Clamour for tickets at Hearts

HEARTS were yesterday overwhelmed by demand for tickets for Sunday's Tennent's Scottish Cup semi-final with Hibs at Hampden and were forced to turn fans away an hour after opening the ticket office.

Supporters had begun queuing with sleeping bags at 7.30pm on Monday following an announcement by the club that a public sale of the 6,000 remaining tickets would begin at 10am yesterday at Tynecastle.

By 11am the queue had grown so long that new arrivals were being turned away to allow the ticket office to cope. A Hearts spokesperson said: "We have witnessed unprecedented demand for tickets for the semi-final even when compared to our cup final appearance in 1998."

The club were unable to say if all tickets had been sold as applications were still being processed. An announcement is expected tomorrow morning.

There was good news on the injury front for the club yesterday, with defenders Steven Pressley, Andy Webster and Robbie Neilson all winning their fights to be fit for Sunday's match.

Pressley had three stitches inserted in a head wound at half-time in Saturday's 2-1 win at Falkirk and was forced off five minutes into the second half. But the club's influential captain is likely to return to training this morning.

Webster, who missed the victory at Falkirk due to a stomach bug, is now back to full health.

Neilson, who limped off after 82 minutes with an ankle injury, remains a concern but assistant coach John McGlynn is confident he will also be fit to line up against Hibs. He said: "Robbie is improving every day but still has a bit to go. He will keep getting treatment from the physio and, fingers crossed, train later in the week."

Taken from the Scotsman