"Hardest'' footballer you've seen.........
- Thread starter iguanamanc
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Jesper Blomqvist - he was a nutter, a REAL hard man !
robbie 'savage'
Remember the German wall, Hans Peter Briegel?
Big Bad Brian Kilcline. I forgot him, and you had Jim Holton, I forgot him too, what a feckin hoolie he was!! 
Big Bad Brian Kilcline. I forgot him, and you had Jim Holton, I forgot him too, what a feckin hoolie he was!!
6ft 2 eyes of blue, big jim holton's after you
nobody ever did norm in a match against pool that I can remember......think he was only lost to pool twice while playing for United both milk cup matches.....fat jan tackled McQueen before scoring that goal not Norm and it was a clear foul to add to a typical anfield penalty ......the only way molby could have ever have hurt norm was by rolling on him.
As for hard man McMahon
question to Norm...did you speak to McMahon that day?
reply only with my studs
Norm was sub and United came back to draw 3-3 as Mcmahon disappeared from game as did barnes after Norm smiled at him!
Stefan Schwarz. Once he played 5 minutes with a broken shinbone before he was dragged off the pitch. Anothertime it was the same situation with the achilles tendon.
I remember Whiteside 'doing' Macca in a league match back in 86. The following season, we played United in the quarter final of the league cup at Anfield. Midway through the first half, McMahon all but decapitated the snidey, Irish twat - Not long after, big fat Jan Molby won the ball off Whiteside (fairly of course), with a crunching tackle that effectively ended his game. Even better. Jan came away with the ball & smashed the winner from 25 yards into the roof of the net.
I dont know why. But 'big Norm' wasn't quite as big anymore.
It's funny how we all remember things in different ways. I just remember Whiteside coming off the bench at Anfield in a game with United 3-1 down and down to ten men. McMahon was running the show. Anyway, McMahon gets the ball and Whiteside fecking clattered him. Every time McMahon got the ball after that he just laid it off first time and ten man United pull the game back to 3-3. As previously pointed out McMahon was just Whiteside's bitch.
Keane
Mihajlovich
Mathaus
Mihajlovich
Mathaus
Jordan, Robson, Keane, McQueen, Vidic.
Jaap Stam, Big Duncan Ferguson, Danny Shittu
Not the hardest, but if it was the dirtiest football i'd go for Paolo Montero(in the modern era). I remember one game for Juve against United at OT he could have been sent off three or four times over but never did(the 3-2 game in 97-98). And he was generally a dirty cnut.
Hard Men
Theres a difference between footballing hard men and thugs.
Vinnie Jones would be a thug in any walk of life.
Dennis Wise is a yappy puppy...a wannabe hard man.
Basically REAL hard men (Keane) dont have to prove themselves. When he confronted Vieira in Highbury tunnel, I think there was something about it, that made us all think I wish I could do that.
Hard men at United...Stiles, Crerand, Fitzpatrick in the 1960s had their moments. I saw Harry Gregg the old United goalkeeper about five years ago and he still looked hard.
But "PB" (Popular Bill) Foulkes had a reputation for kicking United apprentices around the Old Trafford car park.
Obviously not a good thing to do but on the other hand one of them was Eamonn Dunphy.
Theres a difference between footballing hard men and thugs.
Vinnie Jones would be a thug in any walk of life.
Dennis Wise is a yappy puppy...a wannabe hard man.
Basically REAL hard men (Keane) dont have to prove themselves. When he confronted Vieira in Highbury tunnel, I think there was something about it, that made us all think I wish I could do that.
Hard men at United...Stiles, Crerand, Fitzpatrick in the 1960s had their moments. I saw Harry Gregg the old United goalkeeper about five years ago and he still looked hard.
But "PB" (Popular Bill) Foulkes had a reputation for kicking United apprentices around the Old Trafford car park.
Obviously not a good thing to do but on the other hand one of them was Eamonn Dunphy.
Keano knew that he had Vieira's number and that he was shit scared of him. Let's face it Vieira is 6'4" and should be able to push Keane around but he couldn't. There is a You Tube video floating about from a game in 1999? when we won 2-1 at Highbury and Keane scored both goals. During the game Vieira catches Keane late as Keano was launching a ball into the Arsenal box. Keano immediately grabs at Vieira's throat and despite the fact that Vieira fights back you can see it in his face that he is shocked and intimidated. I think that that incident set the tone for all future confrontations between the two. Vieira knew Keane would not back down and that if he tried to mix it with him Keane would give him it back with interest.
A mate of mine who is an Arsenal fan says he was never able to view Vieira in the same light after the tunnel incident as, in his opinion, he lost all credibility as a hard man.
I also recall that match very vividly. Easter saturday 1988. As you say, we all remember things differently. Whilst you may see an heroic, gladiator type performance from Whiteside as being instrumental in United's fightback. I seem to remember a Liverpool side being completely dominant against your 11 men. Then a sense of the foot being taken off the pedal after your left-back was sent off early in the 2nd half. I suspect many of our players probably started thinking the game was won, & possibly had their minds on the FA Cup semi final against Forest the following saturday.
It was quite the norm (no pun intended), for United to raise their game against us back in the mid 80's. There was an intesity & passion that was missing for a lot of the run of the mill games. People like Whiteside, Robson, McGrath etc would often play above themselves in order to get a result against Liverpool. Mind you, this would often be followed by United falling flat on their arses the following week, & losing a match they would have been expected to win. (which was nice)
So as for being 'Whiteside's bitch'. Nah, dont think so. Steve McMahon was never a bottler in any way, shape or form. The fact he often ended up 2nd best against Whiteside & co, was more to do with United playing like men possessed against the old enemy, as oppossed to any physical & mental superiority you felt the Irish lad had over our Scouse warrior........Stevie's title-winning medals bear testament to that point.
I though Keane was wary of Shearer as it goes. I don't actually believe these guys are scared of anybody
I don't think you have made your point very well. You acknowledge that McMahon 'often ended up 2nd best against Whiteside', but you seem to be implying that having a Championship medal makes you a hard bastard. Using your logic Ryan Giggs would obviously beat the crap out of Randy Couture.
Hmm dunno, I seem to recall the next shot there was nothing between them shearer faced him down and all keane did wwas gob off but whatever, I don't think 'scared' is the right word. Shearer can have a right old row by all accounts, no doubt so can Keane.
Ashley Cole - takes some guts to show a mobilephone up your arse!
Ron 'chopper' Harris was the hardest player I ever saw playing. As a teenager I used to watch him at Griffin Park when United weren't in town, he was old and slow and quite often sent off before half time. One game he got done by a big forward and played for 20 minutes with a blood covered sock. I couldn't understand why he didn't go off as he was in obvious difficulty until he had his chance of revenge and went into a 50/50 tackle with the forward. The striker was carried off and Harris wasn't even booked and got substituted. I heard the next day he had 12 stitches in his leg.
He's not hard Cole but he's a dirty niggly little cnut yet never seems to get 'tagged'.
Not too sure about Giggs 'sorting out' Mr Couture. He's a United player that speaks with a Mancunian accent.........Cant recall too many hard cases of that ilk turning out for your boys over the past 3 or 4 decades. You generally have to 'import' your tough guys from across the Irish sea
Let me elaborate a bit more on the point in question. My argument is that any successes United enjoyed against Liverpool whilst McMahon & Whiteside were on the same pitch, is generally due to a collective effort from your team, as oppossed to a super-human display of machismo from Norman Whiteside. McMahon joined Liverpool in Sept 85, whereas Whiteside left United in 89. During that period, out of 9 games played (including a cup tie), United won 3, Liverpool won 2, with the other 4 matches being drawn. During the same period, McMahon & Liverpool never finished lower than 2nd in the league. Whilst United, with tough guys Whiteside, Robson & McGrath in the set-up, finished 4th, 11th, 2nd & 11th - My point being. McMahon was an aggressive, ball-winning central midfielder. Who throughout the course of his time with Liverpool consistently showed his hard-man qualities. He didn't need to be motivated by 'a sense of occasion', or opposition, in the same way the United players did. He never suffered from a discipline problem either, unlike the 3 aforementioned likely lads, who quite obviously needed a little bit of the old 'Dutch courage' before doing battle with England's finest
Amazing that Gennaro Gattuso is not in there!
Let me elaborate a bit more on the point in question. My argument is that any successes United enjoyed against Liverpool whilst McMahon & Whiteside were on the same pitch, is generally due to a collective effort from your team, as oppossed to a super-human display of machismo from Norman Whiteside. McMahon joined Liverpool in Sept 85, whereas Whiteside left United in 89. During that period, out of 9 games played (including a cup tie), United won 3, Liverpool won 2, with the other 4 matches being drawn. During the same period, McMahon & Liverpool never finished lower than 2nd in the league. Whilst United, with tough guys Whiteside, Robson & McGrath in the set-up, finished 4th, 11th, 2nd & 11th - My point being. McMahon was an aggressive, ball-winning central midfielder. Who throughout the course of his time with Liverpool consistently showed his hard-man qualities. He didn't need to be motivated by 'a sense of occasion', or opposition, in the same way the United players did. He never suffered from a discipline problem either, unlike the 3 aforementioned likely lads, who quite obviously needed a little bit of the old 'Dutch courage' before doing battle with England's finest
It doesn't matter if the games were won drawn or lost. The whole point of the thread is who is the hardest player you have seen and in the games McMahon played against Whiteside, McMahon's 'hard man qualities' were conspicuous by their absence.
Alfe Inge Haaland
This is turning into something of a, 'my dad is bigger than your dad' debate
Just going back to what you stated in an earlier post about remembering things differently. I have more than one recollection of Mcmahon almost knocking Whiteside back across the Irish Sea in certain United v Liverpool matches - To suggest that Macca went 'missing' during these tussles, is laughable to say the least. The stats back this up. As the games were always tight affairs, with United coming out on top by one game, in what was effectively, your cup final every season. One of the national rags published certain extracts from Vinnie Jones autobiography many years ago. Having played against Whiteside, Robson & co on a regular basis. Jones was quoted as saying that McMahon was the hardest player he'd ever played against................Now I'm not going to argue with the guy. Are you ?.
Its a pity Big Norm only got to play 29 games for Everton. It would have been interesting to see how his tough guy image would have fared without his drinking buddies to back him up.
With all of this Macca-Norm debate, I almost forgot about Jimmy Case. I remember him as being hard and a bit of a headcase (excuse the pun). What do you scousers think?
Souness
By a mile
By a mile