Hearts have been top at Christmas 10 times - here's what history tells us about title chances

With thanks to the Scottishfootball.info website, an increasingly indispensable portal for Scottish football statistics, although a strong indicator, being top at Christmas is certainly not a racing guarantee that Hearts supporters will be dancing in the streets of Gorgie come May.

The last time the Tynecastle side were leading the top flight at this time of year does not offer too much comfort for Jambos. Bohemian Rhapsody was top of the charts in 1991 and Hearts led the Premier Division by two points from Rangers. Although the league leaders on 25 December have gone on to win the league in 81 out of 128 seasons, which is 63 per cent of the time, this wasn’t one of those occasions. And neither was Christmas Day 1985, when Hearts were top by a point from Aberdeen – we all know what happened at the end of that season. And the time before that, in 1964, also saw Hearts involved in last-day agony.

So as Derek McInnes stressed following Sunday’s 2-1 win over Rangers, the onus is on Hearts to improve. There is still a lot of work to be done “to make it the season we want it to be” and emulate Hearts' last Scottish title-winning side of 1960 (they were sitting top on Christmas Day, 1959). It was as near as the Hearts manager was going to get to admitting the title was in his sights.

It’s getting ever harder to avoid the subject. Come Saturday night, following the Edinburgh Derby at Easter Road, Hearts will be 19 games into a 38-game season. Whatever happens elsewhere, they are guaranteed to be top. This halfway juncture seems a less arbitrary point in the season than a religious festival when contemplating prospects for the weeks and months ahead.

But Christmas Day is the marker that everyone prefers. In total, Hearts have been top on this day on 10 occasions, including this week. They have only won the title four times, which proves that closing the deal is difficult. In fact, they've fallen short more often than not. In 1991, for example, Hearts ended up finishing second, nine points adrift of champions Rangers. Manager Joe Jordan was sacked the following season after a 6-0 defeat to Falkirk.

Hopes had been high that the former Scotland striker could help Hearts scratch what was then just a 21-year itch since the Tynecastle club had been Scottish champions. “Rangers fans groaned when they heard news that Hearts had won against St Mirren,” wrote Rodger Baillie in the Daily Record from Ibrox, where Rangers had beaten Dundee United 2-0 thanks to an Ally McCoist double.

The reigning champions knew they were in a fight to retain their crown. Hearts’ victory at Love Street, thanks to John Millar’s goal, ensured they were top on Christmas Day. In an exhausting 44-game programme, this was their 25th league match. They were already well over the halfway line.

Hearts were on a 12-game unbeaten run. They then went to Perth to play St Johnstone between Christmas and New Year and won 5-0. But four defeats in five league games at the start of the year meant they were playing catch-up.

A win against Falkirk in their game in hand over Rangers took them within five points of the Ibrox side, in the days of two points for a win, going into the final stretch. But Rangers won eight of their ten final league games to lift the title for the fourth successive time.

The following season they finished fifth. Jordan had already departed following what was deemed an unacceptable defeat at Brockville.

That’s football for you. A year ago McInnes was manager of Kilmarnock and hopeful of battling for a place in the top six. Stuart Findlay, who was also at Rugby Park at the time, was on the sidelines through injury having damaged ligaments in his ankle. Only on loan from Oxford United at the time, he must have wondered what the future held. It’s hard to believe that the 30-year-old is still only on loan from the English Championship club given his contribution to Hearts this season. His opener against Rangers on Sunday was his fifth goal of the season from centre-back. He was asked afterwards whether he was surprised to find himself in a title fight.

“I came here in the summer knowing what Hearts fans expect,” he said. “And that is to go out and try and compete and win every game of football. When you put them (wins) all together, yes, it might start to look like a title challenge. But the way we look at it is we just go into every game expecting that we can get a result.“You just take that one game at a time and so far we've reached the expectations of the fans by winning the majority of the games. I can't stress enough that's what we need to keep doing. We need to keep looking ahead to the next game. The title thing, I'll let other people talk about that. We just want to make sure we've dusted that one off (v Rangers) and now it's a massive derby that we need to try and get another win in.”

'Dusting that one off' is one way of putting it. It is only the seventh time in Scottish football history that a team have secured a home and away double over Rangers and Celtic during a league season. These achievements are shared between just three clubs, Aberdeen and Motherwell being the others.

Only twice has the team also gone on to lift the championship. Both times were Hearts - in 1957-58 and 1959-60. Perhaps this is a better lesson from history for Jambos to focus on.