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In the wake of Dundee United’s complaints re admission issues and the conditions encountered by visiting fans on Friday, and – to be honest – if the toilets etc haven’t improved beyond all recognition from my last visit, I’m not too surprised, we face an even bigger potential problem when Hearts come calling. The match is not all ticket and they took almost 4,000 to Perth. It is far easier to get to Firhill and Friday nights do seem to be proving popular. So while one can surely expect contingency plans to be in place for what is recognised as a crucial encounter, it is hard to see what these plans can be. The Old Stand holds around 2,400 (perhaps less now due to security restrictions) so where would any surplus be located? Given that it is unlikely that the police would allow Hearts fans to be put into the JH Stand (sandwiched between two groups of Thistle supporters) the only logical solution is that all, or at least part of the North Stand is given over to them, with all the furore that that will rightly create amongst our own fans. Even the allocation of just part of The North Stand would require a significant buffer zone to be in place pre-match, further reducing the capacity. This is going to be a major issue and, if we add to that the proposed debut of the new ticketing/admission procedures – there’s an awful lot of thinking going to be done up Firhill way if a public relations disaster is to be avoided. This is not intended to be a critical post. I sincerely hope all of the scenarios have been covered and the contingency plans are in place to cover every eventuality, but there is a potentially a lot to be concerned about come Friday 16/08.