Hearts were finally demoted from the top flight of Scottish football despite winning 4-2 away to Partick Thistle.
St Mirren’s late fight back to beat Motherwell means that even with full points from their five post split fixtures the Edinburgh side will still finish at the bottom of the Premiership- should they avoid liquidation.
Hearts went into administration shortly after the 2012/13 season ended meaning that they avoided the drop with Dundee unhappy at the timing of the announcement.
Ironically Dundee could be set to replace the Gorgie mob with Paul Hartley’s side joint top of the Championship alongside Hamilton Accies who they drew 1-1 with today.
Just like in 1986 the bad news for Hearts came from Paisley where St Mirren won 3-1 with Gary Locke putting on a brave face as his side took the drop.
“I’m obviously disappointed at going down but I think over the course of the season I’ve said all along that the young players have improved,” the Hearts boss claimed. “And the hard work that we’ve put in all season is now coming to fruition.
“I said to the players before the game that there’s no point in us worrying about what happens at St Mirren, we’ve got to do what we can do.
“We have improved over the course of the season, the young players have certainly got better and I think you have seen that today. When they all click we’re a half-decent team.
“We’ve had a lot to deal with this year with not being able to sign players and the 15-point deduction, but it shows that without the points deduction we’d have been in the mix with a really young side, so it’s credit to the players.
“I thought they were fantastic today. We didn’t get off to the best of starts but I thought our response was really good.”
After relegation today Hearts face more bad news on Monday when the offer of £2.5m to the creditors of failed Ukrainian bank UBIG could put the club into liquidation.
It remains to be seen if the SFA will then attempt to grant a new liquidated club with a place in the Premiership as they did in 2012 when Sevco were fast tracked for SFA membership.