Exeter City v Huddersfield Town
Sky Bet League One
Saturday April 26th - 15:00 ko
at St James Park (no not that one)

A brief history of Exeter City: formed in 1904 when two local teams, Exeter United and St Sidwell's United decided to merge. They played their games under the new name at Exeter United's ground, St James Park (no apostrophe) and they're still playing there now.

They played games in the East Devon League, then the Plymouth and District League and after turning professional in 1908, were elected into the Southern League to replace Tottenham Hotspur. Spurs were invited to tour South America in the summer of 1914, but after they had pulled out, Exeter City took their place. On that tour they won 8 of their 11 matches. One of the only two defeats they had was famously the first ever official football match for the recently formed Brazil national team. Brazil won it 2-0 at the Laranjeiras stadium, Rio de Janeiro, home of Fluminense Football Club.

In 1920, the Football League was extended and City were invited to be founder members of the new Division Three (South), alongside most of the other clubs in the Southern League. They achieved their highest league position to date in 1932/33 when they finished as runners up to Brentford in Div 3(S), but in those days only the champions went up.

They have never reached the dizzy heights of the 2nd tier of English football, but they did win promotion for the first time, six years after the north and south 3rd divisions split to form Division 3 and Division 4 in 1958. They finished 4th in 1963/64, winning promotion alongside Gillingham, Carlisle United and Workington.

They were relegated again two years later though and stayed in the 4th Division until 1977 when they finished runners up to Cambridge United, under the management of Bobby Saxton. That put them into a higher division than Huddersfield Town.

Town caught and overtook them over the next few seasons and it was relegation again for the Grecians at the end of the 83/84 season.

Exeter won their first title in 89/90 when the won the 4th Division, under the leadership of Leeds legend Terry Cooper. He was poached by big time Charlies Birmingham City and replaced at the Greek Urn by his old England team mate, Alan Ball. He did well for them, including giving them their first ever league double over Plymouth Argyle, but was also tempted away to manage some bigger club, Southampton. Cooper returned to St James Park, but could only oversee the drop into Division 4.

The club struggled on and off the pitch, going into administration and then suffering further relegation in 2003, dropping into the Conference for the first time. The club's Supporters Trust took over, but it was still more financial troubles, this time with the old Inland Revenue. A lifeline came when they were drawn to play Manchester United in the FA Cup, which provided a pot load of cash.

They drew 0-0 at Old Trafford and were rewarded with a money spinning, televised replay, which United won 2-0.

BRING BACK CUP REPLAYS!!!

Anyway, things started picking up for the Greekurns and they reached the Play Offs in 2006/07. They beat Oxford United in the semis on penalties, but lost at Wembley in the Final, 2-1 against Morecambe.

Downheared but undeterred, Exeter City went back to Wembley in the following season and won back their place in the EFL. After beating Torquay United in the semis, they faced Cambridge United in the Final, winning it 1-0 with Rob Edwards (no not that one) scoring the goal.

Back in the big time, history repeated itself as they finished as runners up to Brentford. This time though, they did go up, securing promotion on the final day of the season when Richard Logan (no not that one) scored in a 1-0 win away against Rotherham at the Don Valley Stadium.

The next season saw them struggle in League One and only just survived on the final day when those pussies from Huddersfield Town let them win 2-1 at St James Park, relegating poor old Gillingham instead.

They survived another season, but suffered a tragedy when star striker Adam Stansfield, died of cancer, aged 31. He's the father of Birmingham City's Jay Stansfield. As a mark of respect, the club retired the number 9 shirt, but it was worn by Jay in 22/23 when he spent the season on loan there from Fulham.

They finished the season in 8th, just one point off a Play Off place, but went back down in the next season. All this was under the management of nattily dressed manager, Paul Tisdale.

Over the next few seasons as members of League Two, they went back on a Brazilian tour to mark 100 years since that famous tour a century earlier. They also had another big name draw in the FA Cup. Liverpool came to Exeter and could only manage a 2-2 draw, with Tom Nicholls opening the scoring for the Greekurns. After the Reds equalised, Lee Holmes gave Exeter a half time lead before a late equaliser took the tie to Anfield. Liverpool won the replay 3-0.

BRING BACK CUP REPLAYS!!!

The next two seasons saw them reach the Play Off Finals, but they lost them both. Firstly losing to Blackpool in 2017 and then Coventry City in 2018. After that loss to the Sky Blues, Tisdale left the club and was replaced by their old club captain, Matt Taylor. He got them to Wembley again, where once more they lost, 4-0 to Northampton Town. But he did eventually get them promoted in 2021/22 as runners up to Forest Green Rovers and they are now in their third consecutive season in League One.

Unlike some clubs we've played, there are some really good games in those 25 meetings. All 25 were league games, we've never met in any cup competition.

The first four meetings, back in the 70s were all defeats. In the 4th Division, we lost 1-0 at home and 4-1 away in 75/76 and 2-0 away and 1-0 at home in the season after.

It took the legend Mick Buxton to mastermind our first victory over the Grecians and that was in Division 3 in 80/81. The trip tp St James Park in October 1980 was a fantastic game. Steve Kindon scored a hat trick with Brian Stanton (pictured) adding the other as we won 4-1. The home game was an even bigger win, 5-0 on a Tuesday night in April, three days after the famous win down at Charlton which looked like cementing our second successive promotion. This win just about secured it, until we went and lost the next three games and finished 4th, when only the top three went up. No Play Offs in those days. Anyway, Stanton scored twice that night, as did Mark Lillis, after Keith Hanvey had opened the scoring.

We stayed down then and Exeter stayed up, so we met again in August on the opening day at Leeds Road. Big Steve scored again in a disappointing 1-1 draw, in what turned out to be a disappointing season. Having met on the opening day, it wasn't until the 45th game of the season that we went down to their place and the disappointment continued with a 1-0 defeat.

The season after though was our promotion season to the 2nd Division. The Football League fixture computer (did we have computers in 1982?) in it's wisdom, gave Exeter another long opening day journey up to Huddersfield again and they once more came away with a 1-1 draw. More disappointment in the size of the crowd, with only 5,168 being bothered to turn up. New signing Maurice Cox scored his only goal for the club in this one.

Our return trip to Exeter came in January and we were up to 3rd in the table by now after a roller coaster ride of a 4-3 win. As I remember it, both teams led at some stage of the game with a late Town winner coming from David Cowling. Lillis, Stanton and Phil Wilson got our others.

As we know, Exeter never made it up to Division Two, so the next time we met was after we were relegated again and spent four seasons together in the 3rd tier in the 90s. The last of those was in the first season that we had Neil Warnock as manager. The trip to St James came on the Saturday in March following our famous 1-0 win at Stockport in the Autoglass Trophy which turned our season around after a really poor first half. Iain Dunn scored that goal at Edgeley Park and it was he who opened the scoring for us at Exeter. Darren Bullock scored twice then as Warnock's wonders went on to win 3-2.

We avoided each other for a few years after they were relegated. It was sixteen seasons later that we met up again, in what is now known as League One. That first meeting was a famous 4-0 win for the Town, one which entered young Jordan Rhodes into the EFL record books. He scored the quickest hat trick of headers since Everton's Dixie Dean in the 1920s. It was an 8 minute hat trick, either side of half time, after Lee Novak had put us one up early on.

The return match was the last game of the season and as mentioned in the Exeter history section, they needed to win to stay up. It didn't start well for them as Gary Roberts scored for the Town in the 2nd minute. Not to worry though. The Terriers, having already secured a Play Off spot, rolled over for a tummy tickle and let future Exeter manager, Matt Taylor equalise after 22 minutes and then let Ryan Harley score a winner late on in front of a bumper crowd of 8,383 at the Greek Urn.

So they survived and came up to the Galpharm in the following season and won 1-0. Not happy with that, Lee Clark had his lads well and truly up for it when they went down there in February. After a goal less first half, the Geordie pocket rocket gave them a proper bollocking and they came out and scored four in the second half. Danny Cadamarteri, Roberts, Anthony Pilkington and Kevin Kilbane putting the ball in the net before Exeter got a last minute consolation.

We went down there and scored four again in October, this time without reply. Alan Lee scored first before young Jordan scored another hat trick. And Jordan scored again at the Galpharm to add to one from Jamie McCombe in a 2-0 win as Town went up via the Play Offs and Exeter went down to League Two.

And that was that until this season when Matty Pearson and Ben Wiles scored to give us a 2-0 home win under the leadership of Michael Duff. That was game 4 of a 16 match unbeaten run. When everything was looking rosy.

So, on four of our visits to St James Park, we have scored four goals. Can we do it again this time?

(24-04-2025, 11:03)Lord Snooty Wrote: Chris Maxwell has retired. He will be remembered for letting that goal in from a throw in against Tamworth. Which is a shame.