Gary Mackay: Virtual ticket sales are because of John Robertson - Hearts are behind him

He had obviously found it difficult and, as a former team-mate of mine from our days at Hearts, I felt for him at that time.

When you then suffer the loss of someone close to you on top of that, it must be extremely difficult. My thoughts and best wishes are with him and all of his family.

That will go for all the Hearts supporters because he is obviously a living legend at our club. He is the record league goalscorer and a former manager who is just adored by everybody connected to Tynecastle Park.

Robbo has always been a bubbly character but that doesn’t mean he won’t feel down at different times depending what is going on in his life. None of us are immune to that and every one of us has been affected by the coronavirus pandemic in recent months.

If you are in Inverness and the majority of your family are down here in the central belt, it can’t be easy. That's the situation Robbo is in and after his bereavement he has taken compassionate leave for an indefinite period of time.

We all just hope he gets through this difficult period and gets back to where he belongs, which is in the dugout at Inverness. The staff and players there will miss him, ironically starting tonight against Hearts.

He’s been signing all the souvenir tickets in recent weeks and a lot of them were for Hearts fans who donated money to Inverness through the virtual ticket scheme.

That’s because of what Inverness and their fans did to help Hearts in the past, so there is a clear relationship there. But there’s no doubt a lot of the virtual ticket numbers we’re talking about here are because of John Robertson. Understandably so.

The whole Hearts community will rally round him and he will know that support is there from all of us. We can all keep our fingers crossed that he is back to his usual self in the near future.

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