Telling people that the SPL is a league for hardmen is like telling a fish that the best place for it is the sea. In this land of gritted teeth and honest perspiration a stepover is met by an eight-stud salute, and a header is regularly accompanied by an elbow massage to the face.
With the hellscape that was 2020 fading into the cataclysmic bawbag that will be 2021, one thing that Scottish football fans can rely on is that their top tier remains a safe space for those players and fans who crave a bit of blood, guts and managers screaming: ‘It was shoulder to shoulder, ref!’
However, there are those old-timers who say the game has gone soft, that fancy dans from south of border or from across the waves have ruined the game with complicated tactics and philosophies better suited to a Holyrood debate than to the windswept furrows of a highland football stomping ground.
The paragraphs below are designed to hark memories back to a simpler time, to when “seeing red” was less an idiom and more just an accepted way of footballing life. These are the hardest men ever to play in the SPL.
The modern player would have struggled among these goliaths of yesteryear
Terry Hurlock
It seems counterintuitive to start with an Englishman, but Terry Hurlock’s hardman persona knew no borders.
This midfield enforcer lured people into thinking he was a Mick Hucknall look-a-like with his long curly locks, but that belied the true nature of the beast, with Hurlock having cut his teeth at Millwall, before heading to do damage with Rangers.
He lasted just 35 games, but that was ample time for him to leave his mark, and a few dents along the way.
Duncan Ferguson
Big Dunc had long been known in Dundee and Glasgow as the sort of loveable rogue who one minute would be cracking a joke and next a knee joint.
However, his years on Merseyside with Everton were where he achieved truly legendary hardman status, notching up a record eight Premier League red cards and scoring headed goals with such ferocity you wondered if the ball had looked at him the wrong way before kick-off.
He secured his legacy when two idiots decided to try and rob his house. One escaped but his friend didn’t, which led to the intruder pleading for a quick police response time as Ferguson explained the ways of the world to him.
Scott Brown
The only current player on this list, but certainly one who would have commanded respect in any era of the Scottish game.
His hardman antics have even had the likes of Craig Levein voice concern about players from all clubs needing protection from Brown, but whatever the midfielder is doing seems to be working, with Celtic a safe bet for those punters looking to use a free bet on them to retain their SPL title this season.
And besides, even Steven Gerrard has recently come out in support of Brown, saying that the Celtic man is a firm but fair player of the game, but then again Gerrard was hardly a saint in his playing days.
Some of these players could ignite any game with their attitude or a spicy tackle
Doug Rougvie
One of the keys to being truly hard is to have an image that strikes fear into opponents before a ball has even been kicked.
In that regard Doug Rougvie had all bases covered, with an imposing frame and a missing front tooth which gave him the air of an unhinged berserker.
Having won everything with Aberdeen he then took his own brand of hard south, where he won the respect of Wimbledon’s crazy gang having given fellow rough house specialist John Fashanu a Glasgow kiss.
Dave Bowman
While Rougvie was a mountain of a man, anyone who has played a bit of pub football will tell you that it is usually the little terriers you really have to watch out for.
Dave Bowman was from that mould, famously picking up five bookings in one game, which acted as something of a career swan song at Forfar.