[Lord Snooty]

May 29:

There's a lot to cover today, so I'll cover it in date order......

The boss, Mick Buxton was born on this date in Sunderland in 1943 and so is celebrating his 79th birthday today. He is still regarded by many fans as the best manager we've ever had, well in living memory anyway, don't think many of us saw Herbert Chapman and his merry men. Anyway, he started his career at Burnley in the early 60s, at a time when they had a team at the top of the Football League and winning trophies and reaching Cup Finals. He was a full back, but because of the strength of the first team, he was mainly a reserve player, so by the time he left for Halifax Town in 1968, he had only 19 first team appearances.

His time at Halifax wasn't great and he broke his leg twice, but he did help the Shaymen get promoted to the 3rd division in his first season there. He was forced to retire through injury at the age of 28 and was offered a coaching role at the Shay. He coached also at Watford, Mansfield, Barnsley and Southend and luckily for us, he never really settled that far down south. He'd kept on his Barnsley home, which as far as I know, he still has, and so when Tom Johnston offered him a job at Huddersfield, he jumped at the chance.

His first impression of the set up at Leeds Road wasn't good and so when Tom retired soon after, Mick set about a new regime, sweeping away the bad influences. One of them being a former player who I know, who said he thought Buxton treated him unfairly by not giving him a chance, but ultimately, it worked.

Form turned around immediately and we went from our lowest ever placing of 91st out of 92 clubs when he was given the caretaker role, to the 4th Division Champions within 18 months. It wasn't just the success though, it was the style of play. Even though it was the 4th division, the exciting attacking football was a joy to watch and the fact that the team scored 101 league goals in 79/80 shows what a great side it was.

The next season almost saw another promotion, finishing 4th when only the top 3 went up. The following season was a bit of an anti climax, but that wasn't the case in the next season when Buxton's Boys won promotion to the 2nd division, in what was the last time Town won automatic promotion.

He left in 1986, harshly sacked after a poor first half of the season. But he came back again in the 90s as assistant to Ian Ross, after he'd been manager at Scunthorpe. It wasn't a long stay as he and Ross resigned to be replaced by Neil Warnock. Mick then ended up managing Sunderland at Roker Park in the 2nd division, before going back to Scunthorpe.

By the time Mick left Leeds Road, he was the second longest serving manager in the club's history, second only to Clem Stephenson. He had 438 matches in charge of Town, winning 178 of them.

Another birthday today is for the heroic goalkeeper from yesterday's match. That was Steve Francis, the 1995 Play Off winning keeper, who was born in Blillericay on this date in 1964 and is 58 today.

He played 227 games for us, after starting out with Chelsea and then Reading. One of the games he played for Chelsea was the Full Members Cup Final in 1986 against Man City. That was the one when Mark Lillis put four goals past him, but still ended up losing as Chelsea won 5-4.

Obviously the 1995 Play Offs were the highlight of his Town career, but it was his old team mate, Peter Jackson who decided it was time to replace him. And what a replacement he got in Nico Vaesen.

After us, he had a brief spell as a Cobbler in Northampton, before retiring.

Three days after playing and winning our first Anglo-Italian Cup match against Sampdoria, on this date in 1971, we played Bologna at Leeds Road. We beat Sampdoria, but this match didn't go as well, being beaten 3-2.

A crowd of 9,707 came to the old stadium to see this and Town were unchanged, but were losing 1-0 at half time. Trevor Cherry scored Town's first and David Smith, who hadn't played in any of the league games in the season just finished, scored late on and as you can see on this caption from the Huddersfield Town Collection, it was just a consolation.

Next week, we travel to Italy for the return fixtures.

Next up on this date is 2011. We lost the Play Off Final 3-0 at Old Trafford against Peterborough and a lot of Town fans let the side down with their post match behaviour.


So let's move on, because on this day in 2017, late in May, Schindler scored, it was a Heffing dream.

I refer of course to the Championship Play Off Final, five years to the day before we go again today. It was a pretty drab game for 120 minutes, but then with the crowd singing "Don't Worry 'Bout A Thing", we got a penalty shoot out.

You all know what happened and none of us heard the immortal line at the time, unless you were watching on Sky. I've heard it a million times since though.

"Christopher Schindler........ has the chance....... to write his name...... in Huddersfield Town legend..........

AND HE TAKES THAT CHANCE!"

Enjoy the game today and let's hope we're all celebrating again like we did five years ago.

COME ON TOWN!

[HerefordBull]

Aye , good luck to the Terriers today.

[Lord Snooty]

May 30:

On this day in 1964, Ray Wilson of 2nd Division Huddersfield Town, played on one of the world's iconic stages, the Estádio do Maracanã, Rio de Janeiro.

Sadly, he had already played his last game for Town, a 3-2 home win against Scunny. That's because in a few weeks time he would be sold to Everton. But for now he's a Town player, representing England in a mini tournament involving Brazil the hosts, Argentina and Portugal.

This was the 28th of the 30 caps he gained as a a Town player, he went on to total 63, but this one, against Brazil, didn't go very well. England had Bobby Moore as captain, Bobby Charlton and Jimmy Greaves in the team. But Brazil had Pele, Rinaldo, Carlos Alberto, Gerson and Roberto Dias to name just a few of the stars in their line up.

It was 1-0 to the home team at half time, but then Greavsie equalised just after the break to give the Three Lions a bit of hope. That hope was soon snuffed out though with Rinaldo getting his second. Pele than made it three and Júlio Botelho made it four before Dias completed the scoring to finish off the game at 5-1 to Brazil.

They were favourites to win the World Cup in a couple of years time in England. We'll see about that. 

[HerefordBull]

sorry Terrier fans........probably jinxed you yesterday by wishing you luck ............should have wished Forest luck.

[Lord Snooty]

May 31:

Another Play Off Final. Another penalty shoot out!

This one was the one played on this date in 2004, at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff against Mansfield Town. It was played there due to Wembley being rebuilt and we got there by beating Lincoln City in the semi finals and Mansfield got there by beating Northampton Town.

The Stags, managed by Keith Curle, had finished in 5th place, a place and a point behind the Terriers and had had to go through a penalty shoot out to see off the Cobblers. They scored all five of their spot kicks, so would definitely be confident should this one go the distance.

Another thing to give Mansfield the edge was the fact that they had us well beaten in the league, just a couple of weeks before the end of the season, when Junior Mendes ran our defence ragged.

It was the first of our dreary goal less finals, but Mansfield almost won it in the 90th minute. Never mind Mansfield, we all thought they had won it as well. It looked a perfectly legitimate goal, but the liner, thankfully, had his flag up. Why? No way was it offside. It wasn't til much later that we found out the reason. Turned out that the original cross had swung out of play before being struck into the net. Phew!

So penalties it was then and up first was the hero of the semi final, Rob Edwards. No problem. Then first for Mansfield, who remember, had scored all five in their previous shoot out, was taken by Wayne Corden. Saved by Paul Rachubka!

Next up, Danny Schofield. Two nil to Town. That brought Liam Lawrence to the spot. He was their regular penalty taker and had scored all twelve of the penalties he'd taken this season. No way was he going to miss, but miss he did.

He didn't just miss, he tried to Panenka it and the ball landed on the roof of the net. 

So up stepped Tony Carrs and made it 3-0 to us, before Neil MacKenzie finally got the Stags up and running. Which meant that if Town scored the next one, we would be promoted.

When I saw Lee Fowler walking up with the ball in his hands, I feared the worst. For some reason that I can't remember why now, I just thought he was going to miss, but he didn't. He sent the keeper the wrong way and we had won with only four penalties taken. Manager Peter Jackson later revealed that Steve Yates was next in line, but thankfully, he wasn't needed.

The celebrations began, but skipper Efe Sodje wasn't there to lift the trophy. He was in the back of an ambulance after sustaining a serious head injury in extra time, leaving the team to finish the match with ten men. So it was a joint effort between Andy Booth and Jacko to lift the cup and bring it back to Huddersfield.

On this date in 1962, the World Cup in Chile had started and Ray Wilson of 2nd Division Huddersfield Town was in the England team that played against Hungary in the first group match at the Estadio El Teniente-Codelco in Rancagua.

England had been drawn in the same group as Argentina and Bulgaria and the Argies had won their encounter the day before on the same ground. It was Hungary who won this won though. Lajos Tichy, the most prolific goal scorer of all time (according to his Wiki page), scored first.

Ron Flowers of Wolves equalised with a penalty, but the Hungarians won the match 2-1 when Flórián Albert snatched the winner late on.

Ray is second from the right on the back row. How many more can you name?

[HerefordBull]

Have a tenuous link with Keith Curle!

In 1993 Hereford United drew Wimbledon in the League Cup at Edgar Street and on the way to the ground this "posh" car drew up and it was Curle who shouted over to us where the ground was. Having given him the directions he drove off and we later found out he had been doing a bit of punditry for the TV as he had played for Wimbledon prior to his move to Manchester City.

[talkSAFT]

I've got all bar backrow 3rd right and frontrow 2nd left. If you showed me a similar photo of today's England team..........I'd struggle!
(f****g old git!)

[Lord Snooty]

I'll post the line up later tonight.

[HerefordBull]

Think front row second left looks like the Liverpool player, Roger Hunt??

[Lord Snooty]

Think front row second left looks like the Liverpool player, Roger Hunt??

Correct.