Crass Hearts could learn from class act Jardine

THE most dignified acceptance speech I have ever heard at a football awards dinner was given by the late Sandy Jardine.

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It was delivered in May 1986 and the memory remains ingrained on my mind four decades later.

Sandy, then at Hearts, had been voted, at the age of 39, Scotland's Player of the Year. But the day before the ceremony, Hearts had been pipped by Celtic to the league title in the most dramatic circumstances.

Sandy had too much dignity to let himself or his club down when it came to expressing his emotions.