how do you mend a broken heart?
As they went into their final match of the 1985/86 Scottish football season, away to 6th placed Dundee on May 3, league leaders Hearts had gone a full 27 league games without defeat and needed only to avoid losing to ensure they would be Scottish champions for the first time since 1960.
Two Albert Kidd goals for Dundee in the final 10 minutes shattered Hearts dreams, as Celtic were stuffing St Mirren 5-0 in Paisley and so nicked the title on the last day.
But Hearts still had the Cup to play for.
The final at Hampden against Alex Ferguson's Aberdeen was just a week away.
To try and lift the dejected players for the Cup final the following week, the Hearts management had brought in a top sports psychologist who coached the squad in the week leading up to the final.
Various techniques were employed to attempt to 'erase' the disappointment of blowing the championship and prepare the team to at least lift the cup.
Fergie got wind of the activities at the Hearts training camp.
According to former Aberdeen assistant boss, Willie Garner, as Fergie prepared the Aberdeen players together in the dressing room before the teams walked out at the final, his final instructions were that each Aberdeen player should find an individual Hearts player in the tunnel, shake their hand and offer 'bad luck last week' condolences.
Thus negating any work the psychs might have done to put the bitter disappointment of losing the big prize in the final minutes of the last league game.
Aberdeen went 1-0 up in the first two minutes and added two further goals later on, destroying Hearts 3-0.
Strategy.
Identifying the critical factors in a situation, and designing the means to overcome them.
Getting upstream of the problem.
