The Poolie Bunker

Who are the best over 40's team in the town Chip?

Me and your good self will be eligible next year Mr Trapper

Very good although I fail to see the last time i was actually negative

er i must be a tad older than you Part P.

Chip, have you forgot i met you in the Millhouse

Dibbs - decent level?

He's gettin mixed up with their kid, whaddya reckon Part P?

Micky Fisher ate my sock's football legend on the rec.

Who is this Dibbs? . top cat's mate.

This Ajax?

He's gettin mixed up with their kid, whaddya reckon Part P? [/quote]


Mr Norgepoolie...you know im an only child....or at least we dont talk about the other one as he did not play at a reasonable level
But ...i do believe you may be eligible for the over 40s now???? tho im still along way off

define the level you have played at and why you did not apply yourself to play higher

if you answered mostly d : hello mr tree with hamster. how are you today ?


That means i was TREE WITH HAMSTER, all along!!!!!!!!!

fair answer.

And the answer was in my question - a failure to apply yourself - well rather a lack of desire to either be pushed or push yourself with the focus.

right about the smokers and drinkers - some of the kids who got turned away from pools in the 80s 90s were mainly for the same reason. i know a lad who had an apprenticeship at boro and he was classy as and looked after himself - just too small - (8687ish i think) - and was released. I've played against him & with him and he was brilliant but he just gave up after that. Then there's people who weren't the best but just really tried when it mattered and got on.

I remember united services turn of the 80s/late 70s being brilliant, and rovers and lion late 80s 90s being full of canny players without their 'stars' - it's the same with hetton lyons now - three or four ex league lads but the spine are 'normal' people who are really good players.

I recall several lads who i watched on sundays like cartwright and a yakker called norman (aird?) who were simply outstanding and probably could have played at a higher level, and those like harrington (who was a cracking lad) who needed to graft job wise after not making it and didnt have the time or desire to stay as fit as he could do.

just cos you never played tho dont mean you dont have a better than normal understanding - if i knew what i knew about the game now when i was a kid then i would have carried on - but i didn't so there you go. but i can analyse the game with the best of them.

has me in mind to go to a northern league game at the weekend.

nice one chip - you've stopped being the narky twat you have been recently with this reply -

I've been reading the board with some interest for a time now and thought this was the perfect topic to jump into the deep end so here goes.....

I'd definitely agree with Chip. I was supposed to be one of Hartlepool's great hopes back in my childhood days. I was signed to Boro at the age of 9 and travelling through to Acklam every sunday to turn out for Marton FC for a couple of years (usually the best team in the Teesside League at every age group). I was in the same age group as David Wheater, Adam Johnson, Matthew Bates, Tom Craddock and supposed Pools target Jason Kennedy, all now professional footballers. Yet I didn't make it and they did.

I think lots of excellent young footballers peak at a certain point, going downhill footballing ability wise. I was released by Boro at 14 and have never got back to the standard I played then. Got offered trials by Pools and Sunderland but turned them down cos I knew deep down I wasn't good enough and didn't want my confidence knocked again. Out of the group I named there were only two I could have perceived to have turned professional in the future (Johnson and Bates) and there were at least 2 or 3 players in the same team who were better than them even (a Hartlepool lad called Micky Markwell springs to mind, best left foot I've ever seen) but they kept on progressing whilst the rest didn't. Motivation and a thick skin is also important; I left Boro hating the game for a good couple of years because all of the fun had been taken out of by coaches bitter they hadn't made it (in my opinion anyway). There were lads who could just keep going and going, ignoring it all but I was a sensitive young chap and took it all to heart like others who couldn't hack the discipline. And you had to have a bit of luck on your side, wherever it being left footed which meant you always got a decent run of games to impress or just avoiding injuries. You could even get sacked off if you constantly misbehaved at school or got into trouble with the law like one very talented lad I remember!

In some ways I'm glad I didn't make it; there isn't many professional footballers out there with an interest in the Spanish Civil War or Sonic Youth! My cousin is David Murphy who plays for Hibs but I wouldn't swap my life for his (well maybe the salary and model girlfriend...) but I still enjoy playing it recreationally like my old man (still running the midfield for the Catholic Club at the ripe old age of 50) and coming home from Newcastle to watch Pools. To me that's enjoyable football.

Mr Norgepoolie...you know im an only child....or at least we dont talk about the other one as he did not play at a reasonable level
But ...i do believe you may be eligible for the over 40s now???? tho im still along way off[/quote]

How dare you!

I'm miles away yet! (well maybe a couple of furlongs )

Welcome to the board KK - I enjoyed reading your 1st post a good insight into the game and Sonic Youth are an excellent band. It's good to see that they still put on a good show.

I thought this thread was gonna be shit but it's not.

KK - same opinion as the lad who left boro - he got offered Pools as well i seem to recall.

Chip - as well as brightwell they had ainsley (now manager and spenny in about is 17th spell there) and sunbed cullen as well.

harlem globetrotters of the north east!

havin not played at any level , your post is the best insight ever for what playin at any level there has ever been, all the tripe and spiel that the rest has spun is thrown in to oblivion when i read that post, u r one of the most influential posters ever on the bunker, why u stayed on the side lines so long is a mystery, ......

[quote="katcha"]

KK - same opinion as the lad who left boro - he got offered Pools as well i seem to recall.

quote]

The prospect of going from one load of hassle, stress and uncertainty over whether you're good enough to another just isn't appealing. The best thing I ever did was turn the trials down as I could be a kid again and not someone dictated by football. Saying that, by all accounts I had it easy compared to what the young players had the decade before me! The era of nutters like Terry Cochrane, who was notoriously strict with the young lads, had just passed when I got there.

he had a sneaky trial for pools just before he moved to ipswich

sounds like the move of an ex sunderland player