Down White Hearts Lane: From tears in Turin to Tynecastle for Gazza and Lineker

Published Date: 18 August 2011
By Duncan Smith
THE tears had dried but Gazzamania was in full swing and the strains of Nessun Dorma were still ringing in the ears when Tottenham arrived for a pre- season friendly at Tynecastle on 12 August 1990.
Five weeks had elapsed since the seminal night in Turin when, first a booked Paul Gascoigne, and then the entire English nation, were reduced to tears by a penalty shoot-out defeat by West Germany in the World Cup semi-finals. After the emotional rollercoaster of Italy it was back to the bread and butter of club football for Gascoigne, whose all-action midfield displays had lit up an otherwise fairly stale tournament, and also Gary Lineker, who had added a further four goals to take his World Cup tally to ten.

Terry Venables had assembled an impressive squad at Spurs and, inspired by their England duo, the Lilywhites would go on to lift the FA Cup on a day when Gascoigne suffered a self-induced, career-defining knee injury at Wembley.

But all that was nine months in the future. First came this 1-1 draw with Hearts and in his Scotsman match report, Mike Aitken wrote: "An engrossing pre-season match at Tynecastle last night attracted no fewer than 18,068 spectators to the Edinburgh ground and produced a surprising amount of attractive football, not only from the England World Cup star, Paul Gascoigne, but also from Derek Ferguson, who made an enterprising home debut for Hearts."

It may have been a pre-season game but Gascoigne's legendary competitiveness was in evidence. "World Cup referee, George Smith, made it plain to Gascoigne after only three minutes that he would not tolerate any back-chat," wrote Aitken. "The Spurs man did not heed the warning and, when he complained following a later incident about the award of a foul, Smith duly booked him. After he'd got that out of his system, Gascoigne went on to show some delightful touches."

Wayne Foster gave Hearts a deserved lead just after half-an-hour with a superbly-struck 22-yard drive but Spurs were well worth their equaliser 18 minutes from the end. Lineker was fouled, Gascoigne delivered a fine free kick and David Howells headed past Henry Smith.

Taken from the Scotsman