Craig Gordon explains why it was 'too dangerous' to play more than 30 seconds of his Hearts testimonial

The injured goalkeeper was named in the starting line-up for the pre-season encounter against Sunderland at Tynecastle but was replaced by Zander Clark after his first pre-planned act of the match - booting the ball into the stand.

The 42-year-old admitted that he was tempted to play longer - against doctor's orders - but with a nerve issue causing weakness in his arm he had no choice but to accept that his appearance was purely a ceremonial one which afforded him the opportunity to receive a guard of honour as the teams entered the pitch before getting a standing ovation from the crowd.

"That's what I wanted from the day," Gordon said. "I completed the one pass exactly where I was supposed to kick it, so that's always a bonus.

"I was desperate to try and play longer in the game, but it became too difficult. The medical team didn't want me to do it. It was too dangerous for them to allow me to play any longer than that, so it became the decision that I would start the game, but I have to come off. Could have kept the ball on the pitch and just seen what happened and just disobeyed orders, but I thought I'd better do what I'm told and find the dugout with the first touch."

Gordon signed a new one-year contract with Hearts in the summer but has been left kicking his heels by a nerve issue with no return date on the horizon.

"Yeah, it's more than a few weeks away, so it's not anything that's that close at the moment, but I need to keep working away," he revealed. "Everything this week was geared towards this game, but now it's finished. I'll get back into the rehab this week and keep pushing to see how quickly I can get back. There's no real time limit on it. It's very difficult to say how long I'll be out for, but I'll just get back in the gym and work as hard as I can to make that as short a time as possible.

"I had a disc problem in my neck and it's caused a nerve problem down my arm. I'm not in any pain. The nerve causes a bit of tingling down my arm and it's caused a little bit of weakness in my arm. Basically, if I can get rid of the weakness and get the strength back, then I'm good to go. Everything else feels really good. I can do everything else in training, but the strength just isn't there at the moment to be able to deal with a full game.

“That's the focus over the next few weeks, to try and build that up. It's not going to be straightforward, but it's something that I'm working on. It's just a rehab. For me, it's about trying to get back as quickly as possible, get myself out on the training pitch and join in with the boys and start trying to push to get back in the team."

Despite only managing a brief appearance, Gordon was delighted with how his testimonial match went as Hearts ran out 3-0 winners over his former club.

"Today has been brilliant," he added. "Right from the very beginning, I was here three or four hours before kick-off and seeing the lounges, seeing as many people as I could. I was out in the plaza for a bit with all the activities going on out there, signing autographs, taking pictures and just trying to see as many of the fans as I could.

"Thank everybody for coming. It's been a huge turnout. One of the best friendly attendances or testimonial attendances I can ever remember at Hearts. That is very humbling.

"It just shows what the Hearts fans can do. We get semi-finals, finals, they turn up their numbers, they sell out their allocation and today they've proved that to me once again by turning up huge numbers for this. How special a fan they really are."