This has possibly been done before but what is your Saints Hard 11 using players that have played for Saints whilst you have supported them Here's mine which may change when i've seen some of yours J Burridge M Mills D Watson U Van Gobbell M Dennis F Worthington J Case T Hurlock D Wise J Jordon D Speedie Manager G Souness Over to you
Replace the whole lot with the famous "ale house" side of the 70's - in any case Gerry o' Brian probably hardest of the lot.
I don't think you mean Gerry O'Brien. He was a fancy winger as I recall. You are probably thinking about Brian O'Neil.
Having been born in 1990, I am unfamiliar with the concept of "hard" footballers, apart from Vinnie Jones who was somewhat of a novelty.
Gerry O'brien, a little winger we bought from Clyde or Clydebank. In a game against Liverpool thier c/h Ron Yeates kicked the little feller all over the place. The next time we played them they had just bought the 1st £100,000 teen-ager from Wolves called Alan Evans, big John Mc Grath decided to return the favour, the poor lad wandered around the centre circle thinking he was back in Liverpool until Shankley showed mercy and took him off. From that moment on Shankley called us Alehouse Footballers. If i remember rightly, Shankley invited the press to come in and walk around his new signing when he bought Yeates. Kettle, pot, black comes to mind.
There aren't many hardmen these days. Plenty of physically well built players, but not many with a reputation of being hard. I'll make a list of who I can remember, but I'd have a job making an 11. Dean Hammond Radhi Jaidi Simon Gillet Jhon Viafara Andrew Davies Paul Wotton Alexander Ostlund Tomas Hajto Ricardo Fuller Matt Oakley Michael Svensson um.
The next time McGrath visited Anfield, Shanks asked him to accompany him into the bowels of the stadium. They arrived at the newly-constructed hooligan cells, complete with bars. âThis, John, is YOUR dressing room,â said Shankly. Taken from an article on here the other day.
Jimmy Case was the last of our hard men, in my opinion. I loved JJ, pity he became a smelly Skate. But, what you saw in the Champion league was Joe all over. Just stood their when that twat stuck the nut on him, and he's in his late 50's......... [video=youtube;qjdH5vXhGEE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjdH5vXhGEE[/video]
Hard no spiteful yes.I have read many biographies and many name Jimmy Case as a man to avoid in confrontation on the pitch even named by Vinnie himself . I remember Jimmy interviewed on solent talking of his days as a 14 year old playing in the mens league in Liverpool and getting kicked all over the shop by hard nut dockers he said it was quite an education which served him well through the seventies and eighties in the pro game . Iloved Jimmy he was hard but also a fantastic player and by all accounts a good guy who looked after some of our young players who were coming through when he was here
Terry Hurlock lol loved him with his big shaggy perm , didnt we get him from Rangers one of the few bright spots under the Branfoot regime
I think from a previous thread that John McGrath was super hard a lot depends on the time frame you can glean thoughts from but we did have Tommy Traynor and Derek Mulgrew (spell ck required) at right and left back who took no prisonors - Vinnie Jones and his like were just thugs - a name that has not been mentioned in any thread was Billy Bremner - hard or not ?
