'Maybe I did him a favour' - Raith Rovers goalkeeper Jamie MacDonald recalls saving penalty from Harry Kane on England superstar's Tottenham Hotspur debut

Then Hearts stopper MacDonald, who had fouled Kane to concede the spot kick, redeemed himself by diving low to his right to stop Kane’s 29th-minute effort and help Hearts to a 0-0 draw in the sides’ Europa League play-off second leg encounter.

“The penalty save from Harry Kane has become a lot more of an attractive stat over time than it was then when he was a young 18-year-old making his debut,” MacDonald told the Fife Free Press. "The way Harry’s career has gone forward, it’s always nice when people remind you of it.

"Harry’s obviously a top quality international player and he has done well for himself. Maybe I did him a favour saving that penalty!

"The feeling I had was brilliant, probably as close as I could get to scoring a goal to be honest because the Hearts fans were buoyant and a great roar went up.

"The result was nigh impossible to overturn so the fans were down there just to enjoy themselves and support the team.

“It’s good memories because I think we were the only team to keep a clean sheet at White Hart Lane that season.

"We played really well and I wasn’t required to make a lot of saves. Apart from their penalty we probably had the best chance of scoring. Gordon Smith hit the bar, so we could have won.”

MacDonald revealed that he hadn’t been Hearts’ first choice earlier that season.

He added: “We had lost 5-0 in the first leg and Spurs played all their big guns because it coincided with the Tottenham riots so their first Premier League game was called off and they ended up playing their full strength squad up at Tynecastle.

"The Hearts manager Paulo Sergio decided to give the boys who hadn’t been playing a wee bit of a chance and I was one of the very fortunate ones to play in the second leg.

"Our team was a mixture of boys that had been playing and ones that were trying to make a point to a new manager. To keep a clean sheet against a very good Tottenham side – maybe not as glamorous as Bale and Defoe at the time – but there were still a lot of top quality players there, was excellent.”

MacDonald – who replaced Marian Kello between the sticks for the Spurs away game – eventually became the Jambos’ regular number one in January 2012, playing in the Scottish Cup winning team that year as they thumped Hibs 5-1 in the Hampden final.