Hypothetically, you can have 1 injured player back immediately

I've had this conversation a few times and skill has nothing to do with it.. There's no guarantee that the players of the past would even pass the test genetically these days.. The demands are far higher in terms of athleticism and many simply wouldn't cut it....

Sports have been pushing the boundaries for decades since and the levels in comparison are incredible.

 

That’s why Shaquiri plays for the Champions.

 

Happily, I guess there'll always be anomalies

 

Like Tony Green.

 

If that bastard Tommy Smith hadn't ended his career he'd still be playing today.

 

Hypothetically of course, but, more to the point, how many of the current crop of crap would prosper in the past.
Mud like pitches, crunching defenders, the soft ****es would be crying the first time the likes of Billy Bremner or Jim Iley stood on the poor souls. I know who I preferred watching.

 

Pride of place in my football memorabilia is a signed Tony Green photograph in a Toon strip.

 

LOL.

1 Tommy Smith

2 Norman Hunter

3 Chopper Harris

4 Nobby Stiles

5 John MacNamee

The list goes on. Every team had a hatchet man. Every team had a flair player. All on a mud patch. Can remember going to the Baseball Ground to watch us lose to Derby in 1976. It was like going to Whitley Bay beach. As Heed says how many of today’s teams would be able to get into a yesterday team. Not many and no where near as the number of yesterday’s teams would get into a today team despite all the genetic enhancements CC thinks today’s players have had.

 

I thought it was Mel Blyth; a relatively innocuous tackle, a funny turn of the knee, an incompetent club surgeon and, hey presto, lights out.

We had one truly great player in 1960-61: Len White. His career was essentially ended after a violent tackle by notorious henchman, Dave Mackay. Some said it was the worst tackle they'd ever seen. We somehow won that game, but in the end we had lost by far our brightest light and were relegated while Tottenham won the double. Sliding doors.

 

Forgive me for name dropping lads, however I was good pals with Gerry Daly and Kenny Burns when I worked in Derby ( 1987 - 1996 ). We used to play a lot of golf together, gamble together and drink together, Ah...the good old days.
Anyway, one night having a few beers I asked the question " who was the dirtiest player they'd ever faced?". They both said at the same time Johnny Giles closely followed by Ronnie Whelan. They both said they weren't hard but a pair of nasty bastards who would rake ankles, achilles etc on the blind side.

 

Who were our hatchet men, or dirty twats, from back then? If we had any

 

You are indeed correct. I'm getting somewhat confused with the game at Anfield when Tommy Smith took him out with a disgraceful challenge on the same knee which ultimately finished him.

 

If there is a genetic test for footballers why is no-one breeding them and why wasn’t Joelinton aborted at birth?
We aren’t developing into a race of superhumans, in fact if anything the opposite. We are living slightly longer now because of improved health treatments.
Similarly athletes today are performing better because of improved diet, fitness regimes, training techniques and equipment.
I suspect that if you put some of the good players from 50years ago in the same set ups as todays players and developed them they would more than hold their own.

 

John Anderson, Billy Whitehurst and Mick Harford were all hard bastards. I guess Whitehurst and Harford's reputation were well documented but in my opinion John Anderson was in the same league.

 

Yeah heard my dad mention Whitehurst like and I've heard about Harford. Did we not have a midfield type who'd go out to destroy other teams better players?

Like when Man City put that w⚓ DeJong on Hatem

 

Whilst we were sh!t at the time David McCreery was not only a good player, he was a seriously hard, aggressive little bastard who could hold his own against anyone.

 

Giles I knew about but never heard that about Whelan. You live and learn.

 

From my time there haven't been many hardmen like, Shearer obviously and Ferguson would be the main 1s. Then you've got Batty and Tiote

 

Back in the 50's, our hardman was Frank Brennan. Formidable but fair.

 

Tiote (RIP) looked like a hard man but apparently he was soft as ****.

Ferguson was hard. Shearer was dirty. Batty was solid too. So good shouts.

Emre was a dirty little ****er.

Kilcline was hard as nails.

Ketsbaia had a screw loose. Looked the type of person who would twitch when angry.