Your memories: Who was Birdman of Tynecastle?

When he was 12, Ian McLaren used to go with his father to watch Hearts play at Tynecastle every other Saturday.

They were 1940s outings he fondly remembers, especially the moment when one of his fellow spectators would mark every goal Hearts scored by releasing a homing pigeon into the ground.

"We used to call him the Birdman", explains Ian, now 77, a retired sales director from Comiston. "He would let a pigeon free after every goal, it wasn't too often, mind you. I think he did it partly for fun, it was like a celebration of the goal and people used to point and stare.

"But also it was probably because he had someone at home who couldn't come to the match. I bet they looked up at the sky and saw the pigeon come back and thought, 'Okay, Hearts have scored a goal, good'. I'd love to know more about it.

"He used to stand about 100 yards away from us with his hamper of pigeons. If he had some left at the end he let them all go. It was very memorable.

"I remember every match, a few people would be taken ill or faint and they would have to be carried out the grounds on a stretcher - people weren't as healthy as they are now. And it was only men at the match.

"At half-time there used to be a charity collection and four men would walk around the pitch with buckets so the crowd could throw coins in. Mind you, it was just after the war and there wasn't much money around. People would throw a penny or half-penny piece in. It makes you laugh the things we used to do then that would now be frowned upon due to health and safety.

"I really enjoyed those matches with my dad. There was an unspoken rule that if you brought a child small enough to carry over the turnstile, they got in free. Well, by the time I was 13 they used to question my age as I was a bit too heavy to lift over. I stopped going soon after that."