[Lord Snooty]

Manchester United v Huddersfield Town
The Premier League
Saturday February 3rd - 15:00 ko
at Old Trafford

Huddersfield Town travel to Old Trafford on Saturday afternoon to play Manchester Utd there for the first time since March 1972.

There will be commemorations at the start of the match for the Munich disaster, which happened 60 years ago. There will be a minute's silence before kick off. There will also be readings and prayers outside the ground in the south east corner under the Munich plaque.

A brief history of Manchester United: Formed in 1878 by workers of the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway's Carriage and Wagon Department, based at Newton Heath. By 1892 they were in the Football League and in 1902 the name was changed to Manchester United after the Newton Heath club were wound up.
The new club won promotion from Division 2 in 1906 and then in 1908 they won their first First Division Champions title.They followed that by winning the first ever Charity Shield and then won their first FA Cup, beating Bristol City 1-0 in 1909. Another League title came in 1911, but then nothing for decades.
Their next trophy was the 1948 FA Cup, which they won beating Blackpool 4-2 in the Final. By this time, they had Matt Busby in as manager. they won three League titles in the 1950s and Busby's willingness to play the kids, the average age of the '56 title winning squad being just 22, earned them the nickname the Busby Babes. They became the first English team to play in the European Cup in 1957, getting as far as the semi finals. Then in 1958, on the way home from a quarter final tie against Red Star Belgrade, disaster struck on the runway of Munich-Riem Airport. 23 people lost their lives in the plane crash, including 8 of the Busby Babes.
Despite this, the team still made it to the FA Cup Final that year, but lost to Bolton Wanderers. They did win the Cup again in 1963 and more League titles in 1965 and 1967, which qualified them for the European Cup again. This time, in 1968, they became the first English club to win it. They beat Benfica 4-1 at Wembley Stadium after extra time, with two goals from Bobby Charlton and one each from George Best and Brian Kidd. This was the culmination of this particular era of the club's history as the following year, Busby retired.

In 1974, ex Town and Man Utd star Denis Law, now playing for cross city rivals Manchester City, scored the goal that relegated United to Division 2. They came straight back up the following season and won another FA Cup Final in 1977, this time 2-1 against Liverpool. They followed this with another couple of FA Cups in 1983 and 1985.
Then in 1986, following the dismissal of manager Ron Atkinson, the board persuaded the Aberdeen manager to come south and replace him. His name was Alex Ferguson.
Ferguson was manager from 1986 to 2013 and in that time the club won one or two trophies. They won the Premier League a mere 13 times (becoming only the fourth club to win three in a row behind the earlier achievements of Huddersfield Town, Arsenal and Liverpool), the FA Cup 5 times, and the League Cup 3 times. In Europe, they won the Cup Winners Cup in 1991, Mark Hughes scoring a couple of goals in the Final against Barcelona. But the most famous night of the Fergie era came in 1999 at the Nou Camp when two spawny late goals from Teddy Sheringham and Ole Gunnar Solskjær saw them beat Bayern Munich 2-1 to win the Champions League. They won it again in 2008, beating Chelsea on penalties in the final.
Since Sir Alex retired, they haven't been the same force but have still managed to win the FA Cup in 2016 and last season they won the League Cup, beating Southampton in the Final 3-2.

Head to Head



United lead in the overall head to head with 20 wins to Town's 11, with 15 draws.

BUT WE BEAT THEM THIS SEASON!

Before that though it was 1952 when we last beat them. That was at Leeds Road and it was a 3-2 win with a couple of goals from Jimmy Glazzard and a penalty from Vic Metcalfe. Our last win at Old Trafford, and our only ever league win there, was back in season 190/31, but what a whopper this one was. We beat the buggers 6-0 with Gerry Kelly and Alex Jackson both getting a hat trick. this was the only time we've done the league double over the Red Devils as we pumped them in the rematch back at ours five days later. Only 3-0 this time with goals from Bob Kelly, Joe Robson and Levi Redfern. In between these two matches, we beat Liverpool as well. That's right, wins over Man Utd twice and Liverpool in the space of five days. Those were the days, my friend.
Of course, these are also the days, and we now have the chance to double up our total of league doubles over thay Old Trafford mob. #believe #nolimits #terrierspirit #wagnerrevolution

Our only other win there was a 3-0 FA Cup win in 1924 with goals this time from Town legends Charlie Wilson (2) and Clem Stephenson.



So what's happening at Old Trafford?  Managed nowadays by José Mourinho, a PE teacher who once worked as an interpreter for Bobby Robson. That's all I've got on this fella. He won some cups, called himself the Special One, but quite frankly I'm sick of the sight of Sky Sports and everybody else hanging off his every word, cos he really is just a boring old bastard, who's gonna get his arse spanked by David Wagner and his Mighty Terriers.

There are some players in their squad who you may have heard of: All of them are overpaid arseholes! I mean, come on. Alexis Sánchez is on how much? Half a million a week?!  

YUK!!  

Club Connections: 2nd Division Championship winning Town manager Ian Greaves played for United in the 1950s and the captain of that side, Jimmy Nicholson signed for Town from United in 1964 after making 58 appearances for them. He went on to play almost 300 games for us and is still our most capped international player, gaining 31 caps as a Town player for Northern Ireland, many of them as skipper.

Before them came a young lad called Denis Law. Signed by Bill Shankly from Aberdeen in 1956, he played 81 times for us before a big money move to Manchester City, much of the £55,000 being spent on a new set of floodlights at Leeds Road. That was a British record transfer fee but was doubled a couple of years later when City sold him to Torino. He didn't stay long in Italy and then came back to Manchester to sign for United and went on to score 237 goals in 404 appearances, making him their third highest all time goalscorer behind Wayne Rooney and Bobby Charlton.
He did come back to Huddersfield many years later when he and rugby league legend Alex Murphy were the two celebrities doing the ceremonial sod cutting for the start of construction of our beautiful new stadium.

In the 1970s we signed another couple of Town legends from Old Trafford. Alan Gowling scored four goals in one game for Utd against Southampton and was signed as the replacement for Frank Worthington in 1972. Unfortunately, despite being top scorer in all of his seasons at Leeds Road, he couldn't help us from being relegated a couple more times into the 4th division and was subsequently sold to Newcastle.
The other 70s legend was Arnold Sidebottom. He signed from Utd in 1975 and played 61 times for Town in the dark days. His time at Town wasn't the most memorable of his career, his main claim to fame was as a cricketer. He played for Yorkshire and played one Test match for England, against the Aussies at Trent Bridge in 1985. His son, celebrity Town fan Ryan Sidebottom, had a more successful cricketing career, but never turned out in the famous bright blue and white shirt.

Arnold Sidebottom

Another Town legend from the United academy was Ben Thornley. He came to us on loan in 1996, a member of the famous Fergie Fledglings youth set up that mostly went on to win the Premier league despite being told they "wouldn't win anything with kids". On his Town home debut, two of his youth team buddies came to watch him and sat in front of us. They were David Beckham and Gary Neville and got moved on when the bloke who's reserved seat they'd sat in turned up. No, he didn't recognise them. Bloody idiots can't read "reserved".  
Anyway, Ben was Mr Inconsistency himself. Brilliant one minute, utter garbage the next. Now working as a taxi driver in Oldham (maybe, don't believe everything you read online).








Recent form: Town are 17th in the Premier League with 24 points. United are in 2nd with 53 points.

Last 6 matches:

Leicester 3-0 Town
Bolton 1-2 Town (FA Cup 3) (van La Parra, Williams)
Town 1-4 West Ham (Lolley)
Stoke 0-2 Town
Town 1-1 Birmingham (FA Cup 4) (Mounie)
Town 0-3 Liverpool

Everton 0-2 Man Utd (Martial, Lingard)
Man Utd 2-0 Derby (FA Cup 3) (Lingard, R Lukaku)
Man Utd 3-0 Stoke (Valencia, Martial, Lukaku)
Burnley 0-1 Man Utd (Martial)
Yeovil 0-4 Man Utd (FA Cup 4) (Rashford, Herrera, Lingard, Lukaku)
Spurs 2-0 Man Utd


United's line up at Spurs on Wednesday night:

1 de Gea
25 Valencia
12Smalling
4 Jones
18 Young
6 Pogba
31 Matic
11 Martial
14 Lingard
7 Sánchez
9 Lukaku

Substitutes
5 Rojo
8 Mata
19 Rashford
20 Romero
21 Herrera
23 Shaw
27 Fellaini

[theo_luddite]

As I said on the Liverpool thread, I'm glad dry January is over, or words to that effect. Someone should have pointed out to Wagbo that it means no pints , not NO POINTS.

Another top notch effort put together while your toast was burning, the kettle was boiling itself dry and 'er indoors was getting ready to go out to work (at the crack of stupidity apparently) to keep you both in the style and comfort to which you have been accustomed M'lud.

So, as everyone else is taking points off the top 6, I reckon it's our turn. That new expensive fella didn't have much of a game against us at Arsenal so no worries there. Apart from him being involved in the build up to one goal and scoring another, otherwise it was the Mesut Ozil show (if you ask the BBC). I'm pretty sure I saw him get a bit more involved, but hey what do I know? I'm just a fan watching his team getting stuffed all over the country, apart from in some London(ish) suburbs. I reckon Señor Sanchez will be too busy trying to find a tax haven to hide his overfilled wage packets in to worry about us on Saturday. That or he'll be using his first two for shin pads.

So, a long ball to Depoitre, header on to Mounié, bang, Row Z for the first effort at goal followed by a trip outside the box, free kick and bang, knock a camera out of a photo-pressers hands with shot from Pritchard or Löwe. Other than that we sit in our half and s--- ourselves, er, wait for the traps in the Gents to empty. Can we stop needlessly kicking the ball out of play in our half, get it in theirs and get after them? Our goal difference is so crap now it doen't matter if we get stuffed chasing their arses again, just have a go please, if for only the third time in an away game (well that I've seen ) this season? I know we had a go at Bornmuff but I wasn't there, so a bit like a tree falling in the forest when there's no one around, it didn't count for me.

2-1 to Town again then with two own goals, one off the goalies head and the other in off the ref. This 14 v11 mularkey needs something doing about it. Just because you don't want to upset 70 odd thousand screaming Catholic Priests and one moaning Portugese translator doesn't mean you should bend the rules in their favour.

Next.
Come on, don't be shy, your all having a read, lots of room below for comments.

[WakeyTerrier]

I'm trying my hardest not to be too down about us right now but I can see nothing but a.........








WIN for TOWN tomorrow.


I've even gone and lumped on my £1 life savings on a Hull KR win & Town 1-0 win double at 166/1
That'll go nicely towards my season ticket

[Amelia Chaffinch]

Apparently it's 2500/1 for us to do the treble over Man U.

[jjamez]

Its going to be a long 90 again. They will be hurting from previous performances. If we sit back we will be murdered and I think the management needs to realize that we just cannot do it. We'd be better attacking and ruffle feathers, than die with a wimper

[JUSTASILLYOLDGIT]

Don't think I'm gonna try too hard to find a stream of this one. Sick to death of watching us surrender from the off against the top teams. The six pointers are on the horizon. Surely we'll get back to playing with a modicum of self belief then..........won't we???  

[theo_luddite]

+ + + numbs the pain until we kick-off and the three blind mice start with their Old Trafford love in. I don't do shampoo by the way, a red wine glass or bottle required sometime in the next five years please AmChaff, SCO or whoever is reading this with some influence?!?!!
More on the way back to Piccadilly just helps, win or lose. Those nice boys and girls at Cross Country are doing the driving this weekend.  
From 14:50 to 17:00 it can be as cold as it wants, as Manchester rainy as it wants (and it never rains like we all get rain, it just bounces down and drums you into the floor) and it can blow a gale. That will even things up a bit. Don't need to be at the game or coming home like a drowned, frozen rat, but a few drowned, frozen overpaid Manchester rats might not fancy it quite as much if it does. They ought to be used to it by now.

[Terrier1987cas]

Genuinely can't wait for tomorrow - it's a fixtures I've always wanted to see but only ever imagined it would be a cup game! I just hope we have a go at them, get men forward and put them under pressure from the off. Sure it's risky but we're getting nowhere going into games treating big clubs with too much respect.

[jjamez]

I genuinely cannot wait for us to either win or at least put up a proper fight. Makes everything far more bearable

[Lord Snooty]

JUST GET OUT THERE AN' TWAT 'EM!

---

Stuart Atwell tomorrow. Don't think he's been too bad for us so far.

Wiliams and Lowe out injured as well.