[Lord Snooty]

Bradford City v Huddersfield Town
Sky Bet League One
Saturday September 13th - 12:30 ko
at the University of Bradford Stadium

Huddersfield Town travel to Manningham to the Pulse Stadium on Saturday lunchtime for a much anticipated West Yorkshire derby, the first in the league for 19 years.

I think it's safe to say that it will be a different starting XI from the last one. Our manager, Lee Grant is not one who likes the status quo and does like to keep his squad fresh by rotating. Lynden Gooch, Josh Feeney and Cameron Ashia weren't even on the bench against Peterborough United on Saturday, so I expect all three of them to be back in for this one. Unless of course, we've started another bunch of injuries.

Hopefully, our players will have been made aware of how much this game means to both sets of fans. Theirs more than ours, having been languishing in the dark recesses of the basement of the Football League, while we've been lording it up in the Premier League. We need to be on it right from the start and definitely not half arsed like we were at Blackpool and Barnsley. This group of players haven't felt the wrath of a disgruntled set of Town fans. They got off lightly at the end of the Barnsley match. Defeat in this one is unthinkable and mustn't happen.

COME ON TOWN!!

Tickets: SOLD OUT!


A brief history of Bradford City: formed in 1903 and immediately elected into the Football League. They won the Second Division in 1907/08 and then won the FA Cup in 1911, their only major title.

The Final was played against Newcastle United at Crystal Palace (not Selhurst Park) and was a goal less draw, so went to a replay at Old Trafford four days later. City wo it 1-0 with a goal from their captain, Jimmy Spiers. It was the first presentation of the new trophy, which had actually been made in Bradford that year. It's the classic trophy that we see today, but not the original. That was retired in 1992 and replaced with a replica.

Since then, they've won sod all. Apart from the 3rd Division North twice (1928/29 and 1984/85), the 1996 3rd tier Play Offs (beating Swindon Town 2-0) and the 2013 4th tier Play Offs (beating Northampton Town 3-0).

Other than that, they've won promotion four times from the fourth tier and once from the second tier to the Prima Donna League. That was in 1999 and unbelievably they managed to avoid relegation. But not to worry, just like we avoided relegation from the Prima Donna League, they made sure they went down in the following campaign.

Last season, after six seasons in League Two, they won promotion to League One and so here we are today.





Head to Head




Town lead the head to head with 21 wins to City's 13, with 16 draws.

Since our last league meeting in 2006/07, we've had two League Cup meetings and one in the EFL Trophy. In 2008, Jon Worthington, Gary Roberts (2) and Robbie Williams (not that one) goals gave us an easy 4-0 Carling Cup win at home. In 2011, we drew 2-2 then lost on pens at home in the Johnstone Paints Trophy. Then we beat them again in the Capitol One Cup in 2013 when two James Vaughan goals gave us a 2-1 win at home. Nahki Wells scored a late consolation for the Bantams, a few months before he signed for us.

So this is our first visit to Valley Parade since a 1-0 win there in October 2006. Mark Hudson scored the goal. No, not the ex club captain and caretaker manager, the other one that we signed from Chesterfield. We beat them again later in the season. Two-nil as they were on their way to relegation. Paul Hayes, on loan from Barnsley and future Head Coach, Danny Schofield with the goals.

You have to go back to March 2005 to the last time the Bants beat us. It was 2-0 at theirs with Andy Cooke (not the one who plays for them now) and Dean Windass scoring. So that's seven games unbeaten, if you call the penalty shoot out loss a draw.

Back in time, our first meetings were in the First Division. We had two seasons together in the 1920s and they were the only two times we've been in the top flight at the same time. Local boy Fred Lunn, only scored twice for the Town, but they were both against Bradford City. The first was at Leeds Road in 1920/21 when he scored the goal in a 1-0 win on the 11th of September. The second was a week later at Valley Parade, with Ernie Islip also on target as Town won again, 2-0 this time. Lunn only played six times for Town before being transferred to the Wednesday. He never made a first team appearance the Owls but went from there to Bristol Rovers where he had one good season, scoring ten goals before his career faded away.

Despite getting relegated at the end of the next season, City did the double over Town, which we won't mention. The next time that the two clubs clapped eyes on each other was the 5th round of the 1930 FA Cup. Town got to the Final that year and beat City 2-1 at home on the way there. England international Bob Kelly and Scottish footballing legend Alex Jackson scored ours in front of 45,659 spectators.

And that was the last we saw of the Chickens for 45 years, apart from every year when we played them in the West Riding Cup of course. We had slumped down to their level, the 4th Division and drew both games in the 1975/76 season.

Over the next few decades, a real rivalry came about with some proper ding dong games. One of them, an absolute classic on New Year's Day 1983, which we won 6-3.

It didn't start well, with City scoring very early on, Cec Podd in the sixth minute getting it. Now Cec was from St Kitts and Nevis, but ended up becoming City's all time appearance holder. In that time from 1970 to 1984 he played 565 times for them and his goal on this day against us was one of only three he ever scored in his entire career.

Not to worry, Town stormed back and Brian Stanton finished the day scoring four of our six goals. His first three were the quickest hat trick ever scored by a Town player, coming in the space of 6 minutes, beating the previous record of George Brown, who took a ridiculously long time of 8 minutes to score his.

Town's other goals came from a Malcolm Brown penalty (given away by a reckless tackle from City's teenage centre back Peter Jackson) and one from Phil Wilson, two minutes from time. Ex Town striker Bobby Campbell got one of the Bantams' others. Trevor Cherry was also in their line up, he was at the time, their player/manager.

A few years later in 1986/87, another player scored four goals for the Terriers against Billy Bantam's Circus. That was Duncan Shearer in a 5-2 victory at Leeds Road and this was just five days after the controversial sacking of Mick Buxton.

There was another high scoring match in the promotion season of 1994/95. That was a 4-3 win at Valley Parade with Andy Booth (2), Ronnie Jepson and Paul Reid on the score sheet. And another one a couple of years later at the McAlpine when we fought back from 3-0 down to force a draw. Paul Dalton, Ian Lawson and Gary Crosby on target that Friday night.

Here's hoping for lots of goals in this latest Sky Sports fixture on a Saturday lunchtime. Obviously in the Bradford net.




Recent form - last 6 matches:

Town 3-2 PishPosh
Town 6-2 Newcastle u21s (EFL Trophy)
Barnsley 3-1 Town
Sunderland 1-1 Town (EFL Cup, won on pens)
Town 1-0 Stevenage
Town 2-0 Donny

Donny 3-1 City
City 2-1 Grimsby (EFL Trophy)
City 3-2 Wimbledon
Stoke 0-3 City (EFL Cup)
PishPosh 1-1 City
Stockport 1-2 City

Town are 3rd in the League One table with 15 points. City are 5th with 14.