Steven Pressley gutted by Hearts silence as ex captain recalls putting career on line and not getting invited back

He cut his teeth as a Rangers player in the Champions League and even earned the nickname Baby Gough. He ignored Walter Smith’s advice to make a big-money move to Coventry – a decision he has regretted ever since.

He helped Dundee United back into the top flight and ended up crossing football’s great divide to sign for Celtic. And he was so disliked on the green side of the city that Neil Lennon refused to shake his hand on his first day in the job. But throughout a playing career spanning almost two decades Steven Pressley became synonymous with just one club. And ultimately they broke his Hearts. Speaking in the latest episode of our hit new podcast Off the Record, the man who is now in a key development role with Premier League high-fliers Brentford, reveals for the first time how his Tynecastle love affair has left a lasting scar. Pressley’s eight years in Edinburgh ended in explosive fashion in December 2006 after he led the Riccarton Three revolt against owner Vladimir Romanov, flanked by Craig Gordon and Paul Hartley.

Stripped of the captaincy and banished from the club, he then made the shock move to Gordon Strachan’s Celtic. And within weeks he was back on his old stomping ground celebrating a win by thumping the chest of a green and white shirt. Pressley said: “When Celtic beat Hearts I celebrated the victory. When I returned to Tynecastle that day as Celtic captain I was booed from the moment I walked on to that pitch for the warm-up. People don’t remember that. “That was really disappointing after what I believed I’d given the club. The commitment I had given the club. I actually took a 50 per cent wage cut at one point in my Hearts career but I never spoke publicly about it. I loved the club, loved