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Town Again Linked With Scunthorpe's Hooper
Town Again Linked With Scunthorpe's Hooper
Monday, 19th Apr 2010 00:16

Town are again reported to be amongst a number of clubs keeping an eye on Scunthorpe United’s £1 million-rated striker Gary Hooper. The Blues are said to have had scouts watching the 22-year-old net a hat-trick for the Iron in their 3-0 victory over Bristol City at Glanford Park on Saturday.

Hooper, who has scored 17 goals this season, began his career with Grays Athletic, making his debut as a 16-year-old, and helped them into the Conference in 2005 and to the FA Trophy in the same season.

The following year Hooper was an unused sub as the Essex side won the competition for the second year running. In November 2005, then-Town boss Joe Royle admitted that he had had Grays watched with Hooper amongst the potential targets.

The Loughton-born frontman moved on to Southend in the summer of 2006 on a Bosman but never really made his mark at Roots Hall, scoring just four goals in 17 starts and 27 sub appearances. While with the Shrimpers, Hooper, 5ft 9½in tall, joined Leyton Orient and then Hereford United on loan.

A month with the O's yielded two goals in two starts and two sub appearances, but his three-month spell with Hereford was even more impressive. Hooper netted 11 times in 19 games between January and April 2008 to help his temporary side to promotion to League One.

An £175,000 move to Scunthorpe followed that summer, the switch proving a big success with the frontman having scored 47 goals in 85 starts and seven sub appearances to date.

Town were last linked with Hooper in March last year when the Blues were amongst a number of Championship clubs said to be watching Hooper. Jim Magilton's chief scout Steve McCall is still in the same role under Roy Keane and may well have been the man keeping tabs on Hooper both a year ago and more recently.

The striker, also linked with Leeds United, QPR and Derby, has a year left on his contract at Scunthorpe with the Lincolnshire club unlikely to be in a position to be able to turn down a significant offer.

Meanwhile, a Town legends side beat a Norwich veterans side 2-1 at Great Yarmouth on Sunday, Alex Mathie and David Johnson netting the goals.


Photo: Action Images



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GeorgiDoundarov added 01:49 - Apr 19
I wouldn't say I am ecstatic about Hooper. Looks like another Priskin to me but who knows... I just hope we get the RIGHT strikers this time around and then I can predict a very successful season coming!
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Dogsy40 added 05:24 - Apr 19
Sounds like the lad has taken time to mature and is really starting to hit his straps over the past 2 seasons. 1 million seems pretty excessive to me though???

Championship is a tough league and he has proven himself this season with 17 goals, we could do alot worse.

We are never going to get top quality premier league strikers for peanuts, these are the types of players we need to rely on to develop and get us to the premier league.

COYB.



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16_Jack_ken_16 added 06:38 - Apr 19
Well said Dogsy40 :)
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chappie added 08:19 - Apr 19
Sounds promising, but this is just the beginning of us being linked with every man under the sun for the next few months. It'll be frustrating and exciting at the same time, but I hope Keane/Clegg manage the communications and our expectations in a more professional manner this year.

There's been a lot said this year, some great buys and some bad buys, but I'm positive for next season. I wish I could see a league table of the second half of the season - it might make interesting reading and give us all a bit of belief hat though even in the last 6 months we've been inconsistent, that at least we're up there in/around the play off positions.

I've ran the stats. If you ignore the first 3 months of this season and run the table on a pts per game basis for Nov 1st onwards (to equalise for some having played more than others in that period) then we would be lying 6th in the table, just nestled closely behind Reading and Swansea. Above them is unsurprisingly Forest, WBA and Newcastle.

Of those 29 matches we won 11, drew 11 and lost 7.

Isn't that something worth taking some heart from for next season? it might not be what we all class as 'quite good enough', but it ain't far off.....

Any thoughts?
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Dissblue added 08:26 - Apr 19
Until we have a more forward thinking mid-field it doesn't really matter who plays up front.
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Paddy39 added 08:43 - Apr 19
Well said Dogsy40 & Chappie

COYB's
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PhatCookie added 09:24 - Apr 19
they are good stats, for the 2nd part of the season, nice work chappie, but it wont stop the keane haters and NTRTF posting their anger and everything else the can think of.
We aint gonna get a proven premier league striker and the longer murphy holds out on commiting himself, the more i see a jeffers situation rearing its ugly head, so yes, perhaps keane and co need to look at players who constantly bang in goals at this level, and maybe league 1.

There are still some some good players who would love to join a "bigger" club like ipswich, based on attendencies, not my own misconceptions, lol

COYB
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ThatMuhrenCross added 09:39 - Apr 19
Only £1m? We got Lisbie for that much, and he's a grumpy old man. We got Priskin for £1.7m, and he has scored 2 league goals all season!!! £2m I reckon is about right.
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chappie added 09:41 - Apr 19
The stats are actually for 2/3rds of the season, not even just the second half. I took everything from Nov 1st, 29 games out of our 44 we've played.

I agree on the points around players coming to ITFC. We simply won't attract half decent prem players so we need proven, young, ambitious types from the Championship who have the hunger and desire.

Whatever we do, we have to keep Wickham and I would rather we see Healy and Murphy go back to Sunderland than lose him.
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mickeyjb added 10:08 - Apr 19
I for one hope that any transfers we make arn't left to the last minute as per usual. Lets get them in early so they can have a pre season with the team, not have the first few games as their first chance to play with the team. I agree, I think our passion for D Murphy has cooled a bit, I think he's gunna have to take a pretty large paycut to come here now!
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chappie added 10:16 - Apr 19
Agree with mickeyjb, we need to be flying out of the blocks next season, which means players already knowing eachother and playing with eachother weeks before match #1.
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MaySixth added 10:20 - Apr 19
I reckon Priskin will come good next season.
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jamesy_itfc_keano added 10:23 - Apr 19
priskin doesnt want to play for us.
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itfc1981 added 10:37 - Apr 19
just the lad! hope its true! how on earth he sounds like a another Miskin i dont no? they are completely different types of player.
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bennyblue added 11:00 - Apr 19
sounds like superman after the strikeforce keane has played this yearwe have scored 48 this bloke has scored 17 can we take him on as player manager and kill two birds with the one stone ?
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parkinshair added 11:04 - Apr 19
This is the sort of striker we need to be targeting.

I would rather we got someone like Hooper from the championship or raid the lower leagues for a Holt or a Maynard than get players like Healy or Murphy from the premiership on a massive wage. Lets face it Murphy has lost his mojo of late and Healy has done naff all so far.

I know you could always unearth another Sam Parkin, but if the scouts are doing their job properly then there should'nt be a problem.
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Blueknight85 added 11:20 - Apr 19
we could probably get Rhodes back for 1mill lol and some of that would come back to us on a sell on clause lol.
Hooper would very much be worth a poke for 1 mill though 17 goals in a team at the bottom end is very good as we know to well with our top scorer on considerably less.
If you pretend we buy Murphey or someone else as "high Profile" like ya chopras etc then with someone like hooper for only £1 mill conner whickham and tamas priskin to me looks like a nice 4 strikers to be choosing from.

Make your own assumptions about whether or not Priskin wants to stay/ Keane wants to keep Priskin... but while he is here he is a very good 4th option that has the potential to be very good
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toxtethblue added 11:27 - Apr 19
Well said parkinshair and blue knight and all other supporters of this link. Ive been a fan of Hooper for quite a while - he is a natural goalscorer and 17 goals for a mediocre / bottom of the table side says it all and is something we sorely need!! I would be delighted if this turned out to be any more than pure media speculation...
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bedsitfc added 11:47 - Apr 19
i dont know too much about him but what i have heard is he can go out of the game easily if he is up against a pacey centre back but our scouts hopefully know more than me.
i would also like us to have a punt on charlie austin from swindon
but we do also need left sided players
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MadDogCal88 added 12:15 - Apr 19
I Think He Would Be A Good Singing And Hopefully he Would Score Alot of Goals For Us And Take Us To The Premier League.
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These_arent_the_days added 12:26 - Apr 19
Hey Keane - why not pay a couple of million for him then loan him out for the rest of the season - might as well waste a bit more of ME's money - he doesn't seem to mind
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TractorCam added 12:27 - Apr 19
Gary Hooper, have no intrest in him, think he could be another Priskin tbh, get a prem striker who doesnt play often, instead of a champ/league 1 striker who just doesnt suit Ipswich in my opinion
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MarkITFC added 12:42 - Apr 19
sounds a good striker and hes scored 17 goals this season for a team that isnt that great , but i hope he anit another priskin
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Help added 13:07 - Apr 19
Good result for the legends
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bedsitfc added 13:10 - Apr 19
just a thought
last time we got a striker that scored a lot in a struggling championship team we ended up with LISBIE
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