Kitted Out

On the morning of Saturday the 3rd of April 1999 Hearts sat bottom of the Bank of Scotland Premier League. They were 2 points adrift of Dunfermline who had amassed 27 points from 29 games. Hearts had taken 25 points from 28 games. That afternoon they would face a Kilmarnock team sitting pretty in 3rd place with 47 points. The management team and the fans knew that results had to improve quickly or there could be dire consequences.

Jim Jeffries was pretty sure he had the answer to halt the slide down the league and it would be an unlikely source. He signed Darren Jackson from Celtic. Best remembered for his passionate playing style at city rivals Hibernian, the signing raised a few eyebrows. Jim was asked by the press why he had signed Darren he explained to the press ‘Darren is someone who gives 100% to every club he plays for and, while there is going to be pressure on him hopefully the fans will take to him. Jackson was a childhood Hearts supporter and even a mascot at an Alloa game during season 1977/78 the year Hearts gained promotion from the First Division. The Hearts captain that day was a certain Jim

Jeffries. On joining Hearts Darren was quoted as saying ‘He intended winning over the Hearts fans by playing exactly the same way he did when he was public enemy No.1 in Capital derbies as a Hibs player. He was as good as his word. On his debut against Killie, Hearts secured a point in a 2-2 draw. After the game Gary McSwegan was keen to pinpoint the debutant as the man at the centre of a revitalised side stating ‘He seemed to be everywhere. The boys got a bit of lift from him’. By the end of the season Hearts would make the move up the table and sit in 6th place with 42 points. Jackson turned Hearts season around with an invaluable contribution of passion, drive and skill. Darren started his career with Meadowbank Thistle who would eventually become Livingston. It could have been different as Hearts had the chance to sign Darren as a 16-year-old when he played a trial for them but the management team at the time Alex MacDonald and Sandy Jardine didn’t fancy him. By a quirk of fate, he would leave Hearts to return on a loan spell to our opponents today Livingston during the 2001 January window. He would eventually make the move permanent leaving Hearts for Livingston at the beginning of April 2001. He played a total of 64 competitive games for the club chipping in with 9 goals.

Pictured is a 1998/99 match issued short sleeve away kit. The away shirt for season 1998/99 was a simple white design with a twist. An image of a large Hearts badge was embedded into the left-hand side of the shirt below the manufacturer’s logo. The kit was made by Olympic Sportwear who were 2 years in to a 3-year contract. The shirt had a V-neck collar featuring contrasting maroon and white trim on the collar and the V-neck. The shirt also had narrow single maroon trim on the cuffs. Player worn shirts would have both an embroidered club badge and logo on the front of the shirt. The sponsor would remain as Strongbow as it had been since season 1992/93. The sponsor logo was heat pressed flock and would appear centrally on the shirt. The back of the shirt had vinyl maroon numbers and name set. This would be the first season that a player’s surname would appear on the back of the shirt. A match shirt would also feature a heat pressed SPL logo on both sleeves of the shirt. Grant Young is a Hearts shirt collector and is currently writing a book. He can be contacted at jambojim190512@yahoo. com or via twitter @heartsshirts

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’ first match was on Sunday 31 May 1964 so on Saturday morning, it was a bright and early start for the Hearts players as they trained in the unlikely setting of Central Park at 8am before the park filled up with New

Yorkers and tourists. It was too early for some with Billy

Higgins writing for one of the newspapers that “I’m convinced wee Johnny Hamilton did his training in his sleep”. The session over, the players were allowed the day off to relax whilst the official and club captain attended a cocktail party thrown in the club’s honour. The players were also visited by Jimmy Cameron who had played 60 matches for Hearts in the early 1920’s before making his home in New York state.

Hearts and Blackburn Rovers ran out to a crowd of around 11,000 including roughly 500 ex-pat Scots “all wearing Hearts rosettes”. Ten had made a five hour drive from Washington DC led by Norman Sutherland who, as we’ll see, had a prominent role in bringing Hearts back to the USA in 1971 and who later worked in Hearts commercial department. Indeed, Sutherland persuaded the organisers to play a record of the “Boys in Maroon” as hearts ran out. When it arrived, the match was something of a let-down for the fans who soon made their dissatisfaction known. It didn’t help that the match was the second in a double header with Werder Bremen and Bahia kicking off at 2.15pm and serving up a fast-paced and exciting 2-2 draw for the crowd. When Hearts and Blackburn Rovers kicked off at 4pm, the cagey British style of play didn’t endear itself to the crowd. Both sides were jeered and slow-handclapped as the two teams cancelled each other out and defences remained on top. The only goal of the game was scored by Hearts’ Tommy White who converted a Danny Ferguson cross with a well-placed header into the corner. Colin Wood, writing in the Scottish Daily Mail, described the goal as “the one brief moment in the whole ninety minutes when any forward showed the faintest idea that he knew what it was all about”. Wood was clearly unimpressed, saying the match was “the dullest game I have ever seen anywhere. I won’t blame any of those who stayed to give the teams the slow handclap if they never bother to watch soccer again”. As for Tommy Walker, he thought it was a typical British match, quoted as saying “The crowd probably didn’t enjoy it because we were so much alike. Perhaps when we come up against teams with a different style, people will find it more attractive”. My first piece of memorabilia related to this match is a little strange. It appears to be a match ticket for the double-header, printed in black on white card. But as you will see from the image, the ‘ticket’ specifically states that it is “not an admission ticket”. The holder was required to exchange the card “on the day of the game upon payment of $1.50 at Eastside Booth”. I’m not sure how that worked. Perhaps they gave out thousands of these cards to promote the match but you could only get into the