Dear me, another one of those cringey MOTD Top 10’s discussed by the boy Linacre, his chum shearer and the chapel town buffoon. Said buffoon says ‘smoke’ is da kids lingo for trouble innit. The list of ‘hard men’ is : Costa Coffee, Dicks ( hard dicks had got be be a joke ) Batty Boy, Vieira, Stam, stop laughing at the back, fecking Vinnie Jones - yes the Wimbledon one, Roy Keane, Vidic, and Duncan Ferguson. One other rightfully makes the list Stuart Pearce, but even he would be a distant second to W.Whitehurst of Thurnscoe and Hull City.
I saw Basil Bolly the big French centre back, turn and sneakily head-butt Stuart 'Psycho' Pearce right in the boat race, during a England-France scrap. He brushed the blood away from his eye and just got on with it.
I remember that . I thought it was job done for Boli. Think Pearce had been roughing up Papin and getting a bit naughty so Boli had to quieten him down a bit which he did. I also recall Noel Blake of Pompo stand up to Big Billy in the 85/86 season and not break sweat about it. What a set of dirty ****s 80s Portsmouth were.
I remember a story told by Stan McEwan, who was definitely no shrinking violet. He was going to to 'rough up' Blake at a set piece, took a close up look at him and thought better of it. Can't recall where I read/heard this?
Just thinking about that as I saw your post. My memory is of Whitehurst thumping Blake in the face before a City corner came over, very early on in the game, South Stand end, Blake just took it and play carried on.
I remember it at North Stand end, very early in season after we'd come up. Maybe at it all afternoon, with those lenient refs?
