Lawrence Shankland overtakes a Hearts cup final hero in scoring charts with Rangers 'masterclass'

His double in the 2-0 victory on Saturday pushed him ahead of a Hearts Scottish Cup final hero on the list of the club’s top league scorers.

Shankland has now scored 59 league goals for the Tynecastle side, one more than Ian Crawford who wrote his name into club lore nearly 70 years ago.

Crawford scored twice for Hearts in their 3-1 win over Celtic in the 1956 Scottish Cup final, a triumph that prompted wild celebrations and came at the start of a golden period for the Edinburgh club.

It was their first Scottish Cup win for 50 years and tens of thousands of supporters lined the streets of Edinburgh to welcome the team home from Hampden.

Crawford, an outside left who was released by Hibs as a youngster, is less well remembered than some of his more celebrated team-mates but played his part in star-studded Hearts sides that featured Dave Mackay, Willie Bauld, Jimmy Wardhaugh, Alfie Conn and Alex Young.

He helped Hearts win the league title in 1957-58 and 1959-60 and also featured in the League Cup final wins over Partick Thistle in 1958-59 and Third Lanark in 1959-60. He played 127 league games for Hearts and 174 in all competitions before being sold to West Ham United for £10,000 in 1961.

He later joined Scunthorpe and Peterborough before embarking on a coaching career which included stints at Everton and Arsenal as well as spells in Finland, Norway, the Middle East and North America. He died in 2007, aged 73.

Shankland, 30, has yet to lift silverware with Hearts but his goals on Saturday put Derek McInnes’ side briefly on top of the Premiership before Celtic crept above them on goal difference with their 2-1 win over Kilmarnock the following day.

The striker is now 12th on the list of Hearts’ post-war league scorers which is topped by John Robertson. Shankland’s three goals in five games this season have also moved him ahead of the great Drew Busby (56 goals), a Hearts hero of the 1970s.

Next in Shankland’s sights are Jimmy Murray (63 league goals) and John Colquhoun (67). Murray was a team-mate of Crawford’s in the title-winning teams of 1958 and 1960 and is famous for scoring Scotland’s first ever goal at a World Cup finals, netting in a 1-1 draw with Yugoslavia at the 1958 tournament in Sweden. He remains the only Hearts player to have scored at the World Cup.

Colquhoun, capped twice by Scotland, was an outstanding servant to Hearts across two spells and played in the 1986 and 1996 Scottish Cup finals. Like Shankland, Colquhoun scored a winning double at Ibrox, his two goals coming in a 2-0 win over Rangers on December 28, 1985 in the season Hearts were pipped for the title on the final day.

Shankland, who signed a new three-year contract in the summer, is rediscovering his form after a difficult season last year. Derek McInnes, his manager, hailed his performance at Ibrox.

“It was an absolute masterclass from Lawrence Shankland in leading the line,” McInnes said. “His effort, again, was through the roof, the yardage he covered…. He’s the best striker in Scotland at securing possession, he’s got a goal in him and he led the line brilliantly.”

Shankland scored 24 league goals in each of his first two seasons with Hearts, and then netted eight in the Premiership last season. He has some way to go to catch Robertson on Hearts’ all-time league chart; the little striker netted 214 league goals for the club.