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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Sport
Michael Butler

Will Hearts’ army of data nerds back up Tony Bloom’s title talk?

Hearts players get their celebrations on.
Hearts players get their celebrations on. Photograph: Neil Hanna/Shutterstock

BLOOMING MARVELLOUS

Despite the Scottish Premiership title race being more predictable than Football Daily at a bottomless brunch, fitba has never been short of drama. Who can forget Ross County deleting their own website, Kirk Broadfoot suffering facial burns after microwaving an egg and former Hearts manager Robbie Neilson trying to give journalists the slip as he left the club’s training ground by sending out a decoy (sports scientist John Hill) to the car park in a Robbie Neilson mask. Edinburgh, very much the second city in Scotland when it comes to football, still has one of the game’s finest rivalries between two grand old clubs, Hearts and Hibernian. Each have had their moments in recent derbies: last year Hearts’ Lawrence Shankland celebrated scoring a penalty by catching and eating a pie thrown by a Hibs supporter. In March, Jack Iredale scored a screamer to win the derby for Hibs. The post-match celebrations at Easter Road featured one of the finest ever renditions of Sunshine on Leith, a song sung with so much feeling that it left some Hibs players in tears. And who can blame them? If you get goosebumps watching that song, imagine what it must be like to come from that corner of Scotland, stand on that terrace and sing those lyrics in front of your victorious team. Magic.

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