These are difficult days for Heart of Midlothian as the club waits to find out whether an offer to creditors will keep it from being liquidated.

That decision will be made on Friday around lunchtime and - if all goes well - after five months of administration, Hearts could see around £30 million of debt shed at a stroke.

The truth is no-one at Tynecastle has any clear expectation of what might transpire and Hearts' manager Gary Locke is being entirely honest in suggesting Thursday will be a "sleepless night."

It's sad that things have come to this sorry pass for the Jambos, but at least there is a plan of action by fans group Foundation of Hearts, the preferred bidders, which stands a good chance of saving the day.

The offer they are making, £2m with another £500,000 thrown in over the next 10 months, is not large by any stretch of the imagination.

The crucial point is that this amounts to a pence-in-the-pound deal entirely in keeping with other arrangements of this sort.

Put simply FoH have the money, enough at least to put them in the right ballpark. Ultimately it is up to the administrator for the Lithuania-based shareholders Ukio Bankas and UBIG group to agree to these terms.

We do not know what is in their minds but they may very well see that the best way forward is to cut their losses and take the only deal on offer.

Having seen the decision put back seven days has no doubt increased the tension for everyone at the Scottish end of this saga in recent days, but I would urge all concerned to hold their nerve for another 48 hours.

Taking time to properly analyse the company voluntary arrangement is no bad thing in itself - in fact I'd suggest it shows the proposed deal is being taken seriously.

Come the weekend when Hearts meet Dundee United at Tannadice they should be able to take the field with the tortured era of former owner Vladimir Romanov behind them. They would then be a club owned and run by their fans.

Having seen Dunfermline's troubles solved in a similar fashion of late, and with warnings of more financial problems to come in football around Scotland, there is a growing trend of grassroots intervention which points the way to stability in the game.

Lessons are being learned and for that we can at least be grateful.

Celtic Five's support suggests that Dutch police have case to answer

If those five Celtic fans convicted last week over violence in Amsterdam ever doubted they had support for their claims of police brutality they will know now they are not alone.

Remarkably Ajax ultras group VAK410 have written an open letter criticising police tactics and accusing them of "beating up defenceless people."

Celtic and Ajax are no bosom buddies after the two Champions League ties of late and that makes their defence of the Hoops supporters - given prison sentences of between one and two months - all the more noteworthy.

"You thought you would get away with this" the ultras write in their note, satirically titled The Pole of Justice after one plain-clothes police officer was filmed running into a lamppost.

The facts of the case are still being established but like so many Celtic fans the Ajax supporters also claim to have been on the receiving end, citing what they describe as "a battle against excessive police force."

The fans of Groningen and Feyenood have also expressed their backing and - with growing video, photographic and written evidence - there now seems to be a campaign spreading across Europe in favour of the Celtic fans who travelled to Amsterdam.

There is something powerful in this - it shows the ordinary supporter has an instinct for unity when they feel something is wrong.

I trust the police and authorities in the Netherlands are ready for the coming appeal from those accused. At this rate it is they who are likely to find themselves every bit as much in the dock.

Better days ahead for our rugby stars

Having called for significant improvement last week in these pages I'm happy to note the response from Scotland's rugby players in their Test against Australia.

A win's a win as they say and the Scots could not quite manage that at Murrayfield. Interim coach Scott Johnson probably spoke for the entire country in saying he is "sick of Scotland being good losers."

Still there's no shame in a 21-15 defeat to a side as accomplished as the Wallabies, especially on the back of a right old thumping by South Africa.

With the Six Nations around the corner in the new year Johnson was asked what he had learned about his squad. He spoke a great deal about character and, more interestingly, about youth.

According to Johnson there are some special players coming through the ranks who will give the Scots "their greatest chance of long-term success."

That's a tantalising claim with the World Cup a year a half away.

He will not be in charge in 2015 - that much we know - but let us hope indeed that his words prove prophetic.