[Lord Snooty]

July 11:

When Denis Law first came to Huddersfield as a short, speccy, squint eyed sixteen year old in 1956, he got a bit homesick. So his manager, Andy Beattie went back up to Aberdeen and brought his best pal down to keep him company. That best pal was Gordon Low and he was born on this date in 1940, making him 82 today. He's five months younger than the Lawman.

Gordon made his Town debut on Christmas Day 1957 in a 1-0 home win over Middlesbrough. This was the next game after the famous 7-6 defeat at Charlton. He played five games that season, scoring one goal in a 1-1 draw down at Bristol Rovers.

Both of them established themselves in the first team over the next couple of seasons, but while Denis went on to become the best footballer in the world ever, Gordon went to Bristol City. He played over 200 games for them before returning north to play for Stockport and then Crewe.

[Lord Snooty]

July 12:

Born on this date in Aldridge in the borough of Walsall, in 1965 was our skipper for the 1995 Play Off Final, Lee Sinnott. He's 57 today.

He started his career with Walsall, making his debut in the Third Division in 81/82. But then he was bought by Watford by Graham Taylor. They were one of the best teams in the land back then, not the manager sacking yo-yo club they are today and as such, they reached the FA Cup Final in 1984.

Lee was still only 18 years old, playing alongside footballing legends like John Barnes, Kenny Jackett and Nigel Callaghan, but he came away with a runners up medal as the Hornets were beaten 2-0 by Everton.

His career then took a serious nose dive though, when he was transferred to Billy Bantam's Circus at the Manningham Tip. They made the Play Offs in his first season there, but got beaten by the Boro and in the next season, they got relegated. Lee didn't go down though. He went up. Bought by First Division Crystal Palace.

That didn't last long though and so Frank Stapleton, who had left Town to go and manage at the Tip, brought Sinbad back to Bradford. That didn't last long either. Stapleton got sacked and so Neil Warnock stepped in to sign Lee and his team mate Lee Duxbury for Town, to join Paul Reid, who had also vacated Valley Parade in the summer.

They were obviously relieved to get away from the Dump as they were all inspirational in the first season with us, culminating with Sinners lifting the Play Off trophy at Wembley, lifting it over his head and dropping the top bit off, landing on his head and bouncing off all the way down the famous 39 steps to the bottom.

He captained the club for the next couple of seasons back in the 2nd tier but then was released by Brian Horton. That went down well. We started the next season so badly that Horton got the boot and we were well adrift at the foot of the table needing a great escape.

Lee went to Oldham, then back to Manningham and then finished off his playing career at the seaside with Scarborough.

He then had a go at management, mostly in non league, but he did manage Port Vale for a bit. When he was manager of Altrincham, he signed his son, Jordan Sinnott on loan from Town and then signed him on a permanent deal when we released him.

[Lord Snooty]

July 13:

The year is 1926. Huddersfield Town have just won the Football League for a third time in a row and on this date, unto Mr and Mrs Billy Smith, a son is born. That son they called Conway Smith and he followed in dad's footsteps and became a professional footballer. Not just any old footballer, a Huddersfield Town footballer.

He made his Town debut in 1947/48 as a 21 year old inside forward, taking the place of Jimmy Glazzard in a trip to Villa Park. He played three games that season and another sixteen in the next one, scoring four goals. His first goal came at Charlton. The second came at the same place that he made his debut, in a 3-3 draw against Aston Villa. He then followed that by scoring in the next game, a 2-0 win at home to Sunderland, his first Leeds Road goal.

He broke his leg in 1949 and so his Town career stuttered to a halt and his last Town goal was scored at Leeds Road in August 1950 in a 3-1 win against Stoke City. But then in 1951, tragedy struck. He was transferred to QPR. That wasn't the tragedy though. Barely a month after moving down south, his dad, the Town legend and record appearance holder, died of cancer aged 55.

The young un kept on going though and became a top goalscorer himself. He was the Hoops' top scorer for five seasons running. He scored 81 times for them before moving back north to play for Halifax Town where he just kept on scoring goals.

Billy had scored 126 goals for Town. Conway only got five, but add on his QPR and Halifax goals and that takes his career total to 159. They were the first ever father and son to score one hundred plus goals in the Football League.

He hung his boots up in 1962 and died in 1989, aged 63.

Here's young Conway in the 48/49 season for Town on the front row, second from the right, between Eddie Boot and Vic Metcalfe.

The goalkeeper in that picture is Harry Mills, but that season saw the debut in goal of Jack Wheeler. Jack was born on this date in 1919 and would go on to be the regular keeper over the next few seasons. He was born in Evesham, Worcestershire.

He of course, was the keeper in the famous unchanged defensive line up that played every game of the 52/53 promotion season, alongside Ron Staniforth, Laurie Kelly, Bill McGarry, Don McEvoy and Len Quested.

After he left Town, he finished up his playing career at Kettering, but then spent loads of years at Notts County. Long enough to be considered worthy enough of having a statue at Meadow Lane. He was there from 1957 to 1983, never missing a first team match. He was trainer, coach, scout and had a spell as caretaker manager before Jimmy Sirrel got the job.

Sirrel was manager for 28 years (with a two year spell away at Sheff Utd in between) and the two of them, Jack on the right, are sat together as a statue outside the ground. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-no...e-36215574

Jack died in 2009 in Nottingham, aged 89.

So the question today is, which Town player or players or manager or chairman or supporter would you want immortalised as a statue at the John McAlpharm Stadium?

[SHEP_HTAFC]

I would have all the players who have won all 3 titles as statues. There can't be that many of them. I'm sure Snoots has the answer.
So not even Herbert Chapman who was manager of 2 of those teams and started that legacy for the club. Besides, Arsenal think he's theirs anyway, and they've got a bust of him.

[Lord Snooty]

I think we should have one similar to that Notts County one with Grayson and Hoyle at Wembley pretending not to watch the penalty shoot out.

[Lord Snooty]

July 14:

Another game, another blank! On this date in 2020, Town played another of the post lockdown matches. And failed to score again.

This one was away at Sheffield Wednesday, just a few days after their legendary manager Jack Charlton had died and so the game had a minute's silence before kick off. Well the entire match had a 90 minutes of silence as there was nobody there and not much to shout about anyway.

Jonas Lossl was the man of the match, but Town should've won it late on when Fraizer Campbell fluffed the easiest of all chances to give us all three points. We had to settle for one though and it moved us onto 48 points, three above the drop zone.

The bottom five positions were unchanged after the latest round of games, but Hull look like they could be doomed. They lost 8-0 at Wigan, who moved onto 57 points and definitely won't be getting relegated............

Today's birthday is that of young James Vaughan. It's absolutely donkey's years since he became the youngest ever scorer in the Premier League, which is why you may think he's older than he actually is. He was born in 1988 and is only 34 today.

That goal was scored when he was 16 years and 271 days old in 2005, against Crystal Palace, beating James Milner for the youngest PL scorer and Wayne Rooney for the youngest Everton scorer.

He had seven seasons at Goodison, with loans out at Derby, Leicester and Palace, but it was from Norwich that he first came on loan to us in 2012. It was a season long loan, scoring his first Town goal down at Ipswich, which went down well as a Norwich City employee. The locals had the last laugh though as Vaughaney went and missed a penalty.

He finished that season as our top scorer. One of those goals was a classic winner at Bellend Road against the Leeds Urinals and he then came back to sign a permanent deal in the summer. He top scored again, including a hat trick in a 5-1 hammering of Bournemouth.

After playing for us, he went around the lower leagues for a bit, never really hitting the back of the net too regularly and last season, he decided to pack in.

On this date in 1993, Town's manager Ian Ross walked out. Letters were written to the Examiner. Friends discussed things amongst each other in the pub. Questions were raised in works canteens. Piss taking articles were written in Hanging On The Telephone. In other words, social media went into meltdown!  

Can you imagine what the social media would be like if a Town manager walked out nowadays?

Anyway, it turned out that Ross had gone to be assistant to Mick Buxton at Sunderland, a role reversal of the season that had just finished, with the Great Buxtonio coming back to assist Rossy in Town's relegation battle, a relegation battle coming on the back of a failed Play Off campaign.

Can you imagine what the social media would be like if a Town team ended up in a relegation battle after a failed Play Off campaign nowadays?

So who's free and who do we fancy to take over? Ron Atkinson? George Graham? Ian Porterfield? Steve Coppell? Examiner says, expect somebody in place tomorrow. Oooooh!

[Lord Snooty]

July 15:

So less than 24 hours after Ian Ross walked out, the club appointed boring, long ball style manager Neil Warnock as the new manager on this date in 1993. To say I was underwhelmed when I rushed out to the newsagents to buy the Unexamined to see this startling news, is an understatement.

What's he ever done? Got unfashionable Scarborough into the Football League. Got unfashionable Notts County promoted to the top teir of English football. We're not Scarborough. We're not Notts bloody County. We're Huddersfield Town. The first ever Thrice Champions. Why are we taking on rubbish like this?

Mark my words, this will be a disastrous appointment. I'll give him six games before the Board get rid of him.

[Lord Snooty]

July 16:

Two Town team mates of the 1930s team shared a birthday, five years apart. Reg Mountford was born on this date in 1908 and Pat Beasley was born five years later in 1913.

Reg was born in Darlington and played full back for his home town team before Clem Stephenson brought him to Leeds Road in 1929. He didn't make the team for the 1930 FA Cup Final, but he was still playing for Town and Clem when we made another Final eight years later and so did play at Wembley in the 1938 Final against Preston.

Pat had joined by this time and he also played in the '38 Final. He was born in Stourbridge and had had six years as an Arsenal left winger when he joined Town in 1936. He was only 17 when Herbert Chapman signed him for the Gunners and won two League titles with them. However, he was out of the team that won the 1936 FA Cup against Sheffield United and signed for Town early in the next season.

He scored the first goal of the semi final victory over Sunderland at Ewood Park that got our brave boys to Wembley, but like many other Town legends before and after him, he didn't score at the national stadium.

He scored another big Cup goal in the following season when Town played Blackburn Rovers in the 6th round, also at Ewood Park. The two teams had drawn 1-1 at Leeds Road and so the replay was also at 1-1 when Pat popped home the winner. Unfortunately we lost the semi final against Portsmouth.

Shortly after that semi final disappointment, Pat gained his one and only England cap when he was selected to play against Scotland at Hampden Park in the Home Championships. His Town team mate Ken Willingham was also in that team, as were famous names like Stanley Matthews, Stan Cullis, Tommy Lawton and Joe Mercer. The Scots had Preston's Bill Shankly and Jimmy Dougal and it was the latter who opened the scoring. Pat scored in the second half, joining a list of one cap wonders who had scored and not been selected again. Lawton got a late winner for the English. Pat did get another couple of unofficial caps during the war. As did Reg. Well actually Reg only once. His only game for the national side was in 1941 against Scotland at Sid James' Park.

Reg had played 255 times for Town, scoring seven goals, but retired after the war. Pat also never returned to League action for Town after the war, though he did turn out for us and Arsenal during the Wartime Leagues. Pat joined Fulham in 1946 after 123 games for Town and 27 goals, whereas Reg went to Denmark.

He managed Boldklubben Frem in Copenhagen and then managed the Danish Olympic Squad in the 1948 London Olympics. They beat Egypt at Selhurst Park, Italy at Highbury, but then lost to Sweden in the semis at Wembley. They did come back to win the Bronze medal though, again at Wembley, beating Great Britain this time 5-3. The manager of Great Britain was the legendary Matt Busby, so one up there for our Reg. Did he win a Bronze medal himself? Don't know. Doubt it though. They didn't hand out medals willy nilly back then.

Pat's playing career continued and he was at Fulham when they won the 2nd Division title in 48/49. He then became player/manager of Bristol City in 1950, finally hanging up his boots in '52. He stayed on as manager though, winning Division Three (South) in 54/55.

In 1958, he became joint manager of Birmingham City, alongside Arthur Turner, before taking full control. In that year, the Brummies qualified for the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, an early European competition which was later superseded by the UEFA Cup and now the Europa League. They beat Cologne, Zagreb and Union Saint-Gilloise of Belgium, before playing Barcelona in the Final.

They drew the first leg 0-0 at St Andrews, but then got walloped 4-1 at the Camp Nou. Harold Hooper got the consolation goal and future Town player, Don Weston was in the line up. Pat resigned his post at the end of the season and went to be a scout for Fulham, later managing non league Dover for a short while.

Reg returned to England, living in Brighton, where he died in 1994, aged 84.

Pat died in Taunton in 1986, aged 72.

Steve Jenkins is still alive though and he was born on this date in 1972 and so it's a happy 50th birthday today to him. He was born in Merthyr Tydfil and came to us in 1995 from Swansea, having earlier played in their victory over us in the Autoglass Trophy Final in 1994.

He was signed for Town by Brian Horton in our first season back in the 2nd Division after Neil Warnock won us promotion and he was the regular right back for seven seasons, scoring his first Town goal in a classic 3-2 home win against Norwich.

He played a huge part in the Great Escape under Peter Jackson and was also a big part of the great half a season under Steve Bruce. He was then sold to Cardiff in 2003 as the club faced financial restraint as we were going bust. When he left, he had played 295 games for the Terriers and now stands in 23rd position in our all time appearances chart.

Since packing in playing, he's done a bit of non league managing, including two spells at Hereford and was last employed by Barnet a couple of years ago.

[Lord Snooty]

July 17:

On this date in 2020, town avoided relegation by beating 2nd placed West Bromwich Albion 2-1 at the John Smith's Stadium. Unfortunately, the win had a double edged sword feeling about it as it also meant that Leeds United were promoted.

It was a cracking game, played behind closed doors due to the pandemic which was going around at the time and it was two goals from loanees that did the trick. First up, in the 4th minute, young Chris Willock, who had been on loan at WBA earlier in the season, poked home following a poorly defended free kick.

The Baggies equalised just before half time through an offside goal, but then in the 86th minute following some great work by Lewis O'Brien, Emile Smith Rowe slid the ball past the England goalkeeper Sam Johnstone to send the crowd wild muted applause from the handful of people there.

West Brom thought they'd blown it with only one game left and the best part of the night was seeing serial shitbag, Charlie Austin blubbing his eyes out.

They needn't have worried though. Brentford bottled it on the last day.

As for Town, we moved six points clear of the drop zone, with a better goal difference than all the bottom three, who all had only two games left and with Wigan getting a load of points deducted as well, we were allowed a wee celebration.

Talking of celebrations. The Leeds fans did their usual trick. The country was still in lockdown, but they all gathered at Bellend Road anyway, smashing up their own players cars that were parked there.

That was a long season and it almost lasted over a year. Twelve months earlier, on this date in 2019, we had a notorious pre season friendly game. It was the start of our first season back in the Championship after two seasons in the Prima Donna League and we still had some of our star players knocking around. We even still had Jan Siewert as Head Coach.

The kit launch had just been done as well and at this friendly match, away at Rochdale, we played in the new Paddy Power kit. It didn't start well with the Dale scoring early on. But Town came back and equalised just before half time with Elias Kachunga heading in from a cross by Alex Pritchard.

Town then took the lead in the second half with Jonathan Hogg intercepting a pass and cooly driving the ball past the keeper like the top goal scorer he is.

And it was Hoggy who set up the next goal, this time for Josh Koroma to score in the 63rd minute. That was the end of the scoring as Town won 3-1. Sadly, this would be one of the last times we saw Aaron Mooy in a Town shirt and it had to be a stupid shirt that ended up causing us to be fined fifty thousand pounds by the miserable twats at the FA for breaching regulations.

[Lord Snooty]

July 18:

On this date in 2015, Chris Powell had taken his Town team away to Spain for a pre season training camp. And today we had a friendly match with Leyton Orient in the Spanish sunshine. The game kicked off at half nine in the morning, to avoid playing in the intense mid day heat.

Powell gave a first start to new signing Jordy Hiwula, young William Boyle, Dean Whitehead and trialist Martin Cranie. It was Joe Lolley who opened the scoring five minutes before the break, cutting in from the right and firing into the corner of the net.

We were hoping that this would be a big season for young Joe. Unfortunately he ended up going on loan to Scunthorpe.

Powell swapped the entire eleven for the second half, with the likes of Sondre Tronstad, Duane Holmes and Jake Charles getting a run out. Also getting a first game was new signing from Carlisle, Kyle Dempsey, who's cross was turned into his own goal by one of the Orient defenders.

Sean Scannell hit the post late on and the squad flew back home the next day.

The season didn't start well, not winning a game until the 7th match and Powell was out by November, to be replaced by some unknown German geezer.

That German geezer, turned out to be an American bloke called David Wagner and he had gotten us promoted in a famous Play Off Final penalty shoot out, you possibly may remember.

On this date in 2017, he had taken his Town squad out to Germany for a pre season training camp and today's game was played against Bundesliga side SV Sandhausen at the BWT Stadion. Again, it was played in sweltering heat and there was much tinkering with the line up.

Martin Cranie must've had a good game two years previously because he was one of only four players from the Orient game still there. The others being Lolz, Deano and Scanz.

Town squandered many chances before the home team took the lead and then doubled it. Two nil down on the hour when Wagz made a load of changes and soon after, we pulled a goal back through tricky Tom Ince. Cranie then gave away a penalty, which they converted to make it 3-1. But then one of the players we'd been looking forward to seeing, the eleven million quid signing from Montpellier Steve Mounié, got another one for Town. It came from a floated teaser by Rajiv van La Parra, that big Steve met and sent a bullet header into the back of the net.

The game ended in a 3-2 defeat.