday on their attempts to rescue the club from financial despair and, with the prospect of finding a willing buyer becoming increasingly unlikely, it is being widely anticipated tonight's match wi
ll be their last.
Tynecastle caretaker manager Stevie Frail has every sympathy for the plight of his opponents but, with back-to-back defeats to Falkirk and Kilmarnock seeing them slip back into eighth place, he will have no hesitation in ordering his players to deliver the knock-out final blow. "It has to be a victory," he said. "Anything short of a victory and I will feel as bad as I did on Saturday.
"Of course, it is sad to see any club go out of business and you look at the fairytale they had in progressing through the leagues at the rate they did and taking us to a penalty shoot-out when we won the Scottish Cup.
"It was fantastic for them and it would be sad to see them go. Hopefully that won't happen, hopefully things can be sorted out there and they can continue to be a Scottish football league club."
Frail himself faces up to an uncertain future this evening, not knowing whether the 90 minutes will be his last as a coach at Hearts.
"I treat every game as my last game," he added. "I did that as a player because you don't know what's round the corner in terms of injury and if you do that you make sure you give your all in every game you play in. I tried to play like that and now I treat every game like that as well."
Frail is likely to rest captain Christophe Berra tonight, with the defender only one booking away from picking up a two-game suspension for the start of next season.
Meanwhile, midfielder Gavin Skelton, who was Gretna's man of the match on that memorable day two years ago, expects the tears to flow freely at full-time tonight as he faces up to the fact the Raydale Park outfit are within days of going out of business.
Skelton, the Dumfriesshire side's longest-serving player, will grapple with a mixture of emotions as the most gruelling season of his seven years at the club draws to a sad close. The 27-year-old Cumbrian said: "Hopefully it won't be the club's last game but it is looking more and more like it will be. We'll all approach it differently but there will definitely be sadness and lot of emotion there after all we've been through this season.
"We've stuck together and there will be sadness that this group of players is to be broken up but, because of what's gone on, there might also be a bit of relief that the season is over."
The full article contains 519 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
