Hard men in football

[Jammy89]

Duncan Ferguson.

He always enjoyed the rough and tumble

I always thought Jaap Stam looked like a hard ******* to play against - but that could of been look rather than actuality

[ex_pat_magpie]

Jim Iley. Not so hard in the violent Billy Whithurst style but he could take it and give it out without shirking or batting an eyelid and he'd never shirk a tackle.

[ghostrider]

What about John Anderson to go with the rest already said, for us.

As for the hard one's in the premier league now. There's probably quite a few in the changing rooms but very hard to pick out on the pitch due to the scrutiny and rules.

I suppose it's more easier to judge who's hard when you try to look at intimidation techniques of certain players and the reactions, or lack of reactions by those they're marking and only doing enough not to incur the wrath of the ref or (as of now) the VAR system.

I'm struggling to think of one that stands right out. Probably Troy Deeney and our very own Fabian Schar.

[sherwoodmag]

From further back they don't come tougher than Jim Iley or Jimmy Scoular. Sherwood will remember both those two.

Standing in the Gallowgate as a young lad I was surprised to hear men calling Scoular a dirty Scots bar steward,he was our Captain and had just lifted the F.A. Cup.He had legs like tree trunks and took Man and ball.I remember him sticking two fingures up to critics in the stand,he didn't care a feck for anybody a real hard man.

[HughieG]

Many good shouts here. Most of them were individual hard men in teams of not-so-hard men.

But there was a whole team, a great team, once, consisiting almost only of hard men.

Don Revie's Dirty Leeds of the 1960's and 70's.

Johnny Giles, Billy Bremner and Norman "Bites The Legs" Hunter to name three in that side. There were plenty more.

Other than being hard, they would surround and intimidate the referees to make decisions go their way. Won a lot of games that way. They were good players too though, no doubt.

[Stanleymag]

I was reading something recently where Roy Keane said that Gary Speed was a real tough cookie and a tough individual to play against.
Surprised me a little as he was such a gentleman off it.

[Stanleymag]

Here's his quote, quite funny:

Batty, Rob Lee, Gary Speed. Gary Speed was a top player to go up against.

“And, again, Gary was pretty nasty. Batty was nasty. People always remember me kicking people – a lot of these lads were kicking me! I was just retaliating over the years, that’s all.”

[ex_pat_magpie]

Standing in the Gallowgate as a young lad I was surprised to hear men calling Scoular a dirty Scots bar steward,he was our Captain and had just lifted the F.A. Cup.He had legs like tree trunks and took Man and ball.I remember him sticking two fingures up to critics in the stand,he didn't care a feck for anybody a real hard man.

Here's the hardest of hard men.

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q...C7&FORM=IQFRBA

[sherwoodmag]

I was reading something recently where Roy Keane said that Gary Speed was a real tough cookie and a tough individual to play against.
Surprised me a little as he was such a gentleman off it.

I was at Wembley when Gary Speed done Keane in the first few minutes.It didn't do us much good as Beckham replaced Keane and had a good game.

[malamoto]

The one and only John McNamee