Hearts were broken, as the challengers accepted that it had happened AGAIN, writes IAN HERBERT – with champions Celtic all too happy to remind Derek McInnes and Co of past failures

There are many shades of devastation and desolation in sport, among the multitudes who compete and lose, though few to compare with the experience of the team who drove Scotland’s football establishment to the very end and were ultimately vanquished, in a way that seemed as if the powers were weighted against them.

When Hearts shipped a third goal, the pitch was invaded by Celtic fans, some of whom allegedly attacked the visiting Hearts players.

A final punch in the face, you might say, for a group who rapidly boarded the team bus for a getaway back to Edinburgh, some still in their match kits.

They had been top of the table for months, bar the last seven minutes of the season. The outcome and the aftermath were wretched, in every way. For 87 minutes, their fortitude and class in the heat of a heaving bearpit had seemed enough to deliver the kind of fairytale which is vanishingly thin in a sport where power coalesces around the moneyed classes. 

And then, almost inevitably, came a VAR intervention, going against them once more and securing Celtic’s 56th title – one more than great rivals Rangers.

It left the challengers to accept that it had happened again. That they had lost the title on the final day, just as they had in 1965 and 1986. That after a season of beautiful football, they would not become the first non-Old Firm side to take the title since Alex Ferguson’s Aberdeen in 1985.

The VAR official’s decision was technically accurate this time. Daizen Maeda was onside by millimetres when he slid in Celtic’s second, contrary to the assistant referee’s flagged decision. 

But it is safe to say that the marginal call, to go with a deeply questionable and title-saving 96th-minute award of a spot-kick for Celtic in midweek, make this the Scottish title that VAR won. Hearts had been asked to step into something akin to a Roman amphitheatre: a stadium of 60,000 people, just 752 of whom were their own.

If the iniquity of the ticket allocation were not enough to contend with, there was the spiteful little reminder, just before kick-off, of Hearts’ haunting last-day loss to Dundee in 1986, which saw them sacrifice the title to Celtic.

‘Let’s invoke the spirit of ’86,’ taunted the stadium announcer as the players prepared. How classless.

The vast assembly of Hearts supporters was in Edinburgh, with roads into the city and pubs within it rammed as the faithful mustered in nervous anticipation. The local hope was unmistakable. Roads and bus stops bore messages declaring that thoroughfares and services would be affected if there were a trophy parade today. There will not be one now.

Celtic Park’s own faithful were reminded by that stadium announcer that they were at ‘the home of the champions’. Even the wifi code here is a form of the word ‘champions’. A colossal might was enlisted by the aristocrats to ensure it stayed that way. Celtic Park burned with fury when a maroon shirt so much as won a foul.

Fainter souls would have struggled with such circumstances, but Hearts took it all on and were undimmed, displaying class and composure amid the discord. Celtic wanted the narrative, as well as the title.

‘There’s a fairytale about this club,’ stated the tifo depicting Martin O’Neill which was unfurled by fans before kick-off. But the players wearing maroon were the heroes of these two unforgettable hours.

While Celtic had no midfield presence to speak of, Hearts had Cameron Devlin – diminutive, socks around his shins, playing with strength and absolute precision.

Much has been made of the signings that the analytics business of investor Tony Bloom has allowed Hearts to buy – Claudio Braga and Alexandros Kyziridis – but Devlin was the outstanding performer last autumn, before serious injury took him out.

Here was a reminder of that. At the back for Hearts, Michael Steinwender stood firm. After 43 minutes, Hearts broke the deadlock. They had just failed to capitalise on a corner when they won a second, from which Lawrence Shankland, their totemic striker this season, was allowed to steal in unchallenged at the back post and score.

The lead lasted six minutes. Kieran Tierney’s cross struck Kyziridis’s arm and Arne Engels stuck the ball to the right of goalkeeper Alexander Schwolow, who agonised after it flew under his body.

What happened next is testament to O’Neill, Celtic’s talisman and saviour, who now stands among the great managers of Celtic after bringing them a fourth title.

It was he who gambled on introducing Kelechi Iheanacho and going to three at the back. Suddenly, the game was fraught with danger. Iheanacho struck the post. Schwolow had been drawn into a fine save from Benjamin Nygren before Maeda struck.

There was something wonderful about the sight of O’Neill sitting down in a press-conference room to discuss all this, last night. 

It has felt like old-fashioned football sense being restored, amid the Old Firm’s mad pursuit of fashionable, unproven managers. 

O’Neill can contemplate a double, with Dunfermline to play in the Scottish Cup final. ‘I never thought I would stand on a podium again,’ the 74-year-old grandfather said in the aftermath. ‘I’ve been an old man wandering around the training ground! I think some of the players thought I was a vagrant!’

After the pitch invasion, sparked by substitute Callum Osmand’s third goal on the breakaway, play was suspended and never re-started. There seemed something rather emblematic about that.

Events have seemed so weighted against Hearts these past few weeks that a few more minutes of football were incidental.

Hearts have lit up Scottish football since last August, though that will not console them in the slightest.