Hearts is a reminder of the Texaco Cup
Heart of Midlothian are the latest team to be confirmed as pre-season opponents for the Clarets with the two teams set to play tomorrow at Gawthorpe.
It’s a reminder of the Texaco Cup, a competition played between English and Scottish clubs in the 1970s when we played Hearts on two separate occasions.
Despite making a horrible start to the 1970/71 season, a start that saw us bottom when Hearts visited the Turf in September, the game provided some relieve with Mick Docherty, Dave Merrington and Steve Kindon all scoring in a 3-1 win. We thought that was more than enough but just over two weeks later we fell to a 4-1 defeat at Tynecastle, Frank Casper, scoring our goal, and out we went.
Three seasons later, we were back in the competition and after dispatching East Fife, we drew Hearts again. This time the first leg was up in Edinburgh and this time we won through easily, going all the way to the final before losing against Newcastle.
We won 3-0 in the away leg when Martin Dobson, Peter Noble and Leighton James scored the goals. It was a bigger 5-0 win in the second leg on the Turf. Ray Hankin got two of the goals with the others coming from Paul Fletcher, Doug Collins and Geoff Nulty.
Tomorrow the two clubs face each other again. Managed by Robbie Nielson, they can include Scotland international goalkeeper Craig Gordon in their squad along with former Wolves and Ipswich defender Christophe Berra, Olly Lee, son of former England and Newcastle midfielder Rob Lee while up front they can call on ex-Evertonian Steven Naismith while yesterday added former young Burnley player Josh Ginnelly who has joined on a season long loan from Preston.
No details have been confirmed.
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