'Pure theatre puts Hearts on cusp of title fairytale'

Old and young and many in between. Many embracing, a few crying or close to crying, many smiling as they took it in, believing now, believing in a footballing miracle.

Three games to go and a three-point lead over the monied giants on one side of Glasgow and seven over the surely mortally wounded behemoth on the other side.

Hearts won not one but two victories in the sun on Monday night - they beat Rangers and in doing so they, effectively, took them out of the title race. Three horses have become two, but Hearts are out in front and show no sign of idling.

Few left the happy chaos because why would you? If you were a Hearts supporter wouldn't you want to bottle this feeling and drink from it in more difficult times, wouldn't you want to savour every last second?

And they did. A banner went up behind the goal that Lawrence Shankland scored into to win the game - "keep believing" it read. With a telescope you could not find a Hearts fan who does not believe now.

Leaders Hearts topple Rangers to take seismic leap towards title

What a rollercoaster, what an epic ride this was. Another one. Trailing at the break, Hearts needed something. The big screens at Tynecastle flashed with images of divine inspiration - well, Rudi Skacel, which amounts to the same thing around here.

Skacel, the whirling dervish, in his pomp, skipping past defenders and rifling shots past goalkeepers, the little wonder tearing it up. Creativity, cheek, goals - an icon at work.

Watching him was a reminder, not that it was needed, of the paucity of Hearts' performance in the opening half. High on aggression, low on class, through the roof on work-rate and desire but through the floor for composure and accuracy.

The league leaders were in trouble - hunting and pressing wasn't enough, not when it was all done with an element of panic and fury. Hearts wanted a result here like they wanted their next breath but they weren't calm and they had no control. That, for much of the opening half, belonged to Rangers.

The visitors needed a win even more than Hearts - anything less and their title bid was dead or dying. They went about it in a different way, though. What poise that existed out there came from Danny Rohl's team.

They dominated midfield, had incisiveness through Mikey Moore and a goal from Dujon Sterling. They had six times the number of shots on goal, double the number of touches in Hearts' box than Hearts had in theirs, better accuracy, more possession and more forward passes.

There is a flakiness in Rangers - they went 2-0 down in three of their previous seven league games coming into this one - but they looked more cohesive than Hearts.

Rohl said he was expecting a proper fight and his team were delivering. Rangers were bobbing and weaving and finding their range. Hearts were swinging and missing.

This season has taught us many things, though.

One - Hearts are never beaten until the last whistle. Two - Rangers can't be trusted to finish what they started.

There was always going to be a reaction from Derek McInnes' team, the only question being around Rangers' capacity to deal with that response. They faced a test and they flunked it.

McInnes brought on Blair Spittal, the hero of Easter Road, for the ineffective Islam Chesnokov. Spittal was deeply influential in everything he did in attack and defence. Immense. He sparked the comeback and the elation. Everybody else flowed in behind. Rohl and Rangers sank like a stone in the water.

Claudio Braga, who had looked like he was trying to trap a balloon earlier on, was now running with more menace and purpose. The charge of the maroon cavalry was gathering pace. You could sense it, you could almost reach out and touch it.

Eight minutes into the new half, Alexandros Kyziridis forced a save from Jack Butland, who had gone virtually untested in the opening spell. A minute or so after that, Tynecastle erupted to the sound of liberation from the torture of that first half.

Kyziridis, a huge force as the game went on, slapped a shot off Butland's right-hand post, the rebound falling to Stephen Kingsley, a powerhouse when the heat came on, and he stabbed it into the ground and past the Rangers' goalkeeper.

The noise - lasting and deafening - rose up and swirled around like a typhoon, gathering up everybody in its vicinity, delirious Hearts folk thrilled to be sucked into the vortex.

When Tynecastle is like this, it's hard to rival, a cacophony greeting every 50-50 tackle, spleens vented at a throw-in given the other way, gaskets were blown amid the mortal sin of Rangers being given a free-kick when, of course, they didn't deserve it.

Then it all increased another notch. If the maximum decibel level was a 10, this one went up to 11. Kingsley started it and, boy, did Shankland finish it, sweeping a first-time left-foot shot low past Butland. From 1-0 down to 2-1 up, from deep concern to utter bedlam in 18 breathless minutes.

Shankland is a colossus around here. Ask Hearts fans about the great sites of their wonderful city and they'll mention the castle and Calton Hill and Arthur's Seat and any number of other attractions, but they'll also tell you of the marvels of Shankland in full flow - his leadership and his finishing.

That goal, unerring and beautiful, could prove to be one of the most storied strikes in the history of the club.

This was Hearts taking another giant stride towards immortality and it was Rangers being removed from the race, shunted out of the way by a team that found itself at half-time, that showed character and bottle and class when they might have spontaneously combusted from the pressure of trailing and toiling.

What has made this season dramatic is the number of times late goals have turned defeats into draws and draws into victories. It's happened over and over and over again. You expect the unexpected. Thelo Aasgaard hitting the Hearts crossbar with a dozen minutes left to play was another reminder of the turbulence of these games.

The chance came and went as did Youssef Chermiti's late header, high, wide and far from handsome. That was the cue for the euphoria, the unleashing of a force that is really beginning to look irresistible.

"Pure theatre," said McInnes, later, of the home crowd, "What a noise it was." And what a noise it will be as the last days of this extraordinary season play out.

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