[Lord Snooty]

May 25:

Just an international match to report on today. On this date in 1966, Mick Meagan of Huddersfield Town played for Ireland in a friendly match in Liege against Belgium. The Irish won 3-2.

I don't remember Mick playing for Town, though he was there when I started going. He was a defender and earned 12 caps for his country as a Town player. He had been at Everton before us and won the league title with them in 62/63.

He came to Town in 1964 when he was 30 years old and before he left for Halifax in 1968 he had made 131 appearances.

His name may not be one of the most famous ones in Huddersfield Town history, but he does have a place in the history of his country. That's because he has the distinction of becoming the first Republic of Ireland manager when he was appointed in September 1969. Before this, they used to pick the team by a selection panel.

He picked himself for his first match in charge, against Scotland, but then decided to stop. That was his 17th and final cap.

He had a couple of years in charge, which were far from successful, failing in both the World Cup and European qualifiers.

He will be celebrating his 88th birthday on Sunday, but I reckon I'll have enough to write about on that day, so an early happy birthday, Mick and hope you're celebrating a great victory for your old club.

[Lord Snooty]

May 26:

Town played a league game on this date in 1947. Following a really bad winter, there was a massive back log of fixtures and Wolves came to Leeds Road for the last game of the season. Wolves won 1-0 and finished third from the top behind Liverpool and Man Utd. Town finished third from the bottom, ahead of relegated Brentford and Leeds Urinals. Only two teams went down back then.

This was the latest finish to a season, before the recent Covid lockdown season.

Back in the 1920s, if there had been a European Champions League, we would've been champions of that as well. But seeing as there wasn't, it wasn't until 1970/71 that Huddersfield Town played in a European competition.

It wasn't a proper competition. It wasn't even up to the standard of the new UEFA Europa Conference. It was, the Anglo-Italian Cup. An invitational event, not one to qualify for and was made up of groups consisting of four teams, two from the Football League and two from the Italian League.

The one we played in was played at the end of the 70/71 season, just after Town had finished in 15th place in our first season back in the First Division and we were drawn with Swindon Town (you didn't play the teams from your own country), Sampdoria and Bologna.

So on this date in 1971, we played the first match, at Leeds Road against Sampdoria, who boasted a couple of players who had played in last summer's World Cup in Mexico. They were Luis Suarez of Spain and Italy's Giovanni Lodetti. We had no internationals in out team, but won 2-0 with a crowd just over 10,000 in to see it. Roy Ellam and Steve Smith scored the goals.

The manager of that team was Ian Greaves, who was born on this date in 1932. He, of course, had led Huddersfield Town to the Second Division Championship the year before. But for injury though, he may not have been around to do so. That's because when he played for Manchester United, he missed the trip to Belgrade in 1958 when eight of his team mates were killed in a plane crash in Munich.

In his time at Old Trafford, he won one league title and an FA Cup runners up medal. His managerial reign at Leeds Road began in 1968, taking in that championship, but he wasn't backed by the board adequately and after a couple of relegations, he resigned.

He then went and got Bolton promoted, then Mansfield promoted, as well as winning the FL Trophy.

He died in 2009 aged 76.

There are a couple of England internationals involving Town players from the great and glorious past. The first one came five days after the 5-2 win in Luxembourg and on this date in 1927, Roy Goodall and George Brown played in a 6-0 win away in France. George scored a couple of goals in the game played at the Stade de Colombes.

Then in 1938 on this date, another England win against France at the same ground. Again, two Town players took part, Alf Young and Ken Willingham. This was the third game in the three match European tour that started with the infamous match in Berlin and then a defeat in Switzerland.

England beat the French though, 4-2.

The Stade de Colombes would be the venue for the World Cup final in a few weeks time. The tournament was due to start a week after this match with England. The Football Association were still being pathetic about playing in this tournament, despite being invited to compete without having to qualify.

The French made it to the quarter finals, beaten by eventual winners, Italy. How far would England have gone? And would Goodall and Young have been Huddersfield Town players with World Cup winners medals?

Anything else happening? You betcha! On this date in 2012, this happened.........

........thus making legends of Alex Smithies and Steve Simonsen and ending ten years of lower league obscurity. We were back in the Championship and ten years later, we still haven't dropped back down.

[theo_luddite]

I was giving my Blades supporting former work colleague of many years at many different employers a bit of a ribbing this week about Simonsen.

[Lord Snooty]

May 27:

On this day in 1959, 19 year old Denis Law of Huddersfield Town, earned his 3rd cap for Scotland when he played in a friendly against Holland in the Olympic Stadium in Amsterdam.

He had made his debut in the previous October against Wales, selected by his future Man Utd manager, Matt Busby. He scored on that occasion, at Ninian Park as the Scots won 3-0.

The game on this date was also a victory for Denis and his team mates. They beat the Dutch 2-1, with a future Town manager getting the first goal. That was Bobby Collins, who managed us in the 70s and was playing for Everton at the time. Fulham's Graham Leggett got the other, the winner after they had been one down at half time.

[Lord Snooty]

May 28:

Having been relegated at the end of the 1987/88 season, Town finally ended seven years of 3rd Division football on this date in 1995, by beating Bristol Rovers at Wembley in the Play Off Final.

Under normal circumstances, this would've been the semi final, with Rovers finishing 4th and Town 5th. But the league was under going reconstruction, due to the Premier League trimming down from 22 teams to 20 and so in this season only, there were only two promotion places up for grabs. We had already knocked out the unlucky Brentford, who had finished second and would normally have gone up automatically. Birmingham had gone up as champs, having won at our place on the last day of the season.

The Pirates had beaten Crewe in the semis on the away goals rule and were favourites to win this one, even though we had Neil Warnock in charge, who had won two previous Play Off Finals with Notts County. They had John Ward managing them. His failure in this match was followed by more failure in the next season and he was replaced by Ian Holloway.

Anyway, the first half was a tense affair, with Town taking the lead after a bit of head tennis in the area in the 44th minute, with Andy Booth finishing it off for his 30th goal of the season. So 1-0 to Town at half time. Or was it?

Was it flippin' 'eck as like! Town's players were still celebrating and with their minds on their half time pie n a pint and a quick ciggy and so lost concentration at a Rovers throw in. Up popped future Town legend, Marcus Stewart to level things up. He would sign for Town at the end of the next season, with manager Holloway telling him he would be wasting his talent going to such an awful place and club as Huddersfield.

The winning goal came after 81 minutes, just a minute after super sub Iain Dunn, had come on. It was his precise cross, that was headed back across the box by Boothy, which was met by a diving header from Chris Billy into the back of the net. All pile on!

Rovers hit back immediately and another future Town player, Marcus Browning, forced Steve Francis into a miraculous save to keep us ahead. Then Stewart hit the bar with a rocket of a shot from 30 yards.

They were so unlucky, but what's luck got to do with it when promotion's at stake? We held on and the relief around the stadium as the whistle went was immense. Phew!

Here, have a watch of it all.........

[theo_luddite]

So, it was my worst nightmare. I'd just moved to Canada at Easter and Town get to Wembley. Having seen us lose to Swansea in the Broken Windscreen Trophy I was aching to get back for this one. The plan was hatched to fly back over the pond on Friday or Saturday night, meet up with my mates at Wembley and get the first available flight back - which likely would have been a Monday morning flight at the time, as I don't think there was anything late enough out of Heathrow or Gatwick straight after the match.

Two slight problems, one minor, one major. That weekend was not one that Canada celebrates as a "long weekend", so I'd have been asking for a day off less than a couple of months after arriving. Probably do-able but I wouldn't have got much more than a day off at the time.

The major one was my mum. Now I'd royally pissed her off when I'd moved to Wolverhampton 7 years previous, so you can imagine she was a little less than chuffed with me when I announced at the end of January I'd been offered a job on t'other side o't'pond. There was no way I was going to get away with flying "home" and not popping in to see my mum. Logistically, even trying to get a flight back out of Manchester - just about do-able but being a Bank Holiday, trains and buses were on Sunday timetables and even a 10-15 minute delay or a cancellation would have screwed things up royally. The chances of not being forgiven if I did fly in, stay in London and just see the game - too high to risk and my conscience finally won the day.

So that Sunday morning I was back trying to get Real Player to work its magic again and not fall apart on me. Fortunately it worked and I washed my breakfast down with a bottle (or several) of local ale (none of that Labatts or Molson rubbish). Likely Upper Canada Dark Ale at the time. My mum and her sister came over to visit later that summer and I never said a word about my dream of a missed Wembley weekend to her.

[Amelia Chaffinch]

My dad died the day before the 1995 final. I stayed with my mum.

---

I wasn't going anyway, btw, I was staying close to home by then because it looked like the end was near. My poor dad had been written off by the consultant too weeks before, told he couldn't drive anymore and pretty much had his spirit broken .. not that he said anything ... but you could tell.

[theo_luddite]

Sad times AmChaff. My Uncle had passed away just before I moved to Canada.

[Amelia Chaffinch]

True. My mum and I were still celebrating at home, though, even with our loss. She loved her sport.

[Lord Snooty]

I offered to stop back was told to go and help take Paul's mind off losing his grandad.

When the final whistle went, I just burst into tears. Bawled my eyes out.