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Why were we so bad in the sixties?


Francis Albert

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Francis Albert

Obviously one for the oldies. We had Cruickshank and Holt and Shevlane and Anderson. And of course Ford and  Jensen and Muller. And Townsend. Oliver and  Mann. All good players.

I remember Poland and Higgins on the downside In the Killie game in 65.

But we should not have been that bad.

 

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The final game of 1965 was a crushing blow to Hearts. 

We never recovered and languished in the bottom half of the table more often than not after that and into the seventies when reconstruction led to our first ever relegation. 

It seemed back then that the club was happy to coast along because they knew there was no way Hearts could be relegated in the old 18 team league set up.

That attitude almost caused the death of the club because we just kept on getting worse and worse and players were signed who were no where near Hearts standard. 

That standard just kept getting lower and lower. 

The sight of grass growing on the steps of the Gorgie Road terrace was an indication of how bad things were at that time. 

 

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49 minutes ago, Francis Albert said:

Obviously one for the oldies. We had Cruickshank and Holt and Shevlane and Anderson. And of course Ford and  Jensen and Muller. And Townsend. Oliver and  Mann. All good players.

I remember Poland and Higgins on the downside In the Killie game in 65.

But we should not have been that bad.

 

I’ve gone over this thousand of times in my head over the decades, thanks. 🤣

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1 hour ago, Francis Albert said:

Obviously one for the oldies. We had Cruickshank and Holt and Shevlane and Anderson. And of course Ford and  Jensen and Muller. And Townsend. Oliver and  Mann. All good players.

I remember Poland and Higgins on the downside In the Killie game in 65.

But we should not have been that bad.

 


We just hit the slide after we failed to win the championship in 1965.

I started going to games regularly in 1966 with my old dad who was brought up in our golden era of winning leagues and cups on a regular basis.

I was one of the lost generation who suffered defeats and disappointments over the next 32 years until JJ came along and saved our souls!

 

Edited by Thomaso
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SectionDJambo
1 hour ago, Francis Albert said:

Obviously one for the oldies. We had Cruickshank and Holt and Shevlane and Anderson. And of course Ford and  Jensen and Muller. And Townsend. Oliver and  Mann. All good players.

I remember Poland and Higgins on the downside In the Killie game in 65.

But we should not have been that bad.

 

I was still a very young fan during the 60s to really figure out why we regressed so much, but losing the league championship was certainly a crushing blow. Add to that Tommy Walker being sacked, with Johnny Harvey taking over. Johnny was a great Hearts man but should never have been appointed manager. It was a lazy appointment by a board lacking in ambition and the knowledge of how to rise to new challenges.

The emergence of Jock Stein taking Dunfermline to new heights and then making Celtic dominant didn’t help. It also tends to be forgotten that Scottish clubs were still of a calibre to be reasonably successful in Europe, so there were some good teams around. Dunfermline, Dundee, Kilmarnock and even Hibs achieved some good results and progress, although at a time that there were still quite a few European nations with clubs that generally got heavily beaten by British clubs.

The mid to late 60s, and especially the 70s, were not a good time to follow Hearts, although we did enjoy some decent spells and false dawns.

Little did we know how long it would be before we won our next major trophy. Maybe just as well that we didn’t.

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I remember in 1965 Willie Hamilton scoring from the byline to win the New Year Derby for Hibs, losing 7-1 at home to Dundee then Jensen hitting the inside of the square post in the decider v Kilmarnock and the ball coming out. All games we should have taken something from. Lots of fans who had known so much success in the 50s and 60s stopped going after this and our board panicking and sacking our greatest ever manager or as the put it exercised the termination clause in his contract. Crowds fell away and mediocre board decisions resulted in a series of second rate managers and teams. 

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Hackney Hearts
1 hour ago, jimbojambo said:

1965.... Lots of fans who had known so much success in the 50s and 60s stopped going after this ....

Crowds fell away

 

To a degree - although I think the really big drop in attendance had already happened about 3 years before.

With an average of over 20,000 every year post war (peaking at 28,000+), we plummeted to 13,500 in 61-62. Partly as a result of finishing a lowly 7th the previous season (champions the season before that), but I think crowds throughout the country were taking a hit generally at the time.

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Folk having children after the war is what killed the hearts following back then. The choice of coming on a Saturday or buying food for the week was a serious conundrum for folks. 

Plus as all mentioned above, we were in the mists of not being able to fulfil the potential the club has due to lack of ambition from owners. 

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12 hours ago, luckydug said:

The final game of 1965 was a crushing blow to Hearts. 

We never recovered and languished in the bottom half of the table more often than not after that and into the seventies when reconstruction led to our first ever relegation. 

It seemed back then that the club was happy to coast along because they knew there was no way Hearts could be relegated in the old 18 team league set up.

That attitude almost caused the death of the club because we just kept on getting worse and worse and players were signed who were no where near Hearts standard. 

That standard just kept getting lower and lower. 

The sight of grass growing on the steps of the Gorgie Road terrace was an indication of how bad things were at that time. 

 

I started going to games in 66 and knew only hard times as a young fan. Maybe that's why I never take anything for granted even now. Donald Ford and Jim Cruikshank were mainstays in a team that struggled more often than not under John Harvey. I think some of our younger fans who grew up in the Romanov era might have thought the quality of players we had early in that period were the norm. Our present squad are close to these days, but the difference is they're all bought and paid for and the club has no debt. Young fans going to there first games now will know nothing except fan ownership. What a wonderful way to kick off being a Jambo.

Edited by Section Q
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8 hours ago, Francis Albert said:

Obviously one for the oldies. We had Cruickshank and Holt and Shevlane and Anderson. And of course Ford and  Jensen and Muller. And Townsend. Oliver and  Mann. All good players.

I remember Poland and Higgins on the downside In the Killie game in 65.

But we should not have been that bad.

 

Only in the latter half of the sixties.

Won the league in 1960. League Cup in 1962. Lost the league on goal average in the last league game in 1965. Got to the Scottish Cup final in 1968, knocking out Rangers in the quarter finals after an epic replay at Tynecastle. Not forgetting a momentous game at Tannadice 5-6 in our favour.

 

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Because I was a bairn, there was nothing wrong with us…I was watching MY team who I thought were the best in the world. Going to Tynecastle to get autographs, saving programmes, checking HT scores,  getting a full strip at Xmas time etc

No result (I was at the 1-7 Dundee match) EVER made me think we were ‘bad’ because I thought that next week we will be brilliant again. 

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35 minutes ago, John Findlay said:

Only in the latter half of the sixties.

Won the league in 1960. League Cup in 1962. Lost the league on goal average in the last league game in 1965. Got to the Scottish Cup final in 1968, knocking out Rangers in the quarter finals after an epic replay at Tynecastle. Not forgetting a momentous game at Tannadice 5-6 in our favour.

 


The team was generally awful from 1965 onwards with only a few great results to cheer us up in a dire period to be a Hearts fan.

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7 hours ago, jimbojambo said:

I remember in 1965 Willie Hamilton scoring from the byline to win the New Year Derby for Hibs, losing 7-1 at home to Dundee then Jensen hitting the inside of the square post in the decider v Kilmarnock and the ball coming out. All games we should have taken something from. Lots of fans who had known so much success in the 50s and 60s stopped going after this and our board panicking and sacking our greatest ever manager or as the put it exercised the termination clause in his contract. Crowds fell away and mediocre board decisions resulted in a series of second rate managers and teams. 


I have as also at the 7-1 defeat to Dundee! 🙈

The story goes that the Board had informed the players on the day of this game that they would get no extra bonus for winning the league! 

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35 minutes ago, Jambo-Fox said:

Can be summed up in two words;

 

             “LINDSAY OUT”

This for me.  The Board failed to invest in players and to my  mind Lindsay and his cohorts were totally to blame for the slide the club went on at that time. 

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Horatio Caine

This is my vintage too.  I remember distinctly the 0-2 loss to Killie to lose the league title.  All the sitters missed...

 

Like Bob Skeldon though, I was happy to trundle along on a Saturday - and sometimes on a Wednesday evening.  I remember the cup replay against Rangers at a packed out Tynecastle where Donald Ford scored the only goal.  I think perhaps expectations weren't as high then as they are now.  Saturday was the highlight of the week then, when all you had the rest of the week was school!

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Really after 65 it went down hill. I was born in 65 so it’s my fault, sorry folks.

A great team can only last so long and unfortunately our great side started to break up in the very early 60’s.

Bad decisions of the park and happy just to go along with things and not think ahead hit us hard.

Late 60’s early 70’s it went  from bad to worse and we know what happened after that.

The thing is my earliest memory of us is not being particularly good on the park but for some reason that seemed to make me support and love Hearts even more.

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7 minutes ago, Rizla said:

Really after 65 it went down hill. I was born in 65 so it’s my fault, sorry folks.

A great team can only last so long and unfortunately our great side started to break up in the very early 60’s.

Bad decisions of the park and happy just to go along with things and not think ahead hit us hard.

Late 60’s early 70’s it went  from bad to worse and we know what happened after that.

The thing is my earliest memory of us is not being particularly good on the park but for some reason that seemed to make me support and love Hearts even more.

I'm the same. Was born in April 1963.

My dad took me to my first game December 65. My first Derby was Tynecastle September 67 we lost 1-4, my first Derby at ER was 1st January 68, we lost 1-0, my first victory over Hibs was the 8th of September 73, we didn't have another until 1979. So in fourteen years of going to games 65-79 I had seen us beat Hibs once.

Not once ever did I contemplate not supporting the Heart of Midlothian.

My father drummed into me. Its easy to support your team when they are winning. It's much harder to support them when they are not winning, and that's when they need your support the most. Like my father that has and always be my ethos. It was born into me and I can't and won't change it ever.

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2 hours ago, Deevers said:

This for me.  The Board failed to invest in players and to my  mind Lindsay and his cohorts were totally to blame for the slide the club went on at that time. 

Agree with this.

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Broxburn Jambo

I was born in 55, so 67 was when I  started going by myself to all the home games, I was upset after the 68 final, but even at an early age I could see that we were not the same standard as the fabled late 50s early 60s team that i was always being told about. My first real gut wrenching game was the 76 Final (not the 73 NY derby, just a fluke). but by God I never ever thought it would take to 98 to get some glory.

 

MY SUPPORT NEVER EVER WAVERED HHGH

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9 hours ago, Restonbabe said:

Folk having children after the war is what killed the hearts following back then. The choice of coming on a Saturday or buying food for the week was a serious conundrum for folks. 

Plus as all mentioned above, we were in the mists of not being able to fulfil the potential the club has due to lack of ambition from owners. 

The sixties were considered a time of prosperity. And if you look at crowd figure the period after the end of the war saw massive crowds throughout all of British football. 

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1 hour ago, John Findlay said:

I'm the same. Was born in April 1963.

My dad took me to my first game December 65. My first Derby was Tynecastle September 67 we lost 1-4, my first Derby at ER was 1st January 68, we lost 1-0, my first victory over Hibs was the 8th of September 73, we didn't have another until 1979. So in fourteen years of going to games 65-79 I had seen us beat Hibs once.

Not once ever did I contemplate not supporting the Heart of Midlothian.

My father drummed into me. Its easy to support your team when they are winning. It's much harder to support them when they are not winning, and that's when they need your support the most. Like my father that has and always be my ethos. It was born into me and I can't and won't change it ever.

👍

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24 minutes ago, Tazio said:

The sixties were considered a time of prosperity. And if you look at crowd figure the period after the end of the war saw massive crowds throughout all of British football. 

I think the ending of Saturday morning working ( men went straight from there to the pub then football ) and other social changes did for the big crowds. 

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Certainly we reacted badly to losing the league in 64/65 but Stein's Celtic started their run after that. In 67/68 we were third at Christmas but fell away spectacularly badly to finish 12th. This was sort of covered up by reaching the Cup Final, but choosing Arthur Thomson ahead of Eddie Thomson and not starting Rene Moller cost us that game.

 

In 68/69 our defence was exceptional though only Fordy was a regular scorer (we totalled 50 for 34 league games) and finishing 4th was a good result. At that time during Stein's Celtic period they were a step ahead of other good teams and  Rangers/Hibs/Aberdeen probably had better squads than us. We declined through the 70s with only a short spell under Bobby Seith in 73/74 when we were top of the league. That team couldn't deal with injuries/loss of form and we slipped down the league again. The Yoyo years followed till Wallace Mercer appeared though 1998 was a long way off for us!

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9 hours ago, Section Q said:

I started going to games in 66 and knew only hard times as a young fan. Maybe that's why I never take anything for granted even now. Donald Ford and Jim Cruikshank were mainstays in a team that struggled more often than not under John Harvey. I think some of our younger fans who grew up in the Romanov era might have thought the quality of players we had early in that period were the norm. Our present squad are close to these days, but the difference is they're all bought and paid for and the club has no debt. Young fans going to there first games now will know nothing except fan ownership. What a wonderful way to kick off being a Jambo.

 

I started going to games in 66 and agree with every word.

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11 minutes ago, JTJ said:

Certainly we reacted badly to losing the league in 64/65 but Stein's Celtic started their run after that. In 67/68 we were third at Christmas but fell away spectacularly badly to finish 12th. This was sort of covered up by reaching the Cup Final, but choosing Arthur Thomson ahead of Eddie Thomson and not starting Rene Moller cost us that game.

 

In 68/69 our defence was exceptional though only Fordy was a regular scorer (we totalled 50 for 34 league games) and finishing 4th was a good result. At that time during Stein's Celtic period they were a step ahead of other good teams and  Rangers/Hibs/Aberdeen probably had better squads than us. We declined through the 70s with only a short spell under Bobby Seith in 73/74 when we were top of the league. That team couldn't deal with injuries/loss of form and we slipped down the league again. The Yoyo years followed till Wallace Mercer appeared though 1998 was a long way off for us!

 

Eddie Thomson was miles better than Arthur. 

 

That would be 69/70 season. A solid back four of Clunie, Anderson, E Thomson and Oliver with Cruickshank in goal.  

 

During a run that included a 0-0 against Celtic, when Cruickie famously saved Gemmell's penalty, I think we didn't concede a league goal at home from NYD until the last game of the season, when Dundee beat us. I know I could look it up but that's how I remember it.

Edited by 4marsbars
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7 hours ago, bobskeldon said:

Because I was a bairn, there was nothing wrong with us…I was watching MY team who I thought were the best in the world. Going to Tynecastle to get autographs, saving programmes, checking HT scores,  getting a full strip at Xmas time etc

No result (I was at the 1-7 Dundee match) EVER made me think we were ‘bad’ because I thought that next week we will be brilliant again. 

This is how I remember it.

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13 hours ago, Hackney Hearts said:

 

To a degree - although I think the really big drop in attendance had already happened about 3 years before.

With an average of over 20,000 every year post war (peaking at 28,000+), we plummeted to 13,500 in 61-62. Partly as a result of finishing a lowly 7th the previous season (champions the season before that), but I think crowds throughout the country were taking a hit generally at the time.

 

 

The crowds dropped in 61-62 after the board followed the earlier sale of Dave MacKay in the late 50's with the sale of Alex Young.  It was a sickener, and then, of course, Wallace to Celtic for a measly £35k added to the sense of despondency.

 

Never stopped going though and for anyone to moan about the late 60's, disappointing as they were, the 70's dwarfed that.

 

 

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15 hours ago, SectionDJambo said:

I was still a very young fan during the 60s to really figure out why we regressed so much, but losing the league championship was certainly a crushing blow. Add to that Tommy Walker being sacked, with Johnny Harvey taking over. Johnny was a great Hearts man but should never have been appointed manager. It was a lazy appointment by a board lacking in ambition and the knowledge of how to rise to new challenges.

The emergence of Jock Stein taking Dunfermline to new heights and then making Celtic dominant didn’t help. It also tends to be forgotten that Scottish clubs were still of a calibre to be reasonably successful in Europe, so there were some good teams around. Dunfermline, Dundee, Kilmarnock and even Hibs achieved some good results and progress, although at a time that there were still quite a few European nations with clubs that generally got heavily beaten by British clubs.

The mid to late 60s, and especially the 70s, were not a good time to follow Hearts, although we did enjoy some decent spells and false dawns.

Little did we know how long it would be before we won our next major trophy. Maybe just as well that we didn’t.

Why was Tommy Walker sacked ?         

 

My Dad used to say that our crowds dropped in the early 60s as soon as TW started taking notice of the emerging trend in European football of  concentrating on defending rather than attacking.    The dreaded "T" word (tactics) was taking over.      Our key men of the late 50s had all gone, and their replacements didn't seem to inspire the fans in the same way.   Even the likes of Ford, Gordon, Jensen  & Wallace weren't able to reach the heights of their predecessors,.   

 

As my Grandad used to say jokingly - " Wee Hammy went from being the worst player on our books to being the best - without doing anything differently"

 

 

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Sacking Tommy Walker was a disgraceful decision by a spineless board. I remember years later at a game at East Stirling near to Alec Naylor who constantly shouted to kick the ball up the park. Football changed forever in 1966 when England won the world Cup without wingers and every game was televised. We never moved with the times and fell behind and never recovered fully. 

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Hackney Hearts
10 minutes ago, colinmaroon said:

 

 

The crowds dropped in 61-62 after the board followed the earlier sale of Dave MacKay in the late 50's with the sale of Alex Young.  It was a sickener, and then, of course, Wallace to Celtic for a measly £35k added to the sense of despondency.

 

Thanks for adding that. Whatever money we'd got for them, tough to replace those three (impossible in Mackay's case).

Young left in November 1960 - we'd had a poor start in any case (14th, only 2 wins from 11) - so we did well to end the season with a 20,000+ average crowd. It was the following season that the disillusionment seemed to really set in regarding attendance (and the growth in alternative Saturday afternoon entertainment perhaps?).

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Bit of a generalisation to say “the 60s”, esp for younger fans looking in who are into the history.  As pointed out we were still on the cusp of a league title in 65, off the back of a golden period not long before it.  
 

Declines happen quick in football, whether anyone saw it coming was another matter. I doubt anybody thought a title challenge was a sign of decline. 

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31 minutes ago, Debut 4 said:

Bit of a generalisation to say “the 60s”, esp for younger fans looking in who are into the history.  As pointed out we were still on the cusp of a league title in 65, off the back of a golden period not long before it.  
 

Declines happen quick in football, whether anyone saw it coming was another matter. I doubt anybody thought a title challenge was a sign of decline. 

I also think getting to the cup final in 68 masked it a bit. There was a decline late 60s but the 70s were literally the dark ages for us. 

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4 hours ago, 4marsbars said:

 

Eddie Thomson was miles better than Arthur. 

 

That would be 69/70 season. A solid back four of Clunie, Anderson, E Thomson and Oliver with Cruickshank in goal.  

 

During a run that included a 0-0 against Celtic, when Cruickie famously saved Gemmell's penalty, I think we didn't concede a league goal at home from NYD until the last game of the season, when Dundee beat us. I know I could look it up but that's how I remember it.

Eddie Thomson was a class player. Very similar in build and style of play to Craig Levein my memory tells me!

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12 minutes ago, davemclaren said:

I also think getting to the cup final in 68 masked it a bit. There was a decline late 60s but the 70s were literally the dark ages for us. 

By the early 70s the club was skint. We sold on anything at knock down prices. People on the Board who were rank amateurs and really hadn’t a clue about how to progress thing,  leading to the Bank of Scotland making all the financial decisions for us. Thank god for Wallace Mercer. He saved the club.

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9 hours ago, Deevers said:

This for me.  The Board failed to invest in players and to my  mind Lindsay and his cohorts were totally to blame for the slide the club went on at that time. 

Without a doubt 👍

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The Treasurer
9 hours ago, Jambo-Fox said:

Can be summed up in two words;

 

             “LINDSAY OUT”

That was the first demo behind the main stand that I was involved in, sadly there have been too many more since 

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Another factor in our decline on top of those already mentioned. 

Our fans had become used to watching good teams pre and post war even before we started to win things our attendances were huge. 

After the way 'THE KING' was treated and sales of good players who could have kept us challenging

many older fans were disgusted. 

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9 hours ago, TexasAndy said:

I wonder how the late 60s and early 70s would have shaped had we got Dave Mackay back as player\manager.  


Good question. He is as on his way here when Brian Clough stepped in! 🙈

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1 hour ago, Jambo-Fox said:

Eddie Thomson was a class player. Very similar in build and style of play to Craig Levein my memory tells me!


He was a great player and Captain and we bumped him! 🤷‍♂️

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6 hours ago, Tazio said:

The sixties were considered a time of prosperity. And if you look at crowd figure the period after the end of the war saw massive crowds throughout all of British football. 

I don't think that is quite true. Hearts regularly played in front of crowds of 8,9 & 10,000 against the likes of Clyde etc. But both OF clubs had regularly had crowds of 17 & 18,000 and sometimes much lower. There was a general drop off of attendances in the 60s & 70s throughout Scottish & British football in general. Crowds have picked up again over the last 20 years or so at least for the big clubs. I personally think this may be due to better stadia and amenities. Plus many more women come to the games now compared to the 60s and 70s.

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part_time_jambo
19 hours ago, Francis Albert said:

Obviously one for the oldies. We had Cruickshank and Holt and Shevlane and Anderson. And of course Ford and  Jensen and Muller. And Townsend. Oliver and  Mann. All good players.

I remember Poland and Higgins on the downside In the Killie game in 65.

But we should not have been that bad.

 

At least Craig Levein can't be blamed this time.

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29 minutes ago, Libertarian said:

I don't think that is quite true. Hearts regularly played in front of crowds of 8,9 & 10,000 against the likes of Clyde etc. But both OF clubs had regularly had crowds of 17 & 18,000 and sometimes much lower. There was a general drop off of attendances in the 60s & 70s throughout Scottish & British football in general. Crowds have picked up again over the last 20 years or so at least for the big clubs. I personally think this may be due to better stadia and amenities. Plus many more women come to the games now compared to the 60s and 70s.


Women and certainly young girls were a rarity going to games in the 60’s and 70’s. Now they are a sizeable minority at Tynecastle - as you say down to seats and cover.

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  • davemclaren changed the title to Why were we so bad in the sixties?

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