Down White Hearts Lane: Dave Mackay's sadness at Tynecastle exit soothed by Spurs

Published Date: 16 August 2011
By Alan Pattullo
Part One: Dave Mackay, one of the greatest players in both Hearts and Tottenham history
THE link between Hearts and Tottenham Hotspur goes back a long way. However, the principal connection is a sore one as far as the Hearts fans are concerned, for it left them bereft.

A train porter on duty at Waverley station summed it up. On seeing Dave Mackay waiting at the platform for a train, he greeted the midfielder and then asked him where he was bound. Mackay later explained in his autobiography - The Real Mackay, published in 2004 - that he did not see the need to keep "the whole business" a secret. "I've signed for Tottenham Hotspur," he told him.

The porter, Mackay reported, was dumfounded. Only when Mackay boarded the train and had pulled down the window of his carriage did the porter recover his power of speech. He looked up at the man he had idolised from the terraces at Tynecastle and put into words what every Hearts fan felt. "Davie Mackay, the He'rts winnae be the same withoot you," he told the departing hero, whose legendary status at both Tynecastle and White Hart Lane will be acknowledged at this Thursday's Europa League play-off clash between Hearts and Spurs.

The whole business of his transfer had made Mackay feel uneasy. He had been happy at Tynecastle. And why not? He had helped re-establish them among the top teams in Scotland. He was skippering the club he loved as a boy growing up on the west side of Edinburgh.

Indeed, the Mackay family seemed quintessentially Edinburgh. The son captained the local team and the father worked at The Scotsman, as a linotype operator. At the end of 1958, Mackay was content. In addition to leading the Tynecastle side, he had just been named captain of his county. Hearts had also just won the League Cup - beating Partick Thistle 5-1 - and were slogging it out with Rangers at the top of the league. But then came a phone call, on a Sunday night in March 1959.

Mackay had missed the previous day's match with Motherwell due to an ankle injury. So what Mackay described as a "pedestrian" clash with Queen of the South a week earlier stood as the last of 209 appearances he made for Hearts. He was only 24, the same age as someone like Calum Elliot is now. And yet already a legend.

Mackay joined Hearts in 1950, signing his contract on the side of a crumbling tenement wall as he walked home down Dalry Road. Frank, a younger brother, joined the club shortly after, while Tommy, the eldest brother, was already on the books. It was Dave who acted as the catalyst for success, however. The great Willie Bauld, who played for Hearts for 16 years, had watched Mackay perform in a schools' final for Saughton High School at Tynecastle. Turning to then Hearts trainer John Harvey, he said: "We'll no' start winning anything until that wee laddie is playing for Hearts."

It wasn't strictly true that Hearts hadn't won anything at all before Mackay. The end of the 19th century had yielded two league titles, three Scottish Cups. But they hadn't won a bean for half a century when Mackay made his debut at 18. By the time he left Tynecastle, just six years later, the door of the trophy cabinet had been creaked open to allow for the delivery of a league title, two Scottish Cups and three League Cups. "I hated the thought of leaving Hearts but it all worked out fine," he told Aidan Smith in an interview with The Scotsman in 2009, just weeks before he turned 75. This was gross understatement on Mackay's part. Everything worked out more than fine at Spurs. Yet he described himself as "shell-shocked" when told by manager Tommy Walker that Hearts had agreed to sell him.

It is too simple to say Mackay's life reads like a fairytale, even if it did often seem invested with this quality. He had to battle back from not one but two leg-breaks with Spurs. He also suffered heartbreak, not least following the tragic death of his compatriot and team-mate John White. Now comes the news of his own ill-health. Although invited as guest of honour for this Thursday's Europa League clash, it is not yet known whether Mackay, now 76, will be able to wave to both sets of fans from the pitch, as he did on 25 July 1992, prior to a friendly at Tynecastle between the teams.

Yet there is no doubt who remains the most potent link between the clubs. Mackay crafted for himself a new identity in England. He wasn't just Mackay, the former Hearts player. Within a couple of seasons he had become a vital component in a Spurs team who became the first side in the 20th century to collect both the FA Cup and league championship in a single season.

"I'm a Hearts supporter," he told Four Four Two magazine in 2009. "But the Tottenham side was the better of the two, eventually."

His first impression of White Hart Lane was its "enormity" he recalled in his autobiography. "Everything from the toilets to the main stand was bigger than the set-up at Tynecastle."

Success, however, wasn't a given. Spurs had lost nine of the previous 15 league games before Mackay's arrival. He helped the side claim a much needed victory on his debut against Manchester City, and tangible success followed.

In addition to the double, Spurs became the first British side to win a European trophy when they won the European Cup Winners' Cup with victory over Atletico Madrid in 1963. Mackay, however, was injured, having suffered a first broken leg during a game against Manchester United after a clash with their Irish centre-half Noel Cantwell. Horrifyingly, Mackay broke it again on his comeback match for the reserves. But he battled back to skipper Spurs to another FA Cup win, this time over Chelsea, in 1967. He should have stopped playing then, he reflects in his autobiography, with reference to what he describes as "sluggish" personal performances during the following campaign.

Derby County supporters, though, were glad he didn't hang up the boots. As was Brian Clough. He phoned Mackay and told him he wanted the Scot to lead Derby out of the Second Division. Then, when he had done that, Clough informed Mackay that they would win the English league championship together. That, however, is another story.

When The Times recently ran a feature on the 50 greatest players to have played for Spurs, Mackay came in at No 2, just above Jimmy Greaves, but beaten to top spot by Danny Blanchflower. Greaves, however, named him as the greatest in his column for a Sunday newspaper last weekend.

"My old Tottenham team-mate was the most complete professional footballer I've ever known, on and off the pitch," he wrote, as he anticipated this Thursday night's meeting. "He was a genuinely hard b****d and a truly gifted ball player. He was also a first-rate p***-taker, a great drinking partner and lover of life."

These were qualities which helped Mackay become something which only a select few achieve; a legend at more than one club. In much the same manner as he famously dealt with Billy Bremner, he picked both Hearts and Spurs up by the scruff of the neck and then led them both to glory.

Taken from the Scotsman