After over a decade away, the Masters is set to return to our screens this summer.
That’s the blue pitch football version rather than the green jacket golf major.
Celtic and Rangers are the only Scottish representatives taking part this year, but Hearts featured when the tournament was a Sky Sports staple back in the early 2000s.
The pool of potential players eligible for the Jambos since then has grown, and thanks to Vladimir Romanov’s - almost disastrous - financial largesse, there are some big class acts who could in theory, pull on the maroon for the old six-a-sides.
Some might not be able to, nor want to, but Record Sport is discounting that in order to come up with the ultimate Hearts Masters team.
Players must be 35 or older in the year of the tournament and have turned out for the Tynecastle team.
Antti Niemi
There’s nothing in the rules about the need for players to have actually retired.
Craig Gordon technically qualifies, but given he’s still Hearts’ captain and scooping individual awards while being his country’s number one, he can pull the gloves back on after he hangs them up professionally.
So the flying Finn is the next best thing. Until Gordon arrived (then came back), Niemi was arguably the club’s greatest ever goalkeeper alongside Jim Cruickshank.
The £400,000 Jim Jefferies spent to sign him from Rangers remains one of the best bits of transfer business done by any Hearts boss.
Neimi didn't play behind the same level of defence that Gordon has, and his breathtaking agility was often displayed, on occasion saving the Jambos from the odd hammering.
Andy Webster
You always need at least one out-and-out defender in your Master teams, but Webster’s ability to stroll through games and play from the back makes ideal.
A good reader of the game, he was the more sophisticated half of a miserly central defensive partnership alongside Steven Pressley.
Eventually he took over the captaincy, so the organisational and leadership skills to keep everyone in position are there too.
Takis Fyssas
The Greek was a European Championship winner by the time he arrived at Tynecastle in 2005.
A great left foot, good positional sense and respected by the entire squad, he’s an obvious choice to play alongside Webster at the back with licence to get forward and join in down the left-hand side.
Steve Fulton
Speaking of left pegs, Fulton’s was a wand.
It earned him the ‘Baggio’ moniker whilst breaking through at Celtic, and was a huge part of the Jambos 1998 Scottish Cup triumph.
Fitness was an issue even during his playing days so two decades on, don’t expect him to be covering every blade of grass.
But give him the ball and let others run, and he’d surely make things happen.
Colin Cameron
Can do Fulton’s running having played into his 40s, but also provides goals.
Arriving late in the box was such a signature that Hearts fans still use the "Colin Cameron role" as benchmark for the majority of attacking midfielders who have come afterwards.
Rudi Skacel
We’re going big on lefties in this team, and we’ve saved the best for last.
Still hailed as a goal machine by adoring fans, Skacel could almost do no wrong in maroon.
A rocket of a shot, Skacel was a threat whenever he got into range and on the smaller Masters pitch, that makes him deadly.
Wasn’t always in the thick of the action, but would explode into life when the ball found him and more often than not, hit the target.
Edgaras Jankauskas
Wasn’t the most popular after a disappointing second season, but the big Lithuanian’s class showed during his first.
Strong, intelligent and with a harder edge to him, he set up almost as many goals as he scored.
Had real pedigree after winning the Champions League with Jose Mourinho’s Porto, and would be a perfect foil for his obvious strike partner…
John Robertson
Who else could it be?
The wee man might not be the perfect physical specimen, but no-one knows more about sticking the ball in the pokey for the JTs.
Master rules dictate that one player must be in the opposition half at all times, which is perfect for Robbo.
With Cameron running from deeper and Jankauskas doing the hold up work, just get the ball close to the goal and let the Hammer of the Hibs do the rest.
