In my exerience it depends how the gasket goes, if its pressurising the coolant system then normally it will make the radiator hoses harder, as the exhaust gas cant escape anywhere. Also when its only pressurising the coolant system you can get a load of bubbles coming out of the return hose in the expansion tank.
I would also say that as your car has the earlier type of head gasket that this may have failed as numerous ones do. normally theres a weak spot on the gasket at #1 cylinder and the gasket goes there. Caught early it wont ruin the head which can happen.
I would replace the gasket for piece of mind.
