Lifelong Jambo Andrew-Henry Bowie must agree – he reckons his whole life bears more than a passing similarity to the turbulent fortunes of his favourite team. And now he's hoping the upswing in his own luck can rub off on the Tynecastle squad, after publishing his first book – a unique portrait of Hearts' recent history intertwined with his own tale of growing up in Saughton Mains.

He couldn't have dreamed of such a success as he stood on the terracing in 1982, enthralled by what he admits was possibly the "worst Hearts side ever".

"We were really rubbish but that didn't really matter because from that day on I sort of fell in love. Hearts became an obsession."

These days he's a self-confessed "stats man" with an uncanny ability for total recall. But it's the unique impact of football which he believes moulded his character.

"Well, after that day I suppose I had 11 father figures and they all wore maroon shirts," he says. "In fact, the whole Hearts connection – the good and the bad – is a metaphor for my own life."

He was just four when his parents split up. His father moved to Livingston to start a new family and his mother, Rosemary, did her best to cope with three boisterous sons, Andrew and his brothers Bobby and 'Tommy'.

"I don't suppose there's any such thing as a perfect nuclear family and I don't suppose mine was really much more dysfunctional than any other," shrugs Andrew-Henry. "My older brother was forever in trouble with the law and Bobby spent most of his time mentally torturing me.

"I remember a football match that had been organised between the lads from Saughton Mains and Broomhouse. The football was secondary because it was basically a game of incredible violence with about 50 kids in each team. I got a penalty but I missed it. That was bad enough, but it was my own brother Bobby who kicked my backside so hard that I bit my tongue as he did it."

Quirky childhood memories litter the book, interspersed with the best – and worst – the Tynecastle side had to offer. Such as Andrew-Henry's first job delivering incontinence pads for a local chemist on a bike incapable of turning corners because of its outsized wheels. As if that wasn't bad enough, he was later shot in the buttocks with an air pellet by, he believes, the lad who he pipped to get the job.

Running parallel are his memories of a string of equally emotive episodes that every Hearts supporter will empathise with. Perhaps the worst moment came when he was an impressionable 12-year-old. "Hearts were on the verge of winning the league. They were playing Dundee in the last game of the season when, with seven minutes to go, Albert Kidd came on as a sub. He went on to score twice for Dundee and Celtic won the league," he recalls.

"Everyone who supports Hearts was absolutely broken. There were people on the pitch crying, it was like a massive, tragic event."

These days Andrew-Henry, 34, of Corstorphine, has left behind the "lows" of his working career – at one point he was a petrol station cleaner – and is studying English at university. The moment his wife Lesley announced she was pregnant and then the birth of their daughter Jude-Lauren, now 17 months, surpassed even the cathartic highs of watching Hearts lift the Scottish Cup in 1998 and in 2006.

"Everything shifted with the birth of my daughter and I realised what was really important," he says.

Still, old habits die hard. And once a Jambo, always a Jambo. "Got to go," he says, checking his watch. "I'm off to the pub to meet some mates and then we're going to the match."

Two Miles to Tynecastle is published by Apex Publishing, price £9.99.