Big Hearts

Hearts OnTour

The 1950’s 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. I’m going to take a look at the memorabilia associated with Hearts’ tours of the 1950’s.

Even though Hearts had to travel all the way across North America from the east coast to the west, the six days between the New York and Vancouver encounters with Manchester United were probably the closest Hearts came to a real holiday during their tour.

On 23 May, the party flew from New York to Toronto and following a stop over of a little over an hour, flew on to Calgary in the Canadian Rockies arriving some 6 hours later. But given that Calgary was two hours behind New York, the party spent over eight hours flying. The following day was a day off in Calgary but even though the team had no match to play there, the club were still entertained by the Alberta Scottish Association who arranged for mountain tours for the players by private car. Cars were driven by members of the Association including two Hearts fans originally from Edinburgh, Jimmy Frew and Alan Gowans and the players were treated to the sight of bear, buffalo, moose, deer and chipmunks. From Calgary, the party moved to the Banff Health Resort, high in the mountains. Tommy Walker reported that the open air heated swimming pool boasted a sign saying “Do not throw snowballs at the bathers”. Swimmers in the team weren’t deterred and loved the pool, heated to over eighty degrees.

The following day, the team flew to Vancouver on the west coast of Canada and after the team checked into the Devonshire Hotel (which was spectacularly demolished in 1981 – check it out on YouTube) preparations started for the match against United on 28 May.

Hearts made only one change for the third game against United at the Empire Stadium, Willie Bauld returning at centre forward after Jim McFadzean had deputised in New York. A crowd of over 18,000 watched as United dominated the opening stages of the floodlit game, racing into a two goal lead early in the game. Dennis Viollet was pulling the strings and in the ninth minute, he fed Alex Dawson and the forward shot home from fifteen yards. Twelve minutes later, Viollet passed to Johnny Giles who beat a defender and shot beneath the body of Gordon Marshall. Hearts started the second half more positively and within quarter of an hour, Hearts were level. Bauld fed Blackwood who drew Harry Gregg out of the United goal and slotted home. Then Ian Crawford scored following a great run down the wing by Johnny Hamilton.

The game looked like a deserved share of the spoils until twelve minutes before the end. As Hearts pushed for a winner, the ball was cleared and suddenly it was a frantic foot race between Alex Dawson and Bobby Kirk. Kirk tried to hit the ball behind with his instep to concede a corner but instead he caught it flush on his toes and it flew past Gordon Marshall for a somewhat fortunate winning own goal for the English side.

The British Columbia Football Association Commission issued an excellent sixteen page programme for the game which sold for 35 cents. Hearts were the stars of the front cover with a team group showing the front row sitting on a couple of tartan travelling rugs. Page three had a welcome from the Commission’s Chairman which reflected on Hearts’ successful visit of 1958, “often the main topic of conversation when local soccer fans have had occasion to reminisce on touring teams that have played here since the War”. There was an acknowledgment too that 1958 had been a significant and painful year from Manchester United which was saluted for its “amazing recovery” from the Munich Air Disaster which “has enabled it to be still considered