At the start of the Vladimir Romanov era, an incredible new dawn appeared to be upon the club.
After appointing a man who had succeeded in the English Premier League in George Burley, the Jambos won their first eight games and were unbeaten in ten, and looked like genuine title challengers.
This went pear-shaped when Romanov started his madcap ways and bizarrely sacked Burley with Hearts top of the table.
They ended up finishing second and winning the Scottish Cup, the first of two cup wins under his watch, so it was far from doom and gloom until the very, very end when the club were plunged into administration.
Andy Webster told how Romanov appeared to threaten his life when he shunned contract talks and one of his teammates from the time, Paul Hartley, has also previously told a story which might be one factor in how the financial troubles came about.
Paul Hartley revealed incredible Hearts bonuses
Hearts were flying at the start of that 2005/06 season and there was a tangible feelgood factor around the place that hadn’t been felt in Gorgie for many a year.
Fans were on cloud nine with Champions League winner Edgaras Jankauskas and European Championships victor Takis Fyssas among the superstars wearing maroon.
And they were winning every week, which helped. The players looking supremely confident as they steamrollered opponent after opponent, and it seems there was another reason they were enjoying it so much.
In an interview with Open Goal back in 2019, Hartley told how they were on a win bonus of £1500, but it went up by £500 with every victory, so on that memorable run to start the season they were coining it in as their bonus reached £5,000 with a home win over Rangers.
Later in the Romanov era, players went months without being paid but the Cove Rangers boss says that was never an issue when he was at Tynecastle.
“This is back in 2006 so I’m not scared to tell this,” he said. “We were on £1,500 a win and after every win, it went up £500.
“We were on a roll that year – we won eight in a row at the start of the season. So it was £1,500, £2,000, £2,500…we’re like ‘where’s the money coming from?’ But we weren’t caring because we were on big bonuses.
“The money was always there. I never, ever didn’t get paid there. It would be £1,500 to start with, then say you went and won three of four games then drew a game, it would go back to £1,500 again.
“We won over 20 games that season. If you think about the amount of money they paid out that season in bonuses, it was incredible. It was actually incredible.”
Why Hearts really sacked George Burley
In a recent BBC podcast, the real reasons behind the sacking of Burley, which sent shockwaves around the UK, were explored.
Chairman at the time, Lord George Foulkes, told Romanov: Czar of Hearts: “I was certainly against it, very strongly against it. He had picked up from a previous board meeting something that Phil Anderton (chief executive) had said. Phil had said something about George Burley and drink but it was just a passing reference and nothing serious.
“He cottoned onto that and wanted to argue, and did argue, that Burley had a drink problem. He would use that as a reason for sacking him. We knew that he wanted to get rid of him because George was challenging his decisions.”
Mark Donaldson, then working at Radio Forth, attributes the jealousy Romanov had towards Burley as fans gave him credit for his work.
“This is they key to the whole story,” he says. “Vladimir Romanov was all about Vladimir Romanov, he wanted Hearts to be a success for Vladimir Romanov.
“He wanted the Lithuanians that came to Hearts to be a success for Vladimir Romanov’s pocket. So when the Hearts fans started singing ‘Vladimir Romanov’, everything is great. He was loving life, he was the hero.
“It wasn’t long before those chants, maybe didn’t dissipate, but there were new chants for the players, for George Burley. Burley was getting a lot of attention, manager of the month again, ‘wow what a job he’s doing.’
‘Hold on’, says Vlad. ‘I’m the owner here, where’s the owner of the month award?’ So once the pendulum went from Vlad and swung towards George, that’s when the problems began.”