[Lord Snooty]

March 23:

Born on this date in 1930, in Doncaster, was Len White. I have mentioned him recently as the man who stopped us reaching the FA Cup semi finals in 1955 by scoring a last minute equaliser for Newcastle at Leeds Road. He, like many other players who turned out for Town, started off his working life darn t' pit and playing football for the pit team. That was Upton Colliery, but soon got his break at Rotherham United.

From there, he went to Newcastle for the rather large fee of £12,500 and became a part of a highly rated Geordie line up and a strike partner for Jackie Milburn. He went on to get an FA Cup winners medal in 1955, after knocking Town out and he and Milburn were the top two in the Newcastle all time goal scorers chart, with Wor Jackie on top with 200 and Len in 2nd with 153. They have both since been overtaken by Alan Shearer.

Len dropped down a division in 1962 to come and play for the Town and he kept up a decent strike rate. He made his debut in the bright blue n white in Feb 62 at Walsall. He didn't score, but did score in the next four. He bagged a brace in a win at Norwich, one in a 2-1 home win against Leeds, one at Bristol Rovers and then another two in a win at home to Stoke.

He scored twice in his last Town game before moving off to Stockport. That was in a 3-2 win at Maine Road against Man City and in total he scored 39 times for the club.

He died in Huddersfield in June 1994, round about the time that the old ground was dying as well.

On this date in 1929, we lost in the FA Cup semi finals. After beating West Brom in the last round, we faced Bolton Wanderers at Anfield and we lost 3-1. Alex Jackson got the goal, his fifth of the campaign.

Not many other outstanding matches on this date and it's twenty years since we actually had a game. That was back in 2002 at the Alfred McAlpine Stadium against Northampton Town. The Terriers won it 2-0 and Leon Knight, who was on loan from Chelsea, scored them both. That was the fourth win in a row and had us up to 5th in Division Two (now known as League One) and we would make it to the Play Offs at the end of the season.

[Lord Snooty]

March 24:

On this date in 1957, the famous, or should that be infamous, John Hilton Crowther died, in Blackpool, aged 77. He had pumped thousands of pounds into the club in 1918, a relative fortune, for which he never seemed to get the support of the local populace that he would've liked. Crowds were poor, averaging around 5,000, but making hardly any money in gate receipts. The ground had been redeveloped to hold 50,000.

So, in other words, our ground's too big for us.

Now down the other end of Leeds Road, there was another football club called Leeds City. They had been kicked out of the Football League for making some illegal payments to players. A bit of a steep punishment really when you look at what clubs get away with these days. West Ham got a slap on the wrist fine when they did the same with Carlos Tevez in 2007.

Anyway, they were out, but the city of Leeds had a massive fan base. And so it was proposed at a meeting in 1919 to form a new club called Leeds Urinals. Crowther, unknown to the rest of the Town directors, attended that meeting and decided to offer to the people of Leeds to move the whole of Huddersfield Town, lock, stock, barrel, manager Arthur Fairclough, Football League placing, blue n white striped kit and the team to play in that kit, into Bellend Road as the new team.

In other words, they wanted to do to us, what Milton Keynes did to Wimbledon.

Not gonna go into what happened next, but in the long run, Crowther went there, Town survived, went on to win everything in the next decade, while Leeds became a bunch of mediocre nobodies.

Crowther remained as Leeds chairman until 1924. He was the son of Joseph Crowther, a wealthy mill owner who had moved to Marsden from Golcar in 1867 and was the owner, along with his four brothers, of the Milnsbridge Woollen Mill in Huddersfield. In 1927, he married Mona Vivian, a famous actress of the time.

So while Crowther and his new team were languishing in the foothills of 2nd Division football, his old team had gone from strength to strength and on this date in 1928 were playing in their third FA Cup semi final. The first ones in 1920 and then in 1922, had both been won. This one, ended as a draw. It was played at Old Trafford and the opponents were Sheffield United.

Earlier in the season, Town had hammered the Blades 7-1 at Bramall Lane, so optimism would've been high. A crowd of 69,260 turned out to see this one and Alex Jackson and George Brown were on target for the Town in a 2-2 draw. The game was played on the Saturday. No hanging around in those days for ticket sales, police permission, fans making train travel arrangements or Sky Sports to disrupt all that, because the replay was arranged for two days time. Yes, this match was on Saturday, the replay was on Monday. It will be played at Goodison Park on the 26th of March.

The most recent game played on this date was in the successful promotion campaign in 2012. The game was against Charlton Athletic at the Galpharm Stadium and we won it 1-0 with a spot kick from Jordan Rhodes.

We had a game in another successful promotion campaign, this time in 1970. Points were dropped in this one though, well only one point actually as this was back in the days when only two points were awarded for a win. It was a 1-1 draw on a Tuesday night at Leeds Road against Swindon Town and we saw the first Town goal scored by new signing from West Brom, the Welsh winger Dick Krzywicki.

Despite the dropped point, we were still top of the 2nd Division table and this game was the fourth match in a sequence of nine matches unbeaten to the end of the season.

[WakeyTerrier]

I've got the following appear on my app this morning.

Going all the way back to 1984
Huddersfield Town 3 v 0 Cambridge United
Mel Eves with 2 goals and a Paul Jones penalty giving the Terriers 3 points
Att 6037
This result left Town 11th in Division 2

Mel Eves, that's a right blast from the past. We had him on a short loan spell from Wolves

[Lord Snooty]

Great player Eves was. Hoped we'd sign him, but we didn't.

[Lord Snooty]

March 25:

We have two FA Cup semi finals on this date in our glorious history. The first one was way back in 1922. Yes, one hundred years ago today, our team were playing the semi final against Notts County at Turf Moor, Burnley. The ground where the journey began with a 2-2 draw against the Clarets. That was won in a replay, and then replays against Brighton and then Blackburn, before Millwall were beaten at the first attempt.

We were favourites to win, being a mid table 1st Division team, as opposed to our opponents who were a mid table 2nd Division team. A crowd of 46,323 came to this game and Town won it 3-1 with goals from Frank Mann, Billy Smith and Clem Stephenson.

And so on to the Final. Preston North End will be the opposition after they beat Spurs 2-1 at Hillsborough. The Final will be played at Stamford Bridge on April 29th.

The other semi final on this date was in 1939. We were playing Portsmouth at Arsenal's Highbury Stadium. This one however, ended in defeat. Bobby Barclay scored our goal in a 2-1 defeat and so it would be Pompey who went to Wembley for the Final. They won it 4-1 against Wolves.

Barclay was an England international, who signed for Town from Sheffield Utd and played at inside right.

We have a birthday for a former Town player. One who played in our Premier League team.

Scott Malone was born on this date in 1991 and is 31 today. He scored more goals against us than for us, scoring for Bournemouth, Fulham and Millwall against us. The best thing he ever did in a Town shirt was winning a free kick on the edge of the Chelsea area, deep into injury time at Stamford Bridge, which the boy Mooy then kicked out to the touchline and set off the scenes of jubilation at the Bridge.

Can't think of any more highlights of his career with us. 

[jjamez]

Kicking the ball in his own face

[Lord Snooty]

Kicking the ball in his own face

Forgot that. 

[WakeyTerrier]

Just 2 games for me on this date

1995
Stockport County 1 v 2 Huddersfield Town
A Jepson penalty and a Jim Gannon OG sealing the points for Town that left us top of the Second Division
Att 5383
County are looking good to come back in the Football league this season, which will be good to see

and the other is a International fixture
Montenegro 1 v 5 England
England having to come from a goal down early on with goals from Keane, Barkley x2, Kane and Stirling
Att 8329

[theo_luddite]

Always enjoyed an away day at County, unlike one of my my mates who got squished against the wall one season by a Police hoss. That was way back when away fans were stuck in a pen in the front right (going in) of the main stand. No idea how that game finished. Since then they've stuck us on the open end to watch the planes going in to Manchester Airport or the stand opposite the main one, which usually makes more sense. T'was from the open end one (might have been Tuesday or Friday) night that we saw Kevin Johnson smack a goal in for Town in the last minute whilst dribbling down the dead ball line back in the 70's. He later went on to more glory days at Halifax and Hartlepudddles.
Almost certainly wasn't on this date.

[Lord Snooty]

Aye. Good days out at Edgeley. Our nephew lives about a quarter of a mile from the ground now so if they do reach the dizzy heights of the championship, we can call in for a cuppa.

Last time we went, we won 6-0 and it was red hot. That wasn't on this date either.