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

ITFC1985 added 13:25 - Apr 19 could be good could be bad, as bedsitfc has stated we did sign Lisbie when he had done well in a struggling team, at least Hooper is still fairly young and has potential to improve where as Lisbie was in the "prime" of his career
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FarringdonBlue added 13:29 - Apr 19 Anyone remember that certain Mr David Johnson? He was playing for Bury before we bought him and he did a great job for Town and still is by the looks of it!! Worth a punt I reckon, can't be any worse that what we got...
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pottyblue added 13:30 - Apr 19 how many more rumours how about a poll i reckon between now and sept 150 links?
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dobbie73 added 14:29 - Apr 19 At least if we sign him his name has some good chant potential (better than the drab old "there's only one ..."). There must be some possibilities using 'Super Hooper to the tune of Abba's 'Super Trouper' .... Super Hooper Banging all the goals in Etc etc Or am I being a bit previous here, lol? Also, well done to the legends - first blood to the Blues!
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tractorgirl2 added 14:47 - Apr 19 i would love us to go for hooper and he has scored afew for scunny, ( flash back of lisbie hopefully not the same out come) 1m seems alot but remember hulse is apparently valued at 2.5m and i know which one i would go for.
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Tractorog added 15:13 - Apr 19 Remember when we bought Lisbie?... scored a lot of goals in a side that leaked a lot and was relegated. OK the Iron have avoided relegation, but just because he can score on the break in a side that goes back wards does not mean he will be right for us.
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HighSeasBlue added 16:41 - Apr 19 I have not seen the chap play, so I don't feel like I should comment on him. However, unless he has bags of pace then I can't say I am to bothered. Our weakness this season lie in two areas. 1) Lacking pace going forward 2) A creative edge in midfield. Address this and we might have a chance next season. We have Garvan who is creative but we could open a whole different debate as to his pros and cons.

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tom_the_blue added 16:54 - Apr 19 could be a good signing, though I said that about Priskin. Don't really know enough about him to comment but 17 goals is a good haul.
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Blueknight85 added 17:08 - Apr 19 Are only problem in midfield is the wingers not being wingers i think. Garvan is ok off the bench in certain situations but is to lazy towards other areas of his game and has a bad attitude. If the midfield was not creating enough then we wouldn't have had the most chances on goal in the league. Without decent wingers due to civelli not coming back at xmas like he was supose to and edwards and martin not pulling their weight being flop's we tend to play very narrow which is no good for CM getting forward which both Leadbitter and Norris both have good previous for being able to do. what we want is experienced pacey wingers on each side that can keep the ball out wide beat a player and pull back to a CM on the edge of the box and also be able to play the wing appropriately to create the opportunity's for good passes out of CM into them we don't have any of those and if Keane is looking at 4 or 5 players to bring in like he said you can guarantee 2 of them are wingers to go with the one flop we have and the the one that will be unfit to start with i would call martin a flop winger to but to be fair he was more a CM when we got him

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Blueknight85 added 17:10 - Apr 19 Are... Our lol Taxi
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jas0999 added 17:24 - Apr 19 I think looking outside the premier league is a good idea. Let's be honest, with the exception of Wickham, how many of our strikers are good enough: Lisbie - simply awful Stead - hasn't set the world alight at Coventry. Goes through stages of scoring, but often long periods being very ineffective Murphy - decent strike rate - wouldn't pay his wages D. Healy - hasn't worked out Priskin - oh dear. Enough said Counago - ah Pablo - one of my favourite players, but hard to justify a place for him with just ONE goal scored this season On the whole, we clearly need better up front and Hooper has impressed me. I hadn't really heard much about Priskin before he came, but I have seen good things with this lad. Only a rumour though!

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blueherts added 17:27 - Apr 19 agree Parkinshair and others find a scorer from our league or one lower , get him in quickly and a full pre season Dont waste time and money on reject prem players no motivation in them and would prefer a hungry lad looking to better himself- just get a coach in to support him
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tom_the_blue added 17:42 - Apr 19 Good work blueknight, I'm sick of all this poor grammar and spelling!!!
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PhatCookie added 18:15 - Apr 19 here we go loopy lou, oh no sorry, the transfer mill at PR going into overtime, 3 weeks b4 the end of the current season, if we get him we need to get behind him, if we dont, lets just hope we get someone who can score, bring back forster, he is still banging them in, but still injury prone and old, lol, xx
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tommyblue added 21:36 - Apr 19 good goal record
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rayado_ingles added 08:36 - Apr 20 Finally!!!! I was gunna mention on here before we should go for Hooper!! He won't be another Priskin. Here's why i believe so, a young ENGLISH player, who has made his name in the lower leagues, who has had to work hard and knows what English football is about - we need this. We need to take a turn away from buying 'established' prima donas from the prem and start buying young, english talent from lower teams - its proven to work in the championship.

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chappie added 09:52 - Apr 20 We're 7th in the table if you look at the last 6 months alone (I said 6th yesterday in my earlier post, apologies, wishful thinking!!) - it wouldn't take much impact for a couple of good buys to move that trend. That 7th spot is only 3 pts from 4th spot. A half-regular scorer would have made the difference and turned just one or two of those draws into wins and we'd be 4th. Ok, I know we're not, but its all about looking at the trend of our performances going into next year. However, that 7th place is still 17 points off second spot for the last 6 months so it needs to be a big change for us to contend for automatic promotion. Lets leave our sights at play-offs and be realistic (?!). There are 2 teams who have led this division, head and shoulders above the rest, but anyone else is capable of securing a play off position. We think we've been doing badly, not scoring enough, not enough passion/skill, too many draws, too inconsistent etc, but if we're still 7th with all those failings, then things arent so bad. My closing comment is that whatever happens in the transfer market, we simply HAVE to finish above Norwich next season.

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