[Lord Snooty]

Bristol City v Huddersfield Town
The Sky Bet Championship
Friday March 17th - 19:45 ko
at Ashton Gate

Huddersfield Town travel to play Bristol City at Ashton Gate on Friday night, live on Sky Sports again, with a chance to put pressure back on Newcastle and Brighton. A win will put us only three points behind the pair of them ahead of Saturday's games when Newcastle travel to Birmingham and the Seagulls have an easy looking fixture on Saturday teatime, away at Bellend Road.
Town will be looking for their sixth league double of the season, having already done it over Brentford, Rotherham, Ipswich, QPR and errrm, oh yes Leeds. We beat City 2-1 at home in December to end the mini slump we'd been on, five games without a win, which could yet be the decisive period of the season if we fail to get that automatic promotion spot.

City had leading scorer Tammy Abraham back for their win at Wigan on Saturday, after he'd been out injured for a month. Also back were keeper Fabian Geifer and Gary O'Neil. Still out injured though are Milan Duric and Mark Little.

Town's Sean Scannell is close to a return after his long lay off. He played 30 mins in a friendly match last week. Kasey Palmer is still out and Harry Bunn is also rated doubtful.


A brief history of Bristol City: Founded in 1894 and admitted to the Football League in 1901. They won the 2nd division title in 1906 and followed that with their highest ever league finish when they were runners up to Newcastle the season after. Then came their one and only FA Cup Final in 1909 when they lost 1-0 to Manchester Utd. But then in 1911 they were relegated and stayed out of the top flight for the next 65 years.
In those years they won promotion from division 3 four times, eventually getting back to division 1 in 1976 when they finished runners up to Sunderland, with Alan Dicks as manager. They had four seasons in the top flight but were relegated in 1980 and have never been back.
That relegation triggered a huge fall and two more relegations and bankruptcy meant that they dropped for the first time into division 4.
They spent two seasons at the bottom, but haven't been back there. They have spent the rest of their time in the 2nd and 3rd tiers, winning promotion back to the Championship when they won League One in 2015.
They have also been League Cup runners up twice (1971 and 1989), won the Anglo/Scottish Cup in 1978 and the Football League Trophy three times (86, 03 and 15).

Head to Head




Town lead in the overall head to head with 25 wins to City's 19, with 11 draws.




So what's new at Ashton Gate?  Managed nowadays by Lee Johnson, a little toss pot who once managed Barnsley.
Before that though, he played football mainly for clubs managed by his dad, notably Yeovil Town and Bristol City. It was whilst playing for Bristol City that the young Johnson managed to get our manager Peter Jackson sent to the stand after an altercation in the technical area. Jacko fielded the ball and Johnson tryed snatching it out of his hands. Jacko wasn't happy and grabbed the little upstart round the throat, starting a bit of a melee. Jacko received a two match touchline ban.

Notable players in their squad:- Tammy Abraham, a Chelsea Youth team mate of our Izzy Brown and Kasey Palmer. He has played two matches in the Premier League for them, against Liverpool and Leicester. He came on loan to Bristol City at the start of this season and scored in their 2-1 defeat at the John Smith's, equalising after Elias Kachunga had given Town the lead, before Nahki Wells scored the winner, pouncing on a mistake by the keeper Frank Fielding.
Still only 19 years old, his 21 goals so far are a modern era Championship record for goals scored by a teenager. Tammy has a brother Timmy, who plays in the Charlton Academy.

There are others in their squad who have given us grief in the past. Lee Tomlin the ex Posh twat who scored against us last season and for Middlesbrough twice the season before.

Another one regularly on the scoresheet against us is David Cotterill. He's on loan at City from Birmingham, but over the years he has scored 5 times against the mighty Terriers, thrice for Birmingham, once for Doncaster and once early in his career during his first stint as a Bristol City player.

There's one player in the squad who has scored for Town though. It's Jamie Paterson who was on loan with us from Forest last season. He hit the back of the net 8 times in a Town shirt. He signed for City early this season after scoring for Forest in the EFL Cup at Millwall, but has only scored twice for his new team.

Doh! Sudda stayed at Huddersfield

Line up for match v Wigan:

1 Fielding
7 Smith
4 Flint
42 Wright
3 Bryan
32 Cotterill
6 O'Neil
21 Pack
10 Tomlin
9 Abraham
12 Taylor

Substitutes
8 Brownhill
11 O'Dowda
14 Reid
18 Wilbraham
23  Magnusson
31 Hegeler
33 Giefer

Recent Form: Town are 3rd in the league with 71 points and City are 22nd with 38.

Blackburn's late equaliser at Fulham on Tuesday night put Bristol City back into the relegation zone.

Last 6 matches:

Brentford 0-1 Town
Town 1-0 Villa
Town 1-3 Newcastle
Man City 5-1 Town (FA Cup)
Barnsley 1-1 Town
Town 1-0 Reading

Wigan 0-1 City
City 1-1 Norwich
City 0-0 Burton
Villa 2-0 City
Newcastle 2-2 City
City 0-2 Fulham

[theo_luddite]

Nice bright and early thread M'lud.

Ashton Gate looks all posh now the builders have finished. I guess that bloke that used to cheer 'em on from the roof of his portakabin has moved on too.

We need too get our points from this one so we can enjoy L666s and Brighton knocking lumps and points off each other on Saturday. We have a good record down there so no reason why we can't continue that run - unless they sack Johnson before kick-off time. Even then - would it change the way they play that much? Brizzle already sacked the Assistant Head Coach a few weeks back so it's not like Johnson necessarily has someone chirping in the Chairman's ear about how he can do it better. It's hardly improved matters. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/39193960

3 points please Herr Wagbo.

[Lord Snooty]

Long weekend ahead. We're off down for this one.

[theo_luddite]

Enjoy it - wouldn't have minded going myself but saving up for hopefully bigger things in May. Hopefully I won't need it, but better safe ...

[SHEP_HTAFC]

Great thread m'Lud.
I'll be sat in front of the telly box watching this one....isn't it great we are on the tv so much this season?
As well as the brass we get, it doesn't half raise our profile nationally.

I can see a fairly comfortable 3-1 win for our boys here. We need to start well, dominate the early possession, and hopefully try and take a couple of our chances.
We need to keep Abraham quiet though....Schindler and Hefele should be able to do that.

[WakeyTerrier]

Having to give this one a miss, England trip to Dortmund next week so I need to save my money for beer and curry wurst.
So instead we're putting it on the big telly in the house getting a few of the lads around to watch it,cracking open a few beers and having a few nibbles at half time....should be good un'. Might even crack open the chilli vodka again!

In the usual spirit of my Town predictions these days I'm staying cautious...I'd take a point now which would be one closer to securing that play off spot although 3 would be nice but then I'd be in a strange position on Saturday of wanting to Leeds to win!!

[Lord Snooty]

I think I'd rather Brighton win at Leeds. Still hoping they'll fail. Is that daft? I don't want to go through the play offs, but I also don't want to play Dirty or Wendy if that's the way we have to do it.

---

Anyway look out for the video on Saturday afternoon. I'll try to post it on here. Amelia bungee jumping off the Clifton Suspension Bridge.

[Amelia Chaffinch]

I would rather abseil than bungee.

[EastLondonTerrier]

Cracking thread M'Lud. As you rightly say, this team is packed with players who always score against town and love doing it as well. 3 points is all that matters, I don't care how. Then I can relax on Saturday. This is another game where we have to show our mettle. Bristol are fighting for their lives and scrapping for every point. We have to show them respect, be professional and don't get dragged down to their level.

[Lord Snooty]

Um Bongo Um Bongo
Kachunga called up for Congo