[Lord Snooty]

January 19th:

Today marks the birthday of our greatest manager, Herbert Chapman. He was born at Kiveton Park in Rotherham in 1878, one of eleven children, two of the brothers also became professional footballers. His dad was a miner, but Herbert got himself to Sheffield Technical College and studied mining engineering.

His footballing career was no great shakes, taking in minnows like Grimsby Town, Northampton Town and Tottenham Hotspur, who were still in the Southern League then. It was in management that he made his name. Starting out with Northampton, he moved to Leeds City in 1912. He had amassed a decent squad by the time the war broke out and he did his bit for the war effort by becoming a manager at the Barnbow munitions factory in Leeds.

While he was away, Leeds relied heavily on guest players during the wartime league and after the war, it came out that they had been making illegal payments to these players. Typical Leeds! When accusations came, they refused to co-operate and so were banned from the Football League.

Chapman, who had resigned his post immediately after the war and so had nothing to do with any of this, was also banned. But his ban was overturned in 1921 when he was offered a post as assistant to Ambrose Langley at Huddersfield Town. Chapman had been working at a coking plant at Selby and had they not gone bust and he made redundant, he could well have been lost to the game completely.

Selby's loss was Huddersfield's gain and Herbert went on to be the most successful manager in our history, winning the FA Cup and two Football League titles, before being poached by Arsenal and doing the same with them.

But that's just a quick write up of the man. There's so much more to write about, but not now.

Another Town legend from that era, Roy Goodall, died on this day in 1982. He was signed by the aforementioned Ambrose Langley, but blossomed under Chapman. He was a full back and played from 1921 to 1935, ending up in 5th place in our all time appearance chart with 440.

He was captain of England on 13 occasions, gaining a total of 25 caps. He would've been captain at the first World Cup in 1930, had the FA not been a bunch of snobs and turned down the invitation.

Had England won it, Roy would've been more famous than Bobby Moore.

Anyway, he later managed Mansfield Town and died in Dronsfield aged 79. I was in Dronsfield on Monday. Sheffeld FC play there.

We have a birthday. Paul Reid is 54 today, born in 1968 in Oldbury. He memorably scored twice on his debut in 1994 at Blackpool.

He was last employed by Forest Green in their Academy, according to Wikipedia. No clues as to what he's doing now, but he does occasionally sit in for Matt Glennon on Radio Leeds.