I'm just filling the form in now for the various topics and have made my decisions for this season, Brian Honour for Player of 90, and 2000's am stuck between Darrell Clarke, Ritchie Humphs, Boydy and one or two others,

I am too young to go further than the 90's really so thats all i will be voting on.

Whats everyone elses thoughts?

I wouldn't vote for Brian Honour.

why not he was a legend

No, he was a bounder.

And he didn't wash his doggers.

what did he do wrong like ripper?

i bet none of the players washed their doggers. i know mine only come out of my footy bag once a month to be washed, and thats only if our lass empties my bag

Money grabbing little get sold all the tickets for his testimonial to plastic geordies.

It upset me a bit at the time that did.

I think I'm pretty much over it now like...

and who would you rather him of sold them too? if i can recall even though he sold them all to the mags, the ground still wasnt bursting from the rafters in the home allocation. so what has he done wrong?

Att the end of the day he was a top quality servant to pools, and deserved taht money anyhow. and he fights with the pool against the Loids.

That deserves a vote off everyone alone.

The ground was an all ticket sell out so how do you figure that it wasn't "bursting from the rafters in the home allocation"?

If he was a true "Pools Legend" and gave a cack about the Pools fans he would have made more of an effort to ensure that the regular Pools fans were able to buy tickets. But he didn't. Cos he's a money grabbing little get who feeds coal to puppies.

but he was still a living legend in the 90's.

if the loyalist didnt get a ticket, why was that? I'm sure the club gave plenty of notice to be able to get one!!!!

I think that we were 3-sided.

and did the club close two stands for maintenance reasons or because the ticket allocation did not sell out?

Are you kidding me?

It was announced that the tickets would go on sale at something like 10am on the Saturday morning on general sale with no allowance made for regular punters to have any priority of purchase.

To compound things they then opened the ticket office even earlier with the excuse of "there was loads of Newcastle fans waiting to buy them so we opened early to sell to them".

Total cack and total money grabbing.

But like the Murphy's...

They were his tickets for his match so if he was that bothered he'd have thought ahead and avoided the mess that happened.

Wouldn't this of been down to the Testamonial commitee???

For what it's worth, Brian Honour wouldn't come in my top 20 Pools players, but each to their own, eh!

That doesn't mean you should forget how good he was or the years of service he gave to the club.

At the end of the day he probs retired with very little, so any pay off he can get, whether it by from Newcastle fans or flipping Chelsea fans, he should grab with both hands.

Has a wife n kids to think about the end of the day.

And has to buy the coal for them puppies.

Darrell Clarke?

Ritchie Humphs,

player of the decade implies the player had quality, skill and class beyond his peers while he was at the club. No way does Humphreys fit into that catregory. Great servant, determination, grit, professionalism yes, but stand-out quality above all the others? Nah. Boyd for me is the stand-out player of the 2000's. Absolutely no question in my mind.

Completely agree. Without a doubt Boydy has been the best player at this club in this decade by a country mile. There just isn't any competition.

For the 90's I would go for Paul Stephenson. When he arrived we were always a team other clubs looked on as 3 easy points home and away. Stepho was the single most influential player to turn the team into a winning side. He brought the long-term class and composure to midfield we had only seen in glimpses from the likes of Pedersen, Beech and Cullen.

1980's Rob McKinnon. Six years and never let his standards drop. Brian Honour misses out due to having lengthy spells out injured. Paul Baker runs Robbie close, but McKinnon was always, always class.

For long service through a troublesome decade in the 70's Alan Goad must come into the reckoning, but again if it's class we're talking about, then no other Pools player had the ability of Malcolm Poskett in that decade.

60's and 50's I'll have to speculate I'm afraid, as I'm not in a position to judge how good anybody was other than through statistics!!!!!!

What, no Ralph Wright in the seventies? he didn't so much 'bite yer legs' as rip them off and stick the soggy end up your arse.

I AM SURE I WAS IN THE CYRIL KNOWLES STAND FOR THAT GAME. A FRIEND OF MINE FROM COLLEGE CAME ALONG THAT IS WHY I REMEMBER IT SO WELL EVEN AFTER 5 PINTS.

Kinky Devil.
There's clubs in Bangkok where people pay good money for that sort of thing.

Is it any good Kev?

Joe Allon left in 1991. How can he be the player of the full decade? I know he came but he was was out of shape and largely shite, apart from a moment on his arse end at the Tin Shed end. Actually that goal was so important I'd tend to agree!!

Tommy Miller is worth a mention for this decade, as is Mark Tinkler.

Actually a bold call but I'd go for Tinks, the type of player our current side is missing the most. Humphreys has got be in with a shout as well, as is Boyd obviously. It speaks volumes that this decade is by far the hardest to choose.

Here's mine anyway;

80's McKinnon ( always class in some garbage sides)
90's Allon
00's Tinkler

In terms of duty, decency and giving above and beyond the call of duty I'd call

80s P. Baker/Tony Smith/P. Haigh
90s Honour/D. Knowles
00s Humphreys/Barron

Really though that's not what you pay to watch. If it's about skill then

80s N. Walker (When it was sunny and he was in a good mood)
90s B. Honour
00s A. Boyd - for about twenty months not only the best Pools player of the decade but the best ever.

As with most people there are chronology problems of players spanning decades and people who weren't around long enough ( G. Watson - J Pederson - D. Emerson).

And yes I know it is probably only me who rated Knowlesy that highly. I've never seen any player make more of a limited talent. I've never seen a another player give every ounce of his best every minute of every game he played. If Pools had carried on playing 442 instead of asking him to play a wing back role to which he was unsuited I reckon he would be seen as a legend.

Didn't he walk off in a strop?

Honour - never - dalton and mckinnon were much better than him - poeple forget but honour missed nearly years to injury and rather than a poss case of loyalty, maybe no one would have took a risk on his knees. dalton and mckinnon were SUBLIME.

his testimonial was limited attendance -i had a town end ticket - the rink end was open but i seem to recall just the mill house seats but very cloudy mind - however i cant forget him wearing a newastle top and also falling out with the club after turner got the job

dalton gets my 90s vote

For Brian Honours testimonial we were in the Mill House seating and when Necastle scored, a group next to me erupted and went berserk, prominent among them was a well known Hartlepool councillor.

he wouldnt be a councillor who is part of the ground selling sub committee would he

i am not going to name robbie though it would be unfair

It seems fashionable to run down Brian Honour's contribution to Pool's early 90s success - is this purely because of him openly supporting another side or just contrariness.

A quick comparison between Brian and Paul Dalton

Fan's player of the year - Brian 3 Dalton 0
Appearances - Brian 350+ over ten years (only one of which he played less than 30 games) Dalton 150ish

Brian sparkled in bad sides prior to 1990 - Dalton never played in them.

Dalton chose to leave at his peak. Brian stayed for 95% of his playing career.

In big games (like the coca-cola game against Crystal Palace in which he was the best player on the park) Brian always shone. Dalton didn't as I remember.

MR RIPPER - 5,900 AT BRIANS TESTIMONIAL , WHATS YOUR PROBLEM ?

MR RIPPER - I MAY OF GOT THAT WRONG , 6900 AT BRIANS TESTIMONIAL , WHATS YOUR PROBLEM? POOLS COULDNT GET 7500 OF THEIR OWN SUPPORTERS.

He didnt do much for his cause by scrapping with the loids, did he??

You might need to shout to be heard in the home but there's no need to on here.

Your attention span obviously cannot cope with reading the full thread in one go so why not have a cuppa between every couple of posts and come back again after that if you still don't get it.

-

fans 3 -0 in his favour still doesnt make him the better player in my eyes
if honour sparklen pre 90 so would have dalton
dalton had the sense to leave at his peak and also didnt suffer from injury until later in his career
really you can waffle on how about great you think he was, but personally he was a good one club man who had the chance to go and make something of himself but wouldnt move down south - dalton had the balls to do it and had a respectable career at a higher level and could have done more. Honour was still a good player but Dalton was way better in my eyes

Brian Honour:

10 Years Service to HUFC
14 Operations on Right Knee
3 Operations on Left Knee
Torn Achiles
Double Hernia
Broken Nose
Broken Toes
Broken Wrist

After ALL of this still managed

3 Player of the Season
2 North East POY Nominations
2 North East Goal of Season
Reserve Team Coach
YT Coach
Football in the Community
Caretaker manager
Voted number 2 in 100 reasons why I love HUFC
Arrested for kicking $h!t out of the loids.

LAdies and Gentlemen surely that deserves a vote for MR. Brian Honour

Ohhh me ribs and such, he is a grade A tool for scrapping with the 'Loids, can you imagine Steveo or Barron doing that?

Still if thats the type of bloke you look upto, fair play and all that!

Was he?

We were about 2 yards from him on the terrace. All I saw was him sat on somebody's shoulders goading them over the fence (from about 15 yards away) and not being particularly involved when the fence started to come down.

Urban myths eh?

I remember different, although he wasn't arrested, he was deffo getting 'stuck in' and there was blood, don't know if it was his or a 'Loids

Regardless, to me it was a sorry state of affairs and he pissed on his chips, big time

I dont get it.

What's him fighting or not with Loids got to do with how he played?

I can understand anyone picking Dalton as a better player but rubbishing Honour cos he made a few mistakes is bit rich. He was a good servant to the club and gave a lot of us a few rays of light in what were generally dark times.

Supporting the Toon? So what? It didn't stop him giving his all.
Fighting at Darlo? Very silly, but no-one has ever said he's the sharpest knife in the box.

Mr Ripper - You have obviously got a problem with me , why cant you enter into a sensible exchange of views without been sarcastic, makes you look a bounder in my book.

It was you who started shouting about "what my problem was" when I'd actually explained it earlier in the thread but you'd chosen to ignore it in order to get your CAPS LOCK fix for the day.

Maybe I shouldn't still be bitter about driving over a hundred miles to buy a ticket only to find out that they'd opened early to sell them to some plastic fkers, but it still narks me. Not completely rational I know, but I've never claimed to be completely rational!

You can't go wrong at Pools with a good percentage of the crowd if you keep 'running', show 'commitment', shake your fist at your tem-mates and come over as one of the lads ...... a grafter, but to be honest I never saw what all the fuss was about.