Hearts 2012 Scottish Cup winners: New book detailing the triumph and tragedy

Triumph and Tragedy of 19-05-12 is the second book in two years by Edinburgh-based football journalist and author Anthony Brown. Packed with interviews involving players, coaches, managers and club employees, it chronicles the Hearts triumph when Paulo Sergio’s side hammered local rivals Hibs 5-1 in the first major final between the two sides in over 100 years.

It is the follow up to 2020’s Reminiscing With Legends, which covered the 1998 Scottish Cup final win when Hearts defeated Rangers 2-1 to lift their first piece of silverware in 36 years. It was the first of three Scottish Cup conquests by Hearts across a 14-year period, though the 2006 victory over Gretna is curiously absent from what could have been a potential trilogy.

"2012 was the one I always wanted to do initially,” revealed Brown when talking to the Evening News. “I wanted to write a book before the '98 one and I thought, '2012, that's the stand-out moment from my career in terms of things I've worked at'.

“But the way my thinking evolved, the 1998 one started to feel like the right one to tackle first.

“And, to be honest, because in 2006 they beat Gretna in the final it didn't have the same magnitude. Obviously it's not just about the final itself, it's about the whole run and story behind winning the cup, but at the end of the day the two big results in my lifetime for Hearts were the 1998 cup win and the 2012 cup win.

“The 2006 one, without being disrespectful, didn't appeal to me on the same level.”

Triumph and Tragedy of 19-05-12 – which will have it’s launch at The Brunton in Musselburgh on Friday, May 13, before being released the week of this year’s final – follows a similar structure to Brown’s first book where he sets out the events before