Tottenham announce preseason friendly vs. Hearts, July 17

Hey remember a couple of days ago when Tottenham Hotspur announced a preseason friendly against QPR at Loftus Road and I suggested that was probably Spurs wrapping up their preseason plans? Hah. Teach me to make sweeping generalizations.

Today, Tottenham announced that they will participate in a friendly match against Scottish Premier League side Heart of Midlothian on July 17. The match will take place at Tynecastle Stadium in Edinburgh, part of Hearts’ 150th anniversary celebrations.

If memory serves, Tottenham haven’t played against Hearts in any capacity since they faced off in the group stage of the 2011 Europa League. Old-school readers of the blog may remember those two matches — in the preview ahead of the first match in Edinburgh, Carty Free founder Kim McCauley referred to Hearts as “more or less everything that is disappointing about the Scottish Premier League.”

They started off the season with a couple of good results, then canned their manager for no good reason. They have a few high quality players, but the squad is a whole is not good enough to be terribly competitive. The sponsor on their jersey looks like crap. None of their good players are actually Scottish. Hearts are a microcosm of everything that blows about the SPL. They are a random clusterf—k of ‘meh.’

Those were the days before Twitter and other social media platforms took off and most fans were congregating in message boards. Well, Kim’s comments made their way onto a Hearts board and the site was invaded by what felt at the time like a very large number of very angry Hearts fans who were VERY indignant about their very bad club being called out for being very bad. The comments are now long gone (thanks Coral!) but the deep Carty Free lore remains. (If you remember, say so in the comments.)

I should point out that Hearts truly sucked that season. Spurs won the first match 5-0 in Edinburgh. Incidentally, the return fixture, a 0-0 draw at White Hart Lane, featured the club debut of 18-year old academy prospect and striker Harry Kane. Remember that guy?

Well, we’re 13 years further down the road now than we were, and guess what? Hearts are still “a clusterf—k of meh” though maybe a little less so recently. Hearts finished well behind the Old Firm in the SPL table last season, but good enough to take Best of the Rest status, finishing third. In fact, Hearts has been one of the better Scottish clubs not named Celtic or Rangers over the past few seasons, bouncing back after being relegated pre-COVID. That said, it’s still the SPL and it’s still a friendly. We probably shouldn’t expect too much. And if you’re a Hearts fan reading this article — welcome! Your club is very old, congratulations.

Anyway, that’s going to happen in mid-July, a few days before the friendly against QPR at Loftus Road. I’ve also since heard rumors that Spurs are planning to shoehorn a friendly against a K-League All-Stars team in Korea ahead of the VisitMalta Cup title game vs. Bayern Munich, though to my knowledge that hasn’t yet been confirmed.

Here’s Tottenham’s preseason friendly schedule as we know it currently.

• vs. Heart of Midlothian, Wed. July 17 (Tynecastle Stadium, Edinburgh)
• @ QPR, Sat. July 20 (Loftus Road, London)
• vs. Vissel Kobe, Sat. July 27 (National Stadium, Tokyo, Japan)
• (Possible K-League All-Stars match?)
• vs. Bayern Munich, Sat. August 3 (World Cup Stadium, Seoul)
• vs. Bayern Munich [VisitMalta Cup], August 10 (Tottenham Hotspur Stadium)