Empathy has manifest in a sense of charity at Motherwell.

The Fir Park club come up against Hearts tomorrow but will feel united in a shared ambition to have the supporters take control of the club, with the cause of the Tynecastle side's fanbase having been expedited as their club entered administration. The Foundation of Hearts has since been named as preferred bidders by administrators BDO and have been working to secure the requisite funds to take over.

That has struck a chord with Motherwell, whose supporters initiative, the Well Society, hold a stake in the Lanarkshire club. As a signal of their support, Motherwell have resolved to donate £1 to the FoH for every Hearts supporter who attends tomorrow's SPFL Premiership match at Fir Park. The gesture is also being made out of respect to Bryan Jackson, the insolvency expert in place at Tynecastle, and who also performed a similar role at Motherwell when the club went into administration in 2002.

"We wanted to make this donation because, as a club, we are all too aware of the difficulties during an insolvency event," Leeann Dempster, the Motherwell chief executive, said. "Although it was over 10 years ago, we very much appreciated the help and support of other clubs in our time of need. We are also still very thankful to the job Bryan Jackson did while in charge at Fir Park.

"That restructure back in 2002/2004 laid the groundwork for the fan ownership vehicle, the Well Society, to appear some seven years later. We, as a club, are sympathetic to the aims and objectives of the Foundation of Hearts and we hope this small gesture will help them towards their goal."

Gary Locke is more concerned by the much larger figure who will be trying to help Motherwell towards his side's goal. John Sutton departed Tynecastle in the summer under a cloud to return to Lanarkshire and will pose the greatest threat to Hearts' intentions of returning to their early season form.

The Edinburgh club have begun to stutter in recent weeks - with defeat by St Mirren an uncomfortable result given earlier victories against the likes of Hearts and Aberdeen - and the manager is given to a sense of regret that he has not been able to rely on Sutton up front this season.

"Certainly when you see it now and he's scoring goals, John is someone we could be doing with," said Locke, whose side have stalled 10 points behind Kilmarnock in the league table. "The most important thing in the summer was that Hearts were still here and if it meant players moving on, which a lot of them did do, and it meant the club survived, that's what had to happen."

Four defeats in their last five league matches has been sore but Locke is confident his side can heal their form. "The St Mirren game was a reality check for us," he added. "Any team is going to suffer good and bad spells in a season and we have had a tricky period of late and our performances have merited more than we got. However, it is important we do not feel sorry for ourselves."