[theo_luddite]

Be interesting to get Kirsty Gallagher's take on our transfer dealings so far

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Apart from that the Sports Bra they all wear with the tracking device on their back is supposed to monitor most of that. OK it doesn't show where their toenails, fingernails and armpits are that our dickheads use to make offside decisions but erm, multiplication of bullshit data by any chance?

As I've argued long and hard in industry for far too many years. You can use tech to make things more idiot proof, but sooner or later along comes a better idiot. Train the idiots, or rather those you think are idiots, but often aren't, to do their job better in the first place and use the tech to make them better, not replace them or their decision making process, and you get better results.

Sooner or later the refs are gonna say why do we need to be here?

Rugby League refs went a bit that way when they first introduced it and wouldn't award tries without checking everything, despite have two liners and other folk behind the try line giving the try and it was obviously a try they used to give all day long. Now they look for stuff that happened back on the half-way line they might have missed in the build up rather than whether or not the ball was grounded properly right under their noses. We need to drop the "clear and obvious mistake" bollocks because it's a misnomer anyway.

It's either an obvious foul or it isn't. It's an obvious offside or it isn't. Let the officials on the pitch make the decisions at the time the offence is seen or it happens. If 30,000+ folk are screaming for a foul, you might want to ask them take another look - but not wait for some bloke in Bletchley who might have nipped out for a piss (like with us at Wembley maybe???) to call all the offsides/fouls on their behalf.

[Lord Snooty]

July 5:

It's a happy 19th birthday today to Brahima Diarra, who was born on this date in 2003 in Paris. He joined Town three years ago and has been coming on nicely in that time. I saw him a few times during lockdown when they were showing B team games on You Tube, and I think he looks a good player.

However...... his debut, coming on as a sub for Jaden Brown was poor. That was down at Bournemouth in a 5-0 defeat and even though he was still only 17, he looked out of his depth. Far too early for his first taste of big boys' footy. He also came on as a sub in the Cup defeat to Plymouth, but wasn't on long enough to make a decent contribution.

He had a loan with the Huddersfield Town C team, aka Harrogate Town, at the back end of last season, playing 14 times and scoring once.

Have you seen potential in Brahima and do you think he will come through to our first XI soon? Or are we looking to loan him out again?

This next fella had all the potential to become one of the finest footballers in the world, never mind Huddersfield. On this date in 2016, David Wagner brought in Aaron Mooy on loan from Manchester City, just six days after they had signed him from Melbourne City.

He turned out to be the best thing to come out of Australia since Skippy the Bush Kangaroo and won our Player of the Season award after being a key player in our promotion to the Premier League.

So, apart from the obvious reason (ker-ching), why oh why oh why is he wasting his talent fannying about playing in the Chinese League when he could be back here helping us get back to the Prima Donna League?

Ted Taylor the Town keeper in the Twenties, died on this date in 1956. He was a Thrice Champion with us, though he only played ten games in the middle championship winning season due to having had his leg broken. Although he was born in Liverpool, he must've stayed around here as it was in Golcar where he died, aged 69.

He was only 5' 8" tall, but was the best in the business, in an era when goalkeepers were still getting battered by centre forwards if they held on to the ball too long. As such, he became the England goalkeeper, winning 8 caps in his time with the Town, the first of which was at the age of 35 against Ireland in 1922. He kept a clean sheet in a 2-0 win at the Hawthorns.

The selectors were having trouble deciding who's the best keeper, having given debuts to goalies from The Wednesday and Burnley in the previous two matches, but Ted kept hold of the gloves for the next match, a 2-2 draw against the Welsh at Ninian Park in the British Championships. That was followed by a 6-1 friendly match victory over Belgium at Highbury, in which he was joined by Town team mate, Sam Wadsworth. They both played in the next game, a 2-2 draw at Hampden Park, with future Town striker Bob Kelly of Burnley scoring one of the England goals.

Ted was left out of the post season mini tour to Sweden, but was back between the sticks for the Home Internationals again for a 2-1 defeat at Windsor Park against the Irish. That was his first defeat in the England shirt. He was dropped!

He was back soon though after the selectors eventually realised their mistake, bringing him back for the first ever England international at the new Wembley Stadium. And he's been credited with the first goal in an international there, in his own net, when a shot from Billy Cowan of Dundee hit the post and rebounded in off the unfortunate goalie. Villa's Billy Walker equalised in the second half as the game ended 1-1.

His next England cap came just after he had helped Town win the first of our hat trick of Football League titles, in a trip across the Channel to Paris. Vivian Gibbons of Clapton Orient scored twice in that game as the French were beaten 3-1.

Ted was out of the team for a couple of years then though after breaking his leg and his 8th and final cap came in April 1926, just five days after playing in the 3-0 win against Bolton that confirmed the third successive title. He was joined in the game, played at Old Trafford against Scotland, by Roy Goodall. Unfortunately for Ted and Roy, their Town team mate Alex Jackson was in the Scottish line up and it was he who scored the only goal of the game.

That was the end of Ted's international career at the age of 39 and the end of his Town career as well. But not the end of his medal haul. He went to Everton and won the League title with them in 27/28, before finishing off his career with Wrexham.

[Lord Snooty]

July 6:

Harry Raw was born on this date in 1903, in Tow Law in County Durham. Not the most famous of names to have played for Huddersfield Town, but he was signed by Herbert Chapman in 1925 and played as an attacker for Town over the next six years.

His debut came in a remarkable turn around of fortunes. A week before, Town had been stuffed 4-0 at Maine Road by Man City in the FA Cup 4th round, in front of 74,799 spectators. George Hicks scored two of the City goals, having come back into the team after injuring himself somersaulting in celebration at scoring in the previous round. They went all the way to the Final that year, losing to Bolton Wanderers.

So a week later, Town had a league match at the same place. Such was the importance of the FA Cup back then that the crowd for the league game, despite having just beaten the current league champions, was half the size. Only 36,645 for this one.

Harry came into the side for his debut, one of two debutants in the team. Harry came in for Clem Stephenson and George Hobson was the other one making his first start for Town, replacing Harry Cawthorne.

So having been hammered last week, the pummeling was reversed. Town ran out 5-1 winners, with George Brown scoring a hat trick, Roy Goodall scoring a penalty and Billy Smith tagging on a 5th.

That win took Town back to the top of the First Division and Harry kept his place for the next week's trip to Blackburn, which ended in a defeat. Clem came back for the next game and so Harry was back with the reserves for the rest of that season, which Town won to complete the Thrice Champions.

He had three games in the next season, replacing Alex Jackson, who was away playing for Scotland, as Town drew 0-0 at home to Everton. Then he had another couple of games standing in for Clem. The first was a 1-0 win at home to Liverpool in front of another strangely low crowd. Only six thousand turning up for that one. Then he kept his place for a 2-0 win down at Highbury against what was now being called Herbert Chapman's Arsenal.

Harry played ten games in the next season, starting off the new campaign in the side in place of the ageing Clem. This was against Newcastle at Leeds Road, the team who had pipped us for the title. It wasn't the best start, losing 3-1 and so Harry was out for the next game.....again.

He did finally get a run of games though later on, including playing in three successive victories over Christmas. Those were a Christmas/Boxing Day double over Sheffield Wednesday and a magnificent revenge victory over Newcastle up at Sid James' Park.

He scored his first Town goal as well in this season, 1927/28. A famous match in Town's history. Not that this match at Gigg Lane against Bury was particularly famous, but another match on the same day was. It was the 31st of March 1928, the day that Huddersfield Town had five players playing at Wembley in the England v Scotland match, in a time long before international breaks when league games were still played at the same time.

Those missing five players were, Roy Goodall the England captain, Tom Wilson, who was Town captain but not England's, Billy Smith and Bob Kelly and Alex Jackson, who scored a hat trick for the Scots. They weren't the only players missing from the Town line up though as George Brown, Levi Redfern, Sam Wadsworth and Clem Stephenson were also left out in nine team changes from the previous game, which was the FA Cup semi final replay against Sheffield United. That had been drawn and so the second replay was due on the Monday, two days later. So obviously Jack Chaplin was doing a bit of squad rotation, trying to keep the rest of the first choice XI fresh. Only Tommy Meads and Billy Mercer the keeper kept their places aginst a Bury side who ended the season in 5th place in Division One.

So how did the Town reserves get on in the first team? They only went and won it 3-2. Johnny Dent, who was more of a regular starter got one of the goals, as did George Wilson, scoring in his one and only Town First XI game. And so did Harry Raw.

The missing players came back in as Town beat the Blades 1-0 at Maine Road, but then lost to Blackburn in the Final. And as the backlog caught up with the players, Harry got more game time and his second Town goal in a 2-1 win at Filbert Street against Leicester City.

He scored his third Town goal early in 28/29, netting in a 4-1 win at home to Bolton. Then came a lengthy run out. Clem was finally coming to the end of his playing career and so Harry played the last 12 games of the season, including his FA Cup debut, beating West Brom in a 6th round replay at Leeds Road. He was on the score sheet again in league matches against Everton, Blackburn and Liverpool.

So with Clem retiring, he took the manager's job and gave Harry, his old deputy loads of game time. He scored five goals, two of them again in another win at Filbert Street. He also had a big hand in the Cup run, all the way to the Final, where he won himself a runners up medal as Town were beaten by Arsenal, sorry Herbert Chapman's Arsenal.

That was his big season at Town and then after nine more games, he was transferred to WBA, from where his career seems to have halted. No records on Wikipedia about his time there. Nothing. not a sausage. Zip. Bugger all!

Not even whether he's still alive or not. Though at 119 years old today, I think we know the answer to that. Anyway, he must've stuck around these parts because a work colleague of mine said he lived on his road in Birkenshaw in the 80s. Might've been him or maybe his son. It's a long time since he came in and asked if I'd ever heard of him.

Talking of relatives, one of them has inherited Harry's collection of Town memorabilia and kindly allowed the Huddersfield Town Collection to post loads of photos on their website. Have a click and have a look.

And they've filled in a bit of the stuff missing from Wikipedia, including where he went after West Brom.....

“… although he had spells at West Brom and Lincoln until 1937, he always regarded Town as his big love and stayed close to Billy, Tommy Wilson, Roy Goodall, and Marshall ‘Bon’ Spence. He even wore the badge from his Cup Final shirt on a blazer when he managed Crook Town in the 1940’s. Harry ended up at the steel works latterly – can’t imagine premier league guys doing that now. Stayed involved with Tow Law Town all his life – his son-in-law is still involved there now.”

[talkSAFT]

Brilliant stuff, Snooty. (Do you get all this from your diaries?)

[Lord Snooty]

Oh yes. 

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Do you remember him playing at West Brom?

[Lord Snooty]

July 7:

On this date in 2002, former Town and Man Utd goalkeeper, Ray Wood died in Bexhill-on-Sea, aged 71. I wrote about him earlier in the year on the date of his birth. Here's his obituary in the Guardian if you fancy a read......

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2002/ju...s.football

On this date in 2020, the post lockdown matches were now in full flow and kick off times were getting more random. Today's was a trip to Reading for the players, kicking off at six o'clock, while we all sat at home wishing we could be there. But all the same, thankful that we had i-player to watch it on.

It was another highly unmemorable game, slightly better than the previous one against PNE, but still a boring scoreless draw. Not that a point and a clean sheet was owt to be miserable about though. It moved us up to 18th on 47 points with four games left to play. And with bottom club Luton Town coming to the JSS for the next game, the target should be achieved sooner rather than later.    

Three clean sheets in a row was the big positive, but really Michael Olise should have won it for the Biscuitmen in the last minute but shot straight at Jonas Lossl with the last kick of the game.

Here's what Danny Cowley had to say......

"I thought it was a really good performance, it was a game where we had much more energy than we showed on Saturday, much more attacking intent.

"We didn't perhaps get full value for the performance or make the most of the chances we did create. We just lacked that little ruthless edge.

"But to keep three consecutive clean sheets at this stage of the season in these circumstances is great credit to the efforts of everyone. I thought defensively we were terrific against a Reading side, who looked very dangerous against Luton on Saturday.

"We're in touching distance of the 50 points target, but we don't quite know if that's going to be enough. We're very focused on the remaining four games and they're coming thick and fast."

[Lord Snooty]

July 8:

Tommy Smith had gone to Stoke. Flo Hadergjonaj was on big money and so would be going soon. Only Demeaco Duhaney would be left as a recognised right back if Head Coach Jan Siewert didn't act fast to fill this problem position. And so it came to pass that on this date in 2019, all our prayers were answered when in through Canalside's door walked, errm........

Herbert Bockhorn!

Jan signed him from his old Borussia Dortmund reserves team and by the glowing report he was given it sounded like we should've took him on in the Premier League and maybe we could still be in there.

His first job was to get on the plane with his new team mates and jet out to Austria for the pre season training camp, where he was straight into the action in a game against Greuther Fürth. Not one, but two games against the same opposition on the same day as Town drew 1-1 and then won 1-0 with Karlan Grant getting both goals. But the obvious presence of Herbie in the side must've been what swung the matches back in our favour.

Herb played the second half of the next game as part of a strong defensive unit that kept a clean sheet against Hamburger SV, with him beefing up the right hand side, as Town won 1-0 with an Adama Diakhaby goal. Really?

So back home then and Herbert played the full 90 minutes of the friendly with French First Division side Montpellier HSC, setting Flo up for a late winner, which he fluffed and the game ended 1-1 with Karlan scoring again.

And so the new season started, our first back in the Championship after two years at the top. The first two games, home to Derby and QPR away, disappointingly had Flo in at right back and Herbie only as a non playing sub. Come on, Jan. We want to see Bockers!

Fair enough, we didn't have long to wait. The following Tuesday, Danny Cowley was bringing his Lincoln City side to the John Smith's for a League Cup tie and the buzz soon went around the town as the team news was announced and the name of Herbert Bockhorn was there.

What the actual feck was that?!        

It was a poor team performance but who the bloody hell was that at right back?

Jan didn't last much longer after the team were booed off, with reports later saying he was sacked on this night, but he was definitely sacked after the home defeat to Fulham on the Friday night. Sadly for poor Herbert, the bloke to replace Jan was the Lincoln boss who had just witnessed one of the worst performances in blue n white history, so we never saw his face again.

What do you think then? Should he have had another chance? Was he the worst ever one game only player for the club? I can think of a couple possibly worse, which names can you come up with?

[Lord Snooty]

July 9:

On this date in 2019, after having him on loan for the previous season, Town signed Isaac Mbenza on a permanent deal for £8m. That's eight million pounds! For a player who was absolutely bloody rubbish!

He did get better this season, his free kicks in particular and he was a much better player than Adama Diakhaby, but come on.....

Eight million pounds?

That's all I've got today. Yesterday I asked if Herbert Bockhorn was the worst one game player we'd ever had. Today's question is, who was worse, Mbenza or Diakhaby?o

[Lord Snooty]

July 10:

Jack Swann was born on this date in 1893, in Easington, County Durham.

He signed for Town in October 1919, just as the financial crisis was kicking in. He was taken on as a replacement for Jack Cock, who had been sold to Chelsea as part of the plans to recover from debt. His old club was Seaham Colliery and at 26 years old, this was his first venture into the Football League. Having played for the pit team, one would imagine he spent his war years deep down, cutting coal from a seam. That's just what I reckon though. Nothing to back that up.

He made his Town debut in a 2-2 draw down at Fulham. Sammy Taylor scored one of the goals, with the other coming from an own goal scored by Alex Chaplin, the brother of future Town manager, Jack Chaplin. He played every game after that in the season that ended with promotion and a first ever FA Cup Final, forming a formidable attacking line up with Taylor, George Richardson, Frank Mann and Billy Smith.

Jack scored his first Town goals, two of them, in a 5-0 win at home to Coventry, during a time when the crisis off the field was reaching it's lowest point. Leeds had just put their bid into the league to do an "MK Dons" on us, but on the field, that win moved us up to 5th in the Second Division.

He netted 19 times in that league campaign, including hat tricks against Rotherham County and Port Vale. He also scored in the Cup run, one of them in the 2-1 win at home to Liverpool which gave us the new attendance record at the time of 47,527.

In the next season, the first ever First Division season for the club, he scored 8 from 26 games, including two in a 5-2 demolition of Man Utd and two in a 2-0 win over Spurs. But then in October of the next season, he was sold to our new neighbouring team, lowly Leeds Urinals of the Second Division. That move came after he had scored 36 goals in 74 games for the Town.

He bagged a boatload in Beeston as well, scoring 47 in 108 matches in the blue n white striped shirts that they stole (yes they stole the actual kit) from us, helping them win promotion to the First Division in 1924. He scored 18 goals in that season as the BellEnders won the title.

In the next season, Huddersfield Town traveled to Bellend Road for the first time since all the kerfuffle in 1919 and the formation of the new Leeds club. A crowd of 41,800 came out to see the Town, newly crowned champions of England and top of the league again. The game was drawn 1-1, with Billy Smith getting ours. It was Jack Swann who got theirs.

Anyway, after four years there, he moved on to Watford and then QPR. Don't know what he did after retiring, but he did turn up as Guest of Honour for the Centenary FA Cup Final in 1972 as the oldest surviving player who had played in a Cup Final.

And he just kept going, living until 1990 when he died aged 97.

Here he is in one of those stolen Town shirts masquerading as a Leeds Utd shirt.

On this date in 2020, we had another dire performance for Town in the Covid lockdown games. This was the sixth of the remaining games to be played after the league started up again and it was Luton Town who were the visitors to the John McAlpharm Stadium.

This was the third game in a row that we didn't score, following the surprise 3-0 win at Birmingham. We followed that with nil nils against Preston and Reading. This was just getting worse. Goals from Sonny Bradley and Elliot Lee gave the points to the Hatters, who started the day on the bottom of the table.

The result moved Luton above Barnsley and only three points off Town in 19th. With only three games to go, it was pick any three from us, Luton, Barnsley, Hull, Charlton, Boro and Stoke to go down. Not many points between us. Which three would make the drop?

Next for Town is a midweek trip to Hillsborough. A must win game because the one after that will be 2nd placed West Brom coming to ours.

[talkSAFT]

"......in the blue n white striped shirts that they stole (yes they stole the actual kit) from us,"

I just rang the Police, and they've asked for your REAL name so they can follow this up. Please contact WYP.