Supporters rush to sign up for Hearts travel club

HEARTS' travelling army are set to march into Europe in their thousands with more than 5000 supporters already registered for the club's official travel scheme.

The anticipation of witnessing their side's first entry into the Champions League qualifying rounds next month has enticed a huge number to sign up for the Hearts travel club, which guarantees members tickets for European away matches.

With the scheme less than two weeks old, club officials have revealed more than 5000 have enlisted free of charge to ensure they are not overlooked for tickets when the Champions League campaign begins.

That number is expected to swell further, with six weeks remaining until the second qualifying round gets underway on July 25/26. "In the first ten days since the launch of our new European travel club, we have taken the names of over 5000 supporters and we expect this to continue in the run up to our first European match," said a club spokesperson.

"These are exciting times at Tynecastle at the moment and the demand to watch Hearts both home and away is huge. We have sold our top limit of 13,500 season tickets - a modern day record - and we have also launched a new away season ticket which has been very well received by the fans. Now we are looking at ensuring our fans have the best service when they travel to Europe to support the team, and our association with travel company TMG will provide this for us."

The draw for the Champions League's second qualifying round will be made on June 23. Hearts will be seeded and could find themselves paired with a number of clubs which include Roman Bednar's former team from the Czech Republic, Mlada Boleslav, as well as Austria Salzburg, MyPa-47 of Finland and Lithuanians Ekranas.

One of the main benefits of the new travel scheme for the Hearts support is the guarantee of tickets for the appropriate section of foreign stadiums to avoid mixing with hostile rival fans.

The club took 3500 supporters to Bordeaux three years ago, whilst almost 3000 travelled to Basel the following season in UEFA Cup group stages. Full details of the European travel package are available on the official Hearts website at www.heartsfc.co.uk

Meanwhile, former Tynecastle head coach Graham Rix is one of two leading candidates to take over at English League Two side Wycombe Wanderers.

The Englishman has been in the running for the vacant post at Adams Park since John Gorman departed for Northampton earlier this month. Also considered were the former Millwall manager Colin Lee, as well as Kevin Keen and Steve Agnew.

But Rix is now on a final shortlist of two, and will be interviewed again later this week before Wycombe announce their new appointment.

Taken from the Scotsman