Oisín McEntee and the Hearts surge shaking Scottish football

Amid international deflation comes a search for domestic consolation. It leads to the western fringe of Edinburgh, to the Heriot-Watt University campus and sports complex, where the imposing figure of Heart of Midlothian’s Cavan game-changer, Oisín McEntee, pulls up a chair to discuss Hearts’ remarkable, possibly historic, season. And a bit more.

“I’m in a big thing here,” McEntee says.

He is. The intensity of international focus means it can be forgotten Hearts could soon be the first non-Glasgow champions of Scotland since Alex Ferguson’s Aberdeen 41 years ago. Hearts have not won the league since 1960. They have not been second since 2006. Across Scotland, glass ceilings may soon shatter.

McEntee, with 30 Hearts appearances already, would be essential to this smashing. Shortly before the rangy centre-half cum midfielder takes his seat, his Hearts manager Derek McInnes comes over to tell The Irish Times: “We’ve other players who have had more spotlight this season, but Oisín’s a manager’s dream.

“I can play him as a number 8, as a 6, as a centre-back in a back three; he’s filled in so many places and he is quality every time. Some players don’t like versatility, but I trust Oisín, trust him. His team-mates recognise his importance and us as a staff do. He’s very popular. He doesn’t play with any ego, he epitomises what we are.”

The Scottish Premiership resumes this weekend with Hearts three points clear at the top. They have two fixtures left before ‘the split’, after which the top six and bottom six play the five clubs around them once. Seven wins from seven games will give Hearts the title; it could require less.

Next is Livingston away on Sunday. Livingston are bottom, so Hearts should win. But Rangers are at home to Dundee United on Saturday and if Rangers win, they will go top. Celtic, five points behind Hearts, are still in the conversation. It’s not over.

[ Celtic stumble in title race with damaging defeat at Dundee UnitedOpens in new window ]

It is invigorating in a way Scottish football has not been for decades. The surprise of Hearts is all part of it and surprise is part of McEntee as well. As he says: “Did I know it was going to be something special? Not really. I was focused on myself and getting in the team. Signing from a fourth division club in England, no one expects too much.”

This time last year, McEntee was three months past his 24th birthday and playing for Walsall in League Two in England. Walsall had a 12-point lead in January, yet missed out on automatic promotion in the last minutes of the last day, then lost the play-off final at Wembley to AFC Wimbledon. So McEntee knows about crossing the line, and not crossing it. He did not always start at Walsall and was out of contract, so he also knows about uncertainty.

But the determination and perseverance hallmarking his career explain why he receives such glowing praise from McInnes and others. There is no self-pity when McEntee says: “People talk about sliding doors moments – not one has went well for me. I’ve been over in the UK for nearly 10 years, I’ve had injuries at the wrong times, loan moves that didn’t happen.”

He then adds: “Except now, this one feels different. Now I’ve got Hearts.”

The wrong-door reference concerns McEntee’s teenage years at Newcastle United, his signing for Walsall and a general sense of being overlooked.

McEntee was born in New York – “in the Lenox Hill hospital in Manhattan.” His father Mickey had gone across in his early twenties with Cavan to Chicago to play Gaelic during a US explosion of interest in the game and Mickey and future wife Kay stayed 15 years. They moved back to Kay’s native Armagh, then south to Shercock in Cavan. In his father’s footsteps, Oisín began playing Gaelic and “loved it – I was probably more serious about Gaelic football.

“But it definitely does transfer, all the physical side, the bravery, the competitiveness. At Gaelic, even at a small age, everything is so competitive, that was the culture. I feel like there’s a difference in the Academy system [in English soccer], where it’s about development.”

Physical courage is arguably the attribute least appreciated in professional footballers and “bravery is probably my strongest point”, McEntee says. It has cost him in injuries; there has been misfortune too.

Having been seen by Manchester United playing for Cavan/Monaghan at the Foyle Cup, for example, McEntee played on with a broken arm. A United fan, he was invited to Old Trafford aged 11. “I met all these big people, was on trial with Brooklyn Beckham,” he says, “it was just so surreal. And I was in my first week at secondary school. Crazy.

“A few English clubs started to come in. Celtic watched me but didn’t think the club standard [in Cavan] was good enough. A few said that. I went to Man United a few more times, but scouts were telling my mam and dad I needed to play in Dublin in the DDSL.

“I was on trial at Man United with Sean Brennan, an unbelievable under-age player. He convinced me to go to Belvedere.”

At the distinguished Dublin boys’ club, McEntee says he “struggled”. Yet he pushed on, played alongside the likes of Troy Parrott and against Nathan Collins. Trials in England continued – Aston Villa, Wolves, Brighton – and at 15 he and his family settled on Newcastle. “I moved across on my 16th birthday.”

In his time on Tyneside McEntee captained the under-18s, 21s and 23s, but he did not make the first team. He suffered injuries and was frustrated by a lack of loan moves. Then on the last day of the summer window in 2021, aged 20, he was loaned by Newcastle to Greenock Morton in Scotland’s Championship. McEntee says it changed him, matured him. Watching in the stands a couple of times was a former Morton player – Derek McInnes.

At the end of the 2021-22 season, McEntee’s Newcastle contract ended and he signed for Walsall. All the while, he represented Ireland at under-age level up to under-21, as a defender, sometimes as captain.

“Around May [2022] I signed a pre-contract with Walsall and went off with the Ireland under-21s,” he says. “I landed awkwardly on my shoulder. I had to have an operation. I couldn’t play for Walsall for the first seven months. I was in a brand new place, a new club, everyone was raging with me, in the gym, so hard to make mates. My head was gone.

“And then I couldn’t get in the team.”

The latter remark is not throwaway. McEntee’s attitude has been shaped by non-selection. He repeats several times that he trains and plays to be in the starting XI and to stay there – “it’s so easy to fall out of a team.” When Walsall changed manager and promoted Mat Sadler from within, he gave McEntee a run of games – “He played me in midfield for the last four. I’d never played there in my life. I’d been a centre-half. It was a crazy turnaround.”

McEntee was grateful and took his opportunity. But it is easy to drift to the periphery of the radar when playing fourth-tier football in England. McEntee did, there were no FAI call-ups.

But 12 months ago Brighton owner Tony Bloom was plotting to invest in Hearts and his Jamestown Analytics company were going to oversee recruitment. McInnes came in as manager last May and offered Jamestown a profile of a combative midfielder. McEntee showed up in Jamestown’s data – “his rating was really high,” McInnes says – and having remembered him from Morton, a deal was done swiftly.

McEntee, a free transfer on affordable wages, impressed in pre-season, started McInnes’ first match and McInnes’ first league match. McEntee then scored the winner at Celtic in December and when the contours of the season are reviewed, this will be a landmark moment.

Gradually McEntee became a vital part of an emerging team. His latest intervention, the 77th minute winning header against Dundee in the last match, kept Hearts going. To family delight, Mickey McEntee had booked a last-minute flight over.

As Oisín says, a 0-0 draw would have been “an energy-sapper”. Instead Hearts had a fourth consecutive 1-0 home win, momentum and McInnes spoke of “electricity about the place”. They have talismanic striker Lawrence Shankland back from injury, plus McEntee’s midfield colleague Cammy Devlin. Hearts are top for reasons.

“We’ve got ourselves here,” McEntee says. “Belief, it just comes with wins and performances. There are games when you’re not sure how you’ve been, but you realise you’ve been effective. Listen, I watched Celtic growing up and when you’re at Celtic Park, you’re thinking ‘this is mad.’ But then you go and beat them. It makes you realise you’re on a level playing field with these players.”

There has been no international recognition, no FAI contact and “you want to play international football, don’t you?” he says. He knows, however distant it may seem, his New York birth gives him a USA option.

But Hearts is the priority. History is close. “I feel like we’re here on merit,” McEntee says. They are. He is.

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