Hearts football players Ryan McGowan and Eggert Jonsson visited Streetwork Homeless Centre as service users enjoyed their annual five-star Christmas lunch.

The homeless charity, which works to enable a life off the street, served up a gourmet meal donated by the Sheraton Grand Hotel.

Claire Gibson, Head of Services at Streetwork UK, said: “For the last five years, Sheraton Grand Hotel has generously gifted us a five star lunch for our homeless service users.

“They come to our offices with their executive chef Malcolm Webster and kitchen team with waiting staff, and treat our users to a gourmet Sheraton Grand lunch.

“It is absolutely amazing. This year Ryan McGowan and Eggert Jonsson came along which is a real highlight for our service users.

“As soon as they arrived all the attention was on them. Sarah Boyak MSP and Councillors Paul Edie and Cameron Rose came along as well but they didn’t quite generate the noise that Ryan and Eggert did.

“We are really grateful for the support that Hearts give us. It raises our profile and because we are a local charity that is really important to us.”

Eggert and Ryan posed for photos and signed autographs after the Christmas lunch.

Eggert said: "It's important that we do our best to help out. We realise that some people have it tough over this period so we do our best to help in any way we can.

"We're happy to do it. Any support we can give hopefully lifts people, which is good."

Edinburgh-based Streetwork UK provides assistance and support to those in a housing crisis or sleeping rough. The festive season brings with it unique challenges.

Claire said: “Life is tough at this time of year. There is very little family connection.

“A lot of the people don’t have homes or families to go to, or the warmth that we would experience at this time of year, both from relationships and from central heating.

“At this time of year we are always desperately in need of donations, especially toiletries, towels, food parcels -the basic things that you and I would take for granted.

“For some individuals there are so few options. When it comes down to it we try to give people sleeping bags to make sure if they do spend the night on the street, we can make it as safe as possible.

“That is an absolute last option.”