FEETHAMS, DARLINGTON November 1990. Keith Nobbs, the rugged Hartlepool United defender heads the ball away from danger.

At the same time, Quakers’ midfielder Steve Mardenborough tries acrobatics to get the ball.

He smashes Nobbs full on in the face. As the right-back hits the deck, he spits out his teeth from his broken jaw, and wants to play on only to be dragged to hospital by physio Gary Henderson.

Maybe the next time Padraig Amond is at Victoria Park, Nobbs, the club’s community sports foundation officer, can show him his false teeth and let him know what wanting to play when your head isn’t right is really like.

Amond didn’t join his Pools teammates for the trip to Bromley on Saturday, claiming he wasn’t in the right frame of mind to play.

He wants away from Pools, he’s had enough. A lot of people have had enough of Hartlepool United over the last two years, to be fair he’s not the only one out there.

But Amond signed a two-year contract at Victoria Park last summer. Since he signed he has scored 15 times for Pools, 14 of them coming last season.

He was part of the worst team in the club’s history, the first to successfully negotiate a route out of the Football League.

Now he doesn’t want to be there.

The toys are out of the pram.

He didn’t play on Saturday because he’s eyeing up a move to Newport County.

They stayed up at Pools’ expense last season and have started the season positively.

It’s still hardly a cracking career step up is it?

Make no mistake, Pools won’t be innocent in all this. But a non-league striker going on strike? The game has gone mad.

Amond is a very entertaining bloke, always good to interview, always willing to speak openly. It’s a big surprise that a player of his nous has refused to play. He’s let his team-mates down, and the supporters who have endured months and months of misery while he has been around.

He probably gave them their best day last season, scoring twice at Grimsby in September as Pools romped to victory at his former club, the club he walked out on when out of contract months earlier.

As soon as the final whistle went last season and Pools were consigned to life in the National League, Amond was making noises about wanting out.

By then, Nathan Thomas had already decided he was injured and wasn’t going to play against Doncaster.

Another crowd favourite, another to flee at the first opportunity.

Pools have fought to keep Amond since.

Pools have had a couple of players refuse to train and refuse to play in recent years. The last was Luke James. Badly advised, he had eyes on a move to Peterborough, which to be fair was at least a bigger leap than Newport. But he jumped too quickly, and since then his career has failed to take off in the manner it should have.

Surely Amond – a striker in more ways than one it seems - would be better sticking around at Pools and, if it’s not too clever come January move on then?

If he’s got 15 goals by then, he will be able to take his pick of lower league suitors.

“I have batted off clubs left, right and centre over the summer,’’ said boss Craig Harrison, before tellingly adding: “Podge has played every game, scored one goal. A penalty.’’