I'm feeling all nostalgic, I'm thinking about all the players through the years for pools that I've totally got a wide on for. I'm wanting to hear positive shiz from people, I want to hear people talking about players that got them feeling that it mattered.
Bob Newton and Billy Ayre where the players that started it for me, heroes in that mythological sense, made you feel like it transcended the every day.
Kevin Dixon did it for me too, he had that spark. Goal keepers never seem to figure in the hero department but Eddie Blackburn was a big favourite.
Of the fading stars who came here, Ray Kennedy, good god I feel so privileged to have seen him in a pools shirt, he was a cut above. Nobby Solano too, I can't believe I watched him play here.
Local lads, Adam Boyd, best player I've ever seen for us, an utter joy to watch when he was in his pomp. Unplayable, a genius.
The non league years, french Jimmy Toure was fantastic, absolutely loved him, I feel so sorry he never really fulfilled himself, a talent.
Present day... The wonderful and lovely Anthony Mancini, a star. My favourite player of recent years, he's absolutely beautiful to watch, unbelievably talented.
Christmas time, mistletoe and wine ..

Ernie Pythian
Jimmy Mulvaney
Gordon Watson
Jan Ove Pederson
Steve Harper

The list could go on and on, we’ve had some brilliant players over the years

Brian Honour - bled blue and white and scored some worldies too. Particularly enjoyed his goal from the dugout in the league cup, think it was against Bury- which sent us into the next round and one of the Arsenal games.

Andy Saville - scored the penalty against Palace and our next goal about 15 hours later against Blackpool. We also got a decent fee for him, when Barry Fry took him to Brum.

Jan Ove Pedersen- THE best player we ever loaned
Completely different gravy, in a pretty. average team.

Peter Beardsley scoring on his debut against Cambridge in a 2-2 draw just after New Year (Roy of the Rovers stuff)- think Barron got the other goal that day.

Andy Monkhouse for his shithousery and the winning run of games we went on when he first signed- was gutted when he left.

Hugh 'the hammer' Robertson - scored one of my all time favourite goals v Luton. Never seen a ball struck so hard and was right behind it in the Town End as it hit the roof of the net.

Joel Porter was class and became an adopted Poolie- was perfect foyle for Boydie.

Effion Williams - his goal against darLO should have guaranteed him a contract the next season.

'Flash' Gordon Watson and his swagger and shoot on sight attitude.

Dimi was our best keeper by a country mile in my 40 years of thin and thinner!

Non League years - Luke Armstrong was brilliant and we would have been nowhere near the playoffs without him. Other notable mentions for Nicky Kabamba, Peter Kioso and ManiD.

Merry Christmas fellow Bunkerites!

Malcolm Dawes the 4th division Bobby Moore.

Malcolm Poskett sheer class and looked as if he never broke sweat.

Richie Humphries when he first arrived can remember him beating his man down the wing and waving to the Cyril Knowles fans as he left him for dead.

Rob McKinnon class.

Andy Linnigan top class and made the game look easy.

Baker n Allon.
100% players and hard as Fcuk which resulted in plenty of goals for Pools.

Mark Tinkler who made the game look so easy.
A class act.

Best winger by a country mile Paul Smith.
The relentless quality service to our forwards will never be repeated due to this wing back cut inside shit.

Eras of hard graft n proper organisation.

UTP.

I thought Nobby Solano was shite...and that was when he could be arsed to turn up.

My favourites...Watson, Pedersen, Honour, Gabbiadini, Robertson, Monkhouse.

Marco Gabbiadini - when he played for Darlo of course!

For Darlo he had a golden year. Half way through his first season to half way through his second season he was untouchable. He still remains the most skilful player I've seen playing on a regular basis. I went to see him a number of years after he retired, playing for Sunderland in the 5 a side tournament at Newcastle Arena. He couldn't run that well but they would feed the ball to him and he would twist and turn, and then just place the ball in to the goal. His finishing was superb.

I remember travelling up to Hartlepool especially to see his last ever game. I think it was against Whitby in a cup competition, if my memory works HUFC won 4-1.

He scored twice against Whitby.

As a kid, I loved to watch Terry Bell, much later Mark Lawrence, much much later James Brown .

missed a lot of the ior era by living even further away. first hero was watty moore and all that mid to late 50,s side. later was billy ayres, paul baker, marco gabbiadini and norman oakley who because it was like looking in a mirror for me. never saw him play but jim gardner my old man was the tops even with his short time at pools before he moved on.

As a fan in the 1950’s was lucky enough to see the best ever cup runs in Pools history and the half back line of Newton, Moore and Stamper just rolled off the tongue but my favourite was Gorge Luke to my mind the best left winger Pools have had.

I agree with all above but one player who caught the attention of me and my old man was Luke James in his early years. Just the effort of chasing everything with NSD attitude.Yes he has had his ups and downs and not at the level as above but we enjoyed watching him.

Paul Dalton

Him n Beardsley were shite.

Not many retire their playing careers at Pools with a positive outcome.
But I now know thats not allowed as they would of went elsewhere.
I think that's how it goes on the Bunker.

its mainly fans expectations that are too high when name players drop down to pools to end their careers. they are never going to be the players they once where if pools is an option and they take it. one thing is i doubt we,ll see their likes again steeling a wage as they prefer now to go abroad to do that before packing up.

Lot of good 'uns already mentioned, but among those who haven't been -

Alan Gauden - scored some worldies
Keith Houchen - stirred up a lot of bad blood over the years, but as good in the air as any I've seen at the Vic.
Dean Emerson - only stayed fit for 1 season, more's the pity
Rhys Oates - for the way the promotion season suddenly clicked into gear for him - who saw that coming?

I wasn't fussed on Beardsley when he was here, but I thought Nobby showed flashes of brilliance now and again and seeing him in a pools shirt was a bit of a thrill.

On the other hand the thing that I missed was when my good friend Bobby Folland scored five goals against Oldham. Bobby played sixty odd games and averaged nearly a goal every two games. Trust me to miss the highlight of his career.

Other good players not yet mentioned (i don't think) are Ken Johnson, Tommy Mc Guigan, Bobby Lumley, Jackie Smith, Ray Thompson. Barry Watling, Les Green, John Gill,Bryan Drysdale,Tony Parry, Billy Linacre.
Plus characters that were crowd pleasers like Leo Harden and Ken Simpkins. The list is very lengthy to be honest. As is the list of crap of course.

Bobby was a great fella...stepfather to three really good friends of mine.

Barry Watling and Martin Hodge best keepers I saw play for Pools but of course I didnt see them all. Keith Nobbs as a no nonesense defender deserves a mention as well.

Agree 100% with this list.

Good shout for Nobbsy - a Poolie through and through. Him and his missus would never agree, but Poolies are entitled to wish their lass Jordan had been their lad Jordan

As a Darlo fan, and after a few drinks, I wish to offer up the name of Ian Clark. He was a skilful - and in a one on one situation, very effective.

Brian Honour started it all for me, Ritchie Humphreys legend despite what others think, Adam Boyd, Joel Porter, Steven Halliday , steve harper , there are probably loads more , barron , Mcguckin, Mancini of the current crop and Mani D

Ginger ginola was class on his day TBF

Oh flash Watson as well

Not having that- was pretty average and not fit to lace the boots of others mentioned.You've definitely been drinking!

Later became a bit of a worky ticket when he went to the loids. Sure he scored in front of the Town End for the loids and was giving it the big one, before we then put 4 past them.

Gary Strodder and Mick Smith both colossal at the back- 10 years apart.

Wasn't here long but Nathan Thomas was worth the entrance fee on his day.

I am in complete agreement! Watty wasn't a bad centre half as well.

I only had the privilege of seeing Brian Clough play once. In a game at Roker Park I remember the ball being crossed quite fast, waist high from the left. Cloughie raised his right foot to bring the ball down and rifled the ball into the net with his left foot. He was a very good player as well as the greatest club manager.

All of.......... well most of the ones mentioned above, If only we had a team made up of some of them now.

and the greatest talker ever and thats in a good way. was in a room with him once and you could hear a pin drop when he was talking which was complete sense without the bullshit of the modern game with its stats etc. just imagine if he left football earlier and went into politics. he,s have woken up that shower of shit sat with him or on the opposite side for sure.

The greatest Labour PM we never had...along with John Smith.

Spot on

Brian Honour, John MacPhail, Mickey Barron, Trevor Carson, Andy Monkhouse, Gordon Watson and Adam Boyd

I believe Bobby Folland was a local lad who was picked up after scoring a phenomenal number of goals in the local district league for Seaton HT.
In the future, will Pools ever find another player of his calibre playing at the likes of Grayfields?

Sure he started of as a midfielder for Pools then a forward.
Anyhow scored plenty of quality goals.

Heed walk straight into this current team.

Bennyworth played a massive part in our 90/91 promotion season.
They all did. Not all blessed with skill.
But Cyril n later Alan made sure every player put a 100% effort in which got us over the line in a very close finish.
No mobile phones them days so a tense few moments of about 10 minutes waiting for other results from radio.

Then an explosion of europhia and all the pubs crammed with happy Poolies all weekend.

Happy days.
UTP.

no because they,d ask him which acadamy he has played for. if there answer is none they,d just move on. not a theory but a fact even if pools were not involved in it.

No chance - who's he starting in front of-
ManiD, Madine, Grey, Campbell, Mancini?

Would be surprised if he scored more than a dozen goals for Pools in his time with us.
He was a transition player between Sir Harold's reign and the early IOR days under Tubby.
He was a trier, who put a shift in, not a great (in my opinion).

Bobby Folland only played one season at Seaton he was aTDS OB juniors player but owing to his birthday being later in the year he got an extra season in the Junior league. He went to Seaton where he got a trial at Newcastle in what was known as Newcastle N’s which was basically their junior side as there was no acadamy in those days. He then came to Pools firstly as a part time player. If I remember correctly he got £5 in reserves and £9 when in first team but later turned full time.

Bennyworth, Steve Tupling and Gary McDonald all signed by Cyril when he took over and all made a big impact, though think McDonald got injured during the promotion season and didn't play much - once Allon and Bakes got into their stride.

Cyril's first game in charge - was a 4-1 Boxing Day Home Win v Scarborough.
(just realised - 35 years- to the day)!

I remember being sat in the Mill House seats with my Dad, and we scored from 3 corners in front of the Rink End.

The other thing I remember about that day was that it was the game that Paul Mullen launched Monkey Business (issue 1)

Halcyon Days!

Higher quality opposition back then.
This is a dogshit worst division 5 ever.

But no problems.
We all bunkerites wanting the best for Pools

i believe that Peter Beardsley was in fact made to look bad because the other players couldn’t think on his level. Consequently a pass into nowhere that looked bad would have been read as great vision and creating space by higher quality team mates.

My thoughts aswell.

Brian honour, Ritchie Humphreys, Steven Halliday

Gordon watson

Forgot id replied above - how about Stephen instead?