The Vladimir Romanov era at Hearts contains story after story of all the mad goings on at the club under the Lithuanian.
Players involved at the time have recounted plenty of tales that have fans raising their eyebrows and laughing in equal measure – and that’s just the ones they’ve been able to tell.
We’ve already looked at Romanov sacking manager George Burley with the Jambos unbeaten after 10 games, sitting top of the table and looking on course for a title challenge.
You might think that would be about the craziest thing that could happen but there is plenty more where that came from across the madcap former owner’s nine years of involvement at Hearts.
Including the time they did pre-season on a yacht and one player feared being dropped into the sea never to be seen again!
Andy Webster feared fatal Hearts contract talks repercussions
At the start of the 2006/07 season, after a Scottish Cup win and finish of second in the league, Scotland centre-back Andy Webster was on his way out of Tynecastle.
He had been refusing to sign a new contract with the club as he wanted to keep his options open with bigger clubs circling on account of his brilliant displays at the heart of defence alongside Steven Pressley.
Webster had been frozen out towards the end of the previous season and sat out of the Scottish Cup final win over Gretna.
By the time pre-season was starting though, no move had materialised and as he was still a Hearts player he had to head off on tour with them. Only this time, pre-season tour meant ten days on a boat in the Mediterranean.
Now the club’s academy director, he recalls being fearful of Romanov taking the situation out on him.
Speaking on the BBC’s Romanov: Czar of Hearts podcast, he said: “Sitting up in the evening after dinner Vladimir says to his interpreter ‘I’d like to speak to a couple of players during my time on the boat’. So I knew ‘that means me’.
“So sure as fate, I was sharing with Elvis (Steven Pressley) at the time. Knock at the door after dinner, ‘Vladimir would like to see you’.
“I goes up the dining area, sat myself and there are four other people at the other side of the table. Vladimir, probably Roman (Romanov), probably Sergejus (Fedotovas), and someone else. He started speaking Russian or Lithuanian and I said ‘I’m not sure it takes four people at one side of the table and me sat here on my own to have a conversation, so two of them left.
“Vladimir just chatted about stuff in general through the interpreter. The funny part was he was talking about Russian football and said ‘you know in Russia, football is really important. Sometimes people disappear.”
That was an ozonous thing to drop into the conversation and Webster had to make sure his roommate stayed vigilant.
He added: “I go back to the room, chap on the door, Elvis lets me in. I said to him ‘if there’s a chap on the door I’m not in. If you hear a splash during the night, get a lifejacket overboard please.”
Paul Hartley on Hearts’ pre-season on a yacht
Webster wasn’t the only one who didn’t feel entirely comfortable on the boat.
Paul Hartley explained: “I mean it was shocking to be honest with you. I think it cost like £600,000 to lease for that ten days, but there was no training facilities for us.
“We used to jump off the speed boats onto the land to provide somewhere to train.
“This is 10 days in the Med, on this big yacht, just. It was a good holiday. S— pre-season but a good holiday!”