Welcome to the Two miles to Tynecastle photo gallery. Pretty much all of these images have some sort of connection to the story. I’ve therefore chosen these pictures as if they were nestled within the pages of my book.

Five Seventies Photos

Some early photos of me, including a rare snap of my mum and dad together at (I think) Aberdour in Fife: Note Bobby’s comical 70s wardrobe.

Four Eighties Photos

The one with me in the kilt is from the Saughton Mains Mock Royal Wedding, 1981. My less than starring role as ‘page boy’ would soon be easily upstaged by my mum who turned up later as a tipsy tennis player! There are also two photos of Bobby and me ‘Dan Sarf’, sporting those hideous quilted pullover jackets from What Every Woman Wants. The other snap was taken at Pettycur Bay in Fife, where we’d spend a week with our dad each year. I dunno where I got the Newcastle top from!

Three Nineties Photos

There’s Allan and me in my flat in Dundee Street, Edinburgh. And that’s me celebrating on Gorgie Road, May 17^th 1998, clearly enjoying Hearts’ long awaited trophy success. And er, that’s me aged 17, in the horrifying white jeans and yellow tea towel Sonneti shirt: “the fourth member of Rod, Jane & Freddie”!

Hearts Open Top Bus

The Hearts team of 2005/06 parade the Scottish Cup. “We deserved it, because we had to go through hell to win it”.

Silver Strip

Here I am with Paul and Gav the day after the 2006 cup win. The silver strip I’m wearing had haunted me for 20 years and that was something that needed putting right.

‘Puddle Lane’ on Westfield Road

© Jim Denniston 2003 / Streets of Edinburgh

‘Puddle Lane’, as I dubbed it, was overlooked by this scary building and was my beloved route to Tynecastle for many years. When rain fell, Hearts fans had to choose wisely as to how they were going to negotiate the puddle. Sadly, the bond warehouses were destroyed in 2007.

The Pipe over Longstone Burn

This pipe is a legend. Kids could either walk the pipe or walk the long way round. I first walked the pipe around 1979. As I fell in, I didn’t know whether my biggest fear was rats, drowning or ending up in Saughton Prison, which is only about 20 yards down stream! Kids: take the long way round.

Viaducts

L.S. Lowry spent years sketching the Stockport Viaduct and I too have a similar love for these bridges at Longstone, Edinburgh. I used to walk by here to get to Craiglockart Dell and home again with Bobby, Allan and ‘Blue’. It was always a scorching hot day during these summer holiday excursions.

Rusty old bridge

This rusty old bridge near Fords Road was where my friends and I ‘escaped’ from the Chinese takeaway chefs after banging on their door. Four or five of us made it over to the other side.

Field at Fords Road

I spent five years at Hutchison Vale in the 80s. This field, again near Fords Road, represents that time and place more than any other.

The Wheatsheaf

As well as legendary post-match celebrations such as ‘Wayne Foster’ and 1998, The Wheatsheaf is also the place where I met my lovely wife, Lesley. It’s not everyday you pull the barmaid.

Prison Lane

This scary lane behind Saughton Prison is the scene where I was once propositioned by a woman in labour. I also got shot in the ass here.

The River

‘The Lollies’, as this little stretch of the Water of Leith is called, lies right by the Prison Lane. It was our own little slice of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer.

Garage Gone

Like so many locations in my book, places that meant so much to me have now been demolished. This is the site of my old petrol station. I worked there for nine years, starting out as a ‘the guy who scooped the gunk out of the jet wash drain’. I used to walk around mumbling to myself like the poet, John Cooper Clarke reciting ‘Evidently Chicken Town’.