James Hurst suspended by club

[CP Gull]

Regardless of what has and hasn't been made public, the reality was that Hurst was on his way out of the club BEFORE ( he said his goodbyes at the Altrincham away game, remember !) the events of THAT weekend - clearly he (Hurst) had an attitude problem (witness the walk straight down the tunnel when he was subbed off in the Grimsby game) and had a very poor work ethic (not prepared to track back all too often). Unfortunately, what cannot be argued though was the fact that he has been head and shoulders our BEST player this season, simply because of what precious few highlights there have been this season have almost exclusively come from him!

Nico clearly didn't rate him, or like him it seems, as it was noticeable on a couple of occasions in post match interviews with Radio Devon that he singled him out for comments, like when he mocked him by saying something like "even Hursty was tracking back" after one game and then the comment where he said that in the next couple of years he (Hurst) would either be earning a very good living in the Football League or he would be stacking shelves at Tesco's!!! His move to Guiseley suggests that the latter is probably more likely than the former at this stage in his career, but you never know.

As for the incident that happened in Torquay town centre, I am not sure there is anything else to say on the matter quite honestly. David Thomas in the Herald podcast states that as he understands it (and it backs up what I had heard) no charges have been made - and so that is probably the end of the matter. At the end of the day, in cases like this, where you would imagine that drink was involved, if the "victim" of the alleged assault doesn't want to press charges then there is no case to answer.

No doubt Hurst is a very talented player and it is no coincidence in my opinion that two of (probably) our poorest away performances of the season - at Basingstoke and Barrow - have come when he was not in the team. It certainly is a massive call by Nico to let him go, rather than try to patch things up with him, but clearly whatever issues they had have been building up since he took over - and as the poster (Lucy?) informed us recently he (Hurst) has been wanting to leave for around a month or so - well his wish has been granted! How this will effect the team, well I guess we will find out over the coming weeks, hopefully the return of Fairhurst and eventually Marsh, and fingers crossed Campion comes good, will mean that we won't miss him as much as I fear we will!

[gullno4]

he'll score the goals to keep them up this year, no doubt about it. With the affect that he's had on the changing room, he needed to go

[kevgull]

Our best player leaves, excellent news, well done to Nico and the board!

[Guildford Gull]

Our best player leaves, excellent news, well done to Nico and the board!

....and to one of our relegation rivals.

[Jeff]

....and to one of our relegation rivals.

Thats putting a different spin on it to say the least. Again, people having a pop at the club for no apparent reason.

Yes, Hurst has been our best player this season but the guy clearly has issues. Shocking work rate (to the point where Nico was having sly digs at him), toys out of the pram when subbed and then to top it all going and getting himself in trouble on a Saturday night.

We don't know the full ins and outs of the story and never will, but the club has obviously decided that the merits of keeping him - i.e. his performances on the pitch when things were going "well" - were outweighed by his seemingly disruptive influence. Now it is clear to my why such a talented player has had so many clubs and never settled anywhere.

And so what if he's gone to one of our relegation rivals? It was probably a case of getting shot of him ASAP to whoever would take him - if we were suspending him we don't want him bleeding off the wage bill for too long. And who's to say he's going to be a star player for Guiseley? The guy clearly likes a bit of rough-and-tumble after a night on the pop, he's now going to be out on the beer in Leeds all the time. I'd say he's fairly likely to find himself doing some time at Her Majesty's Pleasure some time soon.

Do I blame the club for taking a punt on a troubled soul? No - its always worth a risk. For example, if I was Nico and found out Zebroski was released from the nick tomorrow, I'd be straight on the phone to get him down here. Sometimes, it is possible to make a bad boy turn out OK. In James Hurst's case, it didn't work out.

A blow to the club as he was a talented attacking player, but with his work rate and attitude it balances it out. Hopefully Fairhurst coming back - a good, solid pro with years of demonstrable experience at this level - will take up the mantle