Posted August 19, 201212 yr Muscle bound,scary looking characters with missing teeth,full facial hair & a f*ck you attitude...........but that's enough of women's over 50's football....... Just where are todays Premier League hard men?. You know,the guys that perfected the art of getting 'their late tackles in early'?. Is the art of tackling a thing of the past?,do you think rightly so, maybe?. Perhaps its a good thing after all,but a good, hard but fair, well timed tackle, perfected by football's hard players, seams to be missing from today's game. Maybe,the art of tackling should be compulsory for coaches taking their pro badges?. What do you think......?
August 19, 201212 yr Just where are todays Premier League hard men?. We have him here, John Terry Edited August 19, 201212 yr by Ozztheboss
August 20, 201212 yr The art of tackling has been steadily removed from the game by a bunch of w*nkers who pander to the new breed of football fan who like to see skill and nothing else. This is one of the reasons I've lost interest to a large degree, tackling was a fine skill, and to my mind, the harder the tackle the better it was. Every team had a hard man when I was younger (1960's to the early 1980's)... Chelsea - Ron Harris, Eddie McCreadie, Micky Droy, Joey Jones Arsenal - Frank McLintock, Peter Storey (not as hard as he liked to think he was) Spurs - Dave Mackay, Mike England, Alan Mullery (sort of) West Ham - Billy Bonds Liverpool - Tommy Smith (one of the hardest, right up there with Chopper), Ron Yeats Man.Utd - Nobby Stiles (half-blind nutter), John Fitzpatrick Leeds - Billy Bremner, Jack Charlton, Paul Reaney, Norman Hunter, Terry Yorath - I'd add Johnny Giles, but he was just a nasty little sh*t who would only have a go if his neanderthal team mates were close at hand, the w*nker. Birmingham - Trevor Hockey, Kenny Burns Everton - Jimmy Gabriel Newcastle - John McGrath, Bob Moncur Sunderland - Charlie Hurley Millwall - Harry Cripps, Barry Kitchener ... to name but a few. Football would be far more entertaining with players of this calibre on the pitch, in my view. Edited August 20, 201212 yr by BlueBeard
August 20, 201212 yr Liverpool had 3 of their 4 late 1970s/early 80s midfielders in Jimmy Case, Ray Kennedy and Graeme Souness who could handle themselves. Terry McDerrmott being the exception.
August 20, 201212 yr When you master the art of tackling, it can be a thing of beauty(of sorts), but then again, Paolo Maldini was one of the greatest defenders the world has seen, but how many times during a match did he actually tackle? Great positioning meant that he rarely needed to.
August 20, 201212 yr With hard players, it wasn't always about being a good defender, it was about fightening the pants off of the opposition.
August 20, 201212 yr Muscle bound,scary looking characters with missing teeth,full facial hair & a f*ck you attitude...........but that's enough of women's over 50's football....... Just where are todays Premier League hard men?. You know,the guys that perfected the art of getting 'their late tackles in early'?. Is the art of tackling a thing of the past?,do you think rightly so, maybe?. Perhaps its a good thing after all,but a good, hard but fair, well timed tackle, perfected by football's hard players, seams to be missing from today's game. Maybe,the art of tackling should be compulsory for coaches taking their pro badges?. What do you think......? Theres the odd yob who is just a dirty fecker with little skill.... and then there are people like Barton who is just a yob but with potential... too much of a knob head though to reach his potential. There's very few hardmen of the Vinnie Jones type left in football. Roy Keane was probably the last one. These guys come to mind right away: Terry Kompany Vidic Shawcross Parker There are many more I am sure. These ones are all reasonably tough and solid... and dont roll about and act injured unless they are Edited August 20, 201212 yr by Zola
August 20, 201212 yr Liverpool had 3 of their 4 late 1970s/early 80s midfielders in Jimmy Case, Ray Kennedy and Graeme Souness who could handle themselves. Terry McDerrmott being the exception. I always liked Ray Kennedy when he was a striker at Arsenal, not so much when he moved to Anfield. I forgot Jimmy Case & Graeme Souness, I think I was concentrating too much on the 60's & early 70's!
August 20, 201212 yr Their were some in the eighties, but not as many. Pat Van den Hau(???) Steve McMahon (prick) Eric Young Vinnie (wait here fatboy) Jones Stuart pearce (loved him as a player, hate him as a manager) Must be more, but the old memories fading! Edited August 20, 201212 yr by shedpensioner
August 20, 201212 yr I always liked Ray Kennedy when he was a striker at Arsenal, not so much when he moved to Anfield. Big Duncan Ferguson was another striker with a hard playing style. Anyway, it's a thin line between "hard" and "coward", and there are certainly a lot of players who ticks the last box.
August 20, 201212 yr http://desmond.yfrog...e=640&ysize=640 This is a Hard man ask the people who broke into his house. Edited August 20, 201212 yr by chelseabootboy
August 20, 201212 yr I'd love to have had a strikeforce of Duncan Ferguson and Joe Jordan - the opposition defence would have surrendered before kick-off!
August 21, 201212 yr I always liked Ray Kennedy when he was a striker at Arsenal, not so much when he moved to Anfield. I forgot Jimmy Case & Graeme Souness, I think I was concentrating too much on the 60's & early 70's! No probs mate .Agree re Ray Kennedy he was some player and had an amazing left foot.
August 21, 201212 yr I'd love to have had a strikeforce of Duncan Ferguson and Joe Jordan - the opposition defence would have surrendered before kick-off! Joe Jordan v Dave Watson in Scotland v England matches of the time (late 70s) was always 'tasty'. Or domestic matches
August 21, 201212 yr I'd love to have had a strikeforce of Duncan Ferguson and Joe Jordan - the opposition defence would have surrendered before kick-off! v a defence of Chopper Harris, Tommy Smith, Norman Hunter and Stuart Pearce Carnage... Edited August 21, 201212 yr by erskblue
August 21, 201212 yr Tommy Hutchinson had just outpaced Tommy Smith in a Coventry v Liverpool match early-mid 1970s 'Race you for your wages.' Hutchinson said. ' Okay, double or quits. Fight you for them !' replied Smith The series/challenge wasn't taken up
August 21, 201212 yr Look i'm usually the last person to "blame it on Johnny Foreigner" but years ago I read an interview with former Juventus and Uruguay defender, Paolo Montero. In possibly one of the best interviews I have ever read, one question had the reporter asking straight out "why are you such a c**t?" and Montero gave him a truthful reply. Montero said that in the Sth American football he watched in the late 70s and 80s, there was a rising undercurrent of the "results-first" mentality. He said that he and his predecessors grew up with the mentality that they must do everything they can to ensure a win- irrespective of the laws of the game. I can't help but wonder if the influx of those players into continental Europe and then influencing England maybe crossed the subtle line between testosterone-fuelled competition and genuine malice and intent. If you look at most of the modern games "hard men" from Vieira to Materazzi to even our beloved Didier Drogba, unlike their earliest predecessors they do not believe in the unspoken gentleman's agreement to give-as-good-as-you-get. They can all dish it out, but when the tables were turned and they were on the recieving end they would hit the ground like a sack of wet cement.
August 21, 201212 yr I'd love to have had a strikeforce of Duncan Ferguson and Joe Jordan - the opposition defence would have surrendered before kick-off! Gattuso trying to piss off Jordan.
August 21, 201212 yr Great post, Sydney. Sums up the hypocrisy and greediness in top athletes (in any sports) nowadays. Edited August 21, 201212 yr by Ozztheboss
August 21, 201212 yr I'm not sure if we can pin it down to greed alone though. Football's (maybe sport in general) is no longer a working-class pastime, it's increasingly becoming a tribal rat-race.
August 21, 201212 yr Gattuso trying to piss off Jordan. I'm amazed Joe managed to control his temper that night, Gattuso can think himself lucky to have got out of the ground in one piece.
August 22, 201212 yr Hard man step forward Claudio Gentile of Italy. Italian Pyscho How unaptly named Edited August 22, 201212 yr by erskblue
August 22, 201212 yr My old man reckons Dave McKay of Spurs and Derby was as hard a player as he's ever seen.
August 22, 201212 yr Hard man step forward Claudio Gentile of Italy. Italian Pyscho I was also thinking of an Italian, Berasi, whilst he wasn't dirty and he was a great defender, he was made out of old boot leather, never complained about getting whacked, and quite prepared to whack someone as well!
