Hearts were relieved to get highly rated young goalkeeper Harry Stone tied down on a professional contract over the summer, but it wasn’t just other clubs that they were competing with.
The 17-year-old was attracting strong interest from Celtic while European champions Liveprool were also keeping tabs on him.
He put pen to paper in July to go full-time at Tynecastle after being with the Jambos since Under 13 level.
But Stone may not have gone pro at all had he decided to pursue a career in medicine.
It’s something of the family business with his father being a surgeon, and he admitted he had a decision to make when he reached his mid-teens about which direction he wanted to go in.
Hearts are glad he decided to embark on a career between the sticks, but he hasn’t stopped education completely.
The club have worked out a timetable that allows him to study two advanced highers in chemistry and biology at Balerno High School, as well as train full-time with the pool of first-team goalkeepers.
“I’ve always wanted to be a doctor when I’m older and that would obviously mean doing medicine at uni,” he explained to Hearts TV. “When I got to 15/16 I was deciding whether to drop football completely and pursue medicine, or give football a shot.
“I thought to myself, ‘you can always go back to uni and do your medical degree at 35’ whereas football’s a very short career.
“Once you’re past your prime there’s no chance of doing it so I thought I’d give football a go and see where it takes me.
“If it goes well, great! Big football career. But if it doesn’t, I’ve got this back up.
“Hearts asked me to go full-time when I was in S5 but I decline because I wanted to do my five highers in full-time education and they were more than happy to accommodate that.
“My coach, Ranks [John Rankin] said: ‘I know your education is very important. If you ever need time off training just tell me and that’s fine.’
“They’ve always been really nice and flexible with me and my education.
“They’ve given me a timetable. I was expecting to miss half my classes but the way Hearts have organised it has been stellar. I don’t think I’m missing any periods of school and still training five times a week.
“It’s great how I can do both and not have to do too much.”
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