Hearts On Tour

Hearts OnTour

The The 50s/60s Tours

Throughout the most successful decade in the Club’s history, manager Tommy Walker forged close bonds between his talented players by taking them on six post-season tours to destinations as far apart as the USA, South Africa and Australia. This season, I’m going to take a look at the memorabilia associated with Hearts’ tours of the 1950’s.

Hearts made the short hop from Vancouver to Victoria on Sunday 5 June and checked into the city’s Empress Hotel before preparing for their match with the Victoria AllStars the following night. With another match scheduled for Wednesday and the Victoria side not predicted to cause Hearts too many problems, Tommy Walker took the opportunity to field some of the youngsters who had made the trip. John Lough kept his place and George Robertson, Alan Finlay and Andy Kelly were introduced, the last named making his only first team appearance for Hearts.

A small crowd of 2,500 were at the Royal Athletic Park to see the home side start brightly forcing two corners in the opening two minutes in an attempt to emulate the battling performance of the British Columbia side which had drawn with Hearts two days earlier. Although Hearts settled down with a shot which brought a save from the Victorian keeper after seven minutes, the home side passed up a couple of good chances to score in the first half as they dominated. Indeed, Hearts were lucky to be ahead at the break, taking advantage of a needless handball in the box by right back Volker Stoldt. George Thomson kept a cool head to give the tourists the lead in 25 minutes. Hearts switched their forward line around at the break and this adjustment, together with the wind at their backs and their superior conditioning over their part-time opponents, allowed Hearts to totally dominate the second half with local newspaper reports suggesting that the All-Stars struggled to get over the half-way line in the second half. On 56 minutes, Ian Crawford doubled Hearts’ lead as he blasted home a free kick from 20 yards. Six minutes later, Bobby Blackwood outpaced the home defence and completed the scoring by adding a third goal for Hearts.

A straightforward win for Hearts and the crowd were treated to a straightforward programme to match; just four pages including a full page advert for Evans Coleman & Evans who offered a complete building service. The front cover has match details and reveals that the programme was sponsored by the Victoria & District League and the British Columbia Soccer Commission. Inside, the two teams are set out in 2-3-5 formations. I wonder whether the previous owner of my copy, who ticked the names of the Hearts players who played, was disappointed that five of the six “spares” or substitute players actually played in the match for the visitors.

From Victoria, Hearts were off to Edmonton on the next leg of their journey and the Edmonton Journal wondered whether, after the two day programme of events lined up for the

touring party, “they may have to be wheeled onto the Clarke Stadium turf Wednesday night for their exhibition game against the Northern Alberta AllStars”. Arriving mid-morning, Hearts would hold a press conference at their hotel, the King Edward, in the afternoon. Then the whole party was off to watch Stu Hart’s weekly wrestling card before a late finish. Wednesday morning was a morning off with a lunch hosted by the city of Edmonton at which gifts and silver cups would be gifted to the players and officials. The afternoon would see a bus tour of the city before an early supper at the hotel prior to leaving for the stadium for the match. No wonder the papers thought the players would be tired. Mayor Elmer Roper ceremonially kicked off the match which saw the return of Hearts regular playing roster and Hearts soon showed they meant business as Willie Bauld skimmed the cross bar with a drive in the first minute. Astonishingly, it was to be the first of six times that Hearts hit the woodwork in the match with Bauld achieving an unwelcome hat-trick (as well as a more welcome one). Ian Crawford opened the scoring after 25 minutes with a rising shot and Bauld made it 2-0 three minutes later with a rocket shot into the left hand corner. Ten minutes before the break, Hearts made it 3-0 with Bauld turning provider for Gordon Smith and his shot angled home off the crossbar. Just before half-time, the home side scored as Shwertz scored a great individual goal after a fine run. But the pattern repeated in the second half as Bauld got his second to make it 4-1 after 55 minutes. With 20 minutes left, the home side threatened to make a game of it as “Topper” Brown made it 4-2 but that merely meant Hearts stepped it up a gear again and goals from Jimmy Murray and a third Bauld goal (the good type of hat-trick this time) made the final score a convincing 6-2 to Hearts. The rare eight page programme for this game lists Hearts’ opponents as Edmonton All-Stars on the front cover whereas the press billed the side as North Alberta All-Stars. As most of the players played for Edmonton clubs, it probably didn’t matter too much. The cover has an attractive gothic masthead above the usual Hearts team group. Just one advert, for Yellow Cab Limited, sneaks on to an otherwise attractive front cover. A page is set aside for the Mayor of Edmonton who uses his full page to utter just twenty words of welcome. There’s a most fulsome welcome from the President of the Alberta FA, John Dollan as well as a preview of the curtainraising youth match taking place before the main event. The centre pages have the teams with the Hearts squad listed and the team sheet left blank so that punters could fill in the names themselves. Luckily for me, the original owner resisted the temptation. Pages six and seven comprise the by now familiar Hearts pen pictures and the last word is with Northwestern Utilities who promised the “finest fuel”.

More from Canada next time as Hearts complete their tour

Gary Cowen is a member of Hearts heritage group and is currently writing a book about the Hearts post-season tours