He cut his teeth as a Rangers player in the Champions League and even earned the nickname Baby Gough. He ignored Walter Smith’s advice to make a big-money move to Coventry – a decision he has regretted ever since.
He helped Dundee United back into the top flight and ended up crossing football’s great divide to sign for Celtic. And he was so disliked on the green side of the city that Neil Lennon refused to shake his hand on his first day in the job. But throughout a playing career spanning almost two decades Steven Pressley became synonymous with just one club. And ultimately they broke his Hearts.
Speaking in the latest episode of our hit new podcast Off the Record, the man who is now in a key development role with Premier League high-fliers Brentford, reveals for the first time how his Tynecastle love affair has left a lasting scar. Pressley’s eight years in Edinburgh ended in explosive fashion in December 2006 after he led the Riccarton Three revolt against owner Vladimir Romanov, flanked by Craig Gordon and Paul Hartley.
Stripped of the captaincy and banished from the club, he then made the shock move to Gordon Strachan’s Celtic. And within weeks he was back on his old stomping ground celebrating a win by thumping the chest of a green and white shirt.
Pressley said: “When Celtic beat Hearts I celebrated the victory. When I returned to Tynecastle that day as Celtic captain I was booed from the moment I walked on to that pitch for the warm-up. People don’t remember that.
“That was really disappointing after what I believed I’d given the club. The commitment I had given the club. I actually took a 50 per cent wage cut at one point in my Hearts career but I never spoke publicly about it. I loved the club, loved being around it.
“I was booed every touch of the ball I had so it was a little bit hurtful because I knew everything I’d given to that club. And do you know what is even more hurtful? I have been away from that football club for, I don’t know, 14 years and I’ve never been invited back. I’ve no idea why, but it’s an element that does disappoint me.”
In the podcast Pressley opens up on his lasting regrets over waging war on Romanov – and being stabbed in the back by some of his own team-mates. He said: “Do you know what disappoints me? And this is something that has never sat right with me. I always think during periods like that, when there’s change and people stand up, there are always those that take advantage of that moment. For their own good they move into certain positions.
“I found out about that on the back of that. It was a real learning curve for me. Sometimes you stand up for everybody yet there are a lot of people who are only concerned about their own situation. One of the reasons I did it was for the standards at the club, the lies within the club, the honesty – everything that I felt Hearts stood for.
“But also for most people I was the one who carried the power at the time. The managers didn’t even carry the power. So on every single aspect, whether it was players trying to negotiate their way out of the club, whether it was certain players who were looking for operations on an injury, whether it was coaches or assistant coaches who weren’t particularly happy about certain aspects, they were all coming to me.
“And it was relentless – nothing was getting dealt with – and I had all of this on my shoulders. So I spoke to Paul and I spoke to Craig and I spoke to a number of senior professionals but I didn’t want to put anybody into a situation because I was also aware that this could be the end of our time.
“For Paul and Craig there was always going to be further opportunities for them if it was to end this way. But for others it could change their lives when they had families and children to support. So I accepted certain people’s decisions on that.
“Although they were behind the decision they didn’t want to put themselves out there. And then I went ahead. I had obviously thought about it. I’d scripted a statement that I felt addressed certain situations and certain issues and I decided to make it. It was on the back of a meeting with Vladimir in the dressing room when he called a number of people out, he made threats about dropping people and players not playing again for this football club. It was just the right time.
“The amazing thing was there’s a kind of myth about this guy, this tyrant. He never addressed it with me at all. I bumped into him a number of times and he never spoke to me at all. But I actually think, in Vlad’s defence, there were certain people that he had placed in the club that had their own agendas within the club. It was a very divided club in that way.
“I don’t think that Vlad was fed back the correct information at times. I think certain people had their own agendas and I had always thought this. What made me certain was, on the day I left the club, Valdas Ivanouskis, the manager at the time, called me into his office. I had another meeting at Tynecastle at two o’clock.
“He called me into his office at 12:30pm at the training ground and he offered me the assistant manager’s job. I told him that would go against everything that I had stood for. One and a half hours later I arrived for a meeting at Tynecastle where they were telling me the polar opposite. They were telling me they wanted me out of this club. That’s why I do feel there were agendas within the club.”
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