The Real Mackay & Thru'penny Bits

Like many other Hearts supporters, I sat in awe at Tynecastle in the middle of August as Tottenham Hotspur ripped the Jambos apart with a devastating display in the first leg of the final qualifying round of the Europa League. It seems Harry Redknapp’s side have got even better since then and have surged up the Barclay’s FA Premiership table. Last month, ‘Arry was waxing lyrical about a player he brought to White Hart Lane shortly after his side demolished Hearts - Scott Parker. After a sublime display against Queens Park Rangers, Redknapp likened the midfielder to the legendary Dave Mackay. The day after the Spur manager’s comments, the BBC Sports website saw it fit to run a feature called ‘Who is Dave Mackay?’ Granted, this was likely aimed at younger readers but I have to say my heart sank when I read that the country’s principal national broadcaster felt it had to clarify who one of the greatest players this country has ever produced is.

I reach the half century next year and I must confess to feeling my age, particularly when I discover the BBC feels it has to explain to the world about Dave Mackay. Now, I never saw the great man play in a Hearts shirt, the player having joined Tottenham Hotspur three years before I was born. However, like thousands of other Hearts fans, I didn’t need to see him play to understand what a great talent and a huge influence he was on the Hearts team of the 1950s and the Spurs team of the 1960s.

Perhaps I‘m at that stage in life. I’m presently writing a book on Hearts 50 Greatest Games and doing the huge amount of research required is something of a labour of love. There’s no doubt that football has changed so much over the past 40 years or so - and not all for the better.

Something that has vastly improved from decades gone by is the match programme. When I mentioned to a fellow Hearts fan several years my junior, that buying a Hearts match day programme in 1970 cost just a shilling he gave me a look of pity that suggested he was looking for a nurse to assist in coming to rescue me. Talk of ‘old money’ from before 1971, i.e. shillings, sixpences and thru’ penny bits went way above the lad’s head. When I further ventured that Tommy Murray, the Hearts player of the early 1970s, was a tanner ba’ player who could turn on a sixpence, my younger Jambo associate ran away. Perhaps it was something I said.

I attended the excellent Billy Bragg gig in Edinburgh last month, which was hugely enjoyable. However, when I purchased the tickets from the Queens Hall box office in the capital city, the pleasant and well-meaning young lady placed her hand on my lower arm and said ‘you do know it’s mostly standing at this show’. Clearly, she felt I wouldn’t be able to last two hours or so standing up. I was tempted to launch into a tirade about how I used to stand on the Tynecastle terracings every home game, probably before she was born. However, I realised this would merely come across as the ramblings of someone who should know better and would likely increase her pity shown towards me.

I have to confess I stand guilty as charged at looking at decades gone by through rose - or should that be maroon-tinted spectacles. Much as I enjoyed watching Tommy Murray, Rab Prentice, Drew Busby and Donald Ford strut their stuff in the 1970s, I can’t forget the pain endured when Hearts suffered relegation for the first time in their history in 1977. Or the trouble on the terracings when Hearts visited the likes of Dumbarton, Alloa and Queen of the South during their sojourns ‘downstairs’. But part of me does hanker for more simpler times when one didn’t have to buy a ticket to go to the game; when fans swarmed on to the terracings ten minutes before kick-off; when Tommy Murray sat on the ball at Ibrox before passing to Jim Brown who delivered a cross for Donald Ford to score a goal; when Hearts played Hibernian on a Saturday afternoon at three o’clock (ask yourself, dear reader, when did that last happen?) A time when the media didn’t have to explain to its audience who Dave Mackay was.

One thing is for sure - nostalgia ain’t what it used to be!

Twitter @Mike1874