[Lord Snooty]

March 26:

It's a pity we don't have a game today as our record for games on this date is really good. We've won 11 out of the 16 games played, with 2 draws and 3 losses.

We also have a couple more FA Cup semi finals to talk about. First of all, we have the replay for the 1928 semi against Sheffield United that was played a couple of days ago. Town made two changes for this match, played at Goodison Park, with Bon Spence replacing Levi Redfern in defence and Johnny Dent taking over the centre forward role instead of George Brown.

A crowd of 53,749 went to the Everton ground to watch the game, which ended goal less after extra time and so another replay will be required. That will be in a week's time on the 2nd of April. That's another Monday, this one will be at Maine Road. Before that though on Saturday, it's the England v Scotland game at Wembley. Town will have five players in that game and will be expected to fulfill their Football League fixture on the same day, away at Bury.

How will that go then? We'll find out soon (if you don't know already  ).

The other FA Cup semi final that Huddersfield Town played on this date, was in 1938 against Sunderland at Ewood Park, Blackburn. Sunderland were the favourites to win, being higher in the league and having won the competition for the first time in the previous season. However, they were out done by our South African winger George Wienand, who by all accounts ran the Sunderland defence ragged.

Town won it 3-1 in front of a 47,904 crowd, with goals from Pat Beasley, Bobby Barclay and Willie MacFadyen and will play Preston in the Final on the 30th of April. Here's a bit of action from both semis.

So I said at the start of today's post that we had won eleven of the sixteen games played on this date. There's some big names been defeated too. First up, Manchester United were stuffed 5-2 at Leeds Road in the First Division in 1921. Jack Swann scored a couple of those, alongside strikes from Clem Stephenson, skipper Tom Wilson and Frank Mann, who would later go on to be a star player at Old Trafford.

Another big name beaten at Leeds Road were Liverpool in 1927. This was a 1-0 Town win with a goal from Billy Smith. But another strangely low crowd. Town were 2nd in Division One, it was a Saturday afternoon, Liverpool were the opponents, yet only 6,140 came out to watch it. I wonder why it was so low. Answers on a postcard to........

Strangely, we haven't played a game on this date since 1994, therefore no game at our new stadium. The last match was in the last season at Leeds Road and the opponents were Plymouth Argyle, who we beat 1-0 with the man, the myth, the legend Andy Booth scoring the goal.

[HerefordBull]

What a servant to your club Andy Booth was / is?

[Lord Snooty]

What a servant to your club Andy Booth was / is? 

Still is. Works as a club ambassador now. Giving out Ferrero Rocher choccies on a match day.

He's 3rd in our all time goal scoring chart.

[Lord Snooty]

March 27:

Can you believe it? Yet another FA cup semi final to report on. Anybody would think we used to be a really successful team or something.

This one was our first ever semi, played in the year of 1920, following the almost tragic circumstances of earlier in the season when the club almost ceased to be. We had worked our way up to second in the 2nd Division and after beating First Division Liverpool in the last round, we drew a fellow 2nd Division team out of the hat in Bristol City. I don't know if this was the first time that two 2nd Division teams had been drawn together at the semi final stage, but I know that Barnsley and Cardiff have done since, a few years ago.

This match was played at Stamford Bridge and Town won it to reach the Final for the first time. Sammy Taylor scored both goals in a 2-1 victory. The Final will be played on the 24th of April, also at Stamford Bridge, against Aston Villa who beat Chelsea in the other semi.

We had a 3-0 win at Highbury against the Arsenal in 1915. Frank Mann scored twice in this one and Jack Cock scored the other in this second division match, the last season that Arsenal would ever play in the 2nd tier. They were awarded Barnsley's promotion after the war. During that war, Jack Cock served in the British Army, rising to the rank of Acting Sergeant-Major and earning the Military Medal for "Bravery in the Field" and a Mentioned in Despatches for "gallantry". He was reported as 'missing, presumed dead' at one point during the war. He wasn't though and became our first England international in 1919.

There were a couple of wins in two of our Football League Champions seasons on this date. The first one was in 1924 when we won away at West Ham's Boleyn Ground. It was a 3-2 win with Billy Smith on target for the first one and Charlie Wilson scoring the other two.

Then in 1926 we beat Aston Villa 5-1 at Leeds Road. Goals that day coming from Alex Jackson (2), George Brown (2) and George Cook. Brown's goals were his 32nd and 33rd goals of the season.

The most recent game on this date came in 2011 at the Galpharm Stadium against Notts County in League One. Jordan Rhodes scored a couple in this 3-0 win, with Gary Roberts getting the other. This was game number 18 in the famous unbeaten run of "regular" league matches.

[HerefordBull]

Jack Cock became a member of the famed 17th Middlesex, footballers battalion which also included possibly the first black infantry officer in the British Army, Walter Tull of Northampton Town. Having a "pals" regiment of footballers proved popular and later a second was formed, the 23rd Middlesex.

Amongst those that became embraced under these Middlesex pals umbrellas were the 16th Royal Scots raised by George McCrae in Edinburgh which featured many sportsman and representatives for many teams but is famed by the signing up of at least 16 players from Heart of Midlothian.

Jack Cock would have seen action on the Somme (2016) and Arras ( 2017) rising to the rank of Lance Sergeant which would have been almost certainly been a field appointment during that dreadful war. He survived the war as we know going on to play for a number of clubs. Walter Tull was not so lucky returning to France in 1918 just in time for the Germans Spring offensive ( Kaiserschlacht) and was killed in action at Bapaume.

Anybody interested in these footballers pals regiments of the 1st World War read "McCraes Battalion" by Jack Alexander. The 16th at the Somme fought near Contalmaison where there is a Cairn constucted in 2004 from Scottish stone. At Longueval there is another memorial to the footballers battalions in general which was championed by former Hereford United and Huddersfield Town player ( loan) Phil Stant. ( he had served in the SAS so his interest was understandable) To sign for Hereford the club bought him out the army.

[Lord Snooty]

We watched the drama about Walter Tull recently. It was very good.
I say recently, it was probably in November.

[Lord Snooty]

March 28:

Well here's one for our Herefordshire friend. On this date in 2009, we played our last ever match against Hereford United. It was played at Edgar Street, a League One match and Town won 1-0 with a goal from Michael Collins.

This was our centenary season and Lee Clark was in his third month in charge, having taken over when Stan Ternent had been given the boot by incoming chairman Dean Hoyle. We would finish the season in 9th, 8 points off a Play Off place, whilst the Bulls would finish at the bottom after a difficult campaign, the highlights of which were a 5-0 win against Oldham and a 2-0 win at home against the Champions of Europe, Leeds Urinals.

That was the most recent game on this date. The match furthest back in time was also played at a ground that is no longer a Football League ground. It was 1914 and the opponents were Glossop, with the match being played at their North Road ground, another ground that shared with cricket, where Derbyshire CCC sometimes played and still have 2nd XI games there.

They were originally known as Glossop North End, but dropped the North End bit to avoid confusion with another team called North End. And it was against Preston North End that the ground had it's record attendance, for an FA cup match just a few weeks before the Town match on this date. There were just under 11,000 for the Preston game but only 2,000 for the visit of Huddersfield. Anyway Town won 3-0 with Charlie Slade (pictured below) scoring twice, his first Town goals. And Frank Mann got the other.

Town ended the season 13th. Glossop finished 17th, just avoiding having to seek re-election. They finished bottom in the next season and were voted out.

On this date in 1992, we started off an 8 game unbeaten run that took us from outside the Play Off positions into them by the end of the season, finishing 3rd. The opponents for this one were West Bromwich Albion and we beat them 3-0 at Leeds Road with goals from Phil Starbuck, Chris Billy and an own goal from Gary Strodder.

That was an unsuccessful Play Off campaign, but we did have a win in a proper promotion season in 1970. That was down at Fratton Park against Portsmouth and we won this one 3-1. Frank Worthington scored his 16th goal of the campaign, Dick Krzywicki got his 2nd in two games and Roy Ellam got his second of the season.

[WakeyTerrier]

That game at Hereford is not only the only game I've attended on this date but it's the only time I've been to Hereford. Not sure what number it was but it's in the 145 grounds I've been to see a game

[HerefordBull]

2008 / 09 was the last full season that Graham Turner was manager of the Bulls having been there since 1995. He did return on a temporary basis when his replacement was sacked in 2010. Turner had got us back into the football league in 05 /06 and then up to division 1 07 / 08.

Hereford were relegated from div 1 in a league that contained Leeds, Leicester and Brighton..........different times and fortunes for the clubs with United only having about 5 years left as a football club.

In goal for the Bulls that day was a young Hungarian keeper Peter Gulaksi. He was on loan from Liverpool and went on to bigger and better things having been between the sticks for Leipzig since 2015. He has also represented his country on many occasions.
Liverpool must look a t this avenue for goalkeepers as a few years later thay had another young Hungarian on their books.......Adam Bogdan. He was on loan up here at Hibs for a season.


Wakey Terrier would have been in the Blackfriars end that day I presume. They don't use this nowadays ( since the reformation of the club in 2015) with all away fans housed in the Len Weston double tier stand that you can see facing you on the photo.

[Lord Snooty]

March 29:

Yesterday, I mentioned Charlie Slade scoring his first Town goals in a match against Glossop. He was a defender, but on this date in 1920 he played the full match away at Port Vale, in goal. Sandy Mutch the regular goalkeeper had been injured in the morning and a telegram was sent to Edwin Davis to get to the Old Recreation Ground in Hanley as soon as possible. They didn't move into Vale Park until 1950 and this ground had just seen it's record attendance earlier that month for the visit of Stoke.

So Davis never arrived, in the days when there wasn't a subs bench as we have today and so reserves didn't travel in huge numbers. Davis would've been at Leeds Road expecting to play for the reserves in a Central League match that afternoon had it been a Saturday, but this was a Monday afternoon match after we had been in FA Cup semi final action a couple of days earlier. So the question must be, what was young Edwin up to while the rest of the lads were away?

Charlie may have been there as a travelling reserve as Harry Brough kept the number 4 jersey from the previous league match away at Stockport. Well he would've if they had numbers on shirts back then. That wasn't a thing back then, but the introduction of shirt numbers does have a Huddersfield Town connection. Of course, it was Herbert Chapman who first started off that trend, when at Arsenal in 1928.

Anyway, Brough played, Slade was in goal and Billy Smith returned to the side in place of Percy Tompkin on the left wing, who had just played his one and only match for Town. Slade in goal and Brough in his place were the only changes from the cup match though. And credit to Charlie and his fellow defenders for keeping a clean sheet in a 0-0 draw. The sad thing about the goal less result though is that Sammy Taylor didn't get one. After this match, he went on a run of seven consecutive matches where he scored, equaling the club record set by Walter Smith in 1910 in the Midland League, but a new record for Town in the Football League. Add the three previous games to that, Taylor would've done 11 if he'd scored on this date at Port Vale and would still be the record holder with 11 alongside Dave Mangnall who did 11 in 1932.

Not that it matters. Something else that doesn't matter is that this was game 5 of the 14 match unbeaten run to the end of the season, the club record unbeaten run at 2nd tier level that was just broken by Carlos Corberan and his magnificent team with the 17 match unbeaten run.

There. Didn't expect to write so much about a goal less draw. 

So in 1932, the aforementioned Dave Mangnall had just recently set the consecutive scoring record. On this date, he scored a hat trick against Liverpool in a First Division match at Leeds Road. This was on Easter Tuesday, which used to be a Bank Holiday when I started work in the late 70s, so I assume it was then as this was the third game in four days for Town. They had played on Saturday (not on Good Friday) at home to Portsmouth and won 1-0. Then had travelled to Anfield on Easter Monday and won 3-0. And then this one at home on the Tuesday when Dave got his three, added to one from Wilf Bott.

On this date in 1983, our last automatic promotion season, Town started another unbeaten run that would see them go from 5th to 1st in Division Three. The opponents for this match at Leeds Road were Wrexham and we won it 4-1 with goals from Mark Lillis (his 18th of the season), David Cowling, Keith Hanvey and Brian Stanton.

I'll finish today's piece with a defeat. It was at home to Middlesbrough in 1986. A 3-0 defeat on Easter Saturday. What's the significance? Well it was the only day that fitted in with our families and friends for me and Amelia Chaffinch (not her real name ) to get married. The only significant part of the game was that Duncan Shearer, the new signing from Chelsea, came on a sub for his debut.

So 36 years on........