Gary Mackay: Only right that Garry Halliday was honoured at Hearts awards night

It’s only right that they are acknowledged in the right way and that’s what we saw with Garry Halliday. It was a really deserved honour for him to receive the Doc Melvin Award at the club’s awards dinner a couple of weeks back. It recognises commitment, dedication and efforts above and beyond to promote all that is good about the club.

In the build-up to a Scottish Cup final, it impresses upon everybody inside and outside Tynecastle the good feeling Hearts supporters have for our club. That transmits itself in different ways but the work and effort Garry has put in with Foundation of Hearts over the years made him very deserving of that award.

People outside the club might think he has played a small part in Hearts’ history, but I disagree. The work Garry, Alex Mackie, Brian Cormack and others have put in over the years has been remarkable. They haven’t sought self-publicity from it. I think they have played a massive part in saving the club.

I dipped my toe into Foundation of Hearts back at the very start and saw just how much work was put in. I genuinely couldn’t give up the time at that point in my life because it was so focused. They wanted everything to be absolutely spot-on so that nothing would become tarnished during the whole process.

That’s why the whole thing took off and became such a huge vehicle for fans to own our club. There was so much groundwork done before the Foundation went public and grew into the body that it is now.

Speaking of groundwork, I’d also like to add that I’m chuffed for two local clubs who have achieved promotions recently with two former Hearts men in charge.

Alan Maybury has taken Edinburgh City into League One and Robbie Horn, a former apprentice of mine, got Bonnyrigg Rose into the Scottish Professional Football League for the first time.

I send my congratulations to both managers and their respective clubs.