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Huddersfield Town v Leeds United
The Sky Bet Championship
Saturday 7th December - 12:30 ko
at The John Smith's Stadium

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Huddersfield Town welcome our close neighbours Leeds United on Saturday lunchtime for the West Riding derby match at the John Smith's Stadium. Unfortunately, we go into the match lacking in confidence following a thumping down at Ashton Gate on Saturday, but in these games, anything goes.
It's the first meeting for a couple of seasons because for the first time since the early sixties, we have been in a higher division than them. Yes, we have been playing in the Premier League, whilst they have been languishing in the Championship.

It would seem very likely that Town will be without Fraizer Campbell after he got injured early in the match at Bristol. No news yet on how bad the injury is, but early signs aren't good. Some other players who just haven't been performing, or even trying, will almost certainly be omitted from the squad for this one. Could that mean a dramatic recall for Steve Mounié, leaving leading scorer Karlan Grant on the left side? I can't see Adama Diakhaby being involved after being brought on as sub for Campbell and then being unceremoniously brought off again at half time. His replacement, Josh Koroma did well and got mentioned as doing so by Danny Cowley after the match, so he could be in. Hopefully the full backs Danny Simpson and Jaden Brown will make this one, freeing up Juninho Bacuna and Lewis O'Brien to play in midfield or possibly have Flo Hadergjonaj in his more advanced Kosovan right wing role. And what about the record signing Terence Kongolo? Is his time up as well? He got murdered at left back (Cowley's words, not mine). Will Alex Pritchard come in again?
All will be revealed around half past eleven, Saturday morning.

As for Leeds, they will be without Kalvin Phillips, who picked up his fifth booking of the season in the 4-0 win against Middlesbrough on Saturday, so is suspended for this. They are on a run of five consecutive wins, having beaten Boro, Reading, Luton, Blackburn and QPR. It's 8 unbeaten with draws against Sheff Weds, Preston and a win against Birmingham coming after their last defeat, which was down at Millwall, who beat them 2-1.
All records like this come to an end. Hopefully this one will end on Saturday.

COME ON TOWN!!!



A brief history of Leeds United: They were founded in 1919, when at a meeting in the Salem Hall, to discuss what to do after Leeds City had been expelled from the League, the Huddersfield Town chairman John Hilton Crowther was persuaded to offer our little club to the city of Leeds and move the entire club from Leeds Road to Bellend Road. Not only that, but this would involve stealing our players, our fixtures and our Football League status. In the end though, all they managed to steal was a set of blue and white shirts as the people of Huddersfield rallied and told the treacherous rabble to piss off. They did also manage to manipulate our manager, Arthur Fairclough over to their side. But of course, we ended up with the better of that deal, as we replaced him with Herbert Chapman, which went rather well.

So to sum up Leeds United's beginnings, they were the MK Dons of 1919.

It wasn't until the end of the 1919/20 season that the new club were elected to the FL and by 1924 had won promotion to the First Division, just in time to see what they could've won as Huddersfield Town were winning the first of their three First Division Championships in a row. By the time we'd completed the hat trick of titles, Leeds were back down in Division 2.

They were promoted again and relegated again twice and by the time the second world war started they were still in the First Division. However, they were relegated again in the first season after. In 1948 Major Frank Buckley became manager, the former manager of the team who famously played the Germans at the Somme on Christmas Day 1915. He had had previous success in management at Blackpool and Wolves, this however, wasn't to be repeated at Leeds. He was replaced by Raich Carter who won them promotion back to Division 1 in 1956. It was only another short stay though and they were relegated again at the end of the decade.

Don Revie became manager in 1961 and almost took the club down to Division 3, but managed to avoid relegation by some underhand methods. It came to light a few years later that he had been match fixing, but by then it was too late to do anything about it. By the time Revie left to take up the England job, Leeds Utd had become Champions of Europe (for ever, no matter what anybody says) by twice winning the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup (in 1968 and 1971), the equivalent of today's Europa League. They won the League twice (in 1969 and 1974), the FA Cup (in 1972) and the League Cup (in 1968).

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When Revie left in 1974, he was replaced by Brian Clough, who successfully put into place the start of the great decline of the "Champions of Europe", before leaving to manage Nottingham Forest and make them the actual Champions of Europe by winning the European Cup, a feat that Leeds never actually did. It was a slow, painful decline, culminating in relegation in 1982, managed at the time by ex player and fan's favourite Allan Clarke. They reached the first ever FL Play Offs in 1987, but lost to Charlton Athletic.

In 1988, Howard Wilkinson became manager and Leeds were on the up again. They won promotion in 1990 and then won their last League title in 1992. Success didn't stay with them though and despite reaching the League Cup Final in 1996, which they lost to Aston Villa, it was a period of flirting once more with the relegation trapdoor and Wilkinson payed the price with the sack.

He was replaced by crooked former Arsenal boss George Graham. A strange move for a club that had been formed from the ashes of one bent club and had had a match fixer in charge in the 1960s, to appoint a manger who had himself been on a ban for receiving illegal payments. However, it sort of worked well for the by now most hated football club in the world. Which in itself was a bit much for us to take. We hated them first. They tried to steal our club you know. Anyway Graham got them into the UEFA Cup before jumping ship to go to Spurs. He was replaced by his assistant David O'Leary.

For three years under O'Leary, Leeds were once more dining at Football's top table, reaching the semi finals of the UEFA Cup and the Champions League. But good times on the pitch were not matched by events off it. Two of their players, Lee Bowyer and Jonathan Woodgate, were convicted of racially aggravated assault and two of their supporters were murdered in Istanbul ahead of a match against Galatasaray.

Chairman Peter Ridsdale then gambled with the club's finances, by taking out loans secured against their share of the TV revenue for the forthcoming Champions League seasons, which they failed to qualify for. The first sign of trouble came when Rio Ferdinand was sold to Manchester Utd. O'Leary was sacked and replaced with another crook in Terry Venables. What is it with this club and crooks? He didn't last long and eventually in 2004 under the caretaker management of club legend Eddie Gray (following the sacking of Peter Reid) they were relegated from the Premier League, never to return again.

It got worse. Dennis Wise got the manager's job and took them down to the 3rd division for the first time. The club had now been bought by another bloody conman, Ken Bates. Don't laugh too loud! He took them into administration and finally the Football League could impose the 15 point deduction that they should've had in the 1960s for match fixing. Despite the points deduction though, they managed to reach the Play Off Final at Wembley, only to get thrashed by Doncaster Rovers. They were managed by another former player then, Gary McAllister, but he had gone by the time they reached the next play offs under the management now of Simon Grayson. They failed again, losing in the semis to Millwall. They did get promoted back to the Championship though the following year 2010 and have been there ever since, getting close to promotion, but failing miserably every time.

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Who's the panda?







Head to Head

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Town lead the head to head with 32 wins to Leeds Utd's 27 with 19 draws.

Well who can forget the last time these two clubs met? We were on our way to the Premier League and so were Leeds, but this Town victory was the start of yet another great falling apart again. It was us who scored first with sub Izzy Brown bagging one in front of the away fans, shushing them after they had just taunted them with an offensive Chelsea scum chant. Chris Wood then got his customary goal against us, which was offside (not he, but the lad who won the first header). All square at half time, the second half was all Town and we really ought to have been well in front by the time Aaron Mooy had a shot deflected by a Leeds defender into the path of Michael Hefele, who slotted the ball past Rob Green to send the home fans wild and David Wagner running down the touchline to celebrate with his players. What happened next I won't go on about, only to say Gary Monk is a C U Next Thursday!

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That was our third consecutive victory over the White Shite from the Big Yellow Skip. Earlier in the season a goal from the boy Mooy had given us a 1-0 win at Bellend Road. And the season before was another magnificent day out at Beeston for the Terriers. We won 4-1 after going behind early on. Mark Hudson scored the equaliser from a corner just before half time. Then Harry Bunn gave us the lead from another corner, before Karim Matmour scored his one and only goal for us, slotting home from a yard out after good work from Nahki Wells. And it was Nahki himself who scored the fourth, replying to some abusive chanting from the home morons in style.

Another good season for us was in our centenary season 2008/09. We did the double over them with Nathan Clarke heading in the only goal of the game on Valentine's Day, from a corner. Earlier in the season at Leeds, we came from behind to win. Robert Snodgrass had given the white shite an early lead, but in the first minute of the second half, up popped an unlikely scorer in the shape of home grown left back Joe Skarz. The Town fans went wild! But if you thought that celebration was wild, it had nowt on what happened in the final minute of injury time. Sub Danny Cadamarteri had only been on the pitch ten minutes when he received the ball. Caretaker manager Gerry Murphy, taking over after Stan Ternent had been sacked, was screaming at him to take the ball to the corner flag to run down the clock. Unfortunately for Leeds, his control let him down and instead of going that way, he ended up closer to the penalty area. He passed the ball to Michael Collins who hit a mis timed shot into the corner of the net to send the away fans absolutely bonkers.

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The season before all this, Andy Holdsworth had scored the goal at the Galpharm Stadium to give us our first win over them for over twenty years. That was a 3-1 win in 1985 at Leeds Road with goals from Dale Tempest, Brian Stanton and Terry Curran.

Back in 1982 though, when Leeds were still a First Division team and we were in the Third Division, we famously won a League Cup match at their place, David Cowling heading in the only goal of the game.

Steve Smith scored the goal at Bellend Road for us in a 1-3 defeat in the last meeting of the two clubs in the top tier of English football. That was after we had beaten them at Leeds Road 2-1, with Jimmy Lawson and Roy Ellam scoring for us during a run of four wins in five games.

We had played matches against Leeds City, but our first game against Leeds United came in 1924 at Bellend Road, a 1-1 draw and a goal for Town legend Billy Smith. Later in the season we had our first win against our new neighbours, 2-0 at Leeds Road, Smith again scoring with another legend George Brown getting the second.





So what's happening down at that big old yellow skip? Managed nowadays by Marcelo Bielsa, the former English Language teacher, who gave up playing football at the age of 25. He was a defender who had played in Argentina for Newell's Old Boys. His first coaching job was with the same club but by 1998 had worked his way all the way to Spain to be manager of Espanyol. That job didn't last long as he was offered the job of managing the Argentine national team.

This was not one of Argentina's best moves. Despite being traditionally one of world football's big guns, Bielsa couldn't get them through the group stage of the 2002 World Cup, famously getting beaten by England 1-0 with a penalty from David Beckham. He moved on to Chile in 2007 and did sod all there. He moved then to Athletic Bilbao, bottling the biggest game of his career, losing 0-3 to Atlético Madrid in the 2012 Europa League Final. After that he went to France and a job with Marseille, before three clubs beginning with L in Lazio, Lille and Leeds, doing and winning bugger all.


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So who have they got in their squad? Liam Cooper is the club captain. He came on loan to us from Hull City in 2011 and wasn't very good at all. They have ex Northampton Town winger Stuart Dallas and ex MK Dons striker Patrick Bamford. Another striker is Eddie Nketiah is on loan from Arsenal. Pablo Hernández is a bit of a dangerman. He had a couple of seasons in the Premier League with Swansea.
The keeper these days is a lad from Spain called Kiko Casilla. Used to laik for Real Madrid of all people. They've ex Newport defender Ben White who's on loan from Brighton. And ex Yeovil full back Luke Ayling. Another Premier loan man is Jack Harrison, he's on loan from Man City. Also in midfield is Polish lad Mateusz Klich and yet another Premier Inn loanee, Hélder Costa, on loan from Wolverhampton.
Is that them all? There's that Phillips lad, but he's suspended.

MARCHING ON TO NOWHERE!!



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Liam Cooper







Club Connections:

Simon Grayson: started his playing career at Leeds before moving to Leicester, where he stayed for five years before moving on to Aston Villa, Blackburn and Blackpool, with loan spells at Sheffield Wednesday, Stockport, Notts County and Bradford City in between. His first management job came at Blackpool and he won promotion to the Championship with them via the Play Offs in 2007.
He then moved to Leeds and took them to the Play Offs and in true Leeds fashion, they bottled it, losing in the semis to Millwall. He did guide them to promotion the following season though, finishing as League One runners up. His time as a Championship manager was a short lived one though and he got the boot. He wasn't out of work for long though as Dean Hoyle signed him up as Town manager just a few days after sacking Lee Clark. And within a few months he had earned his third promotion to the Championship as we beat Sheffield Utd in the Play Off Final.
He won his 4th promotion to the Championship in his next job, at Preston, but has since failed to do the same with Sunderland and Bradford City. He's now trying for his fifth promotion, as Blackpool boss.

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Jermaine Beckford: scored 71 goals for Leeds in the lower leagues before moving to Premier League Everton. He scored his first goal for the Toffees, a penalty, in a League Cup tie against Town at Goodison Park. He was well out of his depth in the big league though and eventually went to Leicester City in the Championship. It was from there that he came to us on loan in 2012 and his 9 goals in that season helped us avoid relegation, scoring two down at Wolves, which secured our Championship status. He's since played at Bolton, Preston and Bury and finally retired through injury in this last close season.

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Trevor Cherry and Roy Ellam: both played for both clubs. They were part of our glorious Division Two championship winning side of 1969/70 and were a big part of our two seasons in the First division. However, when things started to go wrong in the second season, they were two of the players who (allegedly) took their bat and ball home (Zanka style). Well that's how I remember it, but I was only 11 at the time.  
So in the summer they were moved on. To make matters worse for Town fans, this pair of Judases went down the road to play for Don Revie at Leeds. Ellam as a replacement for the ageing Jack Charlton, but in two seasons there he only played 11 games for them. He had in the previous season, scored the winner for us against the white shite. He came back to us after his contract ended, but by now we were in freefall down the leagues and he soon went to play in the North American Soccer League for Philadelphia Atoms and Washington Diplomats.
It was Cherry who had the successful career, staying at Bellend Road for ten seasons and earning 27 England caps. In one of those matches for England, he had his two front teeth knocked out by an Argentinian, and get sent off!
He was never a big time Charlie though and whenever he could he still went to watch Town with his dad, sitting in front of me and my dad in the old Leeds Road centre stand.


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Town are 19th in the Championship with 18 points. Leeds are 2nd with 40.


One for the oldies. Can you recall the lyrics to these two Cowshed classics?








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Can't beat getting your retaliation in early Snoots and you started it right with the thread title. Thumb up Laugh
Bielsa he say Ben White will take Kalvin Phillips' place in midfield.
Whatevs! Rolleyes
What to make of this I wondr?
https://www.htafc.com/news/2019/december...d-to-town/

Have some of our precious one's objected to being called square pegs and downed tools again, or have we got another gastric bug in the camp and we're down to the bare bones for fit players and we need these lads for Saturday or have we just got bigger and better loans planned for them? The usual loan/transfer windows don't apply below a certain level but I'm not sure at which level below EFL.
I think all four will be on the bench, if not now, down at Charlton on Tuesday. Some of the overpaid failures have pulled on the bright blue n white for the last time.

Either that or he's putting the squad together for the Southampton cup game.
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No tongues, PURLEASE !!!
Good luck guys Thumb up
Thanks Beefy. Despite being their bogey team, I'm worried.
Concord Rangers have tweeted that Scott High has been recalled so he can play on Saturday. Bit of a leap from 7th tier to straight into a Yorkshire derby. They've nothing but praise for the lad however.

Never mind the kids. We really need to recall Aaron Mooy.
We need to pull something special out of somewhere. Need the big occasion players on their game.

Don't think the youngsters will be all thrown in at the deep end, but there is a busy schedule coming up over the Xmas period, injuries will happen, plus the bad eggs should be nowhere near the side. Yes we are paying them but they want nothing to do with the hard work and effort. I dare say it's the foreign footballer mentality in a lot of them
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