Hearts’ Riccarton Three – 20 years on: The dressing-room rebellion that pulled back the curtain on the madness of Vladimir Romanov’s Tynecastle reign and altered the club’s trajectory for generations to come

Only those individuals who’d been living in a cave for a year or so would have believed that all was well in Hearts’ world when they recorded a storied triumph over Hibs at Hampden 20 years ago.

A thumping four-nil win in the Scottish Cup semi-final on April 2, 2006, came courtesy of Paul Hartley’s hat-trick with Edgaras Jankauskas also getting in on the act.

As if there wasn’t enough for the maroon hordes to gloat about that afternoon, Ivan Sproule and Gary Smith were sent off for Tony Mowbray’s team.

With lower-league Gretna awaiting Hearts in the final, it should have felt like the good times were rolling. And, to an extent, they were.

The following month, the Gorgie men would beat Aberdeen to wrap up second place in the top flight and earn a place in the Champions League qualifiers.

With Gretna beaten on penalties ten days later, an open-top bus wove its way through the streets of the capital with the old trophy being shown off.

But the jubilant scenes were a distortion of the real picture. Vladimir Romanov, the Russian-Lithuanian business leader, had bought into the club in February 2005, becoming the majority shareholder eight months later.

He promised lavish investment to establish Hearts not only as the dominant club in Scotland, but as a European force to be reckoned with. Many supporters wearing Cossack hats lapped it up and were disinclined to look beyond the bluff and the bluster — or examine the price tag.

Those with a stronger grasp of the situation saw Romanov for what he was: An erratic egomaniac who’d be ruinous for the club in the longer term. The only question was how quickly it would take for it all to come crashing down.

It hardly required inside knowledge to appreciate that his eccentricities were going to test the patience of Hearts supporters from the get-go.

Despite the side sitting on top of the league after winning their first eight games of the 2005-06 season, Romanov sacked manager George Burley with chief executive Phil Anderton also fired.

Graham Rix, a convicted sex offender, was hired as Burley’s replacement before Valdas Ivanauskas was brought in on an interim basis in March 2006.

The former FBK Kaunas coach was given the full-time gig after winning the cup only to be put on sick leave with stress at the start of the following season.

Ivanauskas’ temporary replacement, Eduard Malofeev, the sporting director, barely spoke a word of English.

The preposterous turnover of managers was just the tip of the iceberg, though.

Rumours abounded that Romanov was in charge of team selection and would often fax in his line-up before kick-off — a matter Rix subsequently confirmed as being true. Players who were fit were routinely shunted to the sidelines for no reason.

At the owner’s behest, a mysterious woman from Eastern Europe joined the physio department. Brandishing a divination stick, she claimed to be able to identify injuries before they happened.

Accustomed to training in mornings throughout their careers, players were told to report for work in evenings — with no explanation. One recalled a session in the dark winding down with a wheelbarrow race.

For many, the final straw arrived when Romanov started to deliver his own motivational team talks.

It may have had the veneer of a professional football club, but it was a circus.

‘The place was an absolute shambles,’ said defender and future Hearts manager Robbie Neilson.

Behind the scenes, the senior players spoke privately about their deepening concerns and contemplated going public with them.

After weeks of procrastinating, they agreed that doing nothing was no longer an option. And so, on October 27, 2006 — just six months after that routing of Hibs — ‘The Riccarton Three’ were born.

Hearts had lost at home to Kilmarnock the previous Saturday and were scheduled to play Dunfermline at Tynecastle the following day.

The press pack which descended on the training ground inside Heriot-Watt University was larger than normal on that cold morning for a reason. They’d been tipped off that something remarkable would unfold. ‘Bring your popcorn,’ wrote a message from one of the squad.

With Malofeev elsewhere in the building and the rest of the squad sitting in a dressing room, at 12.02pm the doors to the seminar room opened and the show began.

In walked Hartley and Craig Gordon, stony-faced. Between them, beanie hat on his head and holding a piece of paper, was captain Steven Pressley.

By the time the trio took their place at a table filled with microphones, it was clear that the next few minutes were going to blow the doors off the club. This was a dressing room revolution.

‘It was the crossing of the Rubicon,’ said Neilson. ‘As soon as you did that there was no way back.’

Despite knowing that he was unleashing a verbal grenade, Pressley delivered the words with complete calmness.

‘Chaps, just to make you aware that I’m going to make a statement and we’ll answer no questions,’ he said.

‘This is a statement on behalf of a number of the players.

‘I have tried along with the coaching staff and certain colleagues to implement the correct values and disciplines, but it has become an impossible task.

‘There is only so much a coaching staff, a captain, and certain colleagues can do without the full backing, direction, and coherence of the manager and those running the football club.

‘While, publicly, I have expressed the need for unity behind the scenes, I have made my concerns abundantly clear.

‘The last two years have been very testing for the players. Together, we have faced a number of challenges and worked hard at retaining some degree of unity.

‘However, due to the circumstances, morale, understandably, is not good and there is significant unrest within the dressing room.’

Pressley didn’t mention Romanov by name but he didn’t have to. Hartley and Gordon remained silent throughout the address.

And with that, they rose and left, the hush in the room in sharp contrast with the chatter of a normal post-match conference.

Although even the most experienced journalists present were stunned at what they’d witnessed, they knew this much: Nothing would ever be the same again.

Predictably, the fallout was nuclear. Seething with what he saw on Sky Sports bulletins elsewhere in the building, Romanov addressed the entire squad and told them they’d be sold if they didn’t beat Dunfermline. The game ended 1-1.

The three actually started the match. Malofeev gave a strange post-match interview where he angrily insisted there were no problems at the club and the players could say what they liked because it was a ‘democracy’.

A short time later, the actions of Romanov would prove this was not the case.

Pressley was dropped for the game against Falkirk on November 13, was an unused substitute against Rangers on November 19, was then stripped of the captaincy and left the club on December 9 ahead of a January switch to Celtic.

Bizarrely, on the day he was told he’d no future at Hearts, he was offered the assistant manager’s job.

‘I was probably seen as the figurehead of the club at the time,’ he later said. ‘Everybody leaned on me to try and get things done, or get answers within the club.

‘The treatment of some individuals was horrendous. The honesty, the transparency, all the things that I think are really important in the foundations of a club — they were being disregarded.’

Hartley was a substitute against Falkirk and also moved to Parkhead in the January for £1.1million.

Gordon, the most valuable asset, was dropped for away games with Dundee United and Rangers, but remained at the club until he joined Sunderland for £9m in the summer.

As for Malofeev? Hearts didn’t win a game under him. He stayed in charge until Ivanauskas resumed his duties in late November.

With Hearts knocked out of the Scottish Cup by Dunfermline in the New Year, a game in which Gordon was a substitute, Ivanauskas then made way for Anatoliy Korobochka, the latest director of football to be promoted to head coach.

Despite an upturn in results, Aberdeen claimed third place ahead of the Tynecastle side. So much for winning the title.

While the Riccarton Three were never going to topple Romanov purely by speaking out against him, their actions ensured he was never viewed in the same light again by supporters.

When Stephen Frail was made manager in January 2008, he was able to demand that he would have full responsibility for team selection.

By the following year, Romanov had ceded the day-to-day running to Campbell Ogilvie. His visits to Tynecastle became increasingly less frequent.

No doubt, this had much to do with what he knew was coming down the track.

Although Hearts did defeat Hibs 5-1 in the 2012 Scottish Cup Final, the recklessness of the Romanov years was catching up with the club.

The following year, the collapse of his Lithuania-based Ukio Bankas triggered Hearts calling in the administrators who uncovered debts of £15m. A 15-point deduction and relegation followed.

Were it not for the mobilisation of the Foundation of Hearts and the largesse of Ann Budge, one of Scotland’s great sporting institutions would have gone under.

From the rubble, the club was rebuilt. With Tony Bloom involved these days, there’s an authenticity to the current talk of Hearts winning major honours, perhaps even the title one day.

As their supporters prepare to march on Hampden again tomorrow to face Hibs, the part of all of those who stood on the right side of history won’t be forgotten.