I see that the FA in England have upheld Manchester City’s appeal against Vincent Kompany’s red card for a tackle on Arsenal’s Jack Wilshire last weekend at the Emirates.The whole incident got me thinking back to my playing days when rough tackles were part of the game and you had to be able to handle yourself. In the 1970s we had hard players like Norman Hunter (who I’m told is pictured making a two-footed tackle on me in an article on the topic of tackles which appeared in The Times on Tuesday).Hunter had a reputation as being a tough tackler and earned the nickname “Bite Yer Legs” during his time playing in a Leeds team that were known as a physical side. There were others, too, that I remember like Ron (Chopper) Harris of Chelsea, Nobby Stiles of Manchester United and even my West Ham team-mate Billy Bonds who played 793 games for the club in 21 years at Upton Park.Today the referee has probably been told that there are certain types of tackles to look out for and they are paying strict attention to them. You obviously can’t blame the refs. Back in the day you just played, you went into a tackle as hard as you could and if you won the tackle it was left at that, but today you can’t touch a person.In fact, if you look at them too hard the whistle is blown. To me it takes away from the game.For me the worst tackle is the over-the-top when you deliberately go over the top of the ball to hurt the player. If you get him on his shins that means you are over the top. Lots of times the sliding tackles are the safest.Today if you look at it, lots of players are tackling with the wrong foot. You don’t find a lot of kids playing in the back streets to learn the basics.When I played at West Ham every team had a ‘hard nut’, somebody that could do the business. We played very hard and physical and after the game you would still be friends and go out and socialise.At Leeds you had Billy Bremnar, Johnny Giles and Joe Jordan, who today is Harry Rednapp’s first team coach at Queens Park Rangers.At Southampton there was Terry Paine and at Liverpool Tommy Smith was the hard man. You had to know how to look after yourself. If you didn’t you would get hurt.I remember once going to Manchester City to play and this day I decided to put my shinguards on. Very seldom did I play with shin pads but this time I was glad because City had a tough guy called Mike Doyle and he broke my shinguard in half.I also remember one day we played Liverpool at home and Tommy Smith went in a tackle with me and ended up on his backside. The fans liked that sort of stuff because Tommy was known for being hard. I was pretty fortunate because being a big fella helps.That’s the way the game has always been in England, rough and tumble.You had better get stuck in, or else you’d be on the sidelines. There was no room for wimps.I also remember one night playing at Leeds and they were all over us and we had just bought Ted McDougall. Billy Bonds, who was as hard as they come, went in on every tackle like his life depended on it.He felt that McDougall wasn’t giving his all and getting stuck in and Billy wanted to fight him in the bath afterwards, that’s how serious he took it. We lost the match 5-1 and that incident with Billy in 1973 curtailed Ted’s stay at the club.In those days you had to pick your battles. Lots of times I would never touch a goalkeeper because a goalkeeper can always hurt you. I learned that in Bermuda when I saw my Somerset team-mate Sheldon Bradshaw break Milton Jones’ leg when we played St. George’s one night. In those days goalkeepers were allowed to come out with their foot up in your face.There is nothing better than a nice hard tackle when you go in on a 50-50, which has always been part of the game.The guys today are like little pansies. As soon as you tackle them they are falling all over the place. And you can tell when they are diving.I watched the Southampton game last week against Aston Villa when the ref awarded a penalty to the Saints for a foul and the replay showed the Aston Villa player Enda Stevens never touched Jay Rodriguez. That converted penalty was the only goal of the game and dropped Villa into the bottom three and could be crucial in the club’s fight against relegation this season.It’s up to the authorities to clamp down on that type of behaviour which happens regularly these days.