http://boxtoboxfootball.uk/the-demise-of-footballs-traditional-hard-men/ Sent from my iPad using Barnsley FC BBS Fan Forum mobile app
Barnsley Boy (Thurnscoe) Billy Whitehurst takes some beating. I've seen him in action darn Thurnscoe - everyone in the pub fighting - which were quite regular in Thurnscoe and Goldthorpe back then. Billy in the middle of the free for all. I used to work with his brother. Also worked with someone who thought he was a big hard man - Billy swung him around with his long blond hair (when longish hair was fashionable) and pulled his hair out. That guy was off work for 3 week. Vinny Jones when they were at Sheffield together was frightened to death of Billy. At one point Billy smashed Vinnys car headlights out.
Nudeger turns a thread to glorify hooligan behaviour again Completely missing the fact that the original thread was about hard players ON the pitch and nothing to do with brawling in bars
Good read and makes some valid points. I particularly liked the one about "The thought of Ruddock or someone of his mould laying on the floor after minimal or no contact in order to get a free kick is something that just can’t be imagined." you could say the same about any of the hard men mentioned above.
The point being - supposedly hard men ON the pitch are not necessarily hard Men OFF the pitch - it's all one big act - and players like Vinny Jones, who is as soft as a newly baked tea cake, spend their life living off that act
But you much prefer those who act like utter bellends off the pitch as well? Says more about you than anything else.
Really surprised that Jimmy Scoular ( Newcastle and Portsmouth) , Skinner Normanton ( Barnsley) ,Norman Hunter ( Leeds and Barnsley), Ron "Chopper" Harris ( Chelsea) , " Dirty" Dave Hickson ( Everton) and Tommy Smith ( Liverpool) didn't get a mention. Some of that group wouldn't be on the pitch much above 5 minutes these days. Maybe the author is from a later era but some of those mentioned wouldn't have got in Smithy's way. Shankly used to say of him " Tommy doesn't just tackle them, he breaks them down and sells them for scrap". Off the field a reserved shy sort but on it one of the hardest tacklers ever seen in the game.
