[Lord Snooty]

January 26th:

Another birthday to celebrate today. Gonzalo Ávila Gordón or Pipa as we know him, was born on this date in 1998, making him 24 today.

Ian Ross, who managed Town in 1992 and 93, was born on this date in 1947. He was born in Glasgow, but spent his entire football playing career in England, most notably with Liverpool and Aston Villa. He came to Town as assistant to Eoin Hand and took over when he was sacked. He'd only been in charge a few weeks when we qualified for the 1992 Play Offs, which we lost to little Peterborough United.

Amongst the other clubs he played for was Hereford United in 82/83 and the nearest he got to Scotland in his career was his last job, which was managing Berwick Rangers.

He died in 2019 aged 72.

And yet another victory over Leeds United to report on. This time it was in 1929 in the FA Cup 4th round. We had beaten Chesterfield in the 3rd round 7-1 at Saltergate and now we had a West Riding derby match at Leeds Road. Did we win it? Not half. We stuffed them 3-0. A crowd of 53,700 turned up to see Billy Smith open the scoring with Alex Jackson adding a couple later.

Fast forward a few years to 1957 and another 4th round match at Leeds Road. We had been drawn to play little Peterborough United of the Midland League (they didn't get into the Football League for another 3 years) and it drew another big crowd, with 48,735 turning up at the Home of Football for this one.

The little club had beaten Corby Town, Yeovil Town, Bradford Park Avenue and Lincoln City to get this far. And this far was as far as they would go. We beat them 3-1. The interesting stat in this game though was that Denis Law scored his first FA Cup goal. He would go on to set a record number of goals for this competition over his career, netting 43 times (34 of them for Man U), a record that still stands today.

The other two goals scored in this match were from Dave Hickson and Ron Simpson.

We had the replay of the Stoke FA Cup match that I mentioned we drew 3-3 away the other day. We'd all gathered around the radio the day before to listen to the draw......

Number 15. Stoke City or Huddersfield Town

Will play.......

Number 5. West Bromwich Albion or Ipswich Town

Me and my dad were there on that Tuesday night on this date in 1971, in a crowd of 40,363. I was only ten, very small and couldn't see a blooming thing. We were right in the corner, under the floodlight, next to the open end. Terrible match as well, that ended 0-0 after extra time.

It was the first time I heard somebody shout out; "It's like watching bloody paint dry." 

The second replay is set for February the 8th at Old Trafford, for the right to host Ipswich Town who have just beaten West Brom 3-0. Before that though, we've got Man Utd at home on Saturday.