A bumber crowd of 10,000 turned up at Varsity Stadium in Toronto on May 23, 1958, to watch the Ontario All-Stars entertain Heart of Midlothian. The exhibition was played on a Friday evening with the kick-off being at 8.00 p.m.

All the goals of the match came in the second half. In the match reports it says that the home team dictated the play in the first half. As was noted in reports from other exhibition matches of the time, the All-Star team fell apart due to numerous substitutions while the opposition kept their starting line-up intact for most of the match. In this match Hearts made only one substitution.

Hearts scored more or less straight from the kick-off of the second half, with former Scottish international player Willie Bauld getting the goal. Two minutes later Bauld added another goal. 75 minutes into the match Jimmy Wardaugh increased Hearts’ lead to 3-0. He scored his second goal of the match eight minutes later. Johnny Hamilton scored a fifth goal for Hearts.

Alex Young scored the final goal of the game with only a few minutes of the match remaining. The Scottish team winning by a 6-0 score. The tackling by the Ontario players was described as being hard throughout the match.

In an interview with the Canadian Press news agency after the game, Hearts Chairman N. G. Kilgour said that “If this is Canadian soccer, then it is most impressive”.


Ontario All-Star roster:

Goalkeeper: Istvan Fecske (Hungaria); Fullbacks: Len Wilkins (White Eagles), Julius Klug (Hungaria); Half-backs: Ostap Steckiw (Ukraina), Bob Kelly (Ulster), Benny Cairns (Sparta); Forwards: Cec McCormack (White Eagles), Johnny McNeil (White Eagles), Gerhard Borchert (Olympia), Schellnegger (Olympia), Alfie Lesz (White Eagles).

Subs: Tim Rideout (Hungaria), Danilo Guerra (Italia), Aurel Szondi (Golden Mile), Gasteiger (Golden Mile).

Hearts line-up:

Gordon Marshall, goalkeeper; Bobby Kirk and George Thomson, fullbacks; John Cumming, Jimmy Milne and Andy Bowman, halfbacks; Bobby Blackwood, Alex Young, Willie Bauld, Jimmy Wardaugh and Ian Crawford, forwards.

Sub: Johnny Hamilton replaced outside right Bobby Blackwood