Hearts in the right place for Maybury

Soccer Interview: Gloom in Gorgie. The western enclave of Edinburgh has been home to Heart of Midlothian Football Club since the 1880s, but now they're talking of selling the club's ground, Tynecastle, because of an £18 million debt, writes Mary Hannigan

In the streets around the old stadium, its listed red brick facade the only part of the club's history safe from restless banks and hovering developers, "Robinson Out" posters fill the windows of barbers, bookies and bakeries.

If Hearts chief executive Chris Robinson, the man who has proposed that the club sell the ground and use neighbouring Murrayfield as its new home, wants a haircut, a bet or a loaf of bread he'd best seek them outside Gorgie.

The only realistic alternative to Murrayfield (with a capacity of just under 70,000 - on a good day Hearts get 15,000) is a ground-sharing arrangement with Hibernian, at their Easter Road ground on the east side of Edinburgh. But don't make the suggestion too loudly.

"If Hearts move to Easter Road," says the angry taxi driver with the "Robinson Out" poster in his back window, "they'll move without me."

"But if Inter and AC Milan can share a stadium, and Roma and Lazio, why can't we," sighs Alan Maybury, later that day. "There's a lot of history here, and I'm not ignoring it, but a lot of the argument for staying here is that we've been here for 125 years - but things move on, sometimes you just have to progress."

True, but for football supporters the lines between history and current affairs often blur. When the taxi driver points to the monument at the centre of Haymarket, the one that commemorates the 16 Hearts players who fought at the Battle of the Somme, where seven of them died and the rest were injured, he talks about it like it happened the Tuesday before last. It's part of the history, part of why he's loved the club since he was a boy.

Maybury smiles. He knows. He appreciates the history. He respects it. But he regretfully points out that it doesn't pay off an £18 million debt.

And besides, Alan Maybury has an aversion to history. A particular aversion to being reminded of his own, being told it merits some self-pity. Tired of being told what might have been if he hadn't had all those injuries at Leeds. If George Graham hadn't left Elland Road when he did. If David O'Leary hadn't bought Danny Mills. If Ireland didn't have so many right-backs. What if?

"I'm just not one to say 'what if,' " he says. "Going from Leeds' reserves to Hearts' first team was a step up for me. I played 100 reserve games at Leeds, but it didn't make me a Leeds United player.

"That's just the way it goes. I made my senior Irish debut with Damien Duff and Robbie Keane - they've gone that way (pointing to the sky), maybe I've gone that way a little bit (pointing at the floor), but I'm playing every week now, you go where someone wants you."

Maybury's history? Joined Leeds in 1995, when he was 17, made his first team debut under Howard Wilkinson, the following February.

A rising star. Won the 1997 FA Youth Cup, on a team that included Harry Kewell, Jonathan Woodgate, Paul Robinson and Stephen McPhail. The season after he made his senior Irish debut and played 15 times for Leeds under George Graham. A star is born? The next four years? Made just two more appearances for the Leeds first team. Injuries, rival right-backs (Gary Kelly and Danny Mills), loan spells (Reading and Crewe), more injuries and even more time in the reserves. They combined to help him reach the conclusion: time to leave. Joined Hearts in October, 2001.

Stayed too long at Leeds? He nods. "Definitely. Probably two years too long. But when I'd get back from a loan spell or back from injury I'd often get back in the first team squad, so instead of talking to the manager about my future I'd just think 'hold on, hold on', but you'd be forever waiting. Back in the squad. On the bench. You come on. You're there, you're there. Why cause trouble? Why ask to leave? Things are going okay. Hold on, hold on. But you just hold on too long.

"I ended up doing local radio, as a co-commentator, for almost a full season. The guy who did it used to ask for a player who wasn't involved, and more often than not it was me," he laughs. "It got to the stage people were saying 'are you on the radio this week, Alan?', rather than 'are you in the squad?' Then a weekend finally came when yer man announced that 'Alan won't be with us today - he's actually got to play a game'. That's how bad it got," he says, smiling, throwing his eyes heavenwards.

"But, to be honest, I don't think I'd change anything, although I suppose you wouldn't choose to map it out the way it worked out for me. But that's the way it goes and you get on with it, there's no point in looking back - you are where you are, reached the point you've reached. It's been good, when I look back on it I don't think I'll have too many regrets.

"Loved Leeds. Great times. I saw some of the lads on Boxing Day and they were confident then they could get out of trouble, but day to day it seems to be getting worse. It's sad to see, they've fallen very quickly. Hard to understand."

The beginning? Four years at Home Farm, from 11 to 15, then Maybury followed his coach Jimmy Harte to St Kevin's. Amongst his new team-mates was a winger Maybury had come up against in an under-11 cup final four years before. "He was playing for Leicester Celtic then, I can remember us being warned about 'that tricky little left winger, we have to watch that fella'. He stood out then. I used to play centre back so I never marked him, thankfully - I'd rather play with him than against him, that's for sure."

The name? Duff. Damien Duff.

By then Maybury had already been spotted by scouts from Britain, including one from the club he supported as a boy: Glasgow Rangers. Natural enough for a young lad born in to the Protestant footballing faith.

"They asked me over for two trials, brought me over to the cup final, flew my Mum and Dad over and my little brother. My Mum and Dad had meetings with the manager, he wanted to sign me, they looked after me brilliantly. But in the end it came down to a choice between Rangers and Leeds and I just felt, at 15 or 16, well, at that age you've enough to be dealing with, moving away from home, without all that 'you're from Dublin - why are you playing for Rangers?' stuff.

"I'd worn my Rangers kit to training in Dublin and people were telling me 'you're a disgrace, you shouldn't have that on'. We had no uniform at our school so I'd sometimes wear a Rangers jumper. A guy cycling down the road came up on to the path to tell me I was a disgrace, so you just started thinking 'do I really need the hassle?' At 15, 16 you're homesick enough without adding to it, so I decided on Leeds."

First there was the small matter of the Leaving Certificate, which Maybury was intent on doing at his Mount Temple school before departing for Leeds. Crammed three years in to two. A bright lad?

"I was okay, a hard worker. I did honours physics - triple physics on a Thursday morning, and then I'd do triple physics on the Friday morning with the other group, just to make sure I got it. I didn't find school particularly hard, I enjoyed it, good mates, it was fine."

Off to Leeds then, with fellow Dubliners Stephen McPhail and Damien Lynch as companions. And another fella, one of Maybury's best friends - still is - his room-mate when he arrived at the club. It hurt, then, when Leeds let Maybury's pal go, when he was 18. "He rang me soon after and told me he got an audition with a band, and I was like 'ah yeah, right - good one'."

But Nicky Byrne (aka the Taoiseach's son-in-law) got the audition, and became a member of Westlife. A hell of a career change? "Yeah - 'I'll be a professional footballer . . . ah na, I'll be a pop star'," he laughs.

Could he sing when he was at Leeds? "He thought he could. He thought he wasRonan Keating. Jeez, I suppose he is now."

With Byrne gone, Maybury found new friends, amongst them fellow youth team member Harry Kewell, with whom he, McPhail and Lynch shared a house, all four of them members of that 1997 FA Youth Cup-winning team.

"Right from the start I was in the youth team, playing every week, from Christmas onwards I played every reserve game as well and made my first team debut, so it all happened really, really quickly, I was on a high. The second year as well, it was one high after another. The first few years were absolutely brilliant.

"The best of the lot in the youth team was probably Wesley Boyle, but he had a lot of injuries, didn't play for three years and then had to retire. When people tell me I've been unlucky I remind them of Wesley."

Shin splints, which kept him out for a year, a broken leg and sundry other injuries hindered Maybury's progress every time he threatened to establish himself in the first team. His only good fortune was that he was blessed with a steely heart, he could take just about any misfortune thrown at him, no matter how soul-destroying. Tough to the core.

His last game for Leeds was away to West Ham in August 2001. "But by then I knew it was time to leave. Eddie Gray (then assistant to O'Leary) told me Hearts were interested. It was the last year of my contract so I had to sort something out. Wednesday morning I was a Leeds player, Saturday afternoon I was playing for Hearts, just like that.

"Of course I wondered about Scottish football, the view in England then, and now, is that Scottish football is rubbish, it's Rangers and Celtic and not a lot else. But you find your level and this is mine. You can only play what's in front of you.

"There are some games I'm shaking my head, wondering 'what's going on here?', there are others that are good, but any league has a mixture like that.

"But I love it here. There's nothing not to like about Edinburgh. It's more of a rugby town than Glasgow, a higher class around here," he grins.

"There's history, there's culture, there are good nights out, good shopping, 45 minutes to Glasgow, a 45 minute flight home, what else could you want?

"And the supporters seem to like me, I give my all, I'm committed. I've settled down now, I'm enjoying it, feel like I'm playing well. When I signed from Leeds I think some people thought I was going to be Maradona. Which, they soon learnt, I wasn't. But they seem to accept me for what I am, a player who will give everything."

And what of his international career? Brian Kerr called him up as a late replacement in his first game as senior manager, against Scotland, but Maybury doesn't expect to add to his two-cap total in the near future.

"Maybe I'm unlucky that there are so many quality full backs, but I accept where I am in the pecking order. If I never played for Ireland again, or didn't get back in the squad, I'd be disappointed, but it's not something that overly concerns me. Of course when a squad comes out I'm checking Teletext. You think 'ah, maybe', but I don't build myself up too much, I don't expect it - if it does come it'd be nice, but I'm not overly concerned."

He's 25 - the next move, they say, is the big one. He has 18 months left on his contract. Fancy going back to England?

"Every player wants to play at the highest level they can possibly play at, but if this is the level I end up at I'll be happy - if a chance came in England well, never say never," he says. "But it would want to be a decent club, I'm too happy here to give it up for something not so special."

Long term? "Might do sports science, thought about property, then decided 'no'. An office job, maybe? Don't know, haven't a clue. Wouldn't mind coaching, I'd go to America or Australia, but I've no ambitions to go home and coach on a rainy November Tuesday night. I don't know what I'll do, it changes day to day, at the moment I'm just floating along."

So you won't move back home?

"Home?"

Dublin.

"No. No ambition to pay twice the price for everything. I like going home, my family's there, some friends, but most of my friends are all over the world. I might move back when I'm much older, but if I have a chance to see the world, see something else, experience something different, I'll take it."

Well, if you can do triple honours physics two mornings running, you can very probably do anything. Alan Maybury v the world? Odds on, the lad from Clontarf.

Born: Dublin, August 8, 1978

Home: Clontarf, Dublin

School: Mount Temple

Schoolboy clubs: Home Farm, St Kevin's

Position: Right-back

Professional career: Leeds United (1995 - 2001, including loan spells at Reading and Crewe), Hearts (2001 - 2004).

Professional debut: for Leeds v Aston Villa, February 1996.

Republic of Ireland senior debut: v the Czech Republic in Olomouc, March, 1998

Leeds appearances (1995-2001): 14 starts, four appearances as substitute.

Hearts appearances (2001-2004): 89 starts, one as substitute,

Reading and Crewe (1999 and 2000): 14 starts.

QUOTES

"I'd worn my Rangers kit to training and people were telling me 'you're a disgrace, you shouldn't have that on' . . . you just started thinking 'do I really need the hassle?'. At 15, 16 you're homesick enough without adding to it, so I decided on Leeds."

"Look at Damien Lynch. He had all the injections to go to Nigeria for the World Youth Cup then he had to have a hernia operation and he had a bad reaction, then he had lots of problems with his pelvis, he couldn't even sleep in a bed, he was sleeping in a reclining chair, never once got to train with the first team - so there were lads a lot worse off than me, I've been quite lucky."

"I made my debut with Damien Duff and Robbie Keane, they've gone that way (pointing to the sky), maybe I've gone that way a little bit (pointing at the floor), but I'm playing every week, you go where someone wants you."

"There are some games (in Scotland) when I'm shaking my head wondering 'what's going on here?': there are others that are good - but any league has a mixture like that."

"If I never played for Ireland again, or didn't get back in the squad, I'd be disappointed, but it's not something that overly concerns me."